(The next paragraph should give you an idea of how long I've been trying
to finish this entry...)

For those who missed it, Robin Williams DID sing South Park's "Blame
Canada" at the Oscars. Not only was the performance itself really weak,
but he wussed on his chance to say "fuck" on national television. It's a
shame, since the only time this could have been a bigger score would be
during the Super Bowl half time. After all, how do you threaten Robin
Williams into behaving?

"If you curse, you'll never work in this town again!"

C'mon.

Anyhow. Someone once asked me how you make friends after college. Good
question. Here's my best approximation of an answer, based on a recent
discovery: people are not, on general principle, hostile to strangers.
This comes as a bit of a shock to me, but I think this might just be my
yankee upbringing.

I had made my way back to my friendly neighborhood coffeehouse, where I
was hoping to hear some more authentic spanish music. Unfortunately,
there wasn't a band performing this night, so I resigned myself to a cup
of chai and a quiet hour or so of Java hacking. It was a cool night, so I
meandered outside, planted my butt on a chair, and whipped out the laptop.

It wasn't long before a guy came up to me, having noticed the penguin
sticker on my computer. "Excuse me, are you running Linux on that thing?"

At this point alarms were going off in my head. I was predicting the start
of a Linux Q and A session with some random guy who had heard about it
through USA Today or some other short attention span media pump. So when
the next question this guy asked was, "so it finally has support for the
NeoMagic chipset, huh?" I knew I had stumbled upon a fellow geek.

While we discussed the merits and flaws of the technology, I noticed two
girls sitting down at another table. Both were definitely young; maybe
late high school. And, while it pains me to confess the notion, both were
admittedly very attractive.

I'm certain I had been staring after a while. If nothing else, my rate of
casual glancing was increasing exponentially, to the point where "casual"
was no longer accurate. It's dreadfully embarrassing. I understand, even
without firsthand experience, how every woman must feel. The way you poor
girls are treated in the confines of the male imagination!

In my defense, I'm not the only guy that feels this way. The number of
Oscars that American Beauty won should be evidence of this atrocity; the
male mind longs not just for younger women, but also for this
pornographic concept of "barely legal" flesh.

It might be a grass-is-greener thing. After all, I don't remember the
girls being all that pretty when -I- was in high school. Yeah, there were
pretty girls...but never this many. Seriously. Take a stroll past a public
school next time recess rolls around. Notice anything different from your
secondary educational experience? If you answered "lots of painted
whores," you're probably on the right track.

This leads me to believe that either Darwin was right, and the gene pool
is steadily improving, or the school districts are now putting some magic
pretty-potion in the water supply.

...or I've become a dirty old man. I won't rule that out, either.

The girls were chattering away most energetically. One was of a faint
Mexican descent, both in looks and accent. Her dark, permed hair fell to
the middle of her back. The other's hair was short, and a very light
brown. She wore a bright red blouse, which I discovered exposed her whole
back when she removed her leather jacket.

As I continued hacking, and glancing, I started to wonder how perfect
strangers even hope to initiate a conversation with such a flimsy premise:
no connection, no common ground, just a one-sided, disinterested attraction.

The question answered itself, however, when both girls came and sat at my
table. They wanted to know about the MP3s I was playing, which, coincidentally,
were random Ani Difranco tracks, so at this point I was assuming they were
lesbians. If I had been playing the Indigo Girls I would have known for sure.

After initial conversation ("Hi, we came over here to harrass you."),
introductions were made. The dark-haired one was Sammy, and the one with
the backless shirt was Monya ("rhymes with 'lasagna'.").

After a few more minutes of conversation about everything from cops (Sammy's
father is a cop) to Mormons, these girls asked me if I'd like to go with
them to the beach.

"But I don't know you two at all."
"Is that a problem?"

This is the way a lot of horror films begin. However, this also the way a
lot of pornos start, too.

"Nope, in fact, it's the best reason to do something. Who's driving?"

And, in a flash, we were hurtling down the road in Sammy's car, with
soundtrack to The Matrix blasting from the CD player.

At this point they felt compelled to tell me their last names and some
other identifing info, so I could feel comfortable that they weren't planning
on killing me and quietly disposing of my body at the outskirts of Los
Angeles. I immediately forgot all this info, since it really wasn't going to
help me if I wind up dead anyhow.

We didn't actually make it to the beach, but did eventually wind up at a
bar/club place with an outdoor pool table. The table was pretty much owned
by some local pool shark at the time, so we found ourselves queue up in a
rediculously long line of challengers to the throne. Rather than patiently
wait to get schooled by another Tom Cruise wannabe, we opted to save our
quarters and just head home.

This left Monya without enough excitement for the night, apparently, since
she declared a need to dance when we returned to the car. She said she was
cold and wanted to warm up. I imagined she wouldn't have this problem if she
wore a shirt with a back.

So I got comfortable on the curb and watch two girls reenact a scene from
Dirty Dancing to the beat of the techno track blaring from the car's stereo.

On the ride home, the girls assured me that their little display was not
intended to "tease" me. Oh, yeah, sure.

If the American Beauty theory is true, we need to take it in full. If
Kevin Spacy wanted to nail Mena Suvari, then it important to remember
that innocent little Mena wanted to urge that desire in him...so long as
it remained a game.

Ah, kids.

--ryan.


"This pig works for the mafia,
 making some money off crack,
 but this little pig got caught
 so when he gets to the pen
 it's all about the payback."
      -- Cypress Hill
         (nominee for "best soundtrack to play
          during Quake 3 Deathmatches.)