catching up

Spent the holidays watching Back to the Future 1-3 and attempted the whole Karate Kid series, but gave up through KK2. Back to the Future brought back some great memories even though 1985 wasn't all that special. Come to think of it, 8th grade kinda sucked.

I'm going to buy a delorean when I win the lottery and I don't care what you think about them

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Tonight Kiss or Kill with Midway and Bang Sugar Bang.

Thursday: The Badbeats, Blockage, the Dollyrots and Visqueen at the Punk Rock Social This will be an amazing show with 2 dollar Newcastles too.


Oh I have tickets to see the taping of the show Hit Me Baby, One More Time with Tiffany!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Read this sad but fascinating story about Fibrodysplasia ossificans progressiva (FOP) on sfgate.com

Cruel disease turns sufferers into statues
UCSF starting world's 2nd center on rare disorder that causes crippling bone growth

Invader: RUBIKCUBISM (artshow)

This sounds like fun

Thanks to Sean Bonner for posting tons of info and links at blogging.la for this artshow by the French artist Invader. I've seen a few posts about these gurilla art installations going up here in LA, so I think I'm going to check this out.



Description from the sixspace site

On June 14, sixspace will experience an invasion with RUBIKCUBISM - a logical exhibition by French artist Invader featuring mosaics, video installation, and both small and large-scale sculptures. For the past five years, Invader has conducted worldwide "invasions" with custom site-specific mosaic pieces based on the 1978 video game "Space Invaders" created by Toshiro Nishikado; the streets of Paris, Tokyo, New York, London, and Los Angeles (among many others) have become components in his public art planetary invasion

Full Press Release

I was Mr Social last night.

Missed the Atomic Missiles AND Silver Needle. That sucked. Stupid radiator hose made me late.

Talked to some folks during my 2 PBRs about two fisting...beers. Rambled on with Midway Kevin and briefly Emily, Sean (Blockage!) and Juliagulia (coolia), Matt from Bang Sugar Bang was being an Eeyore instead of his Tigger self, but some days are just like that. Gave Laura Randie hello hugs three or four times. The Randies played great and I sang along with a very drunk Joe for some small bits.

Said hi to people.

Made a point to stop people I know of, but didn't know as they walk by to talk them up. Twice asked people what their real names were since a lot of people go by nicknames, and then felt dumb when those were their actual names. Re-introduced myself to Omega from So Unloved, but mostly wanted to tell her that they played a great set last night. Meet one the members of this band Helicopter Helicopter that I've been digging lately (they play 5.26 and 6.21). Also bugged the hell out of Kevin and Corey and everyone else I think.

I was in a very cheap beer, had a crappy pre-kork afternoon, hyper type of mood..

tags:kiss or kill, kork

My 4 hour commute home yesterday

4.30: Left work looking forward to taking a nap before Kiss or Kill.

5.15: Car starts overheating and I’m @ 20 miles to my house. With steam billowing out of my hood, I pulled off into a park in La Habra to wait for it to cool off and play video porker on my cell. This park is old, but well kept up, with early 60’s design to it. It still has some of those metal climbing structures shaped like a rocket that you don't see anymore.

5.30: Wondering why me and how am I going to get this fixed.

5.45: Filled radiator with water from a water fountain. Start car and the water is streaming out a tear in the radiator hose. Not good.

5.50: Two girls are walking by and startled me when they said hi. Both lay out on a blanket nearby together. This friendly couple is in stark contrast to the lame group who stare me down while I was filling up an empty Pepsi bottle. Any other day I would so out snob them, but I’m not feeling so great about myself right now.

6.00 Drove down to the Auto Zone off Beach and Imperial Hwy (good thing I knew where I was), but of course they didn't have one in stock, but the one three miles back does.

6.15 Went to a Mobil and talked to the mechanic. He is more than happy to fix it tomorrow.

6.30 Continued as my car was leaking the 3 miles to the next nearest Auto Zone.

7-7.45: Ripped out old hose, installed new one in AutoZone parking lot. Cut finger. I'm hungry.

8.00: Driving for about mile and my car is about to overheat again. Realized I forgot to top off the radiator with the coolant I also bought. Stopped, waited and fixed that little, but important detail.

8.30: Home. I smell. I’m grumpy and need to eat.

It's Tuesday already??

If it wasn't for my friend Corey nagging me to post again, I think I would've fallen into that trap where the real world takes more importance that blogging. Sorry, life gets in the way from boring posts proving the world is secretly robert-centric but no-one has caught on yet.

Lets recap: I did nothing all week.

Went to work Monday, half a day on Tuesday and some on Thursday. Then I didn't leave my house until Sunday night to see Midway at the Viper Room. Nothing like 70 degree late nights after the unbearable inland heat and banana flavored Dick Tarts.

Looking forward to Kiss or Kill on Tuesday: Atomic Missles, Silver Needle, Nu-tra, The Randies, and So Unloved. When I first saw So Unloved they sounded like the band Hole and the second time was much more screamo. As their myspace page notes "L7 meets Rancid". Curious to see how they do tonight after the musically wide ranging line up tonight.

Something for everyone at Kiss or Kill.

Oh Kork has a big billboard over Sunset Blvd. A billboard. Funny. Now we need to wrap some MTA buses with full color graphics.

Sudoku vs Jumble

I'm horrible at Jumble, and crosswords are okay at the easier levels for me since my vocabulary is pretty darn weak IMO. I was reading this article from WIRED on how this game Sudoku is taking over the puzzle sections in the UK.


The goal is to fill every grid, column and row with numbers one through nine, without repeating numbers.
So the first line would look like this:

Easy? There is a free trial at the Sudoku site

INXS Rock Star, rolls eyes in disgust

Hmm. We're an iconic late 80's rock band from Australia, our singer killed himself...why don't we do a reality show!



INXS Rock Star

Created by Mark Burnett who has an amazing track record with reality shows (Survivor, The Apprentice) so I imagine it will entertaining when it finally comes on CBS.

Not that I was a big INXS fan or anything, but the idea to use a reality show just rubbed me the wrong way for some reason. I have a feeling a lot of Americans will be surprised to find out that Michael Hutchence committed suicide in November of 1997. I was surprised that it has been eight years already.

I only fear the torture of "I need you tonight" becoming a hit again.

inxs rockstar,

yeah

I had one of the crappiest days at work yesterday.

All the stupidity that started on Monday came to a head resulting in me being offended by someone blaming me for their mistake, hanging up on them mid-sentence, and a staff meeting with the owner and all of management. I calmly and slowly put this co-worker (who is supposed to be my assistant) in her place, point by point, dissecting every sentence of her misguided belief of being correct.

God I hate myself for it, but I nearly made her cry.

I backed off knowing I made my point clear to her, since everyone else knew she was already wrong and way out of line. I've done a few years of retail management and twice as much in this company, and I try to treat my co-workers as equals, but sometimes you just have to pull rank when their self importance interferes with the management structure. I'm asshole and I hate myself for being forced to do that, but I've been put in my place a few times before I learned that we are all disposable in the workplace.

Decided after the meeting that for some distraction, I would go see the most excellent (sorry I have Bill & Ted on the mind) bands New Maximum Donkey and The Power Cords. I wanted something to put me in a better mood.

As I turned onto Figueroa on my way there, the street was lit up for movie shoot of some sort. I've only lived in Southern California for 8 years, so part of me still finds stuff like this interesting, but lately I've been doing the "Oh great, the parking/traffic/street closures are going to suck" when I now see the tall crane lights. A surprising amount of trailers and trucks were there and had of course hogged up the parking surrounding Mr. T's Bowl. Found out that we can expect to see "Barbershop: the TV series" coming soon to UPN. They're milking that puppy for all it's worth, huh?

Seeing friends and great bands kept the day from getting worse and I wanted nothing more than to relax. Unfortunately it didn't quite work out as well as I hoped because I was too drained from the crap from work, and was way over thinking some personal stuff at the same time. Typical.

Sometimes no matter what you attempt, you can't make an already bad day any better.



I think I'm going to the zoo on Sunday. I love the zoo.

tag: work sucks

Random memories from the last week or so

A montage of close-ups - quick cuts between each:

Her eyes
lips
the curve of her eyebrow
mouth
lips
Her eyes
(my favorite part)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

One night, large crowd.
Arms slightly touching. I noticed the second time and the third. We easily could've moved away from each other like strangers normally would. I looked around the room to see if she or anyone else noticed, but never got a look back.

Another night, another large crowd.
Bouncing until the music was over with stranger's arms around my neck and waist. Found myself holding her hand and wondered how I grabbed it by accident or if she did. Felt it a few seconds too long as our fingers slowly slipped away from each
other.

Los Abandoned / Sonntag @ HOB last night

Sonntag

It's a good sign when you walk into a club in the middle of a band's set and like what you hear. That's what happened when I got to the House of Blues last night with my first introduction to Sonntag.

This is the description from their cd baby link where you can buy the cd:

Not your typical girl vocalist. Bumpy bass lines, electro beats and synth bits woven together by electric guitars that owe as much to punk-garage as they do to James Bond. This soundscape providing the backdrop to passionate tales of everyday existence.

Walked around the place a bit and came upon this real cute girl handing out Sonntag stickers and pushing the CDs aggressively. I think she mentioned they had CDs at least four times. Attempted signing up for the mailing list with a sharpie, which is slightly better than using a piece of charcoal.

2nd band: Good. Corey thought that they had very poppy Matchbox 20 type of sound. Mainstream stuff. I was bored mostly because of how much I liked Sonntag beforehand.

3rd band: Hmm. This band had a good sound but totally wrong placement on the bill. In a smaller club they would've been after the main act. You know when you're jazzed up from the main band, still tipsy and willing to linger around while you sober up a little more. This band would've been perfect for that. Corey thought it was like Primus jamming, but instead of heavy bass, it was heavy keyboards. A little trip hoppish groves.

Like I said, because of bad bill placement, this band nearly killed it for me. Just very draining and I noticed a lot of people bail midway through. I wasn't the only one who looked bored out of their mind.

4th band: Los Abandoned! Great set, much tighter than before. They had a new drummer who rock a little harder than the last one and Corey pointed out that they didn't use triggers for the background keyboard effects this time. I know they have been touring alot so I don't know if it was easier to dump them with a new drummer or if this is a new direction for them. Played a cool cover of X's song "Los Angeles" and the loyal LA fans loved the whole show.

This is not some weird fetish or anything, but I think Lady P has really cute knees. Just saying.


tags: los abandoned, Sonntag

This week is starting to suck even more

Typical.

So now my room-mate is screwing me over and is moving out this weekend. My fault for not having a more solid rental agreement with him. Maybe this is a payback of bad karma.

I was talking to my sister last week about him and mentioned that he was a few days late with his rent. When she found out he was an actor, she laughed her ass off.

"He's an actor for Christ sakes!" More laughter. "What did you expect?"

This coming from someone who makes a living as a musician (classical). Funny to think that there might be some perceived hierarchy in the art world where each group looks down on all the others.


Things to do
Tue: Kiss or Kill Club at Spacland tonight instead of the Echo
----- Los Abandoned at the House of Blues - sunset (this should be fun)
Fri 5.10: MIDWAY at the Scene in Glendale

Don't even pin this on me

WARNING - rant about co-workers

1) You stupid fuck. This is a fax machine . It is an amazing piece of office equipment that has been around in this form for decades (decade=10 years). Please learn how to react when paper with your name comes sputtering out the machine. It has your name on it. It is to your attention. This means you have to address the reason as to why said paper is being sent to you. I'm not surprised that you are a Raider fan.

2) You stupid fuck. No the other one who is blowing the the stupid meth-head, cheating on wife who just popped out your fourth child, since the both of you don't know what birth control is or how to use it, that is listed in item no.1 above.

I gave you that important order for England two weeks ago. How dare you transfer the head sales-rep in England to me about this. As I said before taking the call, I gave you this. "You did? Why would I have it?" you asked.

IT'S YOUR FUCKING JOB TO ENTER ORDERS, THAT'S WHY!

YOU ENTER ORDERS! IT'S CALLED ORDER ENTRY FOR A REASON!

Yes, if you actually did your job right you might understand what I'm saying. While I'm at it, learn to answer the phone correctly. Asking "Who's dis?" when someone is looking for the Dir. of Operations doesn't come off to well for the company.

Fucking learn to page too!! I set up zones for the paging system and have shown you multiple times how to do it. No. 1 is for the offices, No. 2 for the warehouse! I swear I'm going to come in there and start cutting off your fingers every time you press ALL.

I hate you two. You are going against everything I learned about Darwin's theories.



work sucks

Some Kiss or Kill photos

I made it out to Hollywood by 5 pm and wasted time walking around Hollywood and Highland for a couple hours.

Underwater City People

Beauty and the Beast / Sienna from The Randies and Kevin from Midway

Bobot Adrenaline

More blurry pictures at my flickr account. I'll have them all posted by this afternoon, but you can look at these for now.

tag: kiss or kill, kork, knitting factory

odd

This is the strangest google search that has led to this site:

myspace san OR francisco OR california "kevin is" -backstreet -nsyc -federline -costner -spacey -bacon -kline -brigham -ernst -adult -steve

Someone actually typed all this and I have to wonder whats up with their people named Kevin fascination.

This blog was 34th on the list.

Whoa

Friday at the Knitting Factory was of course the Kiss or Kill Compilation 2 release party I've been posting about lately. Amazing amount of fun that I will be posting about more on Monday with some blurry pics to share too.

Think I'm going to see The Aviator at the dollar theatre today. so not exciting, huh?

Happy music news for me

Los Abandoned
Photo by Lissa Hahn

Free Los Abandoned show - May 10th at the House of Blues - Sunset Strip. They have been opening a bunch shows for label-mates Tegan and Sara lately, but all you need to know is that they are a fun, energetic band that you will fall in love with.

Must email your info to be on the list (unlimited) here

Listen to some samples here on their myspace page.


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Sara Radle
Photo by Alayna Morris (www.grid-9.com)


Sara Radle is officially moving out to Los Angeles in a few months and I hope this means she'll be playing shows. I missed her when she came to LA with her band Lucy Loves Schroeder a few years ago, but made sure to catch two of her solo (with band) stops last year. SHe just finished recording a new version of one her songs with Matt Sharp (Weezer, The Rentals) for her next album.

Sara's myspace page




tags:sara radle, los abandoned

Jesus has an iPod

Mark Morford from SF Gate poses the question of what would be on holy iPod after the recent disclosure of President Bush iPod library.


(archives and more info about Mark Morford here

Original article:
What's On Jesus' iPod?
Protest anthems, Zeppelin, gospel, classical and, of course, Nine Inch Nails. And, yes, Jesus does P2P

Read the answers here:
What's On Jesus' iPod? Pt. II
Readers respond! Ministry, Moby, Metallica and Morphine, and of course, we are all going to hell for this

Of course, religion is already hip to ipods

Seen outside London's St. Lukes church (via Ad Land)

tags: jesus,iPod

Work isn't as fun as Disneyland

I'm not at the happiest place on earth today (see last post). Decided to be responsible, act my age and trudge to work instead of taking advantage of free tix for media day. I've taken a bunch of time off to deal with some stuff, so now I'm exhausted, getting sick I fear, with projects piling up at work. You know, grown up stuff we all try to avoid.

Did Kiss or Kill and these things happened:
-Strangers kept bumping into me. No reason, just happened.
-Saw someone with someone (people I don't know) which led me think, "I didn't know that"
-I walked around the main floor in big circles a few times.
-Felt self conscious of my big hair. Needs to be cut.
-Didn't say hi to anyone new. (not a bad thing. I was tired)
-Someone tapped me on my shoulder. I don't know who.
-Matt from Bang Sugar Bang joined Silver Needle for a cover of "under pressure"
I told him how awesome it was and why I love staying late, because cool shit like that happens.
-Hello, Dancing Girl during the Dizzy Riders set anyone?
---I'm sorry to pick out one person, but that was on e of the funniest things I have ever seen. Strange ballet moves, that one Russian dance where you cross your arms, squat and kick up your legs one at a time. Yeah she did that. I'm glad she was having fun, but I was trying really hard not to laugh.
-I'm starting to love staying late for the last band.

tag: kork,
kiss or kill

If Darth Vader had a blog

His point of view on daily life would read like this

If you never seen a Star Wars movie, don't bother reading. It wouldn't amuse you.

I'm a nerd.

tag:star wars

Tonight Kiss or Kill, Tomorrow Disneyland!

One of my new years resolution was to say hi to more people at kiss or kill and so far so good. Will try not to wait three months to do so next time though. If I wanted more friends or a larger social group, I guess I need to make more of an effort, huh?

Playing at KorK tonight will be a band Porterville, named after city I once lived in for six months. I kindly referred to it as the armpit of the Central Valley, located nowhere conveniently between Fresno and Bakersfield. There was a Wal-Mart, a newly opened Target and Mervyns. It was big deal when Coco's opened up and then the excitement when Hollywood Video followed. Oddly they had THREE full size Pizza Hut restaurants, but nothing other than fast food. Weird. Honestly, the locals were nice but there was a strange culture shock of newcomers (crazy housing development Inland Empire style) and the co-existence with the farm workers and the older locals. Fresno down to Bakersfield is becoming a giant suburb.

Sorry - - Bang Sugar Bang are back from tour, along with Nutra, Silver Needle and the Dizzy Riders, I think.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The Randies play Wednesday for free at the Key Club

~~~~~~~~~~~~
Don't forget this Friday for Kiss or Kill Compilation at the Knitting Factory.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Someone is giving me extra tickets for Disneyland tomorrow, which is also Media Day (closed to the public) for the 50th anniversary. New Buzzlight year dark ride (c-d ticket), new parades and uber firework show. I'm hoping they will be testing the revamped Space Mountain. (see below)

FYI: In the next year or so, the subs are coming back with a Finding Nemo theme, Space Mountain will switch at night to become Rock It Mountain with different visuals and a Van Halen soundtrack (track is the same, no loops), and the people mover might be back in a few years. In DCA, superstar limo is become Monsters Inc something. In WDW they will be doing a Star Tours with Pod-Racing at some point.

I'm sure you've seen this already - Random Vin Diesel Facts

but it still amuses me.

Random Vin Diesel Facts

Keep reloading (hit F5) for a new Vin Diesel fact.

Samples:

Light cannot escape black holes; but Vin Diesel can.

Both Lee Harvey Oswald and Vin Diesel killed JFK. Oswald fired Vin Diesel out of his rifle. Vin penetrated JFK's head then exploded.

Go! 5.6.05 Knitting Factory, Hollywood

tags: kork, kiss or kill

35+35+600+1000+306+35+11+21.95+98.40+120+20+30

This is my life broken down into some of my monthly bills. Some static, some waiting to surprise the fuck out of you when you pull that wedge of paper and little flyers pushing Direct TV installation out of the envelope.

I think to myself, "Do I really need a land line?"

Remember when that was just called a regular phone line? No extra voicemail or caller ID charges, pre-DSL, No five buck monthly fee for long distance calls. Grr! Down with the man! So I don't have cable, I have cheap dial up (that's what work is for anyhow), I use calling cards, and I have an antenna on my roof. I refuse to bend over and say thank you for these people. If I want entertainment I'll socialize with living people who don't need an Extreme Makeover. [ed: I really don't even know what I meant when I wrote that]

Now if I could only afford a solar panel to power my house. [ed: I heard there is a 10x10 shack in Montana available. Ask for Ted]


My rent is going up 200 dollars in a couple of months, which I can afford in theory. My room-mate has been saving me twice that, so I'm still ahead. But is it worth it? A 40 mile commute each way to work = 1.15 hrs x 2 ways + $6 gas use daily. It could be worse, knock on wood.


At least I won a ticket on my Star Wars lotto scratcher today.

I'll be home tonight, but don't call between nine and ten though, 24 is on.

.

I need sleep. It escapes me.