2003-02-02 - 1:11 p.m.
Some people will believe absolutely anything. I stop at Peet's this morning for some coffee and a muffin and this woman at one of the tables is holding forth on her opinion of what happened to the space shuttle:
The Israelis did it.
Huh?
The Israelis blew up the space shuttle.
Or the Jews. Whichever. Her tone of voice pretty much suggested that in her world, the two are synonymous.
From what she said--in the minute or two it took for me to get my coffee and make a swift exit before she wound up wearing it on her head--the Israelis did this to make a martyr out of their astronaut and frame the Palestinians for it. I suppose they also plucked a couple of teenagers off the streets of the West Bank and dropped them in the middle of East Texas claiming they were throwing rocks up at the shuttle, or something.
Then I come home, go onto the L.A. Times web site, and find out that bits of the shuttle have already shown up on eBay.
I've decided that accidents like the Columbia crash are the universe's way of keeping humanity on its own planet so it doesn't pollute outer space with greed and stupidity. That's my theory for today, anyway.
***
Apparently, one of the unfortunate side-effects of studying German for seven years is that whenever you touch a musical instrument you're compelled to try and figure out how to play "Du, Du liegst mir im Herzen." Somebody shoot me.
***
I am officially an old man. I've known this for a while, but the point has been driven home to me twice already this weekend.
On Friday night I went to see my friend's band play at an all-ages club. The place was filled with baby punks. There are two things about baby punks that make me feel old. One, they're too polite. They cop the same sort of 'tude punks have always adopted but it disintegrates into "Sirs" and "Ma'ams" and "Excuse mes" the instant an adult speaks to them. Two, they don't dress like punks--they dress the way that countless TV sitcoms and Partnership for a Fun-Free America ads have told them punks dress. It must cost them at least $300 apiece to look that punk.
Then, last night, I went drinking with Jeff and some of his other friends to celebrate his birthday. Jeff is only a few years younger than me, so normally age isn't an issue with this crowd--but then we got to talking about Columbia and I realized I was the only one who hadn't been sitting in homeroom watching Christa McAuliffe get blown up the first time around. By that time I was already out of high school and trading "What color were Christa McAuliffe's eyes"-type jokes over beers in the CSUN campus pub that evening. Basically, I've been old enough to drink longer than most of these people had been old enough to drive.
But then we all decided that alcohol was a preservative and that physically I've been holding steady at 21 since 1985. That made me feel better.
***
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