sic transit gloria.

"is that Latin?"

Sunday, September 25, 2005

to try and make something of one's self


or to settle into your cozy little den of complacency?

i am surrounded by people who are on the move, who wake up in the morning (read: before 2pm) and put their talents and minds to use, who improve themselves and their worlds. people who actually do, well, things. worthwhile things, like returning to school, starting grad school, traveling, working new jobs, laughing, loving, learning, cooking, singing, dancing, the whole motherfucking shebang.

alas, not i, says the artful loafer. seeing as i'm done with school for the time being and as i haven't yet started my career as slave to the los angeles unified school district (i'm 'lost in the paperwork,' whatever that means), all this free time has gotten the best of me. time is really all we have, and lately most of mine has been spent on sleep and music and film and blogs and food and drink and craigslist message boards. missed connections, if you must know.

of my group of cohorts i never expected that i would be the one with absolutely nothing to do. not to say that dedicating most of my time to cultural pursuits is nothing; it's just that there should be some sort of equilibrium between investing energy into things created by other people and those endeavors into which i invest my own creative energy, be that fixing a salad or reorganizing my records or taking 45 minutes to crank out a fucking blog post. anything but sitting around and doing nothing, waiting around for everyone to get out of class and work so i have people to go out and play with. point is that if i don't start work soon i'm going to fucking lose my mind. after all,idle hands killed the devil's cat that was always curious, or something like that.

on a totally unrelated note, yesterday morning i dropped off my parents in monterey park, where they departed on one of those charter bus tours to yellowstone. as we left the house i asked my dad if he remembered his camera batteries and reminded my mom to bring the jacket i brought out for her. i've never been to yellowstone but i can only assume it's cold. as we drove off i kept asking if they forgot anything, and if they did forget something to please tell me now so i could turn around while we were still within reasonable distance for turning-around. the whole interrogation thing took place, but oddly enough it was me asking all the questions. as they climbed into the bus and waved goodbye i was reminded of high school when they would drop me and my brother off for latin club conventions, when it was us getting on the bus and waving goodbye from the window.

it was at this precise moment that i felt myself age, if that's even possible. talk about parent-child role reversal. to a naive twenty-something still who has yet to strike 'spring break road trip 5000 to vancouver' and 'summer vacation' from the vernacular, and, allegedly, has his whole life ahead of him, the idea of one day parenting his parents is indeed a strange one.

Friday, September 23, 2005

since pretty much everyone in my life


is dedicating his or her time to things like "work" and "school," and since i'm still waiting for some documents to get processed so i can work for the "city," i've have lots of free time on my hands. the past few days have been spent at the new beverly, home of the 6 dollar double feature, an underrated gem for los angeles cinephiles.


caught two great street gang flicks, the warriors and the wanderers. i've seen the warriors a few times on tv, but i'd be stupid to pass up the opportunity to see the orphans and the furies and (my personal favorite) the lizzies on the big screen. the song placement in the wanderers is phenomenal. also saw the pope of greenwich village; eric roberts was there for a little q&a, and someone had to ask, "hey eric, who's the better actor, you or your sister?? HA!" ugh.


saw a preview screening of thumbsucker, definitely one of the summer's best. uplifting story for everyone who has ever believed that there was something wrong with them. was disappointed by the baxter; the premise is clever and the film had the potential to be great, but ended up flat. i've only seen 3 episodes of stella, so maybe i'm missing something.


caught a midnight showing of the wrath of khan at the nuart. i don't care how many times you've seen it, leonard nimoy's last moments with william shatner will break your heart everytime.

another method of passing the time i employ is looking through celebrity playlists on itunes. this is probably number 8 on my top 10 guilty pleasures list; the rest will either be revealed in time if they haven't already. the whole celebrity playlist thing is disgusting. apple isn't fooling anyone. whatever. doesn't change the fact that this marketing tool is really fucking brilliant. won't buy music from some hip apple geek? then why not let kanye sell you his favorite songs! ugh.

i can't think of a theme, but if you must have one it's "hawt summa jamz '05." here's my uncelebrity playlist, some new stuff, some old stuff, but all stuff representing different happenings/sentiments of the past months. take that, itunes.

1. "I Don't Like Mondays" - the Boomtown Rats. the ultimate 7am get ready for work song.
2. "Wishbone" - Architecture in Helsinki. the childhood album of my twenties.
3. "In This Home on Ice" - Clap Your Hands Say Yeah. why not.
4. "Genius" - Inara George
5. "Mushaboom" - Feist. another reason to love canada.
6. "Outta My Head" - M. Ward. this is more summer jamz '04, but whatever.
7. "Can You Do That Dance?" - the Pink Mountaintops
8. "Baby" - Os Mutantes. belongs on Getz-Gilberto.
9. "Freelove Freeway" - Ricky Gervais as David Brent from the office.
10. "Decatur, or....." something something - Sufjan Stevens
11. "Outer Space" - the Muffs. from the high school years. found it while cleaning my room.
12. "Ballad of Jim Jones" - Brian Jonestown Massacre
13. "She Don't Use Jelly" - the Flaming Lips
14. tie between "Clam, Crab, Cockle, Cowrie" (Joanna Newsom) & "Will Is My Friend" (Devendra Banhart). from last year, but i still listen to these albums quite a bit.
15. "Hey, That's No Way to Say Goodbye" - Leonard Cohen
15. "Daniel's Song" - the Finches. download here.



Sunday, September 11, 2005

strolling down sunset boulevard

''
amongst the short skirts and the escalades and the hustler store and your veritable pick of trendy sunset strip watering holes and shitty clubs is the last place you'd find me on a saturday night. or any night. but tonight after seeing mike play on our way to the ten dollar lot where we parked we found a set of keys on the ground right in front of frankie and johnny's. the car key was for a mercury le sabre, which happened to be right there. we asked the guys hanging out on the corner if they knew who owned the car, and turns out that it was one of theirs. frankie then invited us in for a round of beers on him for returning his pal's keys.


a group of uniformed police officers came in and were socializing with a group of little people at a table. earlier in the day was a basketball game between the west hollywood sheriff's department and the little persons' league team. throw in some more drunk cops, hobbit jokes and a scuffle and you have an episode of reno 911.



speaking of beer the other night we went bar hopping on main street in santa monica. (insert WESTSIIIIDE! here, accent on the SIIIIDE!) we finally chose the circle bar as the place to be. it's the most dive place on main (which isn't saying much) and we weren't feeling the fratboy-music-blasting sports bars and pubs. the last time we were here we saw luke wilson. there's your fucking LA name drop, suck it in. we sat at a corner table, and jokingly i say to mike above the din,

"WE GOT YOU A GUINNESS!" we didn't get him a guinness.
"WHAT?"
"WE GOT YOU A FUCKING GUINNESS!" (mike hates guinness. as do i.)
this scraggly deathmetally-looking guy whom we just noticed and who happened to be sitting awkwardly at the end of our table looks directly at us and says, "WHAT??"
confused, i say, "NOTHING! I JUST TOLD MIKE THAT HE'S DRINKING GUINNESS TONIGHT!"
"NO," our scraggly friend explains, "MY NAME IS SAM GUINNESS! NICE TO MEET YOU!"

but no, sam guinness isn't the highlight of the evening. nay, the highlight was the gay dentist trying to get in my pants and his ambiguously gay friend hitting on lee at the bar. let me premise this by saying that i don't know what it is that made gay dentist (from now on referred to as GD) think that i might be of the same persuasion as himself. oh wait, yes i do. BECAUSE I WAS DRINKING A FUCKING MIMOSA. there. i said it. so GD sits with us and is being overly chummy. among the many things he does is pour whatever he was drinking into our glasses when we were empty, and whilst doing that, clumsily spilling alcohol all over us. to gauge whether i was on the same wavelength as he was he turns up the dial on the hyper-masculine-i-wanna-get-on-every-lady-in-the-house-o-meter to see if i'd respond with a subtle WOMEN DISGUST ME! YOU FIGURED ME OUT! for example,

"awww yeaah, look at that mom over there. she wants to party, that belt fucking screams i want to get down. hey let's play rock paper scissors and loser has to roll up! awww yeaah!" (insert high fives)

'roll up.' fascinating. you know he felt like a dick for selling himself and the other sex out like that. you could hear the guilt and see it too. anyway GD provides more amusement, especially when he moves on from me to mike, who still thinks that GD was not of the gay. last call comes and we're all kicked out, and by this time GD won't remember anything in the morning. our last memory of GD is him asking lee to punch his friend in the genitals. she doesn't do it (she wanted to ), as we walk away we hear him drunkenly proposition homeless passersby, "HEY! I'LL GIVE YOU TEN BUCKS IF YOU PUNCH MY FRIEND IN THE BALLS!" what a pal.



in closing, as of ten days ago, we moved out of our apartment. packing was difficult, parting with roommates, neighbors, and westwood even more so.


goodnight.