I don't think God intended humans to do yoga, Hummer limos are a questionable idea, and other mind-boggling observations

I think it is safe to say that I maintain a rather love-hate relationship with the city of Los Angeles. We are like two lovers who love to hate each other - there are times you just have to get away from this city, but then you miss it and can't wait to come back. Why is this the case? Because this is quite possibly the strangest place on the planet. Even after living here for five years, a few incidents from the past weekend indicate how this amazingly bizarre place continues to baffle me (yet intrigue me enough to come back for more).

1) Yoga: everybody's doing it.
With the crazy pace of this city, everyone looks for a way to relax and find their inner peace. New York has no idea how blessed it is that everyone is riding on a subway that has a set speed and course, instead of each individual person moving at heartbreaking speeds in their own metal bubble in very random and erratic courses. Waging a veritable war on the roads every day is a very stressful proposition (especially for anyone who was clever enough to choose a commute all the way to Encino every day). So how do you relax? I hear yoga is good for that.

My gym membership has included classes all along, but I've never gone. So this would be an excellent way to take advantage of all the ammenities of the West Hollywood 24 Hour Fitness and try yoga at the same time! What fun. I even bought a mat and everything. I was so set.

Cut to: me bending my upper arm over my bent right thigh, my left leg extended above my head and my other arm reaching around my torso to grab the other. I'm really not sure this maneuver is covered in my body's owner's manual.

Yoga I believe is the ancient Buddhist's version of twister but you play by yourself and it hurts - a lot. Looking around the room it appeared that some other people were quite skilled at these positions so it must be possible to achieve at some point. But for now, I'll just have to half-ass it like the old ladies who were standing next to me. It's also very difficult to keep a low profile when trying yoga because you look like you've lost all motor skills and coordination, and people tend to notice when the sound of the quiet music and soothing voice of the instructor is masked by you slipping and falling on your mat in a most uncomfortable fashion.

But once I watch my DVD and learn my asnas, you better believe I'll be supporting my controted body off one finger...just you wait.

2) Hummer limos: why?
Let's get one thing straight. A Hum-Vee is a military vehicle. It is built for light arms support and personnel transportation over various terrains. The roof is outfitted to mount any number of weapons and surveilance equipment. They're using them in Baghdad right now.

The problem is, they are using them on Sunset Boulevard right now as well. These Hummers, however, are different in that their drivers have no formal training on the awesome power of their military vehicles, they are not camoflauged but instead painted in garish colors like mustard yellow, and this precious coat of paint is protected by the fact these cars will never see a square inch of rugged outback terrain. Maybe the fascination with military transportation has something to do with the earlier point about driving on the ferocious streets of Los Angeles.

Now what do you get if you take a shi-shi Hummer and stretch it out to about six times its normal length? It becomes the wonder that is the Hummer limo. It doesn't get much better than this folks. The best of both worlds of driving in a really long car and being chauferred in a very big and fortified military vehicle. That is until your driver, who is an LA driver just like everyone else, realizes he cant quite make the right turn on that busy street and ends up wedged in the middle of the road.

When your Hummer limo is stuck in the intersection on the corner of Santa Monica and Vine and the car is so large that it blocks both lanes of oncoming traffic, the question arises as to whether the huge load of cash you blew on it was really that worth it in the first place. I sat and watched this guy try to dislodge his car from this most precarious position as angry natives honked and skirted around him. You almost have to sit back and laugh at this ludicrous sight as traffic on a busy street comes to a standstill while the passengers in the back have their windows rolled down with a look of fear on their faces. Maybe next time they'll take the Panzer Tank Limo.

3) In the OC it is very difficult to differentiate between children and adults.
A friend's film festival screening took me down to the lovely city of Newport Beach, well behind the Orange Curtain. It is amazing how an area so phenomenally conservative like Orange County (the bright red star in the middle of blue California) can be right next to somwhere so extremely liberal like LA. But one thing is for sure - they have a lot of money in Newport Beach and they too drive their chic military vehicles.

But the other thing they appear to do is make themselves look as much like their children as possible. While walking through the fashionably fashionable Fashion Island shopping center, this girl was yelling at another group of girls her age to hold up. "Girls, wait up! Girls!" It did seem a little odd she'd be refferring to her friends as "Hey girls." But then it got even odder when she started yelling at them and scolding them. So it turns out, she is their mother. Even though she looks younger than they do. We're talking high school age here. Enough Botox to kill a donkey.

Why would you do this? I understand no one wants to get old and look it, but don't you want to at least appear like you have SOME experience under your belt? Or are you hoping that in the event of a hostage situation the captors won't know which are the children to kidnap and which are the parents to ransom? Is there a benefit to being able to slip in and out of a crowd of teenage girls and have no one catch the fact three of them could be yours? Perhaps if you are a reporter posing as a high school student to write an expose, that can help. Maybe they'll make a movie about that.

And finally, a few quick thoughts.

4) You would think a chewed up polo shirt would cost less than $50.

5) Opening a Chessecake Factory at the Grove will cause a density of people great enough to make a black hole.

6) I think aliens designed and built the Grove to conquer humanity and are being quite successful at it.


God bless LA! The land of building the largest and strangest facade you can so no one can see who you really are! The major metropolitan city that has a disgraced basketball team, a hockey team, a soccer team, but no football team! The world's leading producer of precious, life-giving smog!

But I love it here and I'm not going to leave.