I know, I know, its freakin hot

It's hot. Hot here in LA. Hot in New York. And while many of the super liberals out her in Los Angeles seem to believe that NY and LA make up the entire USA, I understand that is not true. Despite that, however, I believe its safe to say, its pretty hot everywhere in the good ole USofA these days. Except maybe Alaska. But that's not important - not to disrespect Alaska, beautifull state, spent a good many year staring down the evil red threat, did us proud, home of polar bears and oil lines and snow and ice etc .. the fact is, I'm bitching - sorry writing about the heat here, where I live, in good old SoCal.

And by heat, I mean "welcome to hell" heat. I mean, "so this is what it must be like to live on the surface of the sun" heat. Cause that's what we got folks. And if you haven't noticed the actual change in temperature, your sure to have learned of the oppressive heat from the majority of people you may speak with on a daily basis. "Hot enough for you?" "Damn, I don't remember it being this hot last year." "Holy shit its fucking hot." Yeah, heard em all. Said a lot of em too. And its hard not to complain when your underwear is sticking to your ass for reasons that have nothing to do with sexual pleasure. I understand that. I live that. Hey, what are we if we're not complaining? It's fun, its social, its something we can all relate to.

That's exactly what I was doing last weekend at some Hollywood type party. I don't mean to say "Hollywood type party" in an effort to insult the integrity of the party or the party goers. Conversely, I don't intend to label myself as some kind of "insider" or "player" by defining the party as such. I'm just saying, it was a party, in Hollywood, in a beautifull house, with some beautifull people. And at this house, with such people, we were sitting around talking about how hot it had been the past few weeks. "It's insane," "its never been like this," "see, Al Gore was right." All that stuff. We were all enjoying our complaints of and to mother nature, the ozone, the sun and regardless of how you envision him/her, if you do at all .. God, for the hell on earth that has been created. Enjoying it, that is, until we were introduced to one of the guests - a nice quiet guy named Chris. See, Chris was in town visiting a friend because he was shipping out in two days to Iraq. For his second tour. You wanna talk about hot?

Chris is an Army Medic. He had been home for about a year and a half, spending time with his wife and new son (born while he was away on his first tour) when he was called back to duty for one year. Mind you, I may be wrong about this, but I think he had some choice in the matter - he was happy he could go and earn a decent living so he could come back and support his family. Interesting no? Going to Iraq to earn a decent LIVING (note the use of subtlety in my writing). So he was going back to a place where the temperatures ran about 110 degrees in the shade, where he had to wear his full on Army fatigues, a 10-15 pound flack jacket and a kevlar helmet. That's hot. That's real freaking hot. On top of it, he's getting shot at. Shit's exploding all around him. He's trying to save people who are getting blown to bits. And its worse than Africa hot, its "holy shit people are trying to kill me and shouldn't we all calm the f*ck down because its really f'in hot?"

I can only imagine what he was thinking, sitting there, watching us all bitch about how hot it was while sipping cocktails and talking about life "in the biz." Laughing to himself at how "difficult" our lives may be. And yet he's going. In fact, he's there now. Probably really hot. Really freaking hot. Shots being fired. Morters going off. People getting killed. Compared to that, my whole underwear sticking to my ass complaints seem trivial at best.

Oh I'll still complain. But I'll appreciate the fact that no one's shooting at me. At least not yet. And I'll appreciate the airconditioning in my car, in my room. And I'll think good thoughts for Chris and the men and women over there and hope that the heat is the only problem they face.