I miss her terribly.

A Perfect Fire Storm

Photos by fabalv and CruachanX . Share/remix/share alike of photos under creative commons license. Commentary solely by robert dean (lorangeblog.com)

out of context LJ post 2

[dear live journal]

RE: Becky

In nine hours or so I'll be at LAX, terminal 3 trying to look cool.

I will fail of course; I will stumble trip and stammer.
I will swoon.

What words will be spoken first?
All I know is that it will be long walk to the car.

A kiss for every ten steps.

[/dear live journal]

out of context LJ post 1

[dear live journal]

RE: The Ex

god you suck. you proved again that if given the chance you will blame me for making you look like the bitch. no you see, you are a bitch. you suck for putting me in a position that you know was not completely easy to pull off and now I feel like shit for failing - for not trying hard enough. I wasn't even five miles away from your new marble floors, dual stainless steel oven ranges, and the pure bred labs running around your pool when you called to yell and threaten to deny what means the most to me...again.

"You do realize I live in an apartment?" (I was asked to create an unreasonable amount of noise for my little place. vague on purpose. One noise complaint was enough) "Maybe with a little warning and I could've arranged something. Maybe."

"Warning?!? You don't deserve a warning. If you can't make sure something is supposed to happen...(blah blah) make a lot of noise (blah blah).

(blah blah = me thinking: really? no really? you're going to give me shit for this?)

I paused for a minute. "You act like this a consistent problem," I tried to defend myself with reality, "Like this happens every weekend. I made calls..."

"I'm done. I'm done." She reached the conclusion that sometimes my reasons are legitimate. That I might even have a valid point. Tonight was not going to be the night to admit this though.

"There is no way I could have done it in my apartment."

"I'm done. I'm done."

'Then hang up then!' I think. She does.

Yeah so I'm pissed and feel like I did my best yet failed again. Even when right, I'm wrong. I want a cigarette but I'm not smoking anymore. I wanted to call B but I needed to calm down first. I settle for comfort food and pulled off the freeway twice finding everything but a Carl's Jr and a double western cheeseburger. The second exit I drove around the perimeter of Disneyland and still found nothing.

Again empty handed in Anaheim.

I'm glad my past is the past.


[/dear live journal]

Words are hard to find this week:
I'm getting older in two days.
The rare one arrives in seven.
The Ex acted up a few days ago...
and is also pregnant which I would just laugh about
except it affects people I care for deeply.

I take it back. There are words.
I just don't know where to start.

grand ave fest

I've been walking down a lot of closed streets lately.

Saturday was Detour Fest, my second weekend walking along the avenues in downtown Los Angeles. The week before was the Grand Avenue Fest which had free performances at the Walt Disney Concert Hall by the Los Angeles Philharmonic, free admission at MOCA, and various events at the Colburn School of ballet, music, and mime! oh my! - where I wasn't the only one who thought their cafe rocked (see blogdowntown's post) especially price wise in comparison to the food booths that day.

Now MOCA had some fun stuff going on there: One side was mostly set up for the Gordon Matta-Clark exhibit (see lightning history's post) but we walked in towards the latter part of the day so we had to rush through this a bit fast.

The other side was dedicated to the Cosima Von Bonin: Roger and Out exhibit that was neat*. I would've spent more time looking if it wasn't for the frazzled guards yelling at everyone to stand two feet back, causing people to step back into other patrons or the other art pieces already packed so closely within.

By 5pm we had enough of the guards that hated pretty much every one and so turned to the embrace of the emptying street outside, towards home to feed the long festival day of built up hunger. Any longer and I would have put those guards to shame.

*read art.blogging.la if you want real thoughts about art in LA.

WTF but I love the song

Band: The Moonbabies
Song: Take Me to the Ballroom (vid link)
Why: I've watched this video a thousands times and I still don't get it.

hmm old lady kissing young lady. band plays blind folded. girl talking to boy toy. woman sends man to tell girl something. girl drops glass. girl walks onto dance floor. the crowd stops dancing woman takes off ring. man cuts off a strand of hair from the girl. strand placed in liquid which turns black. I think about how tasha yar dies on STNG by armus. tasha comes back as a half romulan - long story - has nothing to do with this video. woman drinks hair oil. woman sensually touches girls face and goes in for a kiss. woman passes out. girl is happy. boy toy puts ring on girl's hand. fade to black. WTF.

Detour 2007

The only thing that will get me to attend any kind of large music festival is the phrase: free VIP passes.

Saturday I made this exception to attend the LA Weekly's Detour Festival that surrounded City Hall in Downtown Los Angeles despite dreading the traffic/parking hassle and mental shudders of too many retarded people squished together inside my personal bubble. My blah attitude intact I drove into the valley of buildings with the goal of having fun and not paying for one damn thing.

Fortunately this festival adventure didn't disappoint.

Corey and I rolled in about 4.30 and progressively moved closer in circles to landed a free spot on the street a block away from the entrance. I should take this moment to thank Jeff at Passion of the Weiss for hooking me up with VIP passes through his blog. Then I would like to tell Boost Mobile to fuck off for not putting me on the will call list. I was actually alright with not getting in as this happens when dealing with guest lists so a final big thanks goes out to the LA Weekly folks making sure after a good fifteen minutes of unsuccessfully checking with every other guest list that I got in.

Maybe my puppy dog eyes did the trick.

Corey and I walked around City Hall, checked out the decently priced food selections, the required festival communal metal sculpture to bang on, and the rickety (free?) ferris wheel before taking in some of the acts at Comedians of Comedy stage. The set up was nicely spread out and I'm not sure if the event was just undersold but even in the largest crowds there was plenty of elbow room and good sight lines.

Of course the main selling point of any music festival are the bands playing even without multiple major acts this year.

We caught the Shout Out Louds set which was alright and marveled at the singer's channeling of Robert Smith voice with a lisp impersonation. That was odd. Moved over to Kinky, a band I enjoy on the stereo, but probably wouldn't have seen on their own - though after that set I might have to reconsider this stance.

With all the drunk kids stumbling around it was nice to slip into the VIP area to have a seat on the leather couches, a separate bar and pizza line, and the fancy bathroom trailer with sinks and stalls. Moved to the street and caught the tail end of Autolux which wasn't doing it for me and headed back to The Raveonettes who so did.

Afterwards was more staying away from annoying people VIP section time chatting to non annoying friends, including chit chatting with Laura from The Randies as I haven't seen her since they left for warp tour. Spied a bit of the Teddybears' set on the tv screens (with actual teddybear heads on!) and thought I needed to see that. As we tried to make our way out to the stage, security was forcing us the long way around which meant missing most of the set. At this point I was getting super hungry and remembered that I was old, getting grumpy and could care less for Bloc Party so off we went to call it a night.

Festival photos by madmojo and valeriee used under creative common license

Los Abandoned - no mas

From an email this morning:

After 7 years of making music as Los Abandoned, we have made the collective decision to go our separate ways.

We would like to thank our families, friends and fans as well as everyone who worked so hard behind the scenes to make this band a success. Thank you for the memories, for believing in us, and for helping to make our dreams come true.

It really has been a dream-come-true.

We will be playing our last show at the La Brea Tarpits on Sunday, October 7th at 4:30pm as part of Tarfest. It's a free show. We hope you can make it.

Love Always,
Los Abandoned

Oh this sucks. One of my favorite bands to watch live has decided to call it a day. Without a doubt I'll be at Tarfest this Sunday.

Tainted

Back in March 2006 I posted a little query about a group that manufactured pot based candies and edibles for caregiver clinics. That group was busted and at the time I'd originally thought it was the friends of friends of friends I knew, none of them Kevin Bacon. Well last week the group I was thinking of, Tainted Inc, were raided and it looked like the owner was on the lam from the feds until he turned himself in this morning.

Feds crack down on pot candy firm - 4 tied to business are charged (sfgate 9/28)

Pot-candy maker surrenders to feds (sfgate 10/04)

I knew business was good but I didn't realize how big of an operation it had become since its boutique size days:

"Over the past two years, Tainted bought nearly 4 tons of chocolate from Guittard Chocolate Co. in Burlingame for more than $14,000, Armstrong wrote. Tainted's candies and other food items sold for $2.50 to $20 apiece, depending on the strength of the product, authorities said."

While I haven't used, well anything, since 1993 my friends in LA *loved* the Tainted candy with the punny names like Buddafinga and Mr. Greenbud. Didn't hurt that they got them for free (and no I did not transport them down here). I wonder how the ice cream, peanut butter, granola bars and barbecue sauce would've have tasted.

As to why I care about all this, in 1989 my dad was diagnosed with cancer with three months to live and I believe in the benefit claimed in increasing appetite, among pain relief, that cancer patients receive from medical marijuana. there was no stopping the cancer but I like to think my dad would have suffered a little bit less if this was a well known option back then.

Anyhow these raids will just continue until federal laws are changed to allow California's passage of Proposition 215 initiative in 1996 which legalized the growing and use of marijuana for medical purposes with a doctor's recommendation to legally exist. While it would greatly help if better regulations were implemented as shown on 60 minutes last month (article and video), I sadly just don't see the federal law catching up anytime soon.

Pics from the DEA press release

The Usual Suspects: Weds - Sun

Wednesday:
Not so secret show when posted as a myspace bulletin: Great Northern tonight.
@ Silverlake Lounge, Set time 8.30pm! $7

Kiss or Kill presents @ El Cid:
Breast Cancer Awareness Month with:
She's Your Sister 9:45, Beatmo 10.30,
Spider Problem 11.15, Moving Picture Show

While always a fan of She's Your Sister and the stylings (did I really used that word?) of Beatmo on any evening, combined they guarantee a great night of local music. Bit curious about this Spider Problem band. As usual, come early (get drunk?) , stay late.

Thursday:

The Dollyrots @ The Whiskey
all ages $14 /doors 5pm - drots at 9pm

Mia Sable @ Tangiers -->

This weekend:
(Like there wasn't enough to do last weekend)

Fri: The New Fidelity @ Hotel Cafe
CD release show - 11.30 pm, $8 (such a great live band)

Sat: Eagle Rock Music Festival
bands/DJs Saturday 5pm-midnight FREE
with chuchito valdés, under the influence of giants, and dengue fever. the pity party, bodies of water, the front, the monolators, teddy's cheer club, seasons, tsk tsk, princeton, hecuba, mia doi todd+andres renteria, weyou., leslie+the badgers (LaLa from ze auto parts), the sundowners, b is for baroness, laura weinbach +sivan sadei. // live reggae by black shakespeare, plus the i + i sound system truck. // dc4, virginia city revival and the mama suki. // the mormons and the sirens. //& more.

Tarfest
Thursday/Friday/Saturday/Sunday - FREE

"..a festival of emerging film, music and art held annually since 2003 at the La Brea Tar Pits and the surrounding Museum Row in the historic Miracle Mile district of Los Angeles."

Los Abandoned closes the festival Sunday @ 4.30 (event starts at noon)

Also: Benefit for Izabel Vega with Spongebob and The Hi-Seas featuring Tom Kenny (the voice of Sponge Bob and the pirate) with: The Hectors, The Monolators, I Make This Sound, Le Switch, Evan Way (of Parsons Redheads) The Breakups (4pm * $10, Children are free!)

October.Best.Month.Ever #1: Gemma Hayes

If you have been keeping track over the years you would know that I love the music of Gemma Hayes (myspace / website).

You might also remember that despite our best attempts to enjoy an actual show by Ms. Hayes during the last set of local gigs back in 2005, she remained an elusive artist to capture on a stage at the same time we were in same venue. Chalk it up to dates working against my schedule and a gig or two canceled at the last minute.

So you could imagine why this makes my October Best Month Ever list:

LOS ANGELES GIGS IN OCTOBER 26.Sep.2007
Gemma makes a welcome, low-key return to playing live with a weekly residency at the Hotel Cafe in Los Angeles in October.

She will be playing there Tuesday 9th, 16th, & 23rd October at 8pm, and at 9pm on Tuesday 30th October.

[Nov 6th is penciled in at the Hotel Cafe site]

New songs, new album being shopped around, and four shows at only 10 bucks each. These are not full band shows I hear, just her and an additional guitarist in a great, small venue.

A little info about Gemma from my 2005 post here.

A few videos of some lovely songs:

Kiss or Kill Presents October Breast Cancer Awareness

The month of October at Kiss or Kill is dedicated to Breast Cancer Awareness featuring bands that are female fronted/centric/have at least one female in it.

Proceeds from these shows will benefit Keep-A-Breast.org

See flyer for band details
See an excellent line up every week
See a larger female to guy ratio each Wednesday!!!
See the the cool promo below (promo link)

It's October - yay!

I wasn't going to a post anything today but then I realized it was October. Fucking October!!!

And I'm in love
with this band Mahogany.

Song: Neo-Plastic Boogie-Woogie (video link)



The slight chill of October (well the random chilly days of late September - it has to get colder at some point in this month, right?) air has brought out the useless scarfs in LA, the socks for morning walks across the kitchen tile and thoughts about what I won't be dress up as for Halloween. Oh and it's my birthday month so that's something.

Every year I say that this is the best month ever and every year it makes landfall as a normal shower of highs and lows. This October might possibly be the one that changes the pattern.

21 days and I'm a little older.
26 days and the rare one touches down at LAX.

I'm hoping to do a post a day.