If you spend enough time on Earth, you begin to think of religion as a clever way to charge for something that is inherently free. Spirituality is like photosynthesis for the soul, whereas religion is a kind of shuttered greenhouse, artificially controlling everyone’s growth rates.

When they left, when they trotted off to play war
They were fresh, from some mid-west high school,
Athletic letterman’s jackets and class rings
they love to sing songs their father sung when they were young
when they were their age, when they were fresh
Classic melodies, timeless harmonies
Sung off key by 4 South Dakota boys in a poorly armored Humvee
45 mph down a dusty Baghdad street
the words removed them briefly from the anxiety, the intensity
the propensity of bullets and bombs gravitating towards American soldiers
the tune soldiers on from cautious voices

I’ve lived in Los Angeles for a little over three years.
In that time, I’ve paid almost $1,000 in parking tickets.

Once upon a time a city was erected, and when the neon lights were turned on, the people came in droves. Their dreams were advertised to them wholesale and everyone clamored over each other to buy them. When they realized these were not the dreams they wanted, the people turned to each other for meaning. But before they could embrace, fault-lines in the earth tore apart, separating them, and these chasms were filled-in with highways roaring with traffic. Alas, the people found themselves isolated on concrete islands with no way to reach each other. They now make up the permanent and wounded infrastructure of this city. They had loved and destroyed Los Angeles. . . and Los Angeles had returned the favor.

There is a Band-Aid for the love-impoverished, but it costs about $36 and it doesn’t include a martini. Our quick-fixing society has found yet another way to cut the bullshit to under five minutes with the advent of speed dating. But while the bandage may stick at first, it ends up just sliding off with nothing much to hold on to. We either need better adhesives or we will just have to keep dating the old fashioned way. I vote for Velcro: it sticks but there’s no commitment, and it’s flexible enough for a fickle city like LA.