Day 54 – Domino’s Pizza and Comedians

This is somewhere at a beach in LA.

Today was my last full day in Los Angeles. I spent that day wisely by eating Domino’s Pizza and watching comedians like Jim Gaffigan, Louis CK, Brian Regan, and Russell Peters on YouTube.

When I was in fifth grade or so, my friends told me I should become a comedian when I grow up. I was the class clown. I made the jokes and the class laughed. I wrote funny essays that were read out loud by the teacher in order to shame me, but the class just erupted in a chaotic choir of laughter. I love humor. It’s always been a part of my life. When I was in a freshman in high school, I discovered sarcasm. I immediately fell in love with it. I overused it according to my French teacher. She told me that sarcasm can be intelligent but at a certain point it’s too much.

You know how sometimes your sarcasm is so advanced that people think that you’re stupid? And then you can’t be like, “No, I was being sarcastic.” They’ll just write it off as some excuse for your stupidity. I hate those situations. Usually what I do is I sit down on the ground and look up at the person or the group and quote the esteemed Fyodor Dostoevsky.

Sarcasm: the last refuge of modest and chaste-souled people when the privacy of their soul is coarsely and intrusively invaded.

That quote holds so many good, complicated words that it just makes you seem intelligent when you quote it without missing a beat. It’s like learning just one sentence of a foreign language, and when someone asks you if you speak that language, you just say that one statement that you have perfected. Like when I’m in France and someone asks me if I speak French, I reply, “Je ne le comprends pas” in the best French accent I can attempt to express. They usually think about it for a second and then laugh and continue spewing foreign words in rapid French. Brilliant plan.

Day 53 – Lunch at The Cheesecake Factory

His breath reeked of fish.

It was awesome. I’ve never been to The Cheesecake Factory although I’ve passed many over the nine weeks that I’ve been in the States. If you haven’t been to The Cheesecake Factory yet and you live in the States… then that’s alright, you don’t have to go. I just highly recommend it, that’s all. I had some enchiladas with rice and black beans. It sounded like the perfect meal to get at a restaurant like the Cheesecake Factory.

So Joe and I met with this elderly woman who works with the LAPD and with children and with all kinds of social entrepreneurs around the globe. It was inspiring to hear her stories about the orphans who were rescued from homelessness and malnourishment in countries like Brazil and Indonesia.

She also gave us a book called The Creature from Jekyll Island, which I’m super excited to read because it’s about economics. I’m really interested in finances because the second (or maybe the third) novel of our series will be about the global economic system. I mean, I’ve researched quite a bit and read a lot of books about it, but TCfJK will probably be the best read out of all of them. Or so I’ve heard. We’ll see.

Other than that, Joe and I have been writing our novel and we’ve made quite a bit of progress developing an additional character we thought we might add to the story because she contributes a very important aspect of the plot. It’ll be a little tough, though, because Joe is flying to New York tomorrow and I’ll be flying up to Seattle on the same day, so we won’t be able to write this book together in person, which will be a bit difficult. But thank technology for Skype and Facebook. We’ll figure it out.

Day 51 and 52 – Meeting Inspiring People

I found these fake glasses. #nerd #lol #hashtag

Day 51

We met with a cinematographer at some Starbucks near Pasadena. He’s a youthful dude who filmed some music videos for artists like Akon and Wiz Khalifa. We talked about the media and how you can’t trust anyone. That’s actually one of the last words my uncle told me before he passed away. He said, “If there’s anything that I’ve learned in my life, it’s that you cannot trust anyone.” He had been in the world of business and economics and entrepreneurship and real estate for more than 45 years, so he knew what he was talking about. Anyway, it was a lot of fun talking to someone who is actively involved in the filming business in Hollywood. Joe and I asked him if he could make a movie out of our novel once it’s done and he said that if the funds are available he could do it. Let’s see.

In the evening, Joe and I went to play some indoor football with some other young guys. I’m talking, of course, of the sport where there’s a ball and you kick it with your foot. Hence the name. I didn’t tell them where I’m from or what I have been doing in terms of athleticism for the past six years. So I played and then they asked me if I play at a college level. It’s funny playing football in the United States. The level of technique and mentality and strategy in the States does not come close to the level I experience in Germany. My coach gets extremely upset when I play a mediocre pass to my teammate. It’s either perfection or bench.

Day 52

We woke up early to drive to LAX to pick up and hang out with Vishal, who is an Indian social reformer, philosopher, writer, teacher, and a bunch of other things. So Joe and I and Vishal had a nice walk on the beach near LAX and talked about philosophy, education, and media. Then we stopped by the Fish Bar and had fish ‘n chips for lunch. We dropped him off at LAX and then drove over to Long Beach to meet up with one of my dad’s friends. He’s also a writer, so we talked about writing novels and non fiction and where to get inspiration from and all that. It was enlightening and very inspiring.

So now Joe and I are actually writing our novel. The planning is done, so we’re sitting here and typing away, creating the actual scenes and stuff. It’s a lot of fun, and I’m learning how to paint beautiful pictures with words. 

Day 46 and 47 – Blogging

This is an irrelevant picture of Seattle that I took a few weeks ago.

Day 46

We didn’t really do all that much that day. In the evening, however, we watched The Shawshank Redemption. I thought it was an absolutely incredible movie. My two friends thought it was pretty good but not absolutely incredible. So I threw a figurative glass of cold water in their faces and had them cower on a couch while I held a literal speech about freedom, truth, and hope at midnight. It was arguably one of my best speeches I had ever delivered.

Day 47

We met with a blogger at Starbucks somewhere on the outskirts of Pasadena. It was… nice. I couldn’t really learn much from him because what he told us I had already learned in 2011 after high school while working with those marketing and sales companies in the States and in Germany. But it was fun to learn about his history, how he became a blogger, why he writes columns for the local newspaper and why he thinks writing for TV shows and the radio are conducive to becoming a better writer. He also said that there’s hope for the continued existence of newspapers because some people do prefer holding a newspaper in their hands instead of reading about it online.

I’m currently reading Dean Koontz’s book Intensity. It’s pretty intense. Bet you didn’t see that pun coming. The opening scene seems to be dragging on and on forever. For the first couple of chapters, you see the entire world through the eyes of the protagonist, Chyna. I’m kinda craving a different view for at least a few paragraphs. But oh well. I shouldn’t be complaining. Dean has written dozens and dozens of novels whereas I’m not even published yet. But that will change by the end of this year. I hope. God, I really hope so.

I used “hope” in all three paragraphs. That’s pretty cool. Well, make that four now. Boom.

Day 35 and 36 – Going to Church

I didn’t go to Bethel today. I just didn’t take a picture to put in today’s post, so I’m using an old one because freedom.

Day 35

So on Sunday we went to church, which isn’t something I particularly enjoy doing with my free time. Why? Because sitting in pews surrounded by overly enthusiastic Christians who wear cheap fragrances all while listening to a pastor preach about something we already know about isn’t exactly what Jesus told Christians to do. At least, that’s what I gathered from reading the bible.

Nevertheless, I obediently sat on the wooden bench and took notes on what the pastor taught the congregation. He said a few things about giving financially, aka tithing. Like, giving 10% of what you have to the church. I don’t get that. Is the church a bank? The bible says to lay the money at the apostles’ feet, not the churches’ altar. Why does the church take money from the poverty-minded Christians? Giving 10% of what you have to the church… I mean, first of all, nobody really does that. Very, very few people give 10% of their income to their church. The annual average salary of Americans is $45,790. So, monthly that’s an income of about $3,816. Weekly, that’s $954. And 10% of that is 95.4 dollars. Who in their right mind gives 95.4 dollars to their church every Sunday? Yeah. Nobody. Not even the rich. Actually, especially not the rich. “I mean, I love the Lord, but… my five children need their own iPads, y’know?”

So then after church, we hiked up this mountain. It was more of a climb than a hike. Burned a lot of calories climbing up those stone walls and dusty pathways. We watched the sunset up there and then ran back home. Then Joe and I went on a second run for about 30 minutes, which was incredibly refreshing.

Day 36

Joe and I woke up at around 10 AM, ate breakfast, and went on a quest to find an insurance company so that we can sort out the insurance for the car we’re borrowing. We walked up the street in the bright, hot sun for about 15 minutes only to find out that everything for the car is covered in case we get in an accident. So we walked back down, but we were so deep in conversation that we walked past our street. So then we paused and looked around and realized that we were lost. So we meandered here and there, looking for our street for about an hour until we finally found it. We rushed back home and downed multiple glasses of water.

After all of that, we went to the Maranatha High School in Pasadena and took a quick tour. They have a beautiful turf sports field with beautiful football goal nets and it was just beautiful. I haven’t really played football in… about two months now. I’m aching to go back to Germany and just rock out on those beautiful grass fields.

Now we’re back home, making dinner. An assortment of delicious luscious dishes.