The Wednesday Pop Culture Rant has been to the coast. We have seen Cali soggy and overcast, which is a bit like seeing grandma in her housecoat for the first time; the sunshine covers a multitude of sins. Forget the earthquakes: a few good rains might just cause the state to swirl down the storm drain all the way to Bakersfield.
But nothing can dampen the buzz of the Califolk. The Rant sat in on a nonprofit think tank that had more great ideas in one afternoon than Heritage has generated in forty years1; in San Diego we met Victor Ochoa, one of the great muralists of Chicano Park; at the Bread & Salt art center we swam in Dark Matter with the artist Melissa Walter and astrophysicist Dr. Karin Sandstrom; we ate street tacos and mole sauce; oh yes we ate street tacos and mole sauce; our man Johnny High-Hat entertained us with his encyclopedic knowledge of San Diego and vision for Fern Street Circus; the answer is yes: The Rant is cooler than you for knowing someone in the circus; we got all inspired with our woman CZ and watched her cut a rug with Judy at the Big Kitchen; we folded cranes everywhere we went and left them behind as totems of our determination; The Rant attended a high school music competition High-Hat helped to judge in Chula Vista and heard a flautist play a melody of songs from the Legend of Zelda he arranged himself2; we watched Somalis and Latinos and Muslims and Asians go about their grinding work of making the country work for fat-assed white people that sit around and judge them.
The Rant had an epiphany that we are going to win because all of that energy and joy and grit and exhausting labor is bigger and badder than your tiny hate and endless bitching and mournful wailing for a past that never existed. We’re coming with a relentless pounding of drums and spinning of turntables turntables and ribbons of paintbrushes and hissing of spray cans and lines of code, and the mirthless merchants of hate are going to crumble under their own brittleness and spite.
- The Rant hates to name drop, but its possible we met one of the dudes that created Guitar Hero. Ok, we’re done now
- The Rant knew Flute Boy had no chance of winning because Trombone Harry played some fancy-pants sonata accompanied by some ancient woman born about five minutes after Bartolomeo di Francesco Cristofori knocked out the first set of ivories. You’ll always be number one in The Rant’s heart, Flute Boy
