I'm a loner, Dottie. A rebel.

In the past couple of weeks, several firsts:

1. First black president
2. First time that I am OLDER than the President of the United States.
3. First time my birthday party was busted by the LAPD
   

I have to say, I’m pretty excited by #3. I’ve lived here fifteen years now, and this is the first instance of Los Angeles sort of collectively letting me know that they do not approve of my activities. I have gotten one ticket for jay walking, and a pretty stern warning about a dim tail light, but those were in Beverly Hills and Burbank, respectively, which are separate cities from mine. In LA, as long as you’re not going more than 20 miles over the speed limit and/or shooting at people from your car, you’re basically given the key to the city.

So, two LAPD officers showed up at around midnight Saturday night. I was alerted to their presence by a departing guest. This is the entire exchange:

Me: Good evening, officers.

Officer #1: We got a complaint from a neighbor about the noise level…

Me: I’ll turn it down.

Officer #1: Thank you.

The End

Poor guys. In a neighborhood where El Norte music blasts and children shriek and illegal fireworks boom at parties that make a mockery of occupancy limits well into the night, my little emo gathering must have been quite the hilarious letdown for them. I mean, I seriously doubt that the Shins could rattle my neighbor’s windows like their 808s rattle mine, but hey, I must have pissed off someone. Maybe it wasn’t so much the volume of my music, but the choices. Maybe they just don’t like Ben Folds turned up to 5 on six-inch outdoor speakers. Readers, you might think I’m exaggerating, but I swear that at the time the 5-O strolled up the walk, my stereo was playing the flute solo from Albert Hammond’s “It Never Rains in Southern California.”

I have chosen to look upon the incident as a sign that, in spite of my age, I can still inspire an urge to involve the authorities.

The next day, as I was watching the Superbowl and dumping leftovers on top of tortilla chips and trying to pass them off to Spooney as “nachos,” I vowed that I would continue to rebel, you know, in my own little older, Midwestern, hipster-adjacent kind of way. I would stop going on and on about refinancing my mortgage, and I would do more things that I want to do, even if there is a sign nearby telling me not to. I’m going to smoke on the beach. I’m going to make a left turn before 7pm. I’m going to fish off the pier. I’m going to stop somewhere else on red, and take my dogs to Venice on a Saturday after 10am in between Memorial Day and Labor Day. I’m going to go in the door for authorized personnel only. I’m going to walk on the bicycle side of the bike path.

Just kidding. I hate that. Damn, walking people, do you not understand why I am jingling my bicycle bell at you? You are on my side of the path, you know, the side of the path with the spray-painted bicycle graphic. You should be on the side with the spray-painted person-walking graphic. I mean seriously, how hard is that?

And just then, I heard this announcement:

“This telecast is copyrighted by the NFL for the private use of our audience. Any other use of this telecast, or any pictures, descriptions or accounts of the game without the NFL’s consent is prohibited.”

First of all, “is” prohibited??? Don’t you mean “are” prohibited? Jesus.

Secondly, are they seriously attempting to suggest that I cannot describe yesterday’s game in a public forum without their consent?

I can’t even talk about it???

So I can’t say that I started out watching the game two hours behind on TiVo, and still caught up to meat time for the last half an hour even though I watched all the commercials?

And I can’t say that my theory of “shiniest pants win” was proven correct once again?

I can’t point out that cardinals are not native to Arizona and I feel that has got to be demoralizing to the team? Or that despite attempts by the AZ Cardinals to make their bird head logo look “mean,” it instead looks “adorable”? Or that given the dearth of non-abandoned steel mills in the area, the Steelers should just go ahead and change their name to the Pittsburgh Importers and maybe just put that little Moneybags guy from the Monopoly game on their helmets instead?

Well, joke’s on you, NFL. I mean, maybe not as big a joke as that whole opening song with Faith Hill singing about the game with cringe-inducing specificity, but still, a joke.

Because I’m about to comment on the game:

It was okay.

The commercials were boring, except for this one.

And for the first time in my life, during Springsteen’s halftime show, I longed for a career as an NBC cameraman: