For those who forgot that we were in the middle of summer, Southern California came through with a blistering reminder. There’s just something about the past 10 months that has spoiled me about living here. There have been hot days but it’s been a period more defined by rain and mild temperatures than a reminder of sweat rolling down my back. For the first time in eons, I wake up and am reminded that summer is, in fact, a hot season. To be fair, it’s not the worst that things could be… yet. While I’m sure other cities have sweltered, Long Beach has at worst been “mildly inconvenient.” I really hope July isn’t all that terrible.
Though it does feel like after two years of a rainy season, I am being reminded lately of the one thing that I’ve always loathed about this area. While the numbers aren’t as overbearing as they have been, wildfires are picking back up and threatening any sense of stability. It has been a while since there’s been an outright terrible year, but that isn’t to say that I want one. Given that the planet has experienced some of the hottest temperatures in recorded history recently, I have to believe that we’re doomed for catastrophic results. I watch the news and see tornadoes in the Midwest and hurricanes seem more disastrous. It’s a miracle anything in this country is still standing with the way climates are retaliating. I guess credit to human ingenuity.
Part of me is unsure what really makes June Gloom™ actually means in the 21st century. March or April felt especially dour compared to the past few weeks. June started quaint and nice, but I think anyone with a tube of sunscreen will know, it isn’t meat to be. The weather will shift eventually and soon the sun will come bearing down. Maybe it’s gloom in that you feel exhausted more frequently, but this is the season that MTV’s Spring Break sold as rapturous. Kick out the jams and toss the beachball around. Also, stay hydrated.
I suppose on some level it’s surreal to know that summer is officially here. The year is over halfway through and we’re gearing up for the eventful period. As I write this, a TV is playing in the background footage from The Olympic Trials. It serves as a nice introduction to the athletes that will be filling the next month with headlines. For now, I’m rooting for Noah Lyles, if for no other reason than his love of pulling out Yu-Gi-Oh! cards at the end of laps. I will also say that while I haven’t seen them yet, a handful of CSULB alumni are scheduled to play for men’s volleyball including some that won us an NCAA championship in the not too distant past.
To jump around a bit, I want to focus on women’s basketball. As mentioned in my May 2024 column, I have been attending a few WNBA games. Much to my chagrin, The Los Angeles Sparks haven’t quite gotten it enough together to excel in the standings, but I still remain optimistic that they’ll figure something out.
But I mention this in tandem with The Olympics because of the one prominent story that’s popped up in recent days. Due to tearing her torn ACL, rookie Cameron Brink had to back out of the women’s 3 x 3 competition. While it’s true that we still have some promising talent like Dearica Hamby and Rhyne Howard, I’m realizing how much I bought into Brink being THE rookie of 2024. Having seen her play three times this season, I had belief that she’d slowly get better. And I felt like she had until the incident.
She’s still charismatic and I think a much welcomed voice in the league, but this blow adds a lot of “What If?” into the equation. Is it possible that had Brink made it to the end of the season in one piece that she could’ve won or at least been nominated for Rookie of the Year? I get that more eyes are on Caitlin Clark or Angel Reese, but they’re not “my” rookie if I wish to be petty. The Sparks aren’t destined for championship anytime soon, but I wanted to think this was the mighty step forward after Nneka Ogwumike left for The Seattle Storm. It still could be, but I think it overshadows what could’ve been a phenomenal WNBA debut. At least I got to see her during one of her highest scoring league games to date.
To quickly jump over, The NBA Draft has also happened. While I don’t have a lot to say about The Class of 2024, I want to briefly touch on one person. The Oklahoma City Thunder has a new fan in me because they drafted Ajay Mitchell. As someone who is very supportive of Big West teams, having somebody from UC Santa Barbara make The Draft is a big deal. Even more than March Madness, it’s rare for us to get any national recognition. It’s more often than not UCLA or USC that hog the credit. So to have this small breakthrough means a lot to me, especially since it’s one of the few teams I watched regularly throughout their season. Mitchell’s a much welcomed asset to OKC and I hope he continues to go upward.
On a side note, I hope the CSULB athletes who transferred last month are also capable of landing in the draft. Again, we don’t have many people who make the cut, but I want to believe our recent miracle season won’t be overshadowed by some behind the scenes arguments. If nothing else, I have more optimism that their new schools will get them further in March Madness.
Since I didn’t write a proper analysis of the event, I want to talk briefly about The Tony Awards. As one of the rare awards shows where I feel outside their exclusive club, it’s a chance to discover a lot of entertainment that I might get to enjoy in a few years. Even then, I realize that it might never happen. The theater I regularly attend hasn’t even gotten Oklahoma! or the Company revival yet. It feels like a lot of shows get buried before they have a chance to make the rounds. Yes, a lot of that is just the pandemic creating a backorder, but it does show that there’s a lot of great theater out there and only so many actors and financiers willing to make it happen on national tours.
With that said, the most fascinating thing about this year’s crop is that it was the first time in five or so years where I didn’t have an instinct for a clear winner. I had picked Hell’s Kitchen because I bought into its accessibility and great adaptation of Alicia Keys’ music. However, it went to The Outsiders, which was the only show that I actively disliked. I think it doesn’t help that I never had an S.E. Hinton phase and was too old to buy into its boyish charms when I finally saw the Francis Ford Coppola film. The accompanying soundtrack captures the story very well, but it’s still not one I’m terribly enthused by.
With that said, I do think it was a phenomenal year for musicals if just going on the soundtracks. I can’t speak for their quality in relation to the show, but given that music usually sells, ahem, a musical, I feel that it’s okay to assume things.
I want to quickly rundown a few shows that have been filling my playlists over the past few months. Illinoise is my favorite and easily my most anticipated show of the year. The aforementioned Hell’s Kitchen stands to be a crowd-pleaser while I think that The Notebook is really resonating with me on an emotional level. If nothing else, it was the first show that I fell in love with from 2024. There’s also Lempicka, which is the most audacious show I’ve heard in so long that I love its commitment to campiness. If nothing else, the music for it is breathtaking and bold to the point it makes these other shows seem underwhelming. Finally, Water for Elephants has grown on me with each listen. Given that I only fell in love with three soundtracks last year (and one of those was Phillipa Soo’s Camelot), this is a vast improvement.
I can’t speak for what made this year’s crop more thrilling. In an era where everyone is wanting to take safer risks, these shows at least feel creative. I don’t know how commercial a Sufjan Stevens ballet show is, but it definitely speaks to the potential of theater as an art form. I get that on some level you need to make theater that is sustainable, and it hasn’t happened that often since Hadestown. Safe bets give people jobs and theater alive. As someone who recently saw A Strange Loop and noticed constant discount tickets on sale, I think there’s catharsis for both groups. I would prefer a world where Michael R. Jackson keeps making his delirious comedies, but not everything can play to a half empty auditorium. Still, I hope the financing is there for something like Water for Elephants to make it to the west coast. That show especially looks like it will be a sight to behold.
In an effort to not sideline a lot of this essay with long diatribes, I already wrote a piece discussing how I spent Pride Month. To summarize, 2024 as a year has been exhausting and I am dreading having to wait until November to find out how this election went. With conservatives pushing against LGBTQIA+ rights, it leaves me wondering what’s the point of something like July 4. I don’t know that this country feels as inclusive as it used to be. Reading about Colorado wanting to burn pride flags is bothersome and I think it’s only topped by laws attempting to be passed to take away basic human rights. While I personally never experienced or saw any dour circumstance this month, that isn’t to say that it probably didn’t happen. I’ll admit nothing has happened on par with murdered allies and death threats over beer sponsorships from last year, but it still sucks to live with that dread, especially in contrasts of what is genuinely supposed to be a happy time.
In all seriousness, I don’t get how people watch contemporary politics and think that we’re in a good place. Everyone treats it like entertainment now. I can’t bring myself to watch The Presidential Debate because it feels less of a chance to learn and more a chance to gawk. It’s designed to create memes that we’ll keep talking about. I’m not doubting that there’s clever marketing in this, but it’s not something I want in politics. Not when the country is not in a comfortable position to flick boogers at each other. It’s gross and I have to wonder what positive things have happened in the past decade. This country feels more divided, less dependent on truth, more willing to just accept hearsay. It’s a lightning rod for buzzwords to upset people with keyboards. To quote Shaina Taub: where are the grown-ups? This need to titillate just to please victim complexes is embarrassing. How will history judge us?
I don’t know. I’m trying to feel enthusiastic about Independence Day 2024, but it hasn’t felt right. Part of it is just the general sense that blind loyalty has felt more toxic the older I get. There’s a lot to love about this country, but I think the bawdy red-white-blue décor should be put away for a little bit. Take the toys away until we can figure out what the hell we want to be as a country. That, and I detest fireworks. Not so much as a symbol of this event but just in general. As someone who had a relative in the military who didn’t take it that well in 2017, I’m not entirely sure what’s worth celebrating at the expense of tormenting the people they claim to idolize.
So yeah to tie everything back together, I suppose that’s the interesting conundrum of the upcoming Olympics. I am always a fan of supporting the home country and its many talented athletes. I am especially looking forward to Los Angeles 2028 and am anticipating going to a few events. However, will the country be in a good place then to warrant everything? It does feel like violence and bigotry is becoming more rampant. It’s tough to believe things will subside just a little in four years, especially if the election goes a certain direction that favors a terrorist who also claimed his next administration would be a “dictatorship.”
But I suppose that the idea is to keep hoping for the best. Again, there’s a lot that I love about this country. There’s freedoms that I’m reminded of quite frequently that other places don’t have.
I think of it in relation to a recent trip to L.A.X. to pick up a British friend. He’s out on assignment for Vid-Con and since we haven’t seen each other since 2019, we had a lot to catch up on. The one thing was clear. For as dumb as modern politics are and how much it sucks to be facing it every day, there is still something wonderful about the diversity and land of opportunity and ideas. As much as this is a giant circus compared to some countries, it still has a lot of charm and captures a unique perspective that no other place has. It may be crass and unnecessary at times, but we’ve bred so many wonderful personalities that wouldn’t exist elsewhere. It’s a big reason I love Southern California. My friend is off doing his own thing, but he admits that he wishes he could do things as trivial as eat some Cold Stone Creamery ice cream. I hope he does.
Sorry to get critical towards the end of this post. In all honesty, it’s hard to not get wrapped up in thinking about Independence Day because of what it’s supposed to symbolize. So far, it feels like the loudest and meanest voices are dominating discourse right now, and it seems unfair to those living just lives to have to fall victim to their insecurities. Target pulled back Pride Month merch because of backlash and bomb threats. I get it, but it’s also basically saying civil disagreement is a thing of the past, and that scares me.
Beyond all of this, I did make another YouTube video. This one focuses on I’m Totally Fine (2022) and interweaves a personal story about the pandemic. I’ll admit that it’s the most puzzle-box video I’ve made so far and maybe isn’t the most streamlined, but I like exploring my potential in the video making department. I’m nowhere near ready to quit my day job. I doubt that I’ll ever do it for anything other than a lark. Still, they make me happy and I hope someone out there appreciates them as well. I’m working on another one that will hopefully be up in the next week or so, though don’t expect a significant improvement over the last three.
So as I conclude, I look forward to July. My birthday is coming up and I get to experience life on the back half of my 30s. What a crazy journey that’s going to be. I’m hoping it’s more eventful than the first half, or at least less pandemic-y. There’s also The Olympics and a whole slew of fun summer activities. Who knows what’s going to be on my schedule. I’ve been finding small ways to be productive and make things meaningful in my own way. To be honest, it’s a lot of personal growth stuff and stopping to appreciate the world around me. I watched Perfect Days (2023) recently and felt that it was inspiring me to be even more in tune with a non-digital landscape.
Other than that, I hope everyone had a wonderful June. It was decent enough for me and I found plenty of reason to stop and have a good time. I know that I griped a lot this time around, but I promise that I am doing what I can to be happy. I’ve gone to the park and fixed up my backyard. I am planning to continue editing my novel soon. I’ve seen friends I haven’t seen in years. So much has happened that makes me recognize why life is worth living. Even if Pride Month’s public stance hasn’t totally gotten back to carefree, I at least found my ways to recognize community and enjoy myself. I hope things get better. If nothing else, I hope we can take the summer off to have fun then regroup in The Fall. Whatever you do, whether it’s stay home or go on vacation, I hope this summer finds you well. If nothing else, you can join me in watching Emma Stone do crazy dances in Kind of Kindness (2024). You know it’s going to be memorable.
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