"Who the Hell wants it?" I thought about the campaign to 'keep Hollywood in Hollywood.' The theme of the campaign is perfect for these egocentric bastards. Their slogan allows them to feel self assured that Hollywood is something special the rest of America, nay, even the world would want. What Hollywood wants of course comes down to money. They don't want film makers like Sam Raimi running off to places with names like Wisconsin to shoot a movie. It means they'll hire a Westconson caterer and sleep in Misskonsun hotels. "Man, that like totally blows and shit!" I should probably leave poor old Hollywood alone. It gets more bile spewed upon it than any other city in the world. Hollywood certainly brings to mind more wickedness and atrocities to many American's heads than Dachau or Vatican city. Most Japanese tourists, I believe, are convinced Hollywood is the capitol of the United States. Technically, it should be. It does more to unite the states than Washington. More people were brought together by Seinfeld every Thursday night than CNN's house debate telecasts.

Whoa.

Was that a....racist comment about Japanese people I made a few moments ago? Oh, dear. They do not think Hollywood is the capitol of the USA. They are far more politically and geographically savvy than what I implied in jest. For my jape, I apologize to the people of Japan, Japanese descent and their Emperor who rules them.

For the second time in under two years I am approaching a financial flat line. The EKG blip has been steadily tracing the beat down. Without a paycheck there can be no renewed blip to send the green line sailing back up. Flat line is imminent. At least when I hit that numeric equator between plus and minus, without credit cards, there isn't much further to go. I'm not as depressed or useless as the last time this happened, I mean, I do have the ability to do more than drink cheap beer and eat ramen noodles gooped up good in ketchup and that self-contained flavored powder. Yup, those were good times. Don't think that the beer was only an escape from my situation and a form of self-medication, it was, but the hops it provided was also an important nutritional suplement to my otherwise death-defying diet in which the only thing stopping me from getting scurvy was a half pound of ketchup a day.

Does any of what I've been saying here today congeal nicely into a main point: Why am I depressed? Why is Hollywood afraid of losing itself? Why are American's so ignorant of the rest of the world? Is there anything to better bind us together than television? This one aside, is there one unified answer to these questions I've raised? Or do some of the questions answer the other questions?

The answer to all the above questions might be "Jesus," according to the bumper sticker I saw earlier. I especially like it as the answer to question #3.

Today is day three. Tomorrow, day four, ends the count, thankfully. I was wondering how much Kirsten's absence would affect me before she left. Now I know. Absence of a loved one is probably as close as most of us will ever have to come to understanding how a one-legged man feels every morning upon turning to get out of bed, ready to set both feet on the floor.

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