This Week in Rage – 4/12/14

This Week in Rage – 4/12/14

This Week in Rage – a blog about the top three things that pissed me off this week.

 

Half-Marathons: This Saturday we had a half-marathon in L.A. The reason I know this was because they had the streets shut down.  I was trying to drive up Hollywood Boulevard the other day and passed a sign warning about it.  I’m not a big fan of the marathon and the people who need to prove something to themselves and get that picture with the tin foil being put over them at the finish line, but whatever.  I don’t like it but at least I understand it.  But a half-marathon?  Everyone reading this could complete a half-marathon.  If your car broke down 13.1 miles from civilization do you think you’d just impale yourself on the hood ornament?  No, you’d just walk that half-marathon.  A lot of people doing the half-marathon are walking it anyway.  Would you brag to someone that you climbed half of Mt. Everest, or that you were playing hoops and you went to the one-and-a-half point stripe and drained one, or that you grabbed half a boobie?

 

Let’s just pick a designated track, like my old track around the North Hollywood High football field, put up a sign that reads “Douchebags Who Have Something to Prove” and three times a year you can go in a circle around the track as many times as you need to complete a marathon, half-marathon, 5K for Ovarian Cancer, Cub-scout walkathon, whatever.  Just don’t shut down the whole goddamn city like usual.

 

April Foolishness Line-Up Change:  I did a big event last week out here called April Foolishness.  This is put on by KROQ and Kevin & Bean.  They’ve got a million comedians hitting the stage to make the mirth.  And I was one of them.  I looked at the line-up and saw that I was sandwiched between Doug Benson and Jim Jefferies.  And I thought it was a pretty good spot.  Doug is a good stand-up and a great guy, but he’s not necessarily the most electric performer.  He’s a little laid back, aka stoned.   But Jim Jefferies is a maniac; he really tears up the stage. He’s an animal. So I was glad to be going on before him and after Doug.

 

So I’m at the gig and waiting in the wings watching Tim Minchin perform and standing next to Doug. I said to him, “so you’re up next.”  He said back, “Nope, they changed the order.  Jim Jefferies is going first.”  And I thought, “exactly”.  That’s what I get for giving a shit.  I had doomed myself from the moment I dared to appreciate my placement in the lineup.  It’s my fault for caring.  I said at three that afternoon, “I’m glad I don’t have to follow Jim Jefferies” and thus made it so.  Mission accomplished, Ace Man.

 

Non-Lethal Tactics For Law Enforcement: There was a big student riot when a spring break party got out of hand up in Isla Vista over by U.C. Santa Barbara.  The kids hit the streets and so the cops hit the streets.  And like always the cops had to use “non-lethal” tactics – rubber bullets, tazers, smoke grenades, tear gas, etc.  We have a thousand of these non-lethal tactics now.  I found myself thinking about what it would be like to explain this to an old time western sheriff.  He’d be like “What’s with the rubber bullets, you’ve got real bullets, dontcha, son?  Why wouldn’t you just wave your six shooter in the air and fire one off?” I’d have to explain to him that there’s a new breed of supercharged drunken moron now who that will have no effect on.  There are no more warning shots.  There’s gonna be shitfaced assholes with their shirts off charging at you with a Coke bottle shouting “Bring It!”  Just think about the fact that these cops have Glocks strapped to their hips and that’s not enough to stop these idiots.  If I was about to throw a rock at you and you reached for your holster to unlock the Glock that’s time for me to put down the rock.  Then I strap on the knee pads and begin the oral.  Okay, maybe that’s too far, but I just don’t get the part where they keep walking at the person who can put them down with one shot.   Why aren’t people more scared of people with guns?  Whether it’s a cop, neighbor or nun – if they have a gun and you have a snow globe why would you come at them?

 

-adam