Potpourri I

Sometimes, there are plenty of perfectly good things that are going on that deserve an essay, but just aren’t long enough to make for a full Bellview essay. So, Potpourri is born!

Checkout Register 8

I went to the grocery store recently and picked up almost all of the items that I needed. After looking at my list though, there was ONE more thing that I needed to get. I went over to the "personal care" aisles and went up and down twice before giving up on finding what I needed.

So, I went over to one of the cash registers to find someone that could help me out; being a racist, I tried to find someone that I was sure could speak English, so I didn’t have to take much time explaining what I was looking for. Sadly, all I could find was old Asian women, so at checkout register 8, I approached this lady with a question.

"What aisle are the condoms on?" I said in a slightly-muted voice that even at the age of 27 is surprising.

"Condoms?" she wondered.

Shit. This lady doesn’t know what I’m talking about.

"Condoms? What aisle are they on?" This time, it was loud enough that two women at the next register looked up at me. Now, I am embarrassed. A woman putting bags of groceries in her cart looks up at me, perhaps eyeing me to confirm that my looks warrant my need.

"Uh..." The older Asian woman that I am questioning looks helpless. "Condoms?" She says it loud enough that another grocery bagger looks up at her, but she too has no idea what "condoms" are. "Uh, over there?" She points towards the aisle where the ketchup and mustard can be found.

I am heated now, but determined. However, like a fool, I say a harder word to try and get my point across, instead of just saying "rubbers."

"Prophylactics? Where are your prophylactics?" The second I ask it, I want to slap myself. This lady doesn’t know what a condom is, so I say a harder version of the same word? UVA really did produce a quality product!

The lady at the register looks pitifully lost. Worse, the register workers on either side of number 8 are staring at me, as are the same two women that have been staring at me for this whole ordeal. I bail out.

"Thanks, anyway," I manage. "I’ll keep looking." Then, I scurry away.

The Real Deuce

Further evidence that MTV2 (or, as I like to call it, Music Television, since MTV doesn’t have that anymore) is the hottest channel in your lineup: in the last week, I have seen videos for Gang Starr’s "D.W.Y.C.K." featuring Nice and Smooth, De La Soul’s "Me, Myself and I", The Crystal Method’s "Keep Hope Alive" video from "The Replacement Killers", Soul II Soul’s "Back to Life", and Deee-Lite’s "Groove is in the Heart."

Also, CeCe Peniston’s video for "Finally" was on, and it reminded me of how much shit my brother Dave and I used to talk about her even when the song was out, because we were so sure that she was going to be a one-hit wonder. It was kind of like when we heard that song "Temptation" by Corina back in the early 90s...

"Temptation...is a part of life/
It doesn’t matter if you’re wrong or right..."

That girl hasn’t done a damned thing either, much like Crystal Waters, the girl that did that song "100% Pure Love." But, MTV2 gives life to all of these people once again because they not only show the videos that are of the moment, but also the classics and the videos from, say, four or five years ago that are just off the radar screen. Too bad MTV thinks that shows like "Undressed" and "The Real World" are actually entertaining...

What?

I was talking to my sister Cate recently, and she was telling me a story about waiting for a ride outside of the mall. She’s 14.

Man, I remember the good old days, hangin’ out waiting for rides from parents cause I wasn’t old enough to drive yet. I also remember the old days when I went to the mall...like, last year, when I was living in the Land of the Mall--the Washington, DC area, where there are about eight malls that I regularly went to for shopping needs--Montgomery Mall, Tysons Corner I, Tysons Corner II, Lake Forest Mall, Springfield Mall, Mazza Gallerie, Crystal City, The Shops of Georgetown, and White Flint. There aren’t any real malls in San Francisco proper, save for a set of stores in the southwestern corner of town.

"WHAT?" Cate said when I told her this. "No malls...what do you do? How do you live? Wha--"

Cate was shellshocked. She couldn’t grasp the concept of a city that didn’t have a mall. So, after explaining to her that the only difference is that those stores are just standalone storefronts downtown, I told her that I could still go to Gap or Banana Republic if things really did get desperate. And, the great thing about no malls is that I could go shopping at a bunch of local joints for my needs, not just chains. That is, of course, if I had any money.

"Oh," Cate said. "I don’t think I could live in San Francisco."

GI Joe

A friend of mine recently told me that The Cartoon Network is re-airing original episodes of “GI Joe”, so about four seconds later I had the TiVo working and set up a Season Pass to tape the daily episodes of one of the best cartoons of all time.

After watching my first couple of episodes recently, I fell in love all over again. Why? Even today, the best part about "GI Joe" is that whenever a tank, airship, Skyhawk, motorcycle, Jeep or helicopter gets hit by laser fire or a missile, the explosion that happens causes the operator of said vehicle to be ejected--unburned and unharmed--and alive to fight another day. In fact, I don’t think a single person got killed in any of the dozens of regular-season episodes that appeared in syndication. (Only in "GI Joe: The Movie" did anyone actually die.)

For years, I seriously believed that being involved in a major-airline plane crash would be harmless to me. I figured, "Whenever Duke, Scarlet, Snake Eyes or Destro gets shot down, they just fall out of a ball of fire, land on their feet and run to another vehicle. I could do that."

Seriously, though, this show was bad-ass. Being a guy meant that I had about 50 of these action figures, and my friend Chi-hung and I still talk about the year that Hasbro made the most pivotal change in the history of the line--Swivel-Arm Battle Grip, which allowed for the figures’ arms to not only be bent at the shoulder, but also at the elbow, allowing for the action heroes to carry guns and look like they meant business! Much like the personal computer, the automobile and the George Foreman Grilling Machine, the Swivel-Arm Battle Grip was a technological advancement that will undoubtedly go down in history as one of our nation’s most important achievements.

Or something.

Unbelievable

There was a beautiful moment that symbolized both the beauty of our national pastime and the problems with our sports-going culture in just three short minutes recently.

The Yankees played the Texas Rangers in a Monday night game on ESPN recently. It was 8-1 in the 8th inning, and Derek Jeter had just grounded out in his at bat. On his way back to the dugout (they were the road team), he took off his batting gloves and tossed them to an eight-year-old kid in the stands that was yelling Jeter’s name. The kid looked ecstatic—his idol had just thrown him a piece of equipment that would be cherished for the rest of his life. He held the gloves up for his two friends and family members to see, and he guarded them like all the gold in Fort Knox. The inning ended after Jason Giambi struck out, and ESPN went to commercial.

When they came back from commercial, the ESPN staff cut back to the kid with the batting gloves to talk about how lucky the kid must be feeling to have gotten Jeter’s gift.

The kid was on a cell phone, waving the batting gloves to the camera. Rick Sutcliffe, an announcer and former player, asked rhetorically, "I wonder if that kid will hawk [the gloves] on eBay."

Pitiful. But, what’s more pitiful--that the kid might sell the gloves, or that he is 8 years old and calling friends on a cell phone from a baseball game?

jetBlue

I recently flew jetBlue for the first time this past week on an east-coast trip. Man, what a great airline. My uncle Ron, who lives in the New York City area, has been flying these guys for a while, and is always talking about how good they are. Well, after only flying out of the jetBlue terminal at JFK for a couple of years, jetBlue flies to a number of large cities around the country, and they finally added Dulles International last year to the lineup. So, I gave them a roll.

The number of differences between jetBlue and other major airlines is shocking, but it has to start with CEO David Neeleman. My dad was telling me about how Neeleman spoke at one of his company’s meetings last year about recruiting. Even up until last Christmas, the CEO was still interviewing EVERY SINGLE EMPLOYEE that was hired. That’s crazy, but Neeleman was so sure of what kind of employee he wanted that he interviewed all of them with the HR director of jetBlue. That’s important, because you may notice that jetBlue employees work as many as three jobs for the airline--you might go to the ticketing area and get your ticket from one guy, who you then see doing "wheelchair duty" for various handicapped passengers, and THEN you see doing bag checks in the boarding area. I saw four people like this between my stops at Oakland and Dulles.

Other amenities--

DirecTV! Although I didn’t bring anything to read on my ride home Sunday night, I was all good...cause I had Sunday Night Baseball on ESPN (three hours), "Family Feud" and "Card Sharks" on Game Show Network (one hour), and a special on the History Channel (one hour). Fifteen minutes later, I was home. But, as they say on the airline, Bring Your Own Headset...the one they give you isn’t great.
Leather/pleather seats. I don’t know if it’s real leather, but it feels like leather, and that’s better than the bullshit felt lining that most airlines give you.
No drink/food carts. Now, I can sit in an aisle seat and not fear falling asleep and having my knees clocked by those huge monstrosities any longer. Instead, hot women bring around animal crackers!

And, the best thing about the jetBlue planes? The bathrooms. Folks, these are the biggest airplane bathrooms in US airline history. You know how people talk about joining "The Mile High Club" in airplane bathrooms? Normally, that would scare me in a bathroom like the ones on USAirways flights. But, damn, you could consider threesomes in those jetBlue bathrooms.

If you do, though, don’t buy your condoms at Checkout Register 8.

Random Bellviews, courtesy of Bell & Longer Community Trust:

Hitting two weddings on the same day: Opening Weekend
Club VIP, 9th and F Streets in Washington...for free: Opening Weekend
Hearing Dave Bell say the words “I’m getting NICE”: Opening Weekend
Dumping your leather jacket in San Francisco for shorts and t-shirts on the East Coast: Opening Weekend
Watching people who only dance once a year get wasted and throw down to Michael Jackson: Pricele...er, Opening Weekend

bellview--i love to nibble

Potpourri I