First Things First

Welcome back.  I'll just get to the updates.  Vista Drive has four more pictures, two in the Color section and two in the Black & White section.  Check out the new issue of American Bliss, coming March 21st.

Afterthoughts : Good Eats at the Galleria

I live by what used to be the mecca for all things "Valley Girl, the Sherman Oaks Galleria.  Remember Valley Girls?  They said stuff like, "Fer Shurr," and "Like toetelly awesome," and they hung out at the Galleria.  I lived though that.  But, that's not what I remember the Galleria for.  I'll remember it for the good times I had there, and all the great stuff there was to eat.

Food court came into my vocabulary in the early 80s.  The food court at the Galleria was great because you could hang out with friends and eat anything you wanted.  The Galleria had a pretty good food court.  One of my favorite places to eat was the New York Deli.  They had big ol' sandwiches there.  I always got the roast beef on rye, with a Coke and chips.  But, my favorite was their chocolate mousse.  Man, that thing was so great.  I think I must have eaten a slice of that mousse at least once a week.  Most weeks more.  Right next to that was a Hot Dog on a Stick.  Loved the hand dipped dogs there.  There were always cute girls working there too.  The cute ones worked the counter, while the biggest girl got to make the lemonade.  I loved those hot pants the girls wore.  Next to the Hot Dog on a Stick joint was a placed called Belgian Waffle.  On weekends sometimes we would go and get some waffles for breakfast.  They made the waffles right on the spot, no Eggo waffles there.  They were at least an inch and a half thick, and topped with so much fruit.  My favorite was the peach covered waffles.  However, they did have some great chocolate chip ice cream waffles with vanilla ice cream topped with tollhouse chocolate chips and whipped cream.  When the place closed we bought a waffle iron and made them at home.  But, they were never as good.  Down by the arcade there was an Orange Julius.  This one didn't just have those whipped drinks, but some really great hamburgers.  The burgers were cooked up right in front, right on the grill.  What I loved about the Orange Julius was the incredible french fries.  They had some sort of season salt on them.  Like a chili powder, or something.  I don't know what it was.  All I know is that it added such a great favor to the fries.  On the other side of the arcade entrance was another hot dog place.  I forget the name, but it had some of those great Hebrew National dogs.  I always got mine smothered in ketchup.  Right next to that was a place that made nothing but potatoes.  I remember I used to get a baked potato with sour cream for my mother there.  They had great potato skins there, and really great potato chips.  They were always so warm.  Around the corner there was something called Mexican Dan's.  I loved the enchiladas there.  They served them up with those nicely warmed tortilla chips.  Man, I haven't had a enchilada that good since the place closed.  Right next to that was a pizza place named Perry's Pizza.  It was pretty famous because it was featured in the movie Fast Times at Ridgemont High.  I didn't eat there too often, but it did have OK pizza.  What I remember was they would make a huge deep dish pizza and cut it up into little squares, not slices.  I also remember how I would bite into it having all the cheese come off in one motion as I tore into it.  There were a couple of other places, like the health food place that served things covered with sprouts.  I didn't ever go in there.  There was another place by the Orange Julius, but I don't even remember what it served.  Needless to say I never ate there either.

I think what I remember was how much fun I had hanging out at the Galleria.  I never got bored with the food because I always had something different to eat.  Those were good times because my Grandmother and I would walk to the mall, and wait for my mother go get off work there.  We didn't want her walking home in the dark.  My Grandmother would sit on a bench and people watch, and I would go to the arcade, and eat a different meal every night for dinner.

One night we were walking home from the Galleria when we saw the lights of two planes come together.  I didn't see, or hear, a collision, so I just thought it was a trick my eye had played on me.  It was only when we saw he news that we realized what we saw.  The planes did hit each other in mid air.  One was able to make it back to the Van Nuys airport, but the other crashed into the Galleria.  I had walked where the plane crashed no more than an hour before.  The whole third floor of the May Company was closed for about two months while they repaired the roof.

I wish that Galleria was still around.  Today the new Sherman Oaks Galleria is nothing like the one of my youth.  The name remains the same, only it's not the Galleria I knew and loved.

Editorial : Sick of Tiger

Tiger Woods must go.  I'm completely sick of this Tiger Woods mania.  I just don't get it.  Really I don't get how golf can even be called a sport.  It's more like a total bore, and Tiger is the biggest bore in golf.

During the nightly news sports segment there are always shots of Tiger swinging the clubs, and making putts.  Wow, like I haven't seen that a million times before.  Really the news could just show the same clip every night and say that it's Tiger on a different course, I wouldn't know.  I don't care!  There is nothing exciting about watching men hit a little white ball with long twigs.

And what is it about golf that makes golfers think that they have to be in a cone of silence in order to make a silly shot?  Never mind that other sports have loud crowds cheering, golf needs to have silence.  What's the difference between some boring idiot trying to putt a little ball into a whole and a guy trying to hit a 98 mile per hour fast ball while 60,000 people scream at the top of their lungs?  I'll tell you what the difference is, drama.

There isn't any drama in golf.  The game is about as fun to watch as grass growing.  You ever been miniature golfing?  Yeah, that's fun only because you get to goof on your opponent as he/she tries to make a simple shot.

Why can't people cheer, or cough, or breath, while some dummy like Tiger lines up a shot?  It's not brain surgery, just get up there and hit the damn ball you dope.

Golf is perfectly boring.  I rather watch any sport with real drama.  Sports that aren't afraid to let the crowd in on the action.  Where a guy has to not only over come the other guy on the field, but the noise.

Tiger Woods is the most boring sports guy I've ever seen.  Nothing about his act excites me.  I wish that the news would just stop showing the golf highlights, because all they do is take away from the real news.  Like, what Michael Jackson is up to, and who won the Golden Globe for stupidest show on TV.

Etcetera : Way better than Platoon

If your a Kubrick fan you already know that he made the best movies.  Every one of his movies are among the best of their specific genre.  Full Metal Jacket is no exception.  The great Vietnam movie is always said to be Platoon.  It won the Oscar, and it is a good movie.  But, Full Metal Jacket blows it away.  Completely.  It's a more believable movie for one.  Second, much like another great war movie, All Quiet on the Western Front, it takes us on a journey with these young solders.  We see them as kids, and then as full-fledged killers.  The story arch is quite incredible.  And it doesn't have some dumb Hollywood ending like Platoon had.  The horrors of Vietnam are fully realized, and it didn't take a 1000 special effects to do it.  Solid acting, and a great script was all it took.  Oliver Stone, give your Oscar to Kubrick, he outdid you big time.