the 90 percent rule

Last Thursday there was a foam party across the street at Sigma Phi. My roommate and I would have totally gone, totally. Except we had to catch the Midnight Express to San Francisco that night. Not a train... a bus. Charter bus, at least.

On our way to the Express, just outside the apartment, we passed two tall girls in dresses. One was covered in foam from the waist down. They were having a fairly intense conversation about something, but I couldn't figure out what. It wasn't a happy one, either. But that's par for the course where I live.

It's a fact: ninety percent of people you walk by in L.A. aren't smiling. And the other ten percent are probably jacked up on something.

The 90 Percent Rule even applies to a college community like the one I live in-- even on a party night like Thursday. Girls walk around wearing designer clothes and carrying expensive handbags, guys with gelled-back hair and probably-expensive-because-it-stinks cologne. If you took a snapshot of their faces, the scene would look like some kind of aftermath. Happiness is almost completely absent from the air. Bored looks, cool veneers, glares, sunglasses that are still being worn after 10 pm. And this is on a party night.

In San Francisco, every night seems like a party night. Jugglers, freak shows, fully grown adults in garish Halloween costumes, laughing and dancing and smiling. Music plays that seems to come from nowhere. In Berkeley, drunk band members walk the streets, haphazardly playing their instruments.

Still, it all felt a little bit "unapproved of". There were a lot of bystanders milling around that were definitely bemused by all of this nonsense. When my group of friends started singing band warmups a capella and put a hat out for tips, we were pretty much ignored. People would walk by, purposefully keeping their eyes ahead of them, not looking at us. Almost as if they were indignant that we would do something so blatantly "fun", right in public.

(edit: Yes, there's video footage of this awesomeness. It's on Facebook-- if you know my true identity of course...)

Those kind of people rule society these days. Happiness and acceptance of others is kept to a minimum. We're all too concerned with our own self-image.

Am I the only one who thinks our society needs to pull the stick out of our collective ass?