Last Friday, I met up with a few buddies at a bar in Venice called “The Whaler.” They serve relatively cheap drinks, the bar overlooks the Pacific, and besides lacking used syringes and smelly homeless people “The Whaler” really captures the essence and spirit of the westside of Los Angeles. An ideal place to overindulge on a late Friday afternoon. When I rolled up to the bar, I handed the bouncer my ID, finagled my way through a sea of RVCA hat wearing bros, and eventually found the table my buddies had secured on the second floor deck. To my dismay, I realized they were right in the middle of discussing this year’s Coachella lineup, a wildly uninteresting topic. Look, if you want to talk about Coachella fine, but to pretend like you’re excited for the lineup? Get the fuck outta here. Nobody goes to Coachella for the music, and if you say you do then you’re lying to yourself, stop lying to yourself.
Attempting to drown my boredem, I quickly grabbed the pitcher of beer and poured myself a tall glass. If they were going to continue discussing robot music and “sick bass drops” I would need to drink this conversation to a point of interest. As I tried to conquer my sorrows with a hoppy IPA, I kept hearing patrons of the bar chanting “GREEN FLASH, GREEN FLASH, GREEN FLASH!” I assumed they were either wasted westside long boarders talking about some dude who just did an ollie on a Lime Scooter, or they were pseudo-woke millennials talking about some hippy dippy climate conservation debate, so I didn’t think twice about what they were chanting. That quickly changed, when my buddy joined them, “GREEN FLASH! GREEN FLASH! BRING ON THE GREEN FLASH!” he exclaimed. My immediate reaction, I thought he was high on Valium. A simple brain malfunction. He wanted his thoughts to go left but instead they went right. Careful kids, downers will do that to the brain. After a bit of investigation, or more so straight up asking my idiot friend, what the fuck he was chanting, I came to the alarming conclusion that he was actively cheering on a quick blast of green light to emit across the sky. A millisecond flash of green that occasionally appears directly after the sun sets.
Shockingly pathetic, I have shockingly pathetic friends steamrolled my thought process. Look, cheering for the sunset makes you a tool, clapping when a plane lands makes you a bitchass, but to CHANT for a millisecond attachment to a sunset? Wow, you’re the biggest piece of shit on the planet!
As we got deeper into the Green Flash debate, his Simple Jack mentality became more apparent when he tried to pass the Green Flash off as a somewhat cool untold secret. That only a few people know about the Green Flash.
Folks, the secrets of Los Angeles become very trivial the closer you get to the ocean. Maybe all the salt in the air fucks with the thought process? Or maybe the gluten-free bagels are warping the mind, I’m not sure, but what an abysmal excuse for celebration. Hey I’ll tell ya what, if you want to cheer for a sunset fine. I can live with that. But if you’re clapping for the green flash, for the sake of humanity, DO NOT procreate.
