Star Alert!!

While I acknowledge that this website gets less traffic than any given side street in Santa Monica (which is where I saw this van parked), I thought it would be nice to help this guy out...

Calling all industry personnel…somehow every single one of you has missed Shawn De Vorse!

How could you fail to recognize the undiluted essence of star power? Have none of you found yourselves stuck in traffic on the Sunset Strip with this man’s head shot creating a blinding glare in your windshield—like light from heaven itself? How has this classic-featured, highly-refined thespian escaped your notice? Did you let the van that looks like it was previously owned by Ted Bundy cloud your judgment?

Next time you’re casting for “Limo Driver” or “Doorman #1” do yourself a favor and give Mr. De Vorse a call. He is also available as a Colin Quinn body double if the real thing gets too drunk. Of course Shawn will probably be drunk as well, but he works cheaper than Colin.

Smug Portland

Fellow Californian, if you like people thinking you’re an asshole, head north. And make sure you tell them where you came from.

I spent the last week in Portland, Oregon, and was shocked at how much cooler everyone is there than down here in California.

“California is everything that is wrong with the world today,” said some guy I met in a bar; right after I told him I live in LA. Then he tricked me into buying him a drink. The exact sequence of events is a little bit hazy, but it involved him promising to buy the second round and then promptly disappearing into the crowd.

But I’m not complaining. As a dickhead Californian, I deserved it. Thanks for setting me straight, dude.

Then there was the elderly security guard in the airport who studied the Georgia driver’s license in front of me for three minutes engaging in friendly small talk with its owner. He took one look at me and my California ID, and said “Now this one I see too many of. You guys steal all our water.”

I could also mention the pale and flabby girl sitting alone at a bar, who pointed out to me and my friends that we “aren’t even from around here.”

We accidentally mentioned to her that we had just come from Cabaret, a local gentlemen’s club. “That’s the worst strip club in Portland.” She said. Fair enough, it was really narrow and dark, with two tiny stages pushed up against the wall and only three girls on the job. But we had enjoyed ourselves there.

“Where should we go then? What’s the best strip club in Portland?” We asked, wanting to take advantage of her wisdom.

“The Magic Garden.” She said confidently. So we went to the Magic Garden. It was darker, dirtier, and had one stage and two girls working. I had the feeling that if we had gone to the Magic Garden first, that would have been the worst strip club in Portland.

Don’t get me wrong. I actually fell in love with the town. The drinks are cheap, the mountains on the horizon beautiful. It reportedly has the nation’s highest number of brew pubs and strip clubs per capita. There is a vibrant local music scene. But I didn’t like the smug attitude towards its neighbors to the south.

Sure there are problems here in California—overcrowding, excessive materialism, hour long commutes, and so on. That’s what this blog is supposed to be about after all. But, Portland certainly isn’t immune from modern ills like the locals seem to think. The streets are filled with young runaways and drug addicts. Smugness and self-satisfaction are running rampant. And, let’s face it, the weather sucks. Really, Portland is a haven for people who can’t hack it in other, more fast-paced (and relevant) parts of the country.

So if those guys up there in the woods are going to be hating on California we are going to have to take action and defend ourselves. Let’s start with an embargo on Oregon’s main exports. That would include beer, Nikes, and, ummmm….more beer?

I think we can do just fine without them.

The Promoter (Episode 1)

The team behind California is Sinking has created a Youtube Series. Follow along as we put together shows for the Killers of Comedy, a group of travelling misfits from the Howard Stern Show, and film the madness.

Bitch or Black Man?

With the Republican Party’s Presidential hopes sinking to the bottom of the Mariana’s Trench, weighed down by a war that no one can justify or explain and an economy in constant peril, the Oval Office seems bound for a Democratic occupant.

So the real drama is being played out in the Democratic Primaries where, like two expansion teams meeting in the World Series, two heretofore downtrodden demographics are slugging it out for their chance to be the first first. Will it be the women or the blacks?

Although the official campaign buzzwords talk about Hillary’s “30 years of experience” and Obama “representing change” the fight at street level is far baser - do we want a bitch or a black man?

Through the eyes of the mainstream, most of the crude attacks seem to be directed at Hillary – her cankles, her shrill voice, her manly intensity. The media gets away with reporting on these sexist attacks because, as one feminist whines, there is a far lower standard in the public’s acceptance of woman bashing:

“Goodbye to the (Hillary Clinton) nutcracker with metal spikes between splayed thighs. If it was a tap-dancing blackface doll, we would be righteously outraged—and they would not be selling it in airports. Shame.”

There is some truth to the fact that we feel more comfortable bashing a gender than a race or ethnicity. I certainly felt a lot more at ease putting Bitch in my title than Negro (which I eventually changed to the less abrasive “Black Man”).

But, as I don’t have to tell you, the racism (true discrimination) is out there. Not on the nightly news—you have to dig a little deeper to find it (but not too deep – I simply googled “Obama n**ger). And it is far more vicious, more dangerous, than the woman-bashing that the Hillary-backers cry about.

In a few minutes on one message board, I came up with eloquent gems like these:

“One only has to look at what happened to Zimbabwe to see what America will become if Obama gets elected. Or just look at any African country that doesn't have white goverment. We'll be the laughing stock of the world. Support Obama? Flush twice, its a long way to Washington!!”

“Notice that the one and ONLY reason that the White shit for brains Liberals are voting for a n**ger is because he is a shit colored n**ger. According to them, its time for America to have a shitskin for president, no other reason. Imagine how these mindless assholes would squeal and scream 'racist' if anyone were to say 'vote for the White guy because he's White'.”

“Nigbama may be the final nail in the US coffin we need, so we can take this country back. Maybe not such a bad thing.”

With extreme racial tension like this bubbling under the surface it’s clear that the country is far more ready to paint the walls of the Oval Office pink than cover the couches in plastic. Personally I don’t care too much which victim of society wins, either would be better than a half-wit.