Part 1 of Season 3, Episode 4: Sex, Lies and Volleyball / Photo Fini - Alternative title: Sexual Harassment, Complete Fabrications About Being Attracted to David Silver, and Volleyball / Donna Gets Trafficked

Let's have a laugh in the midst of *gestures at the entirety of the universe*.

Synth Drummage and a Sweet Ghee-tar Lick greet us above the BHBC as the camera pans down the gorgeous Los Angeles coastline (LA forever and ever and ever)...

...to Club employees bustling about, some of whom are hanging a sign that reads, "Annual Santa Monica Bay Interclub Volleyball Tournament" and then something about all of the proceeds benefiting Friends of the Bay.

We cross the beach volleyball court over to...

...to Brandon! Working! Carrying not one but TWO folding chairs! His friends and family will be hearing about this feat through at least Thanksgiving.  How he manages to speak whilst hauling this monumental burden is beyond me, but speak he does, and in the most grating and Brandonly way possible: "Well, well, welly, well, well." My cochleae have officially retired, packed a bindle, leapt from my ears, and skipped town following that monstrosity of a non-sentence.  He then greets an even bigger dweeb than himself: "If it isn't Mr. SAUNders." Yes, that happened.

And here he is in all his "Mr. SAUNders" glory: clowncore wig applique attached to odd Tour de France cycling cap; windbreaker on what I'm assuming is a windless, 97-degree August day, with the arms pushed up just so and the front unzipped to the lowest depths of Hades; and though unseen at this angle, I assume a pair of mid-and-lower-buttocks-revealing dolphin shorts.  He's leaning against a folding table littered with trophies and there's another sign hanging above it that declares "TOURNAMENT REGISTRATION," that he'll be working.  Fantastic! This pest will get to sexually harass each and every unwitting female who's entering the competition.  A real treat for their psyches.

He then proceeds to prove my theory correct almost immediately: "Do you realize in about one hour, this place is gonna be packed with some of the most incredible hard-bodied babes from all over Southern California? You remember last year's tournament? This place was one big meat market.  And I am going to do my shopping early."  What does it mean when bile starts coming out of your eye sockets as well as your mouth? Do I need to go to the ER, or should I just stop watching scenes that involve this barely sentient sub-of-a-subhuman?

Brandon, though - done with his seven minutes of work for the day - applauds Steve's efforts: "Aha, a man with a master plan."

Steve, the most insecure television character ever written, brags, "Mmm, confidence, mon frere.  We make an incredible team.  I'm gonna win this tournament.  You're gonna flash that smile."

Cue cheesedick grin.

Cue Steve's astonishing delusion: "Boom, we'll get whoever we want." I beg of Steve: reevaluate your entire existence as well as your apparent aversion to having full-length mirrors in your home.  He looks off into the distance: "Mmm, if my eyes don't deceive me, I see our first customer"...

...and he spots heretofore mentioned Nikki Witt, who's really going to go through the fucking wringer during her short tenure on the show in terms of the rapid succession of terrible men she'll have to fend off / pretend to be attracted to / date, so kudos to her on her fortitude and apparent cast-iron stomach that prevents her from ever feeling queasy in the face of gross dudes and their really gross personalities.

Back over to Steve, he decides she'll make the perfect first victim of his unwanted advances: "That young damsel appears to be in distress.  Hmm, perhaps I should offer some assistance." He gives Brandon a devilish look, laughs like a goon and struts off to go torment a poor, unsuspecting girl who's just trying to live her goddamn life.

This dork, having no friendship standards to speak of, watches his pal go and says to himself, "And they said chivalry was dead." Nothing like enabling your bosomest of buddy's foul behavior, you dildo.

I Love You, L.A.

I love L.A.

I grew up in Littleton, Colorado, a suburb thirty minutes south of Denver, which to me was the epicenter of mundanity.  I wanted out, early and often.  Initially, it was to New York City I wanted to flee, having experienced it secondhand through TV and movie screens and embarrassingly fancying myself a six-year-old Big Apple oracle.

Around the age of seven or eight, my fixation shifted to Los Angeles.  Maybe it was being surrounded by my dozens of blonde-haired, bikini-clad Barbies, or the L.A. Gears my parents gifted me - the HEIGHT of West Coast chic and a key(chain) to a city I had only ever visited as a teeny toddler in the early-1980s, and of which I had no memory.  

My dad always had on in the car KOOL-105, the oldies station in Denver, and I remember listening to The Mamas & the Papas' "California Dreamin'" and the whole of the Beach Boys Surf Rock era catalog, on particularly bleak winter days during that period between mid-January and mid-March, after the city had been stripped of any and all of the twinkle and sparkle and glow of the holidays, and all that was left were nude trees and brown grass and seasonal affective disorder at a time before anyone was willing to admit they had a mental illness.

Surprisingly - to exactly zero people currently in my orbit - the preoccupation with the City of Angels gained a foothold in my brain and heart and soul when a little show called Beverly Hills, 90210 premiered in 1990.  Ten-year-old me was done for.  Big L.A. had won.  It was only matter of time until I made her mine...

 ...twenty-two years later.  What can I say: a dumb bitch called "life" got in the way - "best laid plans" and all that muck - but at thirty-two, I arrived.  For various, boring reasons, I had to move to the Bay Area for a five-year period between 2016 and 2021.  I am forever grateful for that time - I met a couple of my closest friends during that period, and because of them and their love for me and of San Francisco et al., I came to appreciate an area of of this state I had only ever viewed as a vacation destination, but nowhere you'd actually choose to live.

These same friends quickly - though good-naturedly - grew weary of me and my perpetual mentions of Los Angeles.  It was as though I was the worst kind of person - the dreaded Name Dropper - but the only name I was dropping was that of a fucking metropolis almost 400 miles away.

Nearly two years into the pandemic, I made the decision to move back to my beloved.  It was time.  In anticipation of the relocation, I wrote on the blog: "An unwanted relocation.  Divorce.  Death.  Some of the worst humans I've ever encountered.  But also: a couple of the best.  And finally, FINALLY: a return to the (adopted-by-me) Mother Land (i.e. L.A.) by year's end." I was READY.

I've been back three (THREE WHAT) years now.  It's home.  My home.  As corny as it sounds, I feel that in my bones.  The history.  The architecture.  The evening air.  The constant scent of oranges.  My favorite neighborhoods: Whitley Heights, Hollywood Dell, Beachwood Canyon, Franklin Village, Los Feliz, Echo Park.  The tallest palm trees I've ever seen in my life.  Seeing those same trees with a backdrop of a dusky pink-and-periwinkle sky as you're driving south on Sunset through Silver Lake toward downtown.  My heart skips a beat and I love L.A. over and over and over again.

Cue Randy Newman forever.