The fact they will make all of the same mistakes that we made, that our fathers made, that the folks in the bible made doesn't, I guess, much matter. They'll pop out another similarly enthusiastic generation to take their place before their own fires dissolve in disillusion. Another generation and some pretty good tattoos, from what I'm seeing on the sidewalks. From one generation to the next: tits and ass to tattooed tits and ass. A sign of progress.

And sour grapes.

Then again, it's a Friday and a weekend is coming. I'm curious to see if I make progress in this grand plan of mine to clean up the apartment, get ready for the winter, clean out the storage locker: the usual stuff. I've had a large flask of sake down at my local Sushi bar and a couple of pills to make the head feel better. Damned if it doesn't (feel better). Gives me insight into Hunter Thompson's last years, awakening I've been told in the afternoons, starting his day on whiskey, pills and needles to get his head up and running. No wonder he wanted to be shot out of a canon.

You don't joke about that.

You don't, maybe. The pills I took were a couple of Ibuprofen, although they suggest on the label they not be taken with alcohol. Too much alcohol.

More of my Korean soap this evening (it runs five nights a week, Monday through Friday, one hour an episode) and I begin to understand how it's put together; what, for example, it takes to be, say, the female lead. It takes tear ducts, my friends; industrial strength tear ducts on call to cry rivers whenever things go badly with her male lead and, believe me, things go badly with her male lead quite often.

To date: There's the rival lawyer, first at Harvard Law and now back home in Korean practice (no, I didn't know Harvard prepared you to practice law in Korea either, although who knows what kind of system they put in place after the war?); the rival lawyer's client who, it turns out, has had our hero's partner iced for being too successful in leading a class action suit against said client and who is now setting out to have our hero similarly eliminated; there is the brain scan the female lead (quite attractive with or without the industrial strength tear ducts) underwent after passing out cold at the airport (I'm not sure what the doctor was saying to her, when he showed her the images, but I'm sure it will eventually lead to more crying); there's our hero's father, who apparently doesn't want his son to marry our female lead (who, by the way, is now a graduate of Harvard Medical School and practicing at the local hospital); there's the female lead's father, who doesn't like our hero for inexplicable reasons, cause he's cute and rich, a graduate of Harvard Law and says “yes sir!” at appropriate moments; there are the misunderstandings, the interminable misunderstandings, the statistically impossible chance meetings, the statistically improbable chance misses and (did I mention) the assassin who ran down our hero this evening as he was crossing (on the green) to meet his female lead (who's been having headaches).

Do you begin to understand why it's best to watch such a thing not understanding Mandarin or being able to read the Chinese subtitles? Oh?

No doubt a mild affectation brought on by Ibuprofen and beer.

And sake, down the way, at the Sushi place.