It Was An Accident, I Swear

I haven't had the television on in about three days.
   I swear it's an accident. Not planned. Last time I had the idiot box* up and running was Thursday night. It was the 'So You Think You Can Dance' results show. Yes, I do watch that, wanna make something of it? I didn't think so...
   Anyway, Friday I was in Austin and after I got back that night the TV just didn't come on. I read the Silmarillion (I have a first edition). Last night, Saturday, I was busy with busy work and whatnot and before I knew it the clock showed 9:30 PM and COPS was good and over. Crap, I missed my favorite show. Or favorite non-dance related show. And today, Sunday, there's just nothing to watch in the first place, aside from me getting busy writing and more busy work. So no TV today so far either.
   I think it's the longest stretch I've gone without TV, without either being on an international flight or being stuck somewhere awful. And you know what? It doesn't bother me. Except for missing COPS and shirtless meth addicts trying to escape officers of the law, that's always good for a laugh. Oh, and NASCAR is on cable for 2/3 of the season, so I'm missing that too. I think I may have been a rum runner in a previous life, it's the only explanation I have for why I like to watch cars making left turns for 500 miles.
   I got rid of cable going on two years ago, haven't missed it except for Cartoon Network - I loves me some Venture Brothers - and I don't get ABC or PBS here at my house. So very slowly I've been involuntarily weaned from the vast wasteland.
   I think I'm better for it. But, honestly, I think it's good to have time alone with your own thoughts. I think too many people are uncomfortable with what's running through their heads and they find it easier to find external validation. But when you spend quiet time with yourself you learn what's important to you, and what's important at all. Kind of scary, actually, which is why people would rather avoid it. I think I'm going to jump in with both feet.
   The TV's staying off more often than it's coming on.


* which is actually an idiot flat panel, but that doesn't roll off the tongue quite as elegantly

Wouldn't That Ruin Your Pants?

I was in Lowe's this morning, buying ant poison and a flashlight* and when I was checking out I noticed a laminated sheet posted by the register that listed the most shoplifted items in the store. They call it 'shrink' but they mean 'five-finger discount.' There were the expensive things, like drills, and easily-concealed things, like drill bits, but I'll give you one guess as to the fourth-most-shoplifted item in that particular store. Go ahead, you'll never get it. I'll stand right here while you decide ... not gonna even try? Okay, fine, be that way. I'll just tell you.
   Circular saw blades.
   Ouch. Talk about your dangerous items to steal. I can think of two reasons these would be a challenge to shoplift: they're big and they're sharp. Really, really, really, really sharp. They're freakin' saw blades, they're designed to cut wood or ceramic or melamine or whatever is unfortunate enough to get in their path. Plus they're eight-inch diameter rigid steel disks, they're not going to fold up and slip in your back pocket, they'd have to fit on your chest like one of those discs from Tron.
   Think about it. Who's going to shoplift a circular saw blade? My mother? Well - she actually might, but my point is women aren't the ones stealing these things. Guys are. Contractors who come into Lowe's in paint-spattered jeans and sweat-soaked t-shirts. Not carrying a purse to slip the random saw blade into, and nothing extra to conceal a stolen item. Just the jeans. Can you imagine trying to walk out of a store with a circular saw blade shoved down your pants? You'd have not just the paranoia of getting caught, you'd have the paranoia of that saw blade getting loose and slicing your butt to ribbons. Your butt if you're lucky...
   And yet, it happens enough that circular saw blades feature prominently on the list of 'shrink.' I guess when you're desperate enough you'll find a way to steal almost anything.


* two entirely unrelated projects

You Want To Start A Riot?

Look at the Middle East right now, a hotbed of rebellion, instigated, carried out, and perpetuated by young people. Sure, it's easy to be a rebel when you're unemployed and have nothing else to do all day, but America was a country founded on rebellion, and these foreigners are putting us to shame.
   There's a strong streak of wimpiness in American kids these days. And by kids I mean anyone from 16 to 25, young people who are working at Starbucks and playing video games when they should be raising their fists or middle fingers to those people in charge. Their attitude of meek acquiescence is brought on, I believe, by too much sensitivity training early in life. I love you, you love me. Bullshit. And by too much hand-holding by parents and authority figures. Their role models are corporate mannequins like Taylor Swift or the well-behaved and antiseptic Jonas Brothers, instead of Johnny Rotten or Chuck D.*
   Where's the youthful rebellion? Where's the 'we don't need no education' of even twenty years ago? It's gone, replaced with bland conformism. Society needs chaos, it needs upheaval, it needs young people who see things as either black or white, not their parents who see nothing but gray.
   I realize that asking kids these days to go from living in a bunker behind the Wall** to full-on confrontation with the Establishment is too much. You just don't have the tools, you've been brainwashed for too long. So here are a few acts of rebellion, call it civil disobedience, that you can use to jump-start your insurrection.

Hide all the Rascals at Wal-Mart.
   Think of the panic it will cause fat, old, and lazy people.

Flash mobs.
   Authorities hate flash mobs. So don't clear it with the mall manager beforehand or you're just ruining the premise.

TP the statue in the center of town.
   Every town has a statue, usually by the courthouse. Let them know what you think of their 'system' with a few dozen rolls of Charmin.

Sit ins.
   Find a cause, there's gotta be one worth sitting in for. Cops these days are kind of wimpy too, less willing to crack skulls than they were 50 years ago, so you'll probably just get detained and then released. Maybe you'll get tased.

Steal all the flags off the municipal golf course.
   A ninja operation in the dead of night seems the best method.

Sounds like small potatoes, doesn't it? Well, even the biggest avalanche started as one snowflake. See if you can't make a difference. And stick it to the Man.***



* the Sex Pistols and Public Enemy, respectively, look them up

** it's a Pink Floyd reference, look it up

*** yes, technically I am the Man, and I'm cool with it. But I'm disturbed that you asked permission first.

Ill At Ease

I went to a technology conference/expo/trade show/whatever today. I've been to these things before, you go to a convention center, you walk down aisles of prefab booths, you talk to people for five minutes about their business, you move on. It's something I don't think my grandfather would have been familiar with - especially not the technology aspect* - but it's common now. And, in all honesty, I don't know that the investment companies put forward to attend these things matches any return they might get. Seems like an awful lot of chatting and not a lot of doing.
   After a few mintues wandering the aisles and smiling at vendors I was never going to talk to, I noticed two things that bothered me about the environment. I've noticed this before, but now I could finally put a name to what I felt after all these years.
   First, there was a lot of schoolyard-style sizing up, like Jets and Sharks facing off across an alley. Vendors eyed badges for names and titles, attendees scanned the booths for candy and free stuff, and the mood felt moments away from a fist fight breaking out. I was uncomfortable and aside from the tension I couldn't say why. Then it hit me: everybody was assessing everyone else in terms of what one person might be able to do for another. They weren't interested in talking to people to find out more about them individually, we were all avatars of ourselves, attendees and vendors, reprentatives of our demographic bands instead of human beings. Very off-putting, because I could feel the curiosity follow me as I walked the aisles, which then turned to curt dismissal when the vendors saw I wasn't interested. Like making eye contact with all the girls at the middle school dance but not asking any of them onto the floor, I wasn't making myself popular.
   Second, and as a corollary to the first observation, I realized after about ten mintues of people watching that, like me, almost no one in the room actually wanted to be there. Maybe it was a reaction to the dull mood, but I got the distinct impression that we were moments away from a stampede for the exits. It felt like the time I was caught in a pool hall when a fight broke out, all eyes on the door and every man for himself. Kind of poisonous.
   I'm curious to know if that mood is a result of something the organizers did, or if it generated spontaneously from the people in attendence. Probably it was a synthesis of both, but if you could figure out why that happened, you could start a business to prevent it from happening. Put a little math to it, a little rigor, and you could charge a pretty penny to make sure conferences succeed, instead of go down like the one I was just at.



* he had the biggest Rolodex I've ever seen, yellowed index cards packed with names and numbers in faded pencil and blue pen that had bled out over time. If you don't know what a Rolodex is you're a true child of the digital age.

Next Stop... Skynet

I've been going to my local gym for years. It's in the basement of the old Pasadena Star News building, in the area once occupied by the printing presses, when those things were two-story-tall monster machines. It's a pretty cool space, three-level and very open. But lately things have been kind of not cool.
   For most of the time I've been going I just hand over my gym ID card, the person behind the counter scans it, and I get to go in. Bada-bing, bada-boom, easy peasy lemon squeezy.
   No more. The company has gone to a fingerprint reader. You key in a ten-digit number - probably people use their phone number - and then scan your right index finger. Up until now I have steadfastly refused to let them scan my fingerprints, I stick with the ID card. Except now they're not using the ID cards. If you don't want to use the fingerprint scanner you have to fork over a driver's license and let them look it up that way.
   So now I'm on the horns of a dilemma. I don't want to use my driver's license - which is for driving not venue admission - yet I steadfastly object to letting a gym, of all businesses, take a record of my fingerprint so they can provide a service I've paid for. What the hell? The only reason they want my fingerprint is to make their extremely easy job - keeping the gate - even easier. Other than the company being lazy, there is absolutely no Goddamned reason they need a record of my fingerprints. AT. ALL. They're a fucking GYM!! I go there to sweat, not to create the next Manhattan Project. Biometric security should be the least of their concerns. How about working this hard to keep soap in the dispensers by the sink?
   I can hear you asking 'What's the big deal, Don? It's just a gym.'
   Which is my point exactly. It's just a gym. I don't want to come across as some crazy conspiracy theorist, but this is where the abrogation of our civil liberties starts. It's just a gym. So why do they want my fingerprint? That's the one definite personal identifier I can never change. And if I give it to them, they'll have a way to tie that biometric data to my name, my address, my phone number, and my credit records, all of which that gym also has.
   Where does it stop? How much personal privacy do I have to give up just keep my heart from giving out on me when I'm 70?
   If I want to keep working out there my choices now are down to two: fork over my driver's license every time, which is also none of their Goddamned business, or let them scan my fingerprint.
   I'm going for the driver's license. Fuckers.

Bliss

Sometimes I wish I was stupider.
   Really. There are days I wish my mind would just turn off. Times I wish I had less ambition. Moments when I believe that I would be truly happier if I didn't think so damned much.
   If I could just slog to work, then slog back home, eat dinner, turn on the tube and zone out for three hours or so until it was time to go to sleep to start the cycle all over again, I might have less stress. If I had nothing to strive for then I'd never be disappointed.
   It seems that all I've been doing lately is fighting, both against myself and outside forces. I'm trying to get published and that's a definite uphill battle, I've been trying to get a decent job close to home - good luck on that - I've been trying to put together a business plan for a new venture my brother-in-law and I are starting, and that's a struggle. I know, the less-trodden path is the more rewarding, etc. etc. etc. But does it have to be such a rocky, frustrating road? Can't it be just a little bit easier?
   I know - I'll commit a crime and get put in prison. I'm thinking some non-violent white-collar crime, nothing with blood or where anyone gets injured, that's just not right. There's no ambition in prison but to get out, which will happen eventually. Plus the days are nice and regimented, it's all done for you.
   On second thought... if I went into prison the first thing I'd probably do is plan to break out. And since I'd have nothing but time I'd probably accomplish it. But then I'd get sloppy and get put back in the klink for making a stupid mistake like using my real name on a lease or something.
   Better to walk the straight and narrow right now. It might be frustrating and full of disappointment, but at least it's honest.

Unexpected Ecologist

I was in the convenience store today, buying a Lotto ticket - you can't win if you don't play - behind a homeless guy who was talking to himself as he bought a quart of Miller. I couldn't make heads or tails of his dialogue, he was muttering and not finishing sentences, but I did notice that his clothes were too big. And not like he'd lost a lot of weight, like they were someone else's once upon a time. Which they most likely were. The guy got his quart of Miller in a paper sack and shuffled off to his wheeled basket piled high with soiled treasures picked from others' cast-offs. And a notion suddenly struck me.
   That homeless guy is a grass-roots ecologist.
   Think about it. Almost everything he owns, wears, or consumes is recycled or recyclable. The paper bag wrapped around his beer is probably made from recycled paper, the bottle almost certainly is, his clothes are recycled, and the collection of things in his wheeled basket is recycled.
   He may not know it, but that man is providing the example for the rest of us. Reduce, reuse, recycle. Talk to yourself, forget to bathe, argue with floating dandelion seeds.
   Well, maybe not those last few, but you get the idea.

Eavesdropping

I like to keep my eyes and ears open, I try to observe without being obtrusive and listen without butting in. People fascinate me, all kinds of people, even the most pretentious, horrible douchebag is someone's son or someone's father, and as such has an innate nobility, even if that person doesn't know it themselves. If you just hang back a little, watch and listen, you learn the most amazing things.
   I took my empty plastic and glass bottle up to Ralph's today, to the recycling center. This is the one right across the street - literally - from the Salvation Army mission, so it's always busy with homeless people cashing in their day's treasure. If you get there early in the morning, however, they're mostly all still out picking through dumpsters, so you can get in and out pretty quick.
   I got there early, about ten minutes after it opened, and got to work feeding my empties through one at a time. After about five minutes I happened to look up and saw that a crowd had gathered. Where there had been no one but me and another guy, all of a sudden there were eight or ten people, all waiting patiently for their turn. They snuck up on me.
   You can tell the career homeless, especially in Summer. They're the ones with the dramatic brown tans, the thin, bony limbs, and the towels and re-used bottles of water in their shopping carts. There were three of them in line. They all knew each other, and they were speaking low and quiet. I tried to eavesdrop over the sound of the recycler but it was too clangy. Then a fourth lady showed up, loud and happy and overbearing. She joined the conversation, and as usually happens the others increased their volume to match hers. And I listened. It was a glimpse into a world that, honestly, I hope never to become part of.

Things I learned:
   Pickers - as they call themselves - absolutely have turf. They discussed major streets and intersections across Pasadena, who had claim to what side, and who they witnessed venturing out of their regular area.
   They know police officers by first name.
   They're actually averse to certain soup kitchens, because of lectures they get. They'd rather sift through a dumpster than hear a sermon.
   There's a protocol to who gets first crack at restaurant food tossed out at the end of the night, and if you violate that protocol you're cruising for a beating.
   You're also cruising for a beating if you cheat someone out of a prime spot in the shade at the park during the day.
   Some travel very long distances on a regular route. One guy spent a few days in Pasadena, a few in Long Beach, a few in Santa Monica, and a few in LA proper before starting the cycle again. During the hottest summer months he favored the beach communities, but evidently so do many others.
   As you might expect, there is a great deal of personal tragedy that goes into putting a person out of a regular home. But these four talked about friends dying on the street with such detachment that it made me want to cry for them, since they weren't willing or able to themselves.
   They're not smart. It sounds uncharitable, I know, but I didn't hear any hidden pearls of wisdom, or glean any astounding insights into the human condition. They were four very down-on-their-luck homeless people just trying to get through another day. I don't suppose you find yourself in that position if you're prone to introspection and thinking about the consequences of what you do.

When I was finished I got my ticket for $5.75, redeemable in Ralph's just steps away. I thought I would buy grapes and fruit juice, but I finally got a good look at the loud lady. Thin, unwashed, gray hair and bad teeth, wearing men's clothes pulled from a bin of cast-offs. She was the one who'd been talking about all her friends who'd died in the past year, street people who weren't coming back to the Mission across the street, ever.
   I gave her the ticket. She needed it more than I did.

Poetry Ain't Sissy

When I was in middle school and high school I didn't like poetry. I read voraciously, almost anything I could get, from The Hobbit to Moby Dick (seriously, I read the whole thing), and all those books they assign you in English class, like Silas Marner. But when it came to poetry they lost me. Shakespeare was all right, but I liked the blood and guts and ghosts better - and the severed body parts in Titus Andronicus - than I liked the sonnets. Keats, Coleridge, Yeats, I could do without them all. Ode to Grecian Urn my ass. Poetry was not for me.
   Then I got to college, or specifically to my alma mater, Austin College (go 'Roos!) and an upper-level English class. We got to the inevitable poetry component, which I was determined to gut out like a recruit in boot camp. Dr. Gray had us read some old coot named Walt Whitman. So I put off the assignment as long as possible, and only a few hours before class did I crack the Norton Anthology and read 'Crossing Brooklyn Ferry.'
   After the first stanza it was like somebody punched me in the gut.
   I read it. And read it again. And a third time. It's not long but it is powerful. Nuclear. If this was poetry I was hooked. The lyricism, the immediacy, the raw energy of Whitman's words made me feel like I was there with him, waiting to cross the East River into 1858 Manhattan. Read it, please, and read it again. If you don't like poetry you will after you read 'Crossing Brooklyn Ferry.'
   A lot of what we think of as American democracy, the populist, inclusive, celebratory spirit that informs our national image comes from Whitman. His work was controversial because of its frank sexuality and sometimes erotic imagery, but that's part of what makes it so good. If nothing else poetry should be honest and evocative, and Whitman's work is absolutely those two things.
   I'm telling you, if you haven't read Walt Whitman you're cheating yourself. Go to the library - or libary - and check out a volume of 'Leaves of Grass.' Doesn't matter which one, he revised the thing every few years for most of his life, just get it and devour it. You'll thank me, I guarantee it.


COMMUTE: there - 40 minutes     back - 35 minutes
CONTRACT COUNTDOWN: 72 days

Some Days You Just Can't Win

I'm not normally one to revel in another's misery... well, maybe I am. A little. I do love it when liars get what's coming to them, and cheats lose all their ill-gotten gains, stuff like that makes my day. I should say I'm not one to revel in an undeserving stranger's misery.
   Until today.
   I was at the gas station, putting a few gallons into the truck* when a lady drove up to the pump next to me. The credit card reader on that one was broken and I tried to tell her, but she realized she'd pulled up on the wrong side of pump, the cap was on the passenger side.
   So she got back in the car and turned it around. Only to get back out of the car - this time with her back to me - whereupon she found the sign that said the card reader wasn't working.
   She got back in the car and drove around to the other row of pumps. She got out of the car only to realize that once again she had lined up the driver's side, but the cap was still on the passenger side.
   I tried not to be obvious as I watched her turn her car around AGAIN, this time facing the right way. But the story doesn't end there, I took my time cleaning the rear windows on my truck to watch. She tried a credit card, which didn't work. She tried another one, which also didn't work. She pressed the button to get the attendant's attention, and asked, a little irked, if any of the card readers on any of the pumps worked.
   He told her both her cards had been declined.
   The poor lady screwed the cap back on, got in her car and drove away.
   Man, some days the best stuff just falls into your lap.



* by the way, has anybody noticed gas is still over $3 a gallon? During a recession when people are out of work and no one's driving? I smell a conspiracy.

Mastodons And Banana Peels

I got to thinking about cavemen the other day. And I don't mean Otzi the iceman, I mean real cavemen from like 30,000 years ago, before cities, before science, probably even before writing. They lived hard lives, even a minor cut could get infected and lead to death, let alone anything as serious as getting mauled by a sabretoothed tiger or giving birth. But they soldiered on, invented agriculture and civilization and didn't have time for things like depression or road rage, even though they probably invented roads.
   But what did they find funny?
   There are certain universal tropes in humor - slipping a banana peel, for instance, or anything the Stooges do - but some things just aren't funny across cultures. Japanese don't think American humor is funny because it mocks people, while what the French find funny wouldn't be amusing in a New Yorker cartoon. And Dane Cook is never funny to anyone anywhere. People who lead hard lives need a lot of funny to unwind; both the Greeks and the Romans had a grand comic tradition, and Elizabethan England with its plagues, wars, and pestilences had Shakespeare and his hilariously funny comedies.
   So cavemen, who led lives ten times harder than the most abject Roman slave, had to have some kind of humor. What would they have found funny?
   I don't think satire would be a big hit with cavemen, which means irony would probably be right out. No Ben Franklin or Mark Twain for guys wearing bear furs. Since they didn't really have political institutions (that we know of) then there wouldn't have been a caveman Stephen Colbert . No witty rejoinders a la Oscar Wilde or Dorothy Parker, no clever cocktail party talk since they didn't have cocktails. Or probably parties for that matter.
   We're left with really broad humor, Three's Company kind of stuff, where Og shares a cave with Nee and Maa, two curvy, bouncy cave girls while putting one over on Old Man Nuk who only lets Og stay in the cave because Og pretends to be gay.
   Doubtless cavemen would have found face-slapping amusing, so the Stooges would have been a big hit. Also Gilligan's Island, although they might have found the premise more of tragedy than a comedy. And they probably would have killed Gilligan the first time he cost them a trip off the island.
   Maybe I'm selling our caveman ancestors short here, but I think they would have found farts immensely funny. I know I thought farts were funny when I was little and they're still hilarious to this day, so I don't think cavemen would have taken the high ground on this one.
   Did cavemen have limericks? 'There once was mastodon from Nantucket...'
   See? This is why I need a time machine, so I can solve this kind of question. Let's get the egghead scientists cracking on this one.

The Joy Of Manual Labor

I started working when I was 8 years old. Growing up in Texas, 'working' meant serving as slave labor for my grandfather; you name the menial task and I probably did it. Of course there was mowing grass, raking leaves, edging lawns, pruning roses, and picking vegetables. But there was also shingling roofs, pouring cement, tilling the earth, turning the compost pile, cutting down trees, and weeding beds of okra, which is such a revolting task I challenge anyone who hasn't done it to try it and tell me that's not the worst job ever.
   I moved to Pasadena in February, 2002. Since that time I have not done one lick of manual labor. Not even a tiny bit. Sure, I've cleaned my apartment, done the dishes, and killed spiders, but none of that counts. There's no lifting involved, no bending, no real cursing, not the creative kind of epithets that seem more appropriate outdoors. I missed working outside, but it's kind of like missing the taste of some familiar food you can't get in a foreign country; after so long you don't even remember what the thing was really like in the first place.
   Well, this morning I reminded myself. I just finished four hours of manual labor around my mother's house. I wasn't certain I would remember what to do, but when I got that hoe in my hand things just fell into place. It was like old times, walking the yard, raking leaves, getting my hands really dirty and letting them stay that way for hours. And I'm a little sore too, across my back and down my legs, but it's a good sore, the kind of ache that lets you know you've accomplished something.
   Maybe when I get back to Pasadena I'll become a gardener or something. At least then I'll have something to show for all my work.

I'm Back - And So's My Mojo

Okay, so it's still a little unsettled around here - it's not supposed to be this cold in SoCal - but I'm back and I can handle cold weather. You may recall a few weeks ago I was concerned that nothing strange had happened to me in a while. I think the Universe was taking pity on me, in preparation for my father's passing. Still tough to take, but things are getting back to normal. And I mean normal for me, not normal for you.
   The weirdos are back.
   Wheewww... That was me, heaving a huge sigh of relief. I was at the Post Office this morning, the big, fancy one down by City Hall, not the grody, tiny one down by RiteAid, mailing off a few query letters. I was standing in line beside that table they have, the one with all the forms you can fill out for everything, including voter registration. A puzzled-looking lady was standing there, filling out several forms. She wasn't particularly dirty, so she probably wasn't homeless, but she wasn't entirely present in the moment either, if you know what I mean. Her hair was scattered around, and she kept glancing up at every new person who entered as if they might want to steal something from her. I know the look, it's common among the crazy people who flock to me. Another clue was the very loud conversation she was having with herself; I was part of the conversation, I just didn't know it at the time.
    'Temporary... temporary... what do they mean by temporary?'
    'If I can just get these jerk-offs off my back...'
    'What day... day... what's today? What day is it today?'
(a very kind older lady answered for me, not realizing I was supposed to be taking this bullet)
    'Return? When? I don't know when I'm getting back from New York. Maybe I'll send a pizza back, take care of all this bullshit.'

   All this while the line was slowly advancing. And guess who had just stepped to the front of the line when Crazy Lady finished filling out her forms? That's right, yours truly. She came up to me, reached out to touch me, thought better of it, then waved the forms at me.
    'I'm gonna.... they told me to finish... when I finish with these just to go back to the first window. So I'm not cutting in front of you, okay?'
   Of course I let her go, I would never impede one of my people in their daily lunacy. Besides, I was just glad to have them back.

The Hoff

I cannot believe I have let so much time go by - months, for God's sake - without paying tribute to the greatest actor/singer/sidekick to a talking car/entrepreneur of this or any century. I am speaking, of course, of David Hasselhoff.
   "But Don," you might say, "he's no Billy Mays." And indeed he isn't. But Billy, rest his soul, was no David Hasselhoff. Tall, dark, and almost handsome enough to turn a straight man gay, David Hasselhoff has, if nothing else, proved the American dream. If you work hard enough and fight long enough, you too can earn the right to ogle chicks in bikinis and call it 'Executive Producing.'

Mr. Hasselhoff's Opus:
   The Young and the Restless - David appeared as Dr. Snapper Foster, in the mid 70's. He was stuck in soap opera hell (though it is a hell with regular paychecks for an actor) until 1982. That was when young Mr. Hasselhoff had his brush with destiny in the form of a black TransAm.
   Knight Rider - forget the silly secret-agency premise, if you boil this show down to its Aristotelian essence, it's cool. In order to fight crime, a guy gets a super-car that talks. It doesn't get cooler than that. Oh, wait a minute, it does get cooler. Much cooler. Read on.
   Baywatch - when I was sixteen, I could not have imagined a better premise on which to base a show. David Hasselhoff, as Mitch the lifeguard, leads a group of scantily-clad, large-breasted women in flotation exercises. It's great, and you only have to learn one plot:
   First Act - beach walking and girl-watching. Maybe some minor personal development.
Second Act - some kind of emergency which requires lady lifeguards to get wet. And it's usually cold.
   Third Act - this is the make-a-sandwich portion of the show. There's usually some kind of minor plot/personal crisis for the featured actor of the week to deal with. Minimal bikini time.
   Fourth Act - more bikini time, and another crisis resolution.
    America's Got Talent - yeah, it pretty much doesn't, and this show proves it. The Hoff is a great cheerleader, and he actually does know what he's doing. He was executive producer of Baywatch, remember.
   Greeting Cards - The Hoff has a line of greeting cards now. I know this because I bought one at Target a while back. I just can't find a good link to them.
   Drunk Eating a Burger - evidently The Hoff has a bit of a problem with The Liquor. His daughter videotaped him drunk off his ass trying to eat a burger.

Interesting Hoff Facts:
   - Germans actually do love David Hasselhoff, it's not just an urban legend. He has a huge career in Germany as a recording star.
   - most of the Baywatch ladies have appeared nude in Playboy. There's some kind of odd symbiosis going on between Hef and Hoff. One notable and regrettable exception: Jasmine Bleeth has not appeared nude anywhere.
   - because of its worldwide distribution, what many foreigners think of America comes from Baywatch. I suppose it could be worse, they could think it's like 'Facts of Life.'
   - The Hoff tweets. You can follow him, if you like: 'A caffeinated Hoff is a happy Hoff'