Chutzpah

Last night on NPR someone was talking about a funeral of a friend they went to recently. It was actually quite moving because he talked about his friend having the audacity, the chutzpah of actually living a normal life in Los Angeles. The guy had a job for years with a defense company, raised kids, lived in a normal house, with more or less standard middle-class/middle-American values and goals.

It got me thinking what Phil always says about the show HUNG - how normal is becoming the new anti-hero. Granted, Hung is about a male-prostitute, but it's more of a tonal/character thing, ie how they handle the male prostitute issue. He is devoid of neurosis or pathos or addictions (like say, Tony Soprano or McNulty or Don Draper) and essentially longs for simple white-picket fence values - his family and job and to keep his house.

It's actually an ironic point...in this town of glamorous stars, fake tits, desperate writers, packed freeways, apocalyptic fires, and lower back tattoos, just being normal can be rather subversive.