There’s just something about the mid-central Ohio area. The third-rate pizzerias, the comic book mills, the torrential downpours and never-ending blizzards, the incompetent medical care, porch swings and gazebos, the apathetic students and faculty, the death and amputations…Les looks at all of this and sees home. One again BatHam demonstrates his eternal enmity toward Hollywood, as he’s never going to let that failed “Crankshaft” project go. Everything there is awful, impractical and fake and the people are all vapid materialistic phonies, unlike the bottomless well of saintly pious martyrs who call Westview home. He’s just never, ever going to get over being rejected, the guy carries a grudge like it’s herpes or something.
Thanks for all the wry banter over the last two weeks, gang! Stay tuned for El Presidente himself, TFHackett!
Son of Stuck Funky 
“Do you see home, Les?”
First, Marianne Winters turns into a man-hungry bimbo. Now small-town boy Mason Jar has been seduced by Los Angeles and its big-city ways. The Dead Lisa movie is as dead as its title character, and it will be up to home-town hero Les to, um, collect the kill fee?
I don’t know what to say about this one. It almost seems like Batiuk…wishes this was his environment? Or feels really comfortable with it?
It’s almost as if he’s developed a real fondness for his hatred of Hollywood, you know? Check out the official FW blog if you want to see a few incredibly boring photos he took while he was in L.A. “researching” the cancer movie arc. I shit you not.
I know. Totally worthless shots. He could have found better inspirational pics from grandpa google. I’ve always preferred LA over NYC, but am glad I live in neither city.
I have family and friends out there that work in the biz, they love the weather but would rather live elsewhere if they could.
Great restaurants though.
I could win the big lottery, but I will never, ever pay $40 for spaghetti!
Could’ve used Grampa Street View for the shots but he wouldn’t have a trip to write off as research/ business expenses. Wonder how his visit to the Brown Derby was? What a maroon!
I still don’t hate myself enough to look at the official Batiuk blog.
Okay, so where’s the Les-is-a-dick panel? There’s no way he’s going to let this schmaltz go without some soul-crushing comment.
I do remember reading an arc that had a flashback of Les wanting to get the Hell out of Westview and out into the real world.I’m guessing that it didn’t go well and he’s resented large cities ever since.
Phoenix is blistering… Southeast Alabama is blistering… Hell, even where I live in Virginia Beach is sometimes blistering… Los Angeles is NOT fucking “blistering”…
No, southern California can be blistering, especially in August. It’s just not murderously humid. All you have to do is have enough sense to go to the beach, stay out of the sun and/or wear a hat and lightweight clothing. Which leaves Mason and Les out of the equation.
I suppose Bratiuk will end this arc before late summer/early autumn, when the Santa Ana winds can be at their most impressive. He should visit the Los Angeles basin some time and experience a hot, dry, forty-plus MPH wind with dust in it. It’s like a combination blast furnace and sandblaster. Good times, good times . . .
And if he visits during the terrible fires…and takes pictures…and doesn’t move…😁
If he visits during the rainy season, he could go rafting on the Los Angeles or San Gabriel rivers. It’s the ultimate urban white-water experience, with repeated chances to slam into bridge pilings and the faint hope that the Coast Guard will recover your body when you reach the ocean.
And for the record, *EVERY* single thing Masone is describing can easily be seen in Rio de Janeiro… And the women there are ten times hotter and a hundred times more plentiful…
“I like L.A., even though it’s objectively terrible and I am clearly incorrect to do so.” What do you even say to this?
Do you suppose he’s trying to get an award from the LA Chamber of Commerce?
Or did the San Diego Chamber of Commerce put him up to this?
It’s funny because Masone wants to impress us with his familiarity with one tiny, hyper-wealthy, lily-white section of America’s second largest city like it makes him worldly or something…
Oh and just your daily reminder that it was established long ago that Masone Jarre lives on the beach in fucking *Malibu* and he literally rented this West Hollywood condo a month ago (after rap superstar “Hershey Barr” went broke) to cut down on his commute… So when he calls it “home” he’s full of shit…
TB just learned there was a message in the lyrics of Randy Newman’s “I Love LA” and he’s pretending he gets it.
All I know is I’ve loved SoCal and especially Hollywood since my first “sojourn” there in 1985.
Is this about a woman or the place? I prefer to think is about the place, and Hootie & The Blowfish nail it!