the best of 2005, part ii: dance parties, taquerias,
and the open road; a handful of this year's fondest memories. from the haphazard and inconsequential to the earth-shatteringly momentous. from mini-successes to painful setbacks, from the minor falls to the major lifts. and everything betwixt and between. in no particular order:
4am coffee and muffins at dolores, mountain goats at the echo, california burritos, postcards from peggy's antiques in pasadena, swap meets, mike giving akanksha sensuous lap-dances in public, terri anderson's un-ironic plastic neon-green sunglasses, thursday farmer's market with the jazz band playing "georgia on my mind" as the vendors loaded their trucks, the corn on the cob vendor at the farmer's market who calls me sweetie and asks where i've been then shows me pictures of her baby girl,
the 24 hour 1500 mile drive from los angeles to austin via the 10 east, scrumisha propositioning sulaiman at the lancaster 7-11, lumpy the cat, new cell phone (the flip kind), double features at the new beverly, 'mikey g in westwood looking fo big dick' on craigslist posted by lee, lu valle lunch club, fake italian supermodel luca pipin-farina, sociology of the family with mikey and keeley and sally and natalie whose cigarettes i'd light, pilfering the neighbor's wifi network "DOOMONMANKIND," sustaining myself over the summer with tortillas and 1 dollar tv dinners, watching stage coach and the wild bunch with thomas at 3am complete with welch's grape soda and chicken pesto pizza from italian express, light saber battles with cindy's kid brother,
2am drives to el tapatio for chorizo & egg burritos, breaking into the chemistry building to steal lab coats, filming documentary on high school latin conventions, destroying our throats to "total eclipse of the heart" at brian's karaoke birthday extravaganza, kicking sean paul's ass in def jam fight for ny, getting yelled at by karen for not doing my job, halloween decorations at zanzibar, rolling a spare tire down a flight of stairs to nick's caddy, georges delerue's "comment voulez-vous?" from the 400 blows, robek's with cindy and lori after work, getting my powerbook, 24 hour rite aids, x-ray spex/the undertones/nick cave/free wifi/hot chocolate at cacao, getting a flat tire the day i had to move into the new apartment, me and tracey fighting moths with billiard cues,
thai elvis, hanging out at zanzibar, cookie monster's commencement address, watching hours of the oh-so-asinine mike and ben show with nick, finding getz-gilberto lp at garage sale, the shirelles' "i met him on a sunday" at the end of silverlake life, half-liter glass coke bottles imported from mexico at tacomiendo, hanging with the 6 foot 7 freestyling jew on 6th street, matt's pop and lock moves at the days inn, brian jonestown massacre's "ballad of jim jones," trying to figure out why she left me by staying home from work and watching high fidelity over and over and over and over, waking up several times to find medium-sized victoria's secret thongs hanging on my doorknob, backscratcher from amy, monday treks with roommates to the valley for dollar hot dogs at the stand, grade school talent shows,
sunday swap meets at fairfax high, graduation, realizing that there is life after graduation, driving through new mexico with nothing on the radio but bad country, eating the "best pizza in the world" with matt and ray and akanksha and nate, love's country shops and travel stops, laundromats, jasmine's postcard from new york, early spring evenings on campus when the sky was purple and orange, blogs and my blog readers, breakfast and trips to the goodwill with peggy on sundays, smoking cigarettes sitting on the unsightly wicker bench outside of the apartment when the summer nights were dark and sticky, saturday nights alone with thelonious monk on the record player, my first paycheck as a college graduate, being called "mr. tony" and getting paid for playing handball and turning jumpropes, homer singing "wichita lineman," never getting tired of homer singing "wichita lineman," and never getting tired of living and laughing.
now i shall close with the words of elvin drake, as sung by the impeccable william shatner.
"i think of my life as vintage wine from old kegs,
from the brim to the dregs it poured sweet, and clear-
it was a very good year."
there should be no doubt in your mind
that 2005 was fucking horrible. distaster too frequently graces the newspaper front page. global warming at its worst. dead soldier count breaks two thousand. running man/kindergarten cop tries to destroy california. we lost pat morita, august wilson, richard pryor, robert moog, mrs. robinson and gilligan. and i lost a hundred and fifty-bucks trying to help a fake italian supermodel. this year sucked, and '06 doesn't seem to hold any more promise.
that being said, at least this year didn't disappoint in terms of the things that matter.
the best of 2005, part one: the sounds, the projected image, the written word.
highly infectious yet (in)disposable pop songs, in no particular order*.
1. the beast and dragon, adored - spoon
2. here comes the summer - fiery furnaces
3. the skin of my country yellow teeth - clap your hands say yeah
4. sing me spanish techno - new pornographers
5. the party's crashing us - of montreal
6. festival - dungen
7. feels good behind somebody - dios (malos)
8. idiocy - the double
9. shattered - gogogo airheart
10. this isn't it - giant drag
11. venus - the chris stamey experience
12. ageless beauty - stars
13. fire eyed boy - broken social scene
14. modern world - wolf parade
15. did you see the words - animal collective
16. warm panda cola - the boy least likely to
17. do the whirlwind - architecture in helsinki
18. huddle formation - the go! team
19. tas de tole - stereo total
20. off the record - my morning jacket
21. mushaboom - feist
22. prison on route 41 - calexico/iron & wine
23. cloudberries - super furry animals
24. chariot - page france
25. letter to the east coast - john vanderslice
26. in the pines - smog
27. radio campaign - m. ward
28. funny like the moon - bunky
*i'd be glad to send you a cd so that years from now when you're pining with nostalgia from vh1's i love the '00s you can give it a listen and remember what this year sounded like, through my ears at least. email or leave a comment.
films, in no particular order. '04 and '05 have melded into one year in my mind. there are a bunch of movies that i have a good feeling would be here if i had seen them (broken flowers, mad hot ballroom, etc). also includes anything that holds some sort of significance, from watching it in good company to it reminding me of the mental state i was in at a specific time.
1. me and you and everyone we know
2. thumbsucker
3. the squid and the whale
4. 2046
5. the aristocrats
6. my summer of love
7. the 40 year old virgin
8. the life aquatic with steve zissou
9. everything is illuminated
10. march of the penguins
11. bad education
12. the fearless freaks
13. the 36th chamber of shaolin
14. the wrath of khan
15. the corporation
16. romuald et juliette
17. the adventures of antoine doinel
18. high fidelity (saved my life)
television shows i've obsessed over at some point this year
1. freaks and geeks
2. the british office
3. arrested development
4. the simpsons. this summer my roommate and i purchased a bootleg set of the entire series (up to season 16) from some british guy on ebay for 30 pounds.
5. reno! 911
books i've stumbled upon way too late. (*not finished yet)
1. dress your family in courderoy and denim - david sedaris (for your listening pleasure, the santaland diaries.)
2. take the cannoli - sarah vowell
3. about a boy - nick hornby
4. fraud - david rakoff
5. sex, drugs, and cocoa puffs* - chuck kosterman (thanks cindy)
6. magical thinking* - augusten burroughs
guilty pleasures, feel free to share yours.
1. the cobrasnake
2. laguna beach/my super sweet 16. there's something about spoiled jailbait that makes me weep for the future yet watch for hours. have you seen the princess jazmin episode? yikes.
3. craigslist missed connections/rants and raves/casual encounters
4. myspace. i use friends' accounts to browse because i haven't signed up and don't intend to. i don't believe in the commodification of people, nor do i care to collect "friends." but looking at coworkers and old classmates' profiles is fucking addicting and satifies my voyeuristic appetite. when i was in school my women's studies/sociology TA told me to sign up so we could be friends. i've stayed away this long, but hey, a new year is upon us and anything can happen.
so there you have it. what better way to celebrate the holiday spirit of mindless consumerism than to reflect on my own media gluttony? i'd like to think that we as individuals have our own unique cultural palette, but the items that make up many people's best of lists are pretty much identical (check out metacritic, or better yet type "best music 2005" into technorati and poke around). has the marketing machine become so precise that it knows exactly what we'll respond to? are humans that predictable, that malleable? if something is on everyone's best of list, then it probably deserves to be there. granted, we live in the age of customizable culture, where we actively seek out alternatives to what the idiot box and entertainment weekly tell us to like. but if "best of" lists are any indication, then taste is every bit manipulated as it is cultivated.
but really, who cares. there are people out there whose work i enjoy, and this makes me happy. and thank you for enjoying sic transit gloria.
happy holidays to you and yours.
if this cough doesn't kill me
i don't know what will. the downside of working with kids--the constant frustration, headaches and self-censoring aside--is that you're constantly exposed to icky germs. mean germs, cruel, indiscriminate germs that infiltrate your insides without impunity. i avoid doctors and health professionals of all sorts like the plague, with the exception of optometrists/opthalmologists. i've always liked going to eye doctors, maybe because they've always been kind, more likely because they never jab popsicle sticks and metal pointy things into my mouth. dr. leitch--the optometrist i've been going to since i got my first pair of glasses in 4th grade--passed away earlier this year. a kindly man, reminiscient of seymour cassel in rushmore, in both likeness and demeanor. may he rest in peace.
"which is better, one or two?" he'd ask, slightly wheezing, as the machine that determines your prescription would click when the lens alternated between one, click, and two.
"one," click, "or three?"
"two," click, "or three?"
"how's that?" he'd ask after going through twenty or so lens combinations, my sight magically restored.
anyhow i'm so desperate to rid myself of this fucking cough and shortness of breath that have kept me up every night this past week that i'm going to see a doctor tomorrow for the first time in three years. the doctor i saw last didn't hesitate to verbalize his character judgments based on my answers to his questions. i really wanted to tell him off and ask who the hell he is to put me on trial. i should've stormed out, yelling back as i exited the office, RIGHT, DOC, YOU'RE SO MUCH BETTER THAN EVERYONE BECAUSE YOU DON'T ENJOY CIGARETTES AFTER PARTAKING IN COITUS WITH YOUR WIFE TO WHOM YOU ARE UNITED BY YOUR LOVE OF JESUS CHRIST THROUGH THE SACRED BONDS OF MARRIAGE! I APPLAUD THE TENSILE STRENGTH OF YOUR MORAL FIBER!
given that my performance resume
is short, unimpressive, and for the most part, was forced upon me--i was "mexican homeboy #2" in our 4th grade D.A.R.E skit; in 6th grade i was sir thomas more in a christmas period piece; in high school acting workshop i did a monologue from king henry viii, and scattered throughout were various piano recitals--it's most surprising to think that someone would recognize my quasi (non-existent) stage potential and provide me an opportunity to put it to good use. kind of. but i can't do this alone. before i craigslist this under gigs, you heard it here first.
stage manager (read: yours truly) seeks reliable crew for big hollywood production. and i mean big. skills necessary: must know how to draw curtains, a plus if you can do so in non-jerky fashion. must be able to handle some light-lifting as you will be setting up/taking down props in between acts. also a plus if you can operate unwiedly, archaic stage-lights that haven't been switched on in years. also need someone who knows how to operate a just as bulky circa 1988 tape deck/cd player that looks like your parents' first answering machine (the rewind button doesn't work, so you'll have to queue everything with a pencil or your pinky finger). most importantly, must be able to quickly and efficiently herd 5-10 year olds on and off stage and keep them quiet backstage. must not hesitate to use empty threats, such as, "i guess someone doesn't want to do their 'i want candy' dance," or "if you don't pipe down the only place you'll be singing hillary duff is in the principal's office." i don't want moms disappointed because their daughter's version of generic-disney-princess-song was drowned out by whispers and giggles, or because their son's recorder rendition of feliz navidad was punctuated by fart noises emanating from behind the curtains. this is an unpaid deal, but this is LA and you gotta start somewhere. if this sounds like something you can handle, respond promptly. emails without headshots will be disregarded.
ah yes, school talent show time is upon us. weeks in the making, this one's going to be a good one. i hope. and about the crew, i don't need one because they gave me three 5th graders whom i affectionately refer to as "my interns." as in, "this whole show is falling apart, i need a fucking cigarette. INTERN! LIGHT!" all i need is a clipboard, headset and a frosty the snowman emblazoned neckerchief and i'm good to go. perhaps i should practice a lisp as well.
