May 3, 2003

• Nothing much on except they sure are prejudiced in some areas down here.  Visited Elva at her mother’s house in Pacoima and we all went out for lunch at a popular drive-thru restaurant.  They gave Elva the wrong flavor shake, vanilla instead of chocolate.   I know they might’ve heard her wrong (who the fuck orders vanilla except oldsters with no taste buds left?), but the service was even worse at the classy fifties-style eatery downtown where we treated her for her birthday; they served her burger seared, but completely raw inside.   I wanted to have the waitress take it back, but “That’s okay; I like it sort of rare,” our friend said meekly.  

  
  

  But what can you expect when they’re openly dissing Mexicans on the air now?   A fairly new prime spot Jack-In-The-Box commercial trys to manipulate a bad slur about Mexican restaurants serving dog meat and me.   The big bubble-headed Jack is shown at a roadside stand ordering from a Mexican girl and her little brother.  He keeps mispronouncing the food chipotle, eventually calling it “cha-poodle.“   We’re supposed to overlook the gauche, arrogant, laughing manner of this fake man, but we’re so used to his simple get-up he’s considered by most viewers to be a real (white) person; thus his behavior is ambiguous and he makes his point.   After all, no matter how poor and inconveniently located, he is speaking to a competitor.   The traditional overweight jaded Mexican girl loses her patience and tells him to “Just go.“   While her rudeness can be justified, there’s no time in the short spot to establish her character, and she might sound like a bad personality to some, ironically since he is just a silly clown.   She should’ve frowned and called her parents over.

  
  

  It’s disappointing how often in a time of major social upheaval and reconstruction as our country appears to be undergoing now, there is a return to the old mores and stifling notions, and along with them, a resurgence of the same stereotypes we fought so hard to suppress in the nineteen sixties.   I’m shocked that late night comics are now also finding Asians open game as they once did with Americans of Middle Eastern heritage.

  
  

  Actually, there’s another new commercial implying Asian resistance to WASP youth culture that could’ve been written from this weblog, it’s so uncannily like it.  A well-mannered, conservative Chinese girl at the wheel of a new Saturn Ion quad coupe is zooming with a carload of friends through a desert that easily could be the Mojave right outside of Los A.  They’re on a vast, empty yellow plain with nothing but the gleaming deep blue car reflecting the glaring midday horizon.   In the background a simple hip hop jingle repeatedly shouts, “Get up!  Get up!”  Suddenly things turn surreal.  After passing a chubby, seemingly drunk white boy passed out on a trashy couch on the side of the highway (I suppose HE, rather like Brett in my opening entry, is the one who should “get up?”), they come upon this busy social oasis of fraternity kids holding a block party in front of small rundown bungaloid houses like ours.  There’s a couple of peepz playing foosball on the sidewalk, and a girl dancing with a plain ivory lamp shade over her head as if in honor of Xanga.   Some paunchy shirtless guys screaming on the veranda with Greek letters painted on their chests end the cluttered scene.  The Asian girl and her companions have no desire to join in; confused and exasperated, she stops the car to switch drivers.   As the zany neighborhood disappears behind them, a sign says “Leaving College.”   There’s nothing but empty desert again.   I take it this is appeals to the wistful man-about-town (or woman!) who feels there’s no life after college, an all-too-common syndrome our sponsor promises a new Saturn will cure.  (I dunno; some bitchin’ wheels would sure help ME!)   

  
  

  Dear, pretty little Elva.  She’s engaged to be married soon and is dropping out of school.  Her family’s getting ready for a big old-fashioned Mexican wedding.   They’ve ordered an entire side of beef for the banquet, which they’re cooking themselves.   Elva’s sewing her own gown.   All her relatives will be driving up.   She’s supposed to be so happy, yet looks overwhelmed.   If I didn’t know any better, I’d swear the girl’s depressed.   She won’t talk about it, though, and humors me as if I’m an ignorant child.   It’s even worse with Louis, her skinny balding stern future spouse, age twenty-six.   I could almost hear him say:  Don’t you know some people grow up and have kids?

  
  

  Later:   Told Liz about this afternoon and she said, “Well, Pacoima.“   And I said I know cuz up where I come from there’s a semi-rural town built up against the dry Mount Diablo foothills known as Milpitas, pronounced “Mill Penis.“   It’s relatively cheaper to live there, some nice tract homes, and the nearby orchards and vegetable fields draw lots of migrant workers and crime.   Other than that I don’t know why it’s called Mill Penis, but it’s still awful, and doesn’t explain what’s going on with TV; I didn’t even mention That Seventies Show, which tries to pull off the same cutsie stuff as “cha-poodle.”

  • 7:05 pm
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