Pt. 2, Or How While Hanging Out at Krispy Kreme with Michael Dequina, Jeff and James Chen Talking ‘Bout Bunnies Having Sex in the Pool and Savaging the Legend of QT, I Portend the End of Pax Americana

Taking a break from taking a break from it all, I slipped away from The House the Mouse Built to spend some time with fellow cinephiles and all around good guys Michael Dequina, Jeff and James Chen. We ended up taking a walk around The Block, a bustling SoCal mall-plex that looks like it does more business in a day than Estonia does in a fiscal year, before settling in for dinner at a must be seen to be believed video arcade/restaurant hybrid called Dave and Buster's. It’ll come as little surprise that talk centred on movie-related matters, with Michael Dequina’s lascivious tales of Hollywood debauchery (Kill Bill Vol. 2 party at Hef’s Playboy mansion highlighted by bunnies making out in the pool) and his elaborate deconstruction of the Mythology of Tarantino (If you ever have the pleasure to meet him, you MUST get Michael to do his QT impersonation for you. It kills) proving to be highlight material, but what struck me during our chat was that these three gentlemen, whose displays of gentility (never once raised their voices) moderation (they all practiced the sorta portion control that seems downright un-American, given the general and impressively steroidal massiveness of the meals restaurants serve you down here) and temperance (all three gents had coca colas with dinner) I continue to admire and respect, were so different from the larger than life Americans I had observed during the rest of my visit.

Y’see, Americans sure do appear to love livin’ large. As a people, you are big, loud and cocky, and you move through space with the assured air of them that owns it. And why not, given that you take up so much of it. Simply put, you are also a physically imposing people. I spent a lot of time here admiring the massive physiques of the folks here who must all be on the same sorta growth hormones that professional athletes spend really good money to avoid usage-detection. I have never seen so many Big People in such a relatively Small Space (I say this not out of malice or condescension, but as a Canadian who recognizes and takes no solace in the fact that we North of 49ers are mostly merely pale imitations of y’all, btw.)

All of this was really driven home to me during our evening-ending sojourn to the world famous Krispy Kreme donut shop. Witnessing the assembly line delivery of product through the steamed- glass windows of the shop (blame all of our heavy-breathing) I came to see that the orgasmic Krispy Kreme donuts are the equivalent of the lead Romans used to flavour their wine. That’s right, we are witnessing the downfall of the Pax Americana Empire brought about by bad nutrition. Not only does the food you eat make y’all larger than some housing complexes in Hong Kong, so that the literally larger than life Americans make better targets for them that hates ‘em, but shit, man, how can y’all be expected to care about what’s happening in the World Out There when you’ve got Krispy Kreme donuts to eat and Playboy bunnies having sex in the pool to watch? Isn’t it a truism that if you wanna be master of the known universe, you’ve gotta at some level Stay Hungry? Cuz you know, once you get Large ‘n Lazy, it’s only a matter of time before some industrious little bastard is gonna sneak right on past you to the front of the queue.