Zanzibar, Emmerich, and Other Exhausted Ramblings

I've got this friend. Let's call her Lexi Newman. That's not her real name. Her real name is Zanzibar Extremo.

Zanzibar Extremo and I have been friends for about 43 years now and in that time she has not lead me astray. Except for this one time where she said that overalls were the new hip clothes for boys. I believed her. She was a tad off.

But Zanzibar Extremo works a very arduous job. She asked me to update Quorum for her own selfish, selfish reasons. Being torn between updating and winking suggestively at my computer is no contest: winking usually wins out. This is because I am dedicated to my craft. But if Zanzibar says wear overalls, I wear overalls and if Zanzibar says update, then I update.

So, Zanzibar, this one is for you.

Today, though, is seemingly a good day to update. Major shit going on in the world. Important stuff like Haiti (donate somewhere) and late night wars (I'm officially on Team Jason Robards) and I hear there's something going on in Massachusetts of note (I assume that Will Hunting came back into town and had the answers to Lost and everybody shit their pants... I assume).

But really what's occupying my brain today is: I'm friggin' exhausted and I don't want to live in a world in which Roland Emmerich is right.

Allow me to explain.

First of all, one of the reasons I haven't updated in the last two months is because things got insanely busy out there in the real world. The holidays descended like a fucking screeching banshee and did not spare me for even an instant. I found a job (briefly I had two, but the second one laid me off after three days... but that's a different story). I worked a retail gig at a Major Department Store that has been the subject of scathing wit courtesy of a certain gay southern essayist whose names start with "D" and ends in "avid Sedaris." My work at Major Department Store consisted of selling many blenders and attempting to sign people up for credit cards that they, clearly, needed. Because it's not like credit cards caused this recession or anything! Right? Ha! Yes, I betrayed all my beliefs for 50 cents above minimum wage and the right to listen to a three-hour loop of Christmas carols for eight hours a day.

Anyway, the gig wasn't all that bad. It was just retail. The people I worked with were pretty cool. I'm fairly sure one of them was Yoda. Yeah, it was this tiny woman who knew everything and her name was -- Wait, what I am I doing? I can't be reasonable on the Internet. Quick, resort to hyperbole! Major Department Store promised me a new life and instead destroyed all I believe in! It launched a missile into my Tree Of Souls and I had to ride a big dragon-butterfly thing and then Sigourney Weaver died!

What I'm saying is I've worked worse retail jobs (Hi, Six Flags!) and this one at least treated its employees with a modicum of respect. The worst part of the job didn't come till the end when I had to work three graveyard shifts in a row in order to inventory the whole store. That, my friends, was a big, loud, annoying bitch of an assignment. Inventory is basically the Heidi Montag of the retail world.

The graveyard shifts were last Sunday through Tuesday. And ever since then I have been adhering to the Bill-Paxton-in-Near-Dark ethos: "We keep odd hours." Odd and fucking infuriating hours. For the past week, I have essentially become nocturnal, never falling asleep before 6 a.m. and never waking up earlier than 3 p.m. Today is attempt two at fixing this cycle of bleary-eyed torture. I didn't go to sleep last night and have elected to, through sheer force of will and Red Bull, stay awake until sleep puts me in a stranglehold and forces me to slip off into the Land of Nod.

Perhaps it is because I am in this grumpy, sleepy, and other assorted dwarves state that I am susceptible to stupid thoughts.

And thus I return to my premise: Roland Emmerich cannot be right.

In case you haven't heard, California is experiencing some bad weather. It has been pouring rain in Southern California for the past two days and Northern California, somehow, angered Raiden from Mortal Kombat because lightning is shooting out of the sky like the craziest fucking finishing move in the history of video games.

But even worse is that, apparently, a tornado warning has been posted for Southern California.

If this sounds familiar that's because it has been done before. A few years back, Master of Destroying the World (and Film) Roland Emmerich wrote and directed a little art-house movie called The Day After Tomorrow. In this movie (which I didn't see but am prejudging because I can), tornadoes, caused by global warming, strike the heart of Los Angeles and leave untold devastation in their wake.

Now, obviously I hope this tornado does not materialize as I don't want anyone getting hurt but also because I refuse to live in a world in which the dude who directed Godzilla (the movie that asks you to believe an enormous lizard can find places to hide in the middle of New York City and, more incredulously, tries to pass off Ferris Bueller as an action hero) holds any sort of prophetic sway over the world.

The visions of Roland Emmerich must not come to pass.

Except for that one he had about Randy Quaid flying his jet fighter in to the alien spaceship. That was kind of cool.

Till next time!