I didn’t write anything yesterday because I spent the evening with the guys at the Polygamerous podcast. I will link up the mp3 here when they post is so you can listen if you want, but I’ll warn you now that it’s mostly about video games, and thus probably only interesting to somewhere around half of you, if my extremely informal demographic knowledge about readers of this blog is correct. But it does have lots of me talking, so if that’s the thing you like to listen to, you might even enjoy it.

And in the meantime, there’s also lots of me talking on the Incredible Podcast. Go listen to that and review/rate/subscribe the thing in iTunes if you haven’t yet as well. Please. I beg of you.

I ran my third 5k last Sunday, my first here in LA, over in Chinatown. I did pretty well, I think, but was probably a little overenthusiastic. Probably.

To: Michael Schramm
1523 XXXXXXXXXXX Ave.
West Los Angeles, CA 90025

From: Johnny Liu
Los Angeles Chinatown City Council
Los Angeles, CA 90313

Dear Mr. Schramm,

We are extremely pleased that you were able to attend our 32nd annual Firecracker 5/10k Run/Walk event this past Sunday. You certainly ran a respectable time, finishing the 3.1 mile course in just over half an hour, constantly running despite the multiple climbs we placed on the path from Chinatown up to Dodgers Stadium. We hope the event was fulfilling for you, and that you enjoyed your time in our historic and heritage-rich part of this great city.

However, we did want to bring up a few concerns with you in regard to your behavior at the race. While we make it a priority to make sure that everyone at our city’s events is able to enjoy themselves, we’re afraid that you seemed to do so to the detriment of our other guests’ experience.

For example, when you first showed up on Sunday morning, it was probably less than prudent for you to yell out, “All right I’m ready, let’s run this [expletive],” as you did upon arriving at the starting line. We spent a lot of time planning out a short opening ceremony, and both State Senator Carol Liu and special guest star James Hong were probably extremely disappointed when you suggested that they should “stuff this noise” because you were ready to “beat feet.” They were both too polite to say anything, but we could see it on their faces.

Likewise, once the race actually started, it was probably not appropriate that you proceeded to push not only women but also children out of your way in order to keep up your running pace. We are proud that you were able to hold such a solid pace (one of your personal best, we believe), but given that our event is clearly labeled as a “run/walk,” we don’t feel it’s right that you were so competitive. Mrs. Nancy Hodgson of Pasadena also shared with us that you asked her to “move it, Grandma” as you ran by, and we also agreed with her that it was considerably rude to do so.

We do admit that not all of your competitive spirit was directed at other participants of our race, but considering that there were in fact children on our run, we were troubled to hear that as you ran up the aforementioned course hills, you constantly berated our city’s geographic features. Telling our hills that you were “rocking” them “silly,” and that you were making them your “[expletive],” while admittedly true, was not the thing to do with young ears around. Likewise, asking our hills “what ya’ll think of that, [expletive]! That’s right!” after you’d crested the summit was not at all appropriate.

Finally, your behavior after the race was, in a word, shocking. If your interpretation of the Thriller dance after crossing the finish line had been slightly more accurate, we might have let it pass, but in its current state, we regret being there to see it. While your physical prowess is certainly significant, the women in attendance were made overly uncomfortable by your clumsy flexing and posing, and the table full of post-race smoothies that you overturned during your impromptu celebration had been set up by a group of volunteers who were very distraught to see their contribution destroyed in a short albeit spectacular flash.

In short, Mr. Schramm, while we do hope you are able to visit our city again, and we do hope to see you at the Firecracker run next year, you would do well to leave the competitiveness at home. We agree that you do indeed rock, but we sadly inform you that our Master of Ceremonies did not appreciate you grabbing his mic and saying so in front of the gathered crowd at the finish line.

Thank you,

Johnny Liu
Los Angeles Chinatown City Council
3/2/2010