Yesterday I got a haircut. It was the usual though, nothing too exciting. I went to my hometown barber, Harry. He’s a good guy. Before Harry, I used to get my haircut from my Grandfather, before he died. He was a barber. During college, I went to a guy in Collegetown who I thought was a good guy. I trusted all three. 

Isn’t that interesting? I trusted these various barbers. I mean, you have to trust the person who cuts your hair, right? Because let’s face it: Unless you cut your hair yourself (and if you do, God help you), then someone else has to do it. And if someone else is going to do it, then you have to trust them to do a good job; getting your hair cut is not something you have a whole lot of control over once it begins. And there is no “undo” button on a pair of scissors or clippers.

I guess this might not seem so extraordinary to everyone, but I find it quite interesting. Can you name another person who you have a very casual relationship with who you trust as dearly as you trust the person who cuts your hair? One option might be your dentist or doctor. I, however, don’t think the trust is as great with them. Here’s why: While you trust the dentist to do a good job and cure your toothache or whatever, unless the dentist is truly horrendous, your personal appearance will not be altered. Or if it is, you can just keep your mouth closed until they fix it. With a barber, you can’t hide it, unless you wear a hat – a lame solution. You really just have to wait the days, weeks, or months that it takes for your hair to grow back if they screw it up.

So for that reason I think that the trust is far greater than you’ll find with any other person who performs such a service for you. If your doctor is bad, you can just go to another one to cure you, but it is rare that the damage done by a poor doctor is irreversible. Screwing up your haircut is not a mistake you can repair quickly; it is also not a mistake you can hide very well. You need to have an enormous amount of trust to allow this person to cut your hair.

And that trust gets tested often. Since you go to the dentist or doctor once or twice a year, you only have to trust them once or twice a year. But most people have at least 10 haircuts per year. There’s a much greater possibility of making an error there.

Another difference? If a doctor screws up, you can sue them for malpractice: You have some ability to be rewarded damages. But have you ever heard of anyone suing a barber? Okay, it’s probably happened, but I would be willing to bet there are far fewer lawsuits out there against barbers than there are against doctors. Yet, do doctors make errors more often than barbers make errors? One would think that since doctors go to school 8+ years and barbers go to school for maybe a year or two, if anything, doctors would make less mistakes, right? This really proves that when a barber makes such a mistake, the customer is just kind of out of luck.

Yet we trust them. We have to. I guess it’s kind of a situation where we really have no choice. I mean, either trust your barber or have really long, unmaintained hair, and never have another date for the rest of your life. I think this is pretty fascinating, because the trust we have in our barbers is usually taken for granted. But it shouldn’t be, because I would argue that there is no occupation out there whose clients have more trust for what they do.

Have you ever heard of something called “Murphy’s Law”? It’s a little kind of maxim that says: “Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong.” Well, I managed to prove the validity of this law once again today through a rather uncomfortable situation.

It all started when I was at Publix. This is the major supermarket chain here in Florida. I was about done shopping and it was time to find the shortest line – you know the drill. Well, for some strange reason, all the lines were quite long. So I ended up choosing a line with one woman who had a significant amount of groceries, but had started going through, and behind her someone who only had two items. About a minute later, the problem started.

My stomach started hurting. Trouble was brewing in my large intestine, and this kind pain could only mean one thing: I had to find a toilet, fast. Luckily, I only live about 5 minutes from this supermarket, so I figured I could wait it out. How bad could 5 minutes be, right?

So the pain gradually increased, and with it the urgency of finding a bathroom gradually increased as well. The woman with the many groceries was taking way too long. I don’t know why, but she took a good 4 minutes herself. Then the people in front of me with like two whopping items decided to pay with a credit card. Great. So they ended up taking 3 or 4 minutes as well. By the time the woman at the register had swiped my groceries and I had paid, I thought I was going to die.

I then quickly walked to my car and put my two bags of groceries in the passenger side seat, to save time. Then I pulled out of the space, and there was a car in front of me. It seemed like it was going way too slow, and I was wondering why: It turns out some stupid girl was driving the wrong way (at us) in the lane. So the guy in front of me and I had to pull over and let the moron pass. At this time the pain was excruciating.

So I finally get out of the parking lot. After the parking lot there is a one-way road for about 2 blocks until you get to the highway. And the same guy was in front of me. Well he was still driving slow. And I mean like 5 or 10 miles per hour. Why? I have absolutely no idea. I was in so much pain at this point, I was really going to beep at him, but I just hate beeping at people, so I kept telling myself it wouldn’t take that long to get to the highway.

At last, I hit the highway. But then I seaw something even worse: I had caught the train. Well, I was coming up the northbound part of the highway, and the train was running parallel, north-south. Of course, I had to make a left (westerly) turn. And basically, I caught the ENTIRE TRAIN. And it was a very long train – a freight train, not a nice little passenger train. All I could think about was how long it would take to clean the driver’s seat in my car if this train didn’t hurry.

Eventually, it finished. But things weren’t about to get better. Ya know how that, when a train is going, it blocks exactly two lanes of traffic (the east-west lanes in this case)? Well, as a result, usually those lights to green first, because they’ve been waiting while those parallel have been green. Well, for some reason, the parallel lights were green a good 90 seconds after the railroad track rails went up. As a result, I had to wait through that 90 seconds, and then through the extended light of the east-west lanes until I would finally get my green arrow to turn left. I was ready to kill someone, namely a bad civil engineer.

So I got through the light, praise Jehovah. But, of course, I caught ANOTHER light – the only other light in my way until I’m home. So finally I got past that. Well, after this final light, there is a road called “Camino Gardens Blvd” that goes something like 7 blocks that I had to go down. Well, once again, I got behind some moron in a pick-up truck who decided to go 10-15 miles per hour for all 7 blocks. At this point I was pretty much over the edge. I began singing with the music on the radio to see if it might help the pain subside. So I frantically sang along with Justin at the top of my lungs with the windows open: “Cry me a river, cry me a river, yea . . .” But it didn’t help: the dude was still driving slowly and I was still in pain.

Well I finally got rid of him after that 7 block trek and made another left turn. And of course, one of those infamous elderly Florida Drivers was in front of me. Again, he was going something like 10-15 mph. Another 5 blocks. I couldn’t take much more of this; it was almost all over.

I get to the 4-way-stop near my house – only 4 blocks away now. But the guy who got to the stop before me turned onto the street I had to go onto. He, again, drove slowly. I was hardly conscious I was in so much pain.

Finally, I arrived home, threw my groceries on a couch, turned off the alarm, flung my car keys into a room, and ran into the bathroom. Had I arrived a TENTH of a second later, it would have been too late. The period that elapsed should have lasted between 4 and 7 minutes, but instead ended up lasting nearly 20. The fact that I made it proves that there really must be a God. But the fact that I had to go through that kind of agony to barely make it proves that He must not want my life to be very easy. I’m still not sure why I had this sudden stomach issue, but I attribute it to either the not quite ripe banana that I ate at lunch, or the possibly bad eggs I ate at breakfast. Whatever it was it almost killed me.

It all got rekindled with the Backstreet Boys. At least that’s what most people would have you believe. From there the rest took off: Britney, NSYNC, Christina, Mandy Moore, and the list goes on. And from the way things seem to be going these days, we may be reaching the end of an era: I think the Bubblegum Popstars’ bubble is about to burst. Let’s look at where things stand. The Backstreet boys are all pushing 30, NSYNC is all but broken up with the solo career of Justin taking off, Britney seems to have fallen off the face of the earth, and Christina’s next stop is probably Hustler magazine. But I’m not here to talk about any of them. I’m here to talk about the group that REALLY began the Bubblegum Pop Explosion: The Spice Girls.

Gosh, I miss the Spice Girls, don’t you? They were the flavor of the hour when Britney was just hitting puberty; they started it all. Once the public got used to the idea of a bunch of trite music product by empty-headed, yet extremely attractive “artists” clogging the radio waves, the gates were open for the boy bands and the schoolgirl vixen-singers. But the Spice Girls were different I tell ya.

First of all, they were British. That means that all had those sexy British accents. Sure, Britney had that Southern Belle accent thing going on, but let’s face it: this just made her sound like a redneck. The fact that they were British made them somewhat exotic to us Americans, and yet, they were only British, so they weren’t TOO exotic so that they would breech our comfort zone either.

They also had style. I’m not talking about those stupid belly shirts that Christina, Britney and the rest all purchase by the gross. I’m also not talking about Catholic Schoolgirl Outfits or Genie costumes. They had THEIR OWN style. They weren’t merely capitalizing on the sick fantasizes of grown men with pedophiliac tendencies. They had loud, tacky outfits and big-ass platform shoes. And man, could those girls accessorize!

They had “girl power”. Now, at the time I thought this was ridiculous. I mean, if the Spice Girls were feminists, then I was an L.A. Laker. But I’m not so sure that they didn’t have some aspects of feminist tendencies, if I think about it retrospectively. I just finished saying how they had originality and their own style. Being one’s own person and developing and sense of identity is certainly an important part of being strong-willed women. They also weren’t (outwardly) slutty. I mean, you didn’t see them do a Rollingstone Cover like the last one that Christina was on, did ya? They weren’t down with being purely sexual objects.

Most importantly, their songs had feminist messages. “Wannabe” was all about the idea that a girl ought not abandon her female friends just because she has a new boo. You know, the whole “sistas before mistas” philosophy. If he wasn’t down with that, then homie could take a walk. Their other smash-hit “2 become 1” was all about the equality of the sexes. It wasn’t called 2 become 1.5, or something like that insinuating that the man should have dominance over the woman in a relationship. On the contrary, they were equals who would become, uh, bound. “Dirrty” and “I’m a Slave 4 U” can hardly measure up to such a feminist driven criterion.

They also had diversity. I mean, each of the Spice Girls was known for something, right? Like there was Sporty Spice, Posh Spice, Baby Spice, etc. Can you tell me the personalities of the members of B2K? I didn’t think so. Each Spice Girl had her own individuality, but they were still a team. Of course, that’s until Geri decided to basically break the group up by pursuing a solo career (are you listening Justin?). And that was the end of the Spice Girls, and I think Geri sold less solo albums than Jennifer Love Hewitt.

Then, of course, there was their fabulous movie: Spiceworld. I actually heard two people in their 40s talking about this movie YESTERDAY. Kind of shows the impact that this film had. Okay, maybe not. It was a completely absurd movie. I actually did sit through it many years ago. But it was also completely hysterical. One of the funniest movies I’ve seen. At any rate, it was better than Crossroads. And it didn’t even have Dan Aykroyd.

I remember in one of Britney’s early award acceptance speeches when she said something stupid like, “I just want to thank the Fans for giving pop music a chance again.” But that’s rubbish: The Spice Girls were the ones who brought pop back to the forefront of contemporary music. They set the standard, and none of the pop sensations, solo or group, have measured up since.

For hundreds of years, Americans have taken for granted that democracy is the best way for a country’s rulers to be put into place. During this time democracy has earned connotative splendor with bedfellows such as “equality”, “fairness”, and “freedom.” Indeed, it almost seems counterintuitive to think of an undemocratic nation which would contend to exhibit fairness and whose citizens enjoy freedom. I know I can’t think of such a country.

Well, I should back up a sec to clarify things. I’m obviously not talking about ‘pure democracy’– a government in which the power is exercised directly through the people rather than through representatives. I’m talking about ‘representative democracy’ – a government in which power is exercised indirectly through the people by representatives. There is no such thing as a ‘pure democracy’. All known democracies of current, and really even past, have been representative.

Sorry, but that digression was necessary. So the idea is that, with democracy, the people have the power to elect representatives. All people have this power. And this is a good idea. At least most people say it is. And most people can’t be wrong, can they? Heheheheheh. Riiiiiiiiiight.

So here’s one you probably haven’t heard in a while: democracy, the way it works today, isn’t always a good idea. In fact, I think, in its current form, it’s a pretty bad idea. What makes democracy bad? Well democracy is government run by the people. So when the people run it poorly (i.e. elect the wrong people), then that’s bad.

“But wait!” interjects the frustrated egalitarian: “The people CAN’T be wrong. If they vote for someone to represent them, then that’s who should be representing them – the people have spoken!” Nice try, but that’s a circular argument. You’re saying that that whoever the people elect must be the best candidate because the people have elected this candidate. I actually change my mind – that’s not a circle. That’s too tight to be a circle: it’s actually a tautology. You claim that idea of people electing an official is good, because you define it as being good.

Yeah, I know. Now you’ll break into sub-sections of this, citing things like equality of one vote for one person being a good idea because equality is good. Or maybe you’ll talk about the freedom involved in voting for who you believe is best. But none of this matters: The best candidate for the job is the one who will best perform requirements of this job. That’s a very broad charge. For example, the ruler of a country’s job has many requirements: deciding to go to war, proposing legislation, nominating judges, etc. The best candidate will have the best foresight and ability to do all of this better than any other candidate.

Many people have attempted to tackle the problem of who ought to govern. The usually mistaken philosopher Plato believed that governments should have a philosopher king. While I admittedly find this suggestion tempting, I can’t help but see that this idea is clearly false: A philosopher king would not govern best, s/he would philosophize best. So a type of government must be developed wherein the candidate who would govern best is chosen. And call me cynical, but I just fail to believe that every citizen has what it takes to be correct when it comes to this decision.

Maybe I’m just snobby, but I’ve had experiences in my life that justify this belief. Let’s take my grandma for example. I love her; she’s a great lady. But I can recall a story during the 1996 Presidential Elections between Viagra Spokesman Bob Dole and Extramarital Fellatio Spokesman Bill Clinton. During the campaigning, my parents were asking my grandma what she thought about it. She replied: “Oh, I like Bill Clinton.” Being a staunch republican, my father asked why. She answered: “Well, he’s so much younger and better looking than the other candidates. He seems like such a nice man.” The point of this cute little story is that my grandma is not the exception: she’s the rule. Whether you believe or not that Clinton was the better candidate, her reasoning was obviously flawed. This is especially true of elderly and uneducated voters.

At this time, another short digression is warranted, which was actually the intended topic of the journal entry. Some say that we should “democratize” countries such as Iraq. By doing so, we can allow their people to choose their rulers. I think this is a really stupid idea. Why? Because the vast, vast, vast majority of these people are not even literate. They cannot read articles about what these candidates stand for. Moreover, the vast, vast, vast majority of these people do not own televisions, and most do not even own radios. They cannot see or hear about what these candidates stand for. So now there’s the hope that these candidates will truly go out of their way to travel all over their countries to speak. And yet, being so uneducated, can these people even comprehend what they’re saying? If one ruler speaks for low inflation and a stable economy, and another speaks for hyper inflation, but free healthcare by printing money to pay doctors, who do they pick? Do you really think they’d know what inflation is, or that they realize that such a scheme could never work? Is it any wonder that the South American economies are so out of whack?

This all boils down to the overwhelming point that I am trying to make: Uneducated and/or uninformed people should not be voting. If they do, they will not properly choose the candidate that will best govern. Now I’m not saying that you have to be a rocket scientist to vote. But you need to be able to comprehend what the person who holds that particular office will do, what each candidate has done in the past to prove themselves the best candidate for the job, and what each candidate claims s/he will do in the future to enhance their country. This seems really easy, doesn’t it? But I can almost guarantee that a staggering percentage, at least 15% of current voters in the U.S., would fail this test. Does that mean I would be for disenfranchising 15% of current voters? Yep.

Of course, this isn’t ideal. Ideally all citizens will be educated and/or informed enough to vote. So this is an important responsibility that the government has. The kicker is, not all people can be properly educated/informed. For example? My dear grandma. If she calls 5 times in an hour to thank my mother for the flowers she sent for her birthday (forgetting each time that she just called), then she probably isn’t capable of comprehending the differences between the democratic and republican tax cut plans. So disenfranchisement is the only solution. You would not allow someone to fix a hardware problem with your computer if they know nothing about electronics, so why would you allow someone to vote for a candidate if they do not know anything about the candidate or election? Voting should be a privilege that one earns, not an inalienable right that can harm others if exercised poorly.

Last but not least, what does one do when a vast majority of the people in a country is incapable of voting? The answer is simple: Put the power in the hands of the few who are capable. But make one of their chief, unavoidable objectives in government to be to educate and inform the uneducated and uniformed so that they too can vote in elections to come. Otherwise you will make Plato correct when he wrote: “Democracy, which is a charming form of government, full of variety and disorder, and dispensing a sort of equality to equals and unequals alike.” Plato hasn’t been correct about much of anything, and I’d hate for this to be one of those rare occasions.

Well, it’s that time of the year again. You know what I’m talking about. Maybe you’re going to the supermarket and get cornered. Or maybe there’s a knock at your door, and you know it’s all over. The solicitors are out in force, and none of them are even five feet tall. That’s right: They’re the Girl Scouts.

It has long troubled me that the thing that Girl Scouts are most well-known for is their ability to solicit others to buying their tasty cookies. I was actually a Boy Scout back in the day, and we stood for things like “character, citizenship, and fitness” and had mottos like “always be prepared.” Now I don’t doubt that the Girl Scouts have some similar aims, but that does not negate the fact that when people think of Girl Scouts they think of cookies.

But hey, I think that they should do whatever they want in terms of fundraising. Cookies seem to work for them, and that’s cool with me. What is less cool with me is what is undoubtedly being taught to the girls in the process: that soliciting is a good thing to do. It isn’t. I hate it. Most people hate it. Do you like telemarketers? I don’t. They’re solicitors too.

Now, a few years ago, I thought maybe I was over reacting. But recently I realized that I was right on the money. Last November I had to walk through Ho Plaza a few times a week. And for a few weeks, the girl scouts were right there. Usually 2 or 3 would accost me and beg me to buy Girl Scout cookies. And it’s hard to say no – I mean, I don’t want it to look like I’m being mean to little girls, right? Who wants to be mean to little kids? I know I don’t. So one day I finally broke down and bought a few boxes, as gifts. Oh, and they were also in all of the Community Centers. There is no hope for escape.

The problem is that I don’t eat cookies. I don’t eat them because, well, I’m a health-nut. And cookies aren’t particularly healthy. This is another interesting aspect of the situation. These Girl Scouts are not promoting nutrition when they sell these cookies, on the contrary. They are promoting food that is high in sugar and high in fat. They are promoting obesity. No wonder America is an obese nation: We teach our children the value of junk food from a very early age.

Okay, while an interesting point, that was a digression. Well, after I finally broke down and bought a few boxes, the next time I went through the plaza, they were still out there. I told them I just bought a few boxes the other day, but of course, that didn’t satisfy them, and I felt like a bum just like before. That’s why soliciting really sucks. It makes you feel bad when you didn’t do anything wrong. I even feel bad hanging up on those telemarketers, who markedly deserve it.

Finally, it turns out that it’s no longer a once-a-year thing. The Girl Scouts have been out in force the past two weeks or so going door to door – but they were just selling them in November! So I know now that this happens at least twice-a-year, if not 3 or 4 times. I can’t help but wonder if the Girl Scouts do, indeed, have time for other things besides selling cookies.

And it’s not like the Girl Scouts can just express their individuality here by deciding not to solicit or sell the cookies some time. Imagine that you are a Girl Scout and you are uncomfortable selling these cookies. It’s too damn bad. We were talking with a friend of the family the other day whose daughter has been a Girl Scout for years. It turns out that they get a certain allotment of these cookies to sell each time. If they don’t sell them, then their parents have to eat the costs (no pun intended).

As a result, the Girl Scouts are raising generations of annoying little saleswomen. What could be worse? Okay, I’m sure a lot of things could be worse, but this certainly isn’t good. Because, let’s face it, no one likes salespeople. Do you like that guy are the car dealership with the greasy hair that sells you a car? Do you think that guy that works for Morgan Stanley and those “sure thing” stocks really has your best interest in mind? Have you ever gone into a Radioshack store and been hassled to buy a cell phone? Salespeople are simply obnoxious, and the Girl Scouts glorify the art of being a salesperson. I can only hope that one day people get tired of those damn cookies and the Girl Scouts do something valuable like learning how to cook a casserole.

Well, you probably have heard about that ABC show called “The Bachelor” where they get some single guy, have 20 women fawn over him, and he picks one to marry. Don’t confuse this with “Joe Millionaire”, the Fox show with a similar theme, except they present the bachelor as a millionaire when he really isn’t. Currently ABC is running a different version of this show called “The Bachelorette” where the tables are turned. The details should be obvious.

Well, a friend of mine proposed a scenario: Imagine that you are the bachelor, and that you get to pick 20 people to be on the show, and those people can be any celebrity, who would you choose? Of course, the show does not have celebrity contestants, but this variation would change that. Since I was so amused by the question, and spent a few minutes developing a list of 20 women, I figured I’d turn it into a fun-filled journal entry. So I’ll list all 20, and something about or a reason for each one. They are listed in no particular order.

1. Heather Tom
- This is an actress from the Young and the Restless (the soap opera). She’s my favorite actress from the show. She plays “Victoria Newman” the strong-willed daughter of the great business tycoon Victor Newman.

2. Eliza Dushku
- I really believe that Eliza Dushku is the most underrated actress in Hollywood, when it comes to looks. I think she is absolutely beautiful. You might remember her as the dark-haired friend of Kirsten Dunst (who didn’t make my list) in the movie “Bring it On.” She is also in “Buffy” I think.

3. Alicia Silverstone
- She has long been one of my favorite actresses. Ever since “The Crush” and those Aerosmith Videos, I’ve liked Alicia. Too bad she’s kind of fallen off the face of the earth.

4. Britney Spears
- Okay, you can’t leave off Britney. Those of you who know me, know that I once had a bit of an obsession with Britney. Luckily that has passed, but I’d still love to see her on the show and fighting over me. It would just be amusing. But in general, I don’t like what her image has become. She’s gotten really slutty.

5. Vanessa Carlton
- I think she’s hot, and I love her music. She has that artsy attractiveness thing going.

6. Julianne Moore
- Okay, I like redheads, and Julianne Moore is, I think, the most attractive redhead in Hollywood. She’s also an incredible actress (see my entry about “The Hours” from 1-23-03). She also seems like she’d be fun to hang out with.

7. Anna Kournikova
- So I don’t have any insightful reason for choosing her. She’s just outrageously hot. I doubt she’d win the contest (or any major tennis match apparently), but she sure would be pleasant scenery while she lasted.

8. Jessica Biel
- This is the girl who is the oldest sister on “7th Heaven”. She’s also very, very cute. She’s kind of got that “girl next door” yet “bad girl” thing going on. Gotta love that.

9. Jennifer Gareis
- She’s an actress and model. She’s done some TV daytime work (as “Grace” on Y&R) and some feature film work as well. She’s also been in Maxim. She’s just really, really hot. And I bet she shags like a minx.

10. Laetitia Casta
- This is one of the most well-known Victoria’s Secret models. She was declared the most beautiful woman in France, so they put her face on their currency. I think the Euro might have ruined all that. Damn the European Union.

11. Jewel
- I’ve always thought Jewel was really hot. I’ve always liked her music as well. I dated a girl that kind of looked like her once.

12. Reese Witherspoon
- It’s such a shame that Ryan Phillippe and her married so quickly. Now she’s got some kids, so she’s pretty much off the market. Damn.

13. Alexis Thorpe
- Alexis is another soap opera girl. She’s currently in “Days of our Lives” and was on Y&R before that. But the good news is I heard that she recently broke off her engagement with another daytime actor!

14. Monica Potter
- Monica Potter first caught my eye when she played Nicholas Cage’s wife on “Con Air”. She was also in the movie “Patch Adams” opposite Robin Williams. She’s just got very natural beauty.

15. Ashley Bashioum
- Ashley used to play the part of “Mac” on Y&R. Sadly, she left the show to pursue college. And even more sadly, she didn’t go to my college. Damn those California schools. I should have gone to Berkeley after all.

16. Ashley Judd
- Ashley Judd has been in many movies, like “Double Jeopardy”. She’s also got a very natural beauty. I also dated a girl that kind of looked like her once.

17. Susan Ward
- I really don’t know much about Susan Ward other than she’s been in maxim quite a few times, and at one point she was on the soap “All My Children”. All I know is that when I saw her, I thought she was absolutely stunning.

18. Claire Danes
- I’d never really thought Claire Danes was all that cute, until I saw her in “The Hours”. I think she’s matured a great deal in the past few years, and it has helped her looks. She also went to Yale, which makes her a fellow Ivy Leaguer.

19. Tiffany-Amber Thiessen
- I always used to love “Saved by the Bell”, and ya know what? Kelly Kapowski still looks good.

20. Denise Richards
- When I heard that Denise Richards was going to be a Bond girl Who was a Nuclear Physicist I thought I’d died and gone to heaven. If Nuclear Physicists really looked like her, I might have pursued a job in physics after all.

Alright, I’ve got an exciting topic for tonight: Bookstores! What could be more exciting than talking about bookstores for a few hundred words? I know I can’t think of anything more exciting. But after my experiences the past two days with various bookstores, I just had to mention something.

Basically, the bookstores these days really, really suck. I’m talking about the big franchise bookstores. I’ve suspected this for some time now, but only in the past two days have I realized just how pathetic they really are. After seeing “The Hours” last night, I went in search for the book “Mrs. Dalloway” by Virginia Woolf. It shouldn’t be too hard to find, I figured. It’s classic literature. Any bookstore should have it, right?

Wrong. Quite the opposite is true – NO bookstore had it. I literally went to every book store in the two cities nearest to my house. These bookstores include such names as Barnes and Noble, Borders, Walden Books, and Book-A-Million. Now, all of these bookstores failed my simple test of having the book I was looking for, but I could also rate them separately in terms of the amount of what I will call “quality” books. I define “quality” books as books by authors that someone else has written about. Generally, literature falls into this category, when it comes to fiction.

The best of the bookstores was “Borders”. They actually had quite a few selections by Woolf, just not the one I wanted. It has always been my favorite bookstore, out of the bunch. I guess my taste was on the right track after all. Second place goes to “Barnes and Noble.” They had a few Virginia Woolf books, and a larger literature section than the two which follow. Coming in a distant third is “Books-A-Million”. They failed to distinguish literature from fiction. As a result, they had 3 rows of books ranging from Shakespeare to Joe Schmo who got a book deal when he wrote some goofy novel that nobody read. This is irritating. Why do I have to look through this crap when I want literature? And they had exactly 2 copies of items by Virginia Woolf in this mix. But the absolute loser when it comes to bookstores is “Waldenbooks.” This place wasn’t even close. They did separate their fiction and classic literature sections. The problem is that their classic literature section was 1 1/12 bookshelves. Just insulting. Is America that dumbed-down that the demand is really that low for classical literature? Wait don’t answer that question. They also had zero books by Woolf. Instead of literature, this bookstore had books for the barely literate. You know the kind. They’re the books that the kind of people read if they’re the type who wouldn’t be much worse off if they didn’t know how to read.

I guess this all leads to a greater question: Why is there so much crap writing out there? Why are bookstores full of this “Self-help” crap, romance novels, and picture books for coffee tables? I guess that’s just where we, as a society, have gone. To crap. I just don’t understand why someone would bother reading of they aren’t going to read anything worthwhile. If someone wants mindless entertainment, just turn on the TV. The purpose of reading should be to do something that cannot be done through other forms of entertainment as effectively – to enrich one’s mind. Otherwise what’s the point? I could get into a big philosophical discussion about “function” here, and how society disregards the proper function of what books ought to be written in order to do, but I won’t bother. It’ll just become difficult to read. I guess I don’t really care what other people read, as long as it doesn’t result in my not being able to find quality reading. Unfortunately, that is exactly what has resulted. Thank God for amazon.com.

Today I saw a new movie out called “The Hours”. Although I generally refrain from doing things like talking about movies in this journal, after seeing this movie, I had to make an exception. “The Hours” was absolutely phenomenal.

For a multitude of reasons, The Hours is not your typical movie. For starters, it does not take place at a certain point in time: it takes place at 3 points in time. And the story is not told chronologically, but in interchanging segments. It is about three women: Clarissa Vaughan, Laura Brown, and Virginia Woolf (yes, the well known British writer). These parts are played by Meryl Streep, Julianne Moore, and Nicole Kidman, respectively. Another significant character is a man named Richard, played by Ed Harris. The movie shows these three women’s fairly different stories and creates connections in themes within their stories. But this description does not do the movie justice. That’s just my attempt. You really need to see the movie to understand what it’s about.

The story and structure is not the only unusual thing about the movie. The other unusual thing is the caliber of acting. These actors put forth, quite simply, the best cumulative performance I have ever seen in a movie. I have seen some incredible individual acting efforts in a movie, but for every single character to emit such realism, depth, impact, and vibrance was simply remarkable. Nicole Kidman has already won a golden globe for her portrayal of Virginia Woolf, and I expect at least that many acting awards at the Academy Awards for this film as well.

I guess it’s hard for me to explain what I thought made this movie so great without the reader necessarily having seen it. I suppose it was mostly the whole package. It had everything: great acting, tremendous storylines, moving issues, great direction, a touch of historical relevance, everything. And it all worked meshed very, very well. So the only other thing I guess I really can say about this movie is that you should definitely see it. The movie, however, is not for everyone. It is a very, very deep movie, and probably 99 out of 100 people will leave the movie not REALLY liking it, or if they say they do, they’re just pretending because they think they should. Few people will probably grasp everything that was meant to be grasped from the film. As a result, many will find the movie depressing. I do not think this is the case, however. I found quite the opposite; I found the movie inspirational. It was about hope and about what happiness is. It did not try to show that happiness is fleeting or does not exist.

Before I leave my discussion of this movie, I want to comment on something else. Apparently the review from “Time Magazine” for this movie called it the “worst movie of the year” (2002). I will probably never read Time again, or at least not their movie critiques. Realize 2002 is the same year that the movies “XXX,” “Treasure Planet,” “Jackass,” and “Reign of Fire” were released. Anyone who has seen Reign of Fire knows what I’m talking about here (some friends dragged me there, it wasn’t my fault). I find it simply impossible to believe that any movie, even in theory, could be worse than Reign of Fire. And I assure you this movie was not. In fact, it was probably the best movie of the year, which would help to explain why it won the Golden Globe for Best Picture. I expect it to win the Oscar in that category as well.

Last, but certainly not least, I want to remind everyone that this was a Miramax film. And yours truly worked at Miramax this summer, where I actually worked with certain aspects of the international finance and marketing dealing with this (and obviously other) movies. So after seeing just how amazing this movie was I’m proud to have worked for a company with such insight and audacity to help to create a film like this. Kudos to Miramax!

There are a lot of really crappy places in the world to be: Siberia, The Sahara, North Korea, Somalia, Oakland, the list goes on. But I would like to add a place to this list that may seem surprising to many: South Florida.

That’s right! The land of perpetual warmth and palm trees actually really, really sucks. “But Dan!” begins the naïve reader. “How could you hate South Florida? It’s got great weather, beautiful people, lots of wealth, and diversity. Isn’t it like the American Dream? I mean, Will Smith even wrote a song about Miami!” This point is probably one most would make, after all, tourism is South Florida’s major source of income – if so many people want to visit this place, how bad could it be? Could they all be wrong?

No, they aren’t. South Florida is a very nice place to visit. If I become a millionaire one day, I would probably even buy a house down here so that I could visit once or twice a year. Yet, Sea World is a fun place to visit too, but would you really want to live there? Well I don’t want to live there, South Florida I mean. And the reason why does demand some explanation.

Let’s start with the demographics. The median age in South Florida is about 58. This is problematic for a couple of really obvious reasons. The first, is that, well, I’m 22. There ain’t a lot here for young people. It is a lovely place to live when you’re 60+, but if you aren’t it kind of sucks. Because of this demographic, there really isn’t any industry down here, besides tourism. As a result, the only ambitious jobs that exist are those of law and medicine, neither of which interest me. Finally, there’s nothing scarier than the roads in South Florida. Old people drive; they shouldn’t. Some of these people can hardly walk and can barely see, yet they’re behind the wheel. I can tell you stories about elderly drivers that would turn you pale. Now I’m not ageist; I have no problem with old people. What I have a problem with is comparatively no young people. It’s all about balance.

But the old people are only the tip of the iceberg. What about the people who aren’t old? What’s their problem? Next up is wealth. There’s a lot of it. And believe you me, I have no problem with wealthy people. If I did, I wouldn’t have had a very good time at an Ivy League University for 4 ½ years. What I have a problem with is wealthy people who are uneducated. Now, uneducated people do not bother me in general either, it is only when a lack of education is also coupled with wealth. Why is this combination so dreadful? I think you’d really have to experience it to understand, but here’s my attempt to try to explain.

When someone is wealthy and yet uneducated, that first means they probably did not make that money themselves. This tends to be the overwhelming majority of the wealthy in South Florida: The trust fund babies. They’re the kids you knew in high school who were loaded and did nothing but party. You are probably wondering what happened to them after high school, right? Well they moved to sunny South Florida to party daddy’s money away. Basically, these people do little else other than fornicate and consume massive amounts of alcohol and/or illicit drugs. I mean, they’ve got money and nothing better to do, right? Oh, they get plastic surgery too. I guess to be fair, I’ll grant them that.

Finally, they’ve got the east-coast attitude, but they did not earn the east-coast attitude. What I’m referring to as the east-cost attitude is the kind of uppity, uptight personality, generally attributed to those from New York City. Yet, I love New York City. The difference? The people in New York are uptight because they really are busy people and really don’t want you wasting their time. But people in South Florida have nothing going on, except maybe worrying about being late for a barbecue or getting to the gym before all the ellipticals are taken. As a result, you experience people who aren’t particularly nice, and they have no tangible reason to be the assholes that they are. This is a stark contrast, of course, from the west coast, where nearly everyone is pleasant.

Oh! The people in South Florida also tend to be better looking than many other places, like the Midwest for instance. This is usually a good thing, but like the rest of those things written about above, it becomes a bad thing in South Florida. Anytime you have people who have enormous feelings of self-importance who are also good looking, you’re in trouble, big trouble. Go to an Abercrombie store in a mall down here and see what I mean. You’ll want to throw up. I know I do.

I could probably go on, but you get the idea. South Florida really isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. In fact, it really blows. It’s no wonder ALL of my close friends who used to live down here have moved to other parts of the country. I can only hope that I am lucky enough to follow their lead sooner than later! Of course, I will miss the weather.