You could easily conclude from reading profiles in OC Metro that there’s not a single businessperson in Orange County with an ounce of wit or self-awareness.
Case in point: A profile in the current issue of “surfing banker” John Lynch, executive VP of Secured Funding Corp. in Costa Mesa.
The hook is — he’s a banker but he surfs every morning before work, and he says things like “Hey bro,” “We rock,” and “I never took a day of college.”
A phrase began to beat in my ears with a sort of heady excitement: ‘There are only the pursued, the pursuing, the busy and the tired.’
That we pursue something passionately does not always mean that we really want it or have a special aptitude for it. Often, the thing we pursue most passionately is but a substitute for the one thing we really want and cannot have. It is usually safe to predict that the fulfillment of an excessively cherished desire is not likely to still our nagging anxiety. In every passionate pursuit, the pursuit counts more than the object pursued.
Several ordinary life stories, if told in rapid succession, tend to make life look far more pointless than it really is, probably.
Is that a fact? Let’s try it and see! Here are some excerpts from this week’s obituaries in the Irvine World News:
Here’s what happens when a 10-year-old gets hold of a digital camera. And there’s lots more self-portraits where that came from, including the ones he took of his own butt, which are his personal favorites.
Wesley Clark on affirmative action:
Not everybody’s born on a level playing field.
That is undeniable. I, for example, was born in a hospital . . .
On this date in 1960, Albert Camus died in a car smash outside Paris at the age of 47.
The incomplete manuscript of The First Man, the autobiographical novel that Camus was working on at his death, was found in the mud at the site of the wreck.
What a finish!
Quel tableau!
One cow to another:
They’re not booing. They’re saying ‘Moooo!’
The rest of the family got up early and went to the Rose Parade. I stayed home and watched it on TV with the dog.
This is what the parade looks like to a 10-year-old.
As if the Carl’s Jr. commercials weren’t bad enough, I saw one of those “Celebrities on the Town” shows where “Hef” is getting out of a limousine with his entourage of girls, shambling into a club like a doddering old man in what appears to be a bathrobe, his hair sticking way out in back like he slept on it the wrong way and nobody bothered to tell him . . .
Pathetic — hurry up and die.
When I do my stretching regimen at the gym, I don’t have a self-appointed, jive-talking personal trainer, age 10:
— You call dat a stretch? We got a big problem here.
— Is dat da best you can do?
— What in da name a Jimmy da Jet kind of a stretch is dat?
— Who’s Jimmy the Jet?
— I dunno. Who is he?
My kid got a dog for Christmas — a Pug. His name is Lightning. The dog’s, that is, not the kid’s.
Pugs take the cake for “cute,” judging by the reaction of every woman or girl who sees one.
Oh, he’s so cute! Oh, he’s so precious!
I’ve been reading Bruce Lee’s Tao of Jeet Kune Do, in which he says that most athletes are not willing to drive themselves hard enough, and that only through extraordinary effort can one unlock the potential of the human body.
My dad’s almost 70 now. He’s been a role model to me in terms of aging gracefully, without complaint.
“How does it feel to be 45?” he asked me the other day. “Feel like you’re getting old?”
“Yes,” I said.
“Wait until you get to fifty-five,” he said.
Thanks, Dad!
I’d never seen The Nutcracker — or any other ballet for that matter. It turns out that ballet is just mime with better sets and costumes.
My son had a very nice piano recital last weekend. He played the right notes, he played the quiet parts quiet and the loud parts loud . . . and yet he had never once, to my knowledge, practiced the piece at home without playing it too loud, too fast, and having a simulated nervous breakdown if anything was said to him about it.
I’ve Googled this all day and I can’t figure it out . . .
Links go to iTunes samples . . .
Emily Dickinson was born on this date in 1830. Happy Birthday, Emily!
I died for beauty, but was scarce
Adjusted in the tomb,
When one who died for truth was lain
In an adjoining room.He questioned softly why I failed?
“For beauty,” I replied.
“And I for truth,—the two are one;
We brethren are,” he said.And so, as kinsmen met a night,
We talked between the rooms,
Until the moss had reached our lips,
And covered up our names.
Let’s party!
I get about 200 emails a day — 90 percent junk — and 90 percent of the junk is targeted at human weakness, weariness, disappointment, regret and self-loathing.
You say its your birthday? Its my birthday too, yeah! We’re gonna have a good time! I’m glad it’s your birthday! Happy birthday to you!
We gonna party like it’s my birthday! We gonna sip Bacardi like it’s my birthday!
I’m 45 today, probably a lot further from birth than death . . . what a hell of a note.
More Bacardi, please!
My son just said something to me that sounded like
Meesa favo word yall dog homie thats a foul yo in yo face hippie homo bozo ooheehoohaahaah?
I’m not going to respond to that . . .
