The Internet: Long, Hard, and now Full of Sea Men

It's not easy finding someone to love. Or being green, but mainly the love thing. It certainly doesn't help that our culture perpetuates the idea of "the one," that wandering somewhere among the approximately 6.9 billion people on this planet is the single person with whom you are destined to bump uglies in perpetuity, not to mention the problematic assumption that they even occupied the planet at roughly the same time as us. What the hell are you supposed to do if your one true love was a thirteen year old French prostitute who died in 1843 after a brief engagement to a haberdasher? You cock your velvety chapeau at a jaunty angle, by god, and you soldier on.

In recent years, the interwebs have offered the would-be creepy uncles and cat-ladies of the world some succor in the form of dating sites. With a few clicks of a mouse, a scanned portrait of the pretty person whose picture came in the frame, and just the occasional descriptive liberty (like saying you're 'outgoing' as you prepare a website to do the "out" and "going" parts for you), you can make a love connection. Indeed, for every yin there is a yang (or so a cryptic and elderly Chinese gentleman told me, right after he refused to sell me a mogwai), and these sites promise to finally give you a win for your...even I'm better than that.

Ah, but what happens if you have a specific "type," one these cookie cutter dating sites just don't cater to? What if a man who wears Old Spice isn't enough, if instead you crave the hoary beard and seamanship of an old salt eye, a man whose rugged existence and long voyages from home breed certain, unspeakable predictions that dare only be indulged in the murkiest of international waters? Well, ladies, look no further: I give you Sea Captain Date.

Too good to be true, you say (no doubt between salty tears of joy)? Just watch this entirely authentic testimonial, and prepare to finally say "ahoy" to your heart:

Stay Classy, Laguna Beach

I realize I've been neglecting my blog for the better part of six months, but in my defense, it would have been longer if not for the good behavior and the knife fight I lost in the prison laundry last week. But now that I'm a free man again I can happily return to sporadic blog postings scattered across multiple weeks of silence.

I'll keep this one short, as I'm still easing back into the vacuous and glib persona you know and tolerate so well--it involves a knock-off Insane Clown Posse mask and a handle of gin, but that's neither here nor there. What is both here and there, so long as you live in Laguna Beach, CA, is this somber and pointed invocation of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s legacy:
Now, I realize it may not seem like it at first blush, but there are actually a number of things wrong with this advertisement. First of all, who the hell surfs that close to a tree? I call shenanigans. Secondly, isn't the shameless misappropriation of a Civil Rights leader's memory on the very day named for him worth a little more than 20%? I mean, we're talking Laguna Beach here; they can afford to shave a little more off the top.

Perhaps most egregious, though: All Black Products? Can't we be a little more specific than that? Especially because, closet racist that I apparently am, "black product" and "Surf shop" aren't really inhabiting the same patch of real estate in my mind. But maybe this is just because of my advancing years that I'm still sensitive to the lingering presence of institutionalized racism and broader, even defiant pockets of discrimination that are sadly alive and well today. After all, "The shop's young employees and patrons, [the shop owner] Cocores said, come from a generation that is beyond historical racial tensions." Phew! *wipes brow in an exaggerated fashion* Thank God that problem's past us. Now we can all just float in the surf holding hands on our new boards. Isn't this what King's dream was all about? Wet suits, black products, and 20% off. The respect is just the icing on the cake. Or, you know, ironic.