My Weekend [09.10.2006]
My weekend:
Thursday we (Me, Ben, Brian [our new roommate] and Ian [dude that lived here before Brian]) all went to see Tool at the Staples Center. Amazing show of course.
Afterwards we went to Brian�s apt to pick up his sister Jenny who flew to Europe the next day, and we said one final goodbye to his old apartment.
Friday I mostly just played poker. I always love the drunken fish that come out on Fridays. I took one of the funniest beats I�ve taken in a long time, but sadly I can�t discuss it as someone would surely recognize the hand and I want to keep my identity a secret for a little while longer.
Saturday was crazy. Ben�s college roommate Mike got in from the East Coast in the morning to visit for the week. Ben, Mike, Brian and I met up with some other friends at the Upright Citizen�s Brigade theatre for an improve show. It was great. The highlight of the show was that one guy unintentionally broke three chairs (and then a fourth intentionally) at three different times throughout the show, and then expressed his outrage against Ikea. They are the same crappy chairs we have at our kitchen table.
Brian then led us a mile to a sushi place on Hollywood Blvd only to find out that the place he was thinking of doesn�t actually exist, so we pulled a 180 and went to some place called Big Wangs instead (it�s basically a Hooters knockoff). They were checking ID�s at the door, and I showed mine hoping the guy wouldn�t look too carefully. It worked. As I walked in he said, �Congratulations young man�, and a few seconds later he asked Mike, �Wait, what number month is it?� Mike said �nine�, and the bouncer said, �Ok, good�. I guess they don�t really look at the day very carefully.
We walked back to the car and passed a Scientology Museum that we had passed earlier. There was someone handing out cards for a free tour, but the Museum was long closed. It was 11:45 and they close at 10. We kind of stood at the glass door seeing if anyone was there, and a very cute girl opened the locked door for us. We showed her our cards we had gotten earlier, and she looked confused that we had them so late. She must be really dedicated to her cause, because she gave us the full tour anyway.
We did the tour mostly for shits and giggles. We all pretty much agreed that Scientology is a giant jopke, but were curious nonetheless. After the two hour tour, it made a little more sense to me. It�s basically a giant self-help group modeled after L Ron Hubbard. The man did some impressive stuff in his life, so relating the methods to him creates some appeal. A lot of people are very hesitant to do self-help stuff, so somewhere along the line, someone came up with the brilliant idea of marketing it as a Church. Despite the fact that Scientology has no religious content, this marketing scam works.
As for the actual material, it�s basically a dumbed down version of Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP). NLP is basically a way of applying psychology to master techniques like evoking specific emotions at the right times, building rapport in social environments, and anchoring feelings with actions. The stuff really comes in handy for a lot of every-day scenarios, especially in social-business settings. Scientology basically seemed like a version of that with the scientific mumbo-jumbo taken out in order to create mass appeal.
To put it another way, Scientology is a self-help program marketed with religion in place of the science in order to appeal to everyday people.
We were all stunned to find out it was almost 1:30am when the tour ended, so we just headed home.
Today (Sunday), we went to a taping of Family Feud in Hollywood. I was expecting to see Al Borlan from Home Improvement as the host, but apparently his reign is over. The show is now hosted by the guy that played Mr. Peterman on Seinfeld.
The funniest thing I�ve ever seen on Family Feud was from a Southern, overweight, African-American, Super-Baptist family. The family was asked to name a �popular United States port city�. The first lady said, �New Jersey!�.
The host paused. �Judges?� Bzzzz. �I�m sorry, we were looking for a city, not a state.� He went to the next man. �Let�s try this again. We�re looking for a popular United States port CITY.�
Without hesitation, the man proudly yelled out, �Florida!�
I was hoping to see something similar, and it came in form of the tossup question. �Name a famous Englishman.� The man on the right had some quick reflexes and buzzed in quickly. �Sherlock Holmes!�
Bzzzzzzzzzzzz.
The young lady across from him was clearly drawing a blank, and the best answer she could come up with was John Wayne.
It�s not THAT bad of an answer. If you think about it, English was the language he spoke most often while he was still alive!
Ok, obviously they buzzed her wrong too. Since neither contestant got an answer on the board, they scrapped that segment of the show, and pretended like it never happened. They went back to their original places and did their introduction as if they were just coming out of commercial break all-over again. It�s a shame that will never be aired on TV.
We saw two episodes in total. So if you ever see a family with 1 man, a sister, and 3 cousins that are all sisters, and their name is Mechemillan, or Mashimmen or something similar, look for me in the audience. (OMGZ IM GONNA BE ON DA Tee-Vee!!!!!11!1!one!!)
After that we got some sushi (Ahi Sushi on Ventura in the valley is awesome and decently priced), and I think now we�re going out to play some mini-golf, so I�m gonna wrap this up.
-thanks for reading
� Justin Bonomo
