Author Archive: Paul Epps

Gimme Some Truth

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I’m sick and tired of hearing things from Uptight short-sighted narrow-minded hypocrites All I want is the truth, just give me some truth I’m sick to death of seeing things from Tight-lipped condescending mama’s little chauvinists All I want is the truth, just give me some truth I’ve had enough of watching scenes from Schizophrenic egocentric paranoiac primadonnas All I want is the truth, just give me some truth — John Lennon, “Gimme Some Truth” Read more →

A Couple of News Items Out of USC

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Students from U.S. families with an annual income of $80,000 or less with typical assets will attend USC tuition-free. The Trojans cancelled the scheduled Sept. 4, 2021 football game vs. UC Davis. UC Davis is the kind of FCS (i.e., minor league) program that SEC schools love to load up their non-conference schedules with. The only three FBS schools never to have played an FBS program are USC, Notre Dame and UCLA. To me, that is a point of pride. I was very disappointed when I heard they scheduled the game and I’m glad they cancelled it. Read more →

EppsNet Restaurant Reviews: Sasabune

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The innovation is the warm, vinegar-flavored rice and the wide, almost circular cut of the fish. Also, unlike Oshima (in this reviewer’s opinion, the best sushi establishment in Orange County), the chef did not have such a pronounced accent that I couldn’t understand what he was saying when he presented the fish. Try to maintain your equanimity when you see the bill, which for us came to about $120 per person (no sake or other beverages), so you don’t look like a rube. Rating: Read more →

When I Write the Book

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And when I write the book about my love It will be about a man who’s torn in half About his hopes and ambitions wasted through the years The pain will be written on every page in tears When I write the book about my love — Nick Lowe, “When I Write the Book” Read more →

Rip it Up

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The Speaker’s decision to tear up the SOTU speech was A) childish; and B) well . . . I can’t think of a succinct word for B, but bear in mind that a number of people were recognized during the speech: The Tuskegee Airman and his great-grandson, people honored for service to country, people who have lost family members, and so on . . . I’d like to get a sound bite on how they felt about having the document ripped up. Especially the bereaved. How did it feel to have the public record of your loss ripped up right in front of you? I’d like to see party leaders — and adults in general, really — have the mental capacity and self-control and whatever it takes to refrain from doing something like that. Read more →

Harvey Weinstein’s Lead Defense Attorney the “Ultimate Feminist”?

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Insider has an interview with Harvey Weinstein’s lead defense attorney, Donna Rotunno, who calls herself the “ultimate feminist.” Feminists and Weinstein accusers say they’ve been repulsed by her comments, accusing her of victim blaming. Rotunno says women have fought for decades to be viewed as equal to men, and now they need to start taking on some of the responsibility that comes with it. Some excerpts: In addition to fighting for Weinstein’s acquittal, Rotunno is waging a broader crusade against both the #MeToo movement and a culture she believes infantilizes women and rewards victimhood. . . . The problem with women today, Rotunno told Insider . . . is that they don’t take responsibility for their decisions. . . . “Everybody says, ‘Oh, are you telling women that if they go to hotel rooms they deserve to be raped?’ No,” Rotunno said. “What I’m saying is that after having drinks… Read more →

Our Town

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On this date — Feb. 4, 1938 — the Thornton Wilder play Our Town opened on Broadway . . . Emily: Oh, Mama, look at me one minute as though you really saw me. Mama, fourteen years have gone by. I’m dead. You’re a grandmother, Mama! Wally’s dead, too. His appendix burst on a camping trip to North Conway. We felt just terrible about it — don’t you remember? But, just for a moment now we’re all together. Mama, just for a moment we’re happy. Let’s really look at one another! … I can’t. I can’t go on. It goes so fast. We don’t have time to look at one another. I didn’t realize. So all that was going on and we never noticed. Take me back — up the hill — to my grave. But first: Wait! One more look. Good-bye, Good-bye world. Good-bye, Grover’s Corners….Mama and Papa. Good-bye… Read more →

How Much Would You Pay For a Watch?

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I got an oddball email today from Amazon . . . Hello Paul Epps, We found something we think you might like. And what they thought I might like was the item on the right, a Breitling Navitimer 1 Automatic 38mm Steel & Red Gold – Silver Watch, which retails for $4,284.50 (free shipping included!). I do like it — click through on it, it’s a real beauty — but “liking” a $4,000 watch and having any intention of buying one are two entirely different things. Why they thought I’d be a good target customer for this email I have no idea. I’ve never shopped for watches on Amazon, nor have I ever made an Amazon purchase at anywhere close to a $4,000 price point. It’s the weirdest thing Amazon’s done since the time I was browsing for a book on software development principles and they suggested that I might… Read more →

She’s a lone forsaken beauty but she don’t trust anyone
I wish I was beside her but I’m not there, I’m gone

— Bob Dylan, “I’m Not There”

If Balboa Could Find the Pacific Ocean, Why Can’t You?

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I mentioned in class today that 30 percent of Americans age 18 to 24 cannot find the Pacific Ocean on a map . . . (This was in the context of income diversity — or “income inequality,” take your pick — i.e., I can’t find the Pacific Ocean on a map but I’d like to be paid the same as a Harvard MBA.) Students absolutely could not believe this so I Googled the link to this National Geographic article. Not only was I proved correct on my Pacific Ocean assertion, 58 percent of respondents could not find Japan on a map, 65 percent couldn’t find France, 69 percent couldn’t find the United Kingdom, and 11 percent could not find the United States. The survey is a bit old now — it was taken in 2002 — but if anything, I’m sure the current situation is worse. If my kid could… Read more →

Rascals

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LYSISTRATA There are a lot of things about us women That sadden me, considering how men See us as rascals. CALONICE As indeed we are! — Aristophanes, Lysistrata Read more →

Things Seem To Be Proceeding at a Dizzy Rate

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  I wouldn’t have thought from reading Madame Bovary that Flaubert had much of a sense of humor, but here’s something he said in 1850 that’s not only quite funny but, except for the centuries count, will probably never go out of date: From time to time, I open a newspaper. Things seem to be proceeding at a dizzy rate. We are dancing not on the edge of a volcano, but on the wooden seat of a latrine, and it seems to me more than a touch rotten. Soon society will go plummeting down and drown in nineteen centuries of shit. There’ll be quite a lot of shouting. Read more →

Long have I longed, till I am tired
  Of longing and desire;
Farewell my points in vain desired,
  My dying fire;
Farewell all things that die and fail and tire.

— Christina Rossetti, “Till Tomorrow”
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