2001-08-07 - 2:31 p.m.
I need to get out of California more often--if only to remind myself that my home state is absolutely nothing like the rest of the U.S. I may have zero patience with most of the people here--with their flakiness, image fixation and epic-level narcissism--but I feel like a complete space alien when I venture beyond California�s borders and I return wanting to suck down a whole plate of tofu and then curl up in an isolation tank for the next month. This can�t be healthy. If I want the people of Middle America to kneel before me like the rest of you then I should at least pretend that I understand and/or give half a shit what they think. But it�s hard.
I�ll come back and write more when my mood ring�s no longer black.
***
The first thing you need to know about Denver is that its airport is big. And I mean, fucking big. Your plane spends more time taxiing to and from the gate than it does in the air. And whose bright idea was it to line that tunnel--the one the interterminal choo-choo trains pass through--with all those spinning miniature propellers? From the inside of the train they look like thousands of rotating knives. I kept expecting Freddy Krueger to show up.
That said, DIA is surprisingly easy to navigate, given its size--way easier than O�Hare (the real-life model for the mall in Day of the Dead) or DFW (which seems to operate on the assumption that anyone who enters Texas should be prevented from ever leaving). Still, I came away liking San Diego�s ridiculous little airport even more than I did before. It�s absurd for the sixth-largest city in America to be serviced by something as tiny and outdated as Lindbergh Field, but I love everything about it--from the harrowing descent over the downtown skyscrapers to the kids who sit under the flight path and throw rocks at the planes to the way the pilot slams on the brakes upon landing and skids to a stop right at the terminal. Air travel should not be for the weak.
***
So what was I doing in Denver, anyway?
Before I tell you, blow your nose so you won�t get boogers on your screen. Take whatever you�re drinking right now and set it aside. And take that gum out of your mouth--if you accidentally suck it into your windpipe and choke to death, I won�t be held responsible.
OK. Ready?
I was a judge at a beauty contest.
Or, actually, a not-a-beauty-contest contest--since the judging criteria focused not on physical attractiveness (given that the contestants were of a wide range of ages and all had various physical impairments) but on accomplishments, disability rights advocacy, and the ability to make public appearances without coming across as a full-on socially maladjusted freak. Basically it was a traditional beauty pageant but with all the "beauty" parts PC�d out of it, making for a very surreal event indeed.
Even so, I had a lot of fun with it. I�m a very judgmental person, in case you haven�t noticed. Most of the contestants have done a million times more with their gimpy lives than I�ll ever do with mine, and here I was passing judgment on them--selecting which one would get that tacky rhinestone crown put on her head and which ones would get sent home muttering that the whole thing was rigged. It was a good practice run for when I�m The One Who Decides Who Lives and Who Dies.
***
Fun�s fun, but after it was over I desperately needed to steam-clean my brain so I headed for the Tattered Cover downtown. On the way there the cabdriver "treated" me to his favorite right-wing talk show--something called the "Great American Freedom Network," which mostly consisted of someone who sounded like Boomhauer ranting about the U.N. and the EPA from what sounded like the bottom of a well. Normally that kind of shit scares me, but the lower-than-low production values and sheer crackpotitude of it were actually kind of charming. I don�t recall any specific references to black helicopters but I�m sure they were in there somewhere. It was all so very 1995 I could have cried.
***
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