sometimes you're lucky

Sometimes you're lucky because you came upon a situation, crossed your fingers and made a choice.

Maybe it was due to wearing a lucky rabbit foot, your lucky green vest shirt, or just dumb luck. But maybe sometimes it was more than a choice, more than luck, more than crossed fingers.

I woke up Monday to panicked emails and then looking at how to obtain emergency passports to Italy. Luckily I did not lose a week of pay or half my savings for this trip (so trivial). Luckily I did not lose a family member that morning.

I almost did. But I didn't. But still...

yeah whatever. still processing.



So here is an unrelated video I've been meaning to post by The Joy Formidable  - the song Whirring (vid link).



All these things about me- you never can tell

Recently we went down to Pure Luck (website, yelp) for dinner, one of the non-thai vegan places that we're lucky to live nearby.  (Come to think of it, there actually might be 6+ thai-vegan places within 3 miles of our apartment and only 2 all vegan joints)

We like the place for the beers, the Garbanzo Salad Sandwich for B, and I prefer the Baja Taco over the Jackfruit “carnitas” that everyone seems to rave about. This is not a Real Food Daily type of a place; more a place to grab a craft beer with friends and eat some tasty food which leans more towards Mexi-vegan in style.

It also doesn't hurt that Pure Luck is directly across the street from Scoops for our ice cream fix (love the soy-based ice cream for me since I'm anti-dairy)*

Anyhow, all I really wanted to do was post pics of the new murals behind Pure Luck from cache and friends.



Chickens!  Different chicken murals are all over Echo Park and there is a larger one out front of the neighboring Orange20 bike shop.



* Ssssh the reg, soy, and coconut milk ice creams at Maggie Mudd (site, yelp) in SF are a million times better!

top photo by mr. rollers used under creative commons

Feb 1994

During some random conversation today I asked B what her favorite bands were when she was in middle school since she's a tad younger than me.

"I remember listening to Green Day and..."

I started laughing.

"What?" she asked, probably unsure if I was amused by at her almost teenage musical tastes.

"It's funny that both of us were into Green Day at the same time - except I was going to their shows"
 
She added, "And I was doing my sixth grade homework."

Not often does a moment frame our age difference so perfectly. 




Feb 1994 @ Slim's in San Francisco / Green Day album release show for Dookie and my big fat head bottom left.

Though I was very aware of Green Day in the local Berkeley scene, my first show was not until the evening before the album Dookie (their first major label release) came out . By the end of the night I was up against the stage watching the band and near the film crew capturing the set.  All these years I never knew what was done with that footage so after a little googling I found information off greendayvideos.com pointing me to the UK only Welcome to Paradise video off iTunes.

At $1.99 I had to buy it just to make sure that young kid in the 30 second preview was me.


So weird.

Sink Cat Thwarts My Morning Routine

  

At first glance you might think "oh look at the kitty curled up in the sink."



 No that would be a 17lb cat and a normal size sink.



yes I've resorted to posting pictures of my cat -

this blog used to be sort of cool back in the day :(

too many words, not enough words

DEEP SEA DIVER - *WEARING THIN* from anchortapes on Vimeo.

Last Tuesday left me smiling watching Jessica with her full band (including 2 drummers). But smiles are never a new thing with her.

I long stop trying to review shows...


Deep Sea Diver @ myspace  Jessica is going on tour with Conor Oberst this summer!

i wish

i wish i knew people better
(strange call last night - warning flags came out)
i wish i could write better words than this slop that pops out
(people write stronger words)
i wish i was better and not so tired and not so, so tired
that this blah moment won't disappear.

Since i can only half ass a blah mood i'm going to lie in bed next to my beloved B
and get some much needed sleep. it will be better.



(this photo is upside down)

hand walking

Yesterday my whole department was treated to a great lunch at Factors by the same company that let me go last year when the LA office was closed down.

Odd to sit across your former boss, the one I thanked again for the experience that allowed me to land my current position. My choice to stick with this industry despite some bad times turned out better than anyone could predict. 

Odd how life takes a turn sometimes for the worse, sometimes for the better.

Or odd how my co-worker took on a challenge from my former boss to hand walk for 30sec in exchange for a good bottle of wine.  Note the cheers and whistles from the construction site across the street.

    

video link here and here

New label Square Tire Music launches this Saturday 5.16.09

If you went to Mr T's Bowl back in the early 2000's, you probably saw Mike TV at the Launchpad (west) shows that he used to book there. Maybe it was to watch touring groups or local acts like Arlo or even his own Get Set Go (TSR Records, also on the Grey's Anatomy CDs back when that meant something good) play the stage placed in front of the old bowling lanes. Maybe you were there for underage drinking or scoring or whatever. But if Mike wasn't on stage, he was right next you up front jumping and supporting whatever band playing at that moment.

Now Mike appears to be taking the most logical step of setting up a new label for those bands that the bigger local scene never fully picked up on.

This is Square Tire Music.

We're having a big party on the East Side of Los Angeles! It's for the launch of our record label, Square Tire Music. It's on MAY 16TH, 2009 at the CENTER FOR THE ARTS, in Eagle Rock. Come on out! Please embed this video on your websites, on your parent's websites, on your priest's, on your enemy's, and on your cat's websites. Please spread the word. Even if you can't make it out, you can show your support by hosting this promo. Thank you so much! -- Mike TV, Get Set Go

More details about the label at: http://squaretiremusic.com/index.php
official press release for label launch
useless twitter account here

Square Tire Music Launch Party/Show with Get Set Go, New Maximum Donkey, the Power Cords, Secret Powers, and I Give Up @ Center for the Arts, Eagle Rock // first band 8pm $12

Lucy's

So it was time to wash my comforter and as our complex has washers that are just too small to handle anything more than a mid size load without leaving soap residue on the clothes so a trip down to Lucy's in Echo Park was on order.

Why there? Having at one time lived a few blocks from this place I knew it had the uber washer I required. Also I sort of missed the place.

I missed the characters, the semi-strangers I'd pass going in as they came out, the smiles, the random band member folding his or her clothes, the fold and fluff ladies, my choice of Spanish channels on the mounted flat screens, and even the cops searching the aisles to catch that freaked out person being chased by real or imagined foes.

To me it was a functional space for individuals in transition (like my mental/relational state at the time I lived in EP), either to refresh one's outerwear, grab a 5 dollar foot long at Subway or a coffee fix at Starbucks. Sometimes I would read or write or just trip out on the green tea at Starbucks thinking if I would eventually see everyone I ever knew during my lifetime if I just stayed in one spot at Lucy's.

This might also fall under my "I'm a big fan of Timing" motto and the less glamorous "I f---ing blame you Timing for all these regrets!"

Doing laundry back then offered time to refresh those types of regrets but this trip to Lucy's was different. This time I could precisely point to where I once was and see how far I had traveled since.

And this time I left with just comforters.