Tuesday, December 17, 2002

name for an album i will put out at some point:
(if you don't want a taco) get away from my taco cart

and the remixes album will be called:
(if you don't want a "taco") get away from my "taco cart"
and will have a different cover.

Monday, December 02, 2002

alissa it was great to see you.
dc you are cold and noble and reasonably sized as far as cities go.
la you are warm and overwhelming and so big and like the bible people use you for shallow and selfish purpose, to enrich themselves or chase after their own warped fantasies of immortality, but you, too, are noble. and like the bible you are probably worth spending the time to get to know well.
norman mailer you were right in '68, allen ginsberg likely will be remembered by posterity a better, or more important, poet than lowell.
allen ginsberg thanks again for the sunflower sutra because it's been there many times when i have needed it.
liz how is wild sheep chase? it's one of the murakami books i haven't read and i'm curious.
everybody watch for 'a sonnet a week,' a possible new feature of this site designed to make your justice even more affordable. iambic pentameter is back with a vengeance for the '03. word.

Friday, November 29, 2002

gobble f'n gobble

i am bruised and battered from the annual post-thanksgiving tackle football game. no broken bones on me, just bumps, but we did send 2 of 20 players to the hospital. there was one torn ACL and one lip busted to the point of needing stitches. the ACL in question was already sprained, so i don't know if that should really count.

it is so good to be out of LA for a minute, experiencing actual weather and a city with greenspace and no freeways, to see all my people and gorge myself on turkey.

tonight i'm going to a young alumni billiards party. i went last year, and it was possibly the most awkward 3 hours of my life. I spent 20 minutes of one 30 minute conversation trying to remember this girls name -- the sad part is that i had dated her for a few months in 8th grade. everyone looks weird and is fat or has beards and wack jobs and the tension is so thick that everyone gets plastered. somehow i talked most of the kids who were too cool to go last year into showing up so maybe we can at least have a safe corner this year.

Friday, November 15, 2002

idea for a 'novel'

so the last few nights I've been kicking around an idea in my head for a project I'd like to do within the next 2 years. I want to do 7 days of intense interviews (8 hours a day at least) of one of my friends. someone I know well, but not well enough that I would know the answers to many/most of the questions I would ask. record the conversations, then type them up with minimal editing for a book. these would be days spent away from anything and anyone in a cabin or similar secluded spot somewhere. I'm not sure what would end up being more interesting: the depth of insight into the subject, or the changing relationship/power struggle in a closed system between interviewer and interviewed.

any ideas?

any volunteers?

i am serious about this.
I got a new cell phone & number. 213-268-5685. old one won't work. this means that I need to fill up my new phone with numbers. please e-mail me yours. this is an opportunity to get in on the ground floor and be one of the first names I see every time i scroll through my phone book to make a call. even if you are SURE that i have your number, e-mail me again. thanks. more later when It's less busy at work.

Wednesday, November 13, 2002

i was on the news

anyone who was listening to L.A. radio between 6:45 and 7:30 or so last night might have heard, during the traffic segment, reports of an accident on the 10 eastbound before the vermont exit. traffic clogged all the way to santa monica, and delays on the 10 West to the 110.

that was me.

some kid had just finished midterms that day and was bringing flowers home to mom (it was her birthday) when he fell asleep at the wheel. traffic had been moving at 35-45 mph, and was slowing due to congestion ahead. he had no chance to apply his breaks, however, as he was asleep. he ran into the car in front of him. BLAOW! that was my car (the one run into).

no apparent body damage to my car, but the imact threw me backwards hard enough to rip my seat from one of it's anchors so it's got a natural pimp-lean, which is kinda fly but probably also somewhat dangerous. his car was fucked. front end damage and leaking fluids. I think I'll be fine. I'm stiff, but it's hard to tell whether it's something serious or just that "i was in a car accident" feeling.

it felt great hearing about the accident on the news, though. I feel like I am always driving and always listening for traffic reports that could affect me (not because there are alternate routes i could take or anything, i just want to know when it's going to take an hour plus to drive home). and here's one that not only affects me, it is me. it was like losing my virginity.

I went home, drank a beer, and ate a sandwich.

**a quick program note: previously scheduled post about particularly vivid high school-era memories and how they relate, in a somewhat zen fashion, to the nature of existance, has been postponed till a later date. sorry.**

Thursday, November 07, 2002

i will begin to read huntington's clash of civilizations today. it is time to prepare for the conservative future.

Wednesday, November 06, 2002

election thoughts (italics = late edits and aditions):

2 and out: the republicans will fuck everything up enough domestically that they will be out in 04, including W. no excuses, they must produce, as they control it all. but enough centrist gop'ers in congress will flip on each issue that they won't get too much through. but arguing that some of them have morals and that's why their agenda didn't push through won't cut it at the polls.

that's contingent upon a complete gutting and rebuilding of the democratic party. mcauliffe is out of there. within the week. and who can/will stand up to the challenge? i think it's got to be one of the clintonites, panetta maybe?

how politically genius was pulling harvey pitt at the exact moment that his resignation could not command any attention? it got buried last night in the first returns, after polls closed in the east and with only an hour or two left in the west, and it won't trump analysis these next few days. wow. well done.


how long till the first supreme court retirement?

shashi: you got your SF city pot. happy now, hippy?

i fell bad for old connie mo. from MD-8th.

go manzullo. (IL - 16th).

thank god there's no secession. (although, the valley and hollywood are two of the grimiest parts of LA).

voting for davis or simon felt like votting for saddam or saddam. but i voted green. i didn't throw my vote away, i recycled it.

Monday, November 04, 2002

Googlism :

derek is....according to google. some of my favorites:
derek is not god
derek is never going to hell
derek is unstoppable on thursday date
derek is evil
derek is the little one
derek is teaching me all derek is teaching me all
derek is hired on the spot to run a secret gambling tent
derek is in demand across the country
derek is just an obese loser who dresses up like anime characters
derek is no longer the tightly coiled knot of anger he once was
derek is on his way to australia for a couple of billy idol performances
some punks pulled a jack move

so there was a great haloween party on friday, great costumes, much drunken dancing and hilarity...good times, you know? pictures to come. then the next morning I head back to the spot to pick up my equipment (turntables, mixer, records) and it seems someone had beaten me to it. luckily they left one of the two crates that I had taken, so i didn't lose all my super-party hits, and some other bits and pieces of my setup, including my speakers. the party was in a garage behind a house and it didn't get locked up well enough and some fools must have come back after the party and taken my gear. i've gotten bummed out about it on and off since then, but a)the folks who live there are helping to replace the stuff and b) I've lost people and i've lost stuff, and it's a hell of a lot better to lose stuff than it is to lose people.

in other news, the skins are coming together and i see a playoff bid, and after having knocked off the only remaining undefeated team in my fantasy football league, the Buck Wheaton Bees are looking like a sure fantasy super bowl contender.

Wednesday, October 30, 2002

if you put that "doo-daa-dee" tone from the beginning of "this number is no longer in service" messages at the beginning of your answering machine message, telemarketers will stop calling you. do a google search for "sit.wav" to find that sound.

the difference in lifestyle between someone making $15k a year and someone making $25k a year is remarkable. i spent an hour at a friend's house last night, and I will give out no names or details, but BLING!!! I mean, it was like a fucking nelly video compared to my life. most of my calories come from the bagels and granola bars they have at work for free.

Monday, October 28, 2002

to my nyc peeps: i will be in the city around new years 2k3 and we will catch up, get down, make out, etc. it will be fucking great.

i might be mario or luigi for haloween. this comes in the wake of kerri pulling out of the ms. pac man and the 4 ghosts group costume. which sucks cause that would have been great. I haven't really come up with a great muttonchops-themed costume, although i now have great muttonchops. it's a trade-off i guess. pics will come.

a word of advice: if you're going out on saturday night, and you will be drinking, remember to eat dinner.

Tuesday, October 15, 2002

the bush administration is fucking crazy and creepy and i'm really worried that we might not be able to avoid WWIII before we get him out of there.

also, the sniper in dc is freaking me out. my gut feeling is that this is not a domestic crazy -- i think this might be intl. terrorism in another form.
i need your help. i need names of historical figures with muttonchops. this is for my haloween costume. i'm thinking more oldtime-y than thrash metal-y. like civil war generals or old baseball players are better than that guy from metallica who has muttonchops.

oh, and I'm also looking for 'chops that are connected by a moustache, as seen here:

unfortunately, if my haloween costume was Doug "Whiskers" Kline, past president of the Charles River Wheelmen, I don't think anyone would get it, and I'd have a hell of a time explaining it. I'm not looking for wussy big sideburns that the misguided refer to as muttonchops, as illustrated by this diagram:


incidentally, if you search for 'mutton chops' on dogpile image search one of the "did you mean to search for" 's that comes up is 'tongue recepies'. incidentally i love tongue tacos and burritos that can be found all over the great city of los angeles and i encourage everyone to get over the "ewww gross" factor and try a delicious tongue burrito. you'll thank me.

Monday, October 14, 2002

does anyone know anyone who makes bizzare fettish films? because i just thought of a great name for an automotive anal sex movie: shitty shitty bang bang.

Monday, September 30, 2002

i'm sorry i haven't been around recently.

it's just that, well, i've been busy. work is taking up a lot of my time and, you know, honey, how the world has been these days. I've wanted to call, honest.

it's not just work, either. on my days off even I'm running around like a crazy man, but i think of you.

i promise i do.

this is not a goodbye letter.

Wednesday, September 18, 2002

i'm 24. how the fuck do i know 3 suicides already. is this normal? what the fuck.

Tuesday, September 17, 2002

i know that a lot of people who read this went to school in st louis, and so the following might be of some interest to you.

kat, from the st. louis rap group bits n pieces, died on friday in st. louis. he flipped out and did some shit that led to his death, that it seem like he wanted to lead to his death. bits n pieces were one of the best underground rap groups in st louis and kat ripped it up everytime that he was in front of a mic. from what i understand part of what set him off on friday was putting so much into hip-hop and not seeing the success that he deserved.

i remember meeting him and his brother jia before the j-live show in the gargoyle my sophomore year. my friend garth and i talked to them for a while, totally down to earth, all about the art, and all love.

i remember putting on a hip-hop show in the basement of this punk spot on the hill, the italian neighborhood in stl. there were probably 40 people there. about halfway through their set kat took the mic and dropped two lines about each and every person there, in order, clockwise.

i remember the shit he said at paint louis 98 that made it into the documentary: hold on, i got something to say. that wall down on the riverfront, that's fucking history. keep hip-hop in your heart and not in your pockets.

i remember him and his brother coming through my apartment in donaldson court, just kicking it, talking football and music.

i remember the two of them announcing that they were changing their name to 'ghetto alumni' on my daio show, radio free st. louis. they changed it back to bits n pieces.

i remember going by his place once. south side(i think) projects. literally. like a cop at the door and all that. but he brought me through his place like i was family, not like i was some rich white college kid who he'd only known for a second.

i remember the last time i saw him, at the upstairs lounge, on my way out to LA, when i was passing though st. louis. he gave me a copy of the bits n pieces album that had just come out.

i may have some other thoughts later, but for now, rest in peace, kat, much love, much respect, and my deepest sympathies to his family, friends, and everyone else in st. louis that knew him.

Tuesday, September 10, 2002

there is a large forest fire in glendale, to the north of my place. it was burning last night, and it was pretty fucking bizarre sitting out on my balcony watching a mountain on fire. although, in this time of rememberance and resolve, i must admit that i've really got nothing on my new york people re: fires near where you live and bizzare-ness.

and LA seems to catch on fire a lot. probably 4 times this summer i've been driving along the freeways and passed a brush fire that's belching up a lot of smoke and flame and maybe people will slow down a bit on the freeway but for the mostt prt noone bats an eye.

Wednesday, August 28, 2002

as promised, annotated mohawks:

this guy got the first mohawk of the weekend. he was really quiet, barely saying anything. he just nodded, sat down, got his haircut, then left.

this guy said he was "OP" -- original punk -- from back in '76-'77, and he just wanted a buzz. it would have been tough to give him a good mohawk, anyway.

this girl was great. she just wanted a touch-up. the guy in the picture was hanging out all day and helping us heckle people into getting mohawks. here's how she turned out.

the guy with the clippers in this picture was also there all day. he was pretty drunk by the time he started cutting peoples hair, and he was just taking wild swipes at people's heads. i was getting nervous, and you can see the worried looks on the faces of people in the background. he puked later.

this girl was sure her parents were going to kill here. she had a court date coming up sometime this week for a curfew violation. she wanted a checkerboard pattern on her head.

this guy was really serious about being punk rock and once he got his mohawk he ran around screaming shit in a british accent like "you're all blokes." he came back on sunday with a riding crop trying to spank people. i wonder what he'll be when he grows up. i actually do, that's not a sarcastic statement.

this guy was my crowning acheivement of the weekend: a "Mr. T" style mohawk, on a white guy no less. check out the results here and here. I was so fucking proud. his girlfriend was crying, though, and not because she was happy.

this girl was a real sweetheart. her hair was clean and it smelled really good. we chopped about a third of if off, just on one side, because that's what she wanted. look at her eyes in this picture. I want to marry her.

this kid's mom came with him and convinced him to get a mohawk. she made him get it, and he didn't really want one. which is weird because his two brothers were with him, and she asked if they wanted to get them, and they sad no, and she left it at that, but she harrassed this one till he did it.

tri-hawk. word.

she wanted a chelsea, that sexy skinhead girl haircut. you know a girl with a chelsea is going to be screaming dirty shit in bed. it's not a mohawk, but the spirit was there, and you could do it with clippers. she got hers in the end, although you can't really tell from this picture. sorry.

i don't know if you know anyone who, no matter how hard you try, will never, ever, look normal in a picture. kerri is one of those people. they're fun to know.

there was actually a point when there were like 10-15 cops standing around watching me cut hair and trying to convince each other to get mohawks. none of them did. that sucks.

monkey man, the guy who runs the pirate radio station in hollywood (pirate cat radio), was about to get a 'hawk, but he decided not to. which is a bad move, because he's rocking a faux-hawk right now, and i think that's a cop-out. also i've heard that the only people in NYC that rock the faux-hawk style these days are gay guys. i wish all the indie-rockers and pseudo-punks in LA knew that if they go to nyc rocking that style people would just think that they were h-mo's.


cute girls with mohawks.

i cut this guy's dreads off. so he went from being a hippie to one of those incubus-type guys. he still smokes pot though.

this guy almost got a mr. t but chickened out and had us keep cutting until he had nothing left on the side. bad move in my book, brah.

this girl got talked into her mohawk by her friend and basically deciided it was a bad idea the moment after i had started chppoing her hair off. which was bad because that meant she was fighting it the whole time in a passive-agressive way. and her hair was the dirtiest and clumpiest of anyone out there except, of course, the guy with the dreads. so it didn't turn out so great. it was her own damn fault. wash your hair.

this guy didn't want a mohawk, he was really, really proud of his mullet. it's amazing hou much mullet pride these folks have, the people who've been rocking mullets the whole time, because they're really excited that it's finally "hip" and that they're excited about being on the cutting edge and they don't realize that it's still a big joke and that we're not laughing with them. it was a great mullet, though.

there was a place down the street "selling" mullets (actually hair extentions) for $10. our mohawks were free. and does that mean that guys were walking around with hair extentions in their hair? what the fuck is with that?

last to be annotated is this new-wave fellow, who had great 'hawk hair, then spiked it up, took of his shirt, wrote on himself, then stood in front of the store, quite proud of himself.

ladies love mohawks.

Monday, August 26, 2002


free mohawks, ladies and gentlemen. free mohawks.

this happened at the sunset juction street fair in the los feliz/silverlake area of los angeles.

I'll give details and comments later. I might annotate each individual mohawk if I'm feeling ambitious.

for now, though, i do laundry.

why the fuck is the comments server always busy. that honks
free mohawk pics will be up tomorrow. i am exhausted.

i trust everyone had a good weekend.

Saturday, August 24, 2002

also bizzare/opressive was, near the end of the show, he was talking about coming back, and staying for like 2 weeks or something, and this girl, in the back, is like "yeah this is a great club, isn't it" but for like 30 seconds, there was some back and forth, you know. and it was this very girl who 20 minutes earlier had climbed over the back wall of the club, like in the back, in the smoking area outside, it's 10 feet tall probably, and she climbed over it, and broke it, the wall, but got in.

Friday, August 23, 2002

i feel weird about going to see jonathan richman 3 nights in a row. especially because i ended up standing in approximately the same place at/near the front each night. like i was becoming one of those creepy guys that goes to shows alot and stares and is greasy and shit. i don't want to become one of those guys.

it was also a bizzare night. the other two shows were pretty laid back, fun, and not really really crowded or really really hot. which is weird becuse all 3 sold out.

anyway dengue fever opened. i think they set the bizzare/opressive tone for the evening:
1) just before they started to play, one of the afforementioned guys (greasy, wearing all black but not in a stylish way, more a stagehand/programmer sort of way, long hair to shoulders but badly balding, did i mention greasy?, alone, sweating, and with a multi-pack of earplus that he's had and reused since 1987) comes up and stands directly in between the group of 4 people I was part of, and we have to look at each other and sort of mouth to each other "hey should i come over there, do you want to come over here?" for a bit, and it took a while to decide my group of two would join the other group of two to this guy's right, on the side of the stage, and he deffinitely noticed, and i think he got offended in the quiet "i know i'm creepy but i didn't think i was so creepy that you'd move away" sort of way, but dude, if you're reading this, I'm sorry, but you were pretty creepy.

2. it was a pretty tall crowd. i have no way to explain this. maybe it's because the dengue fever bassist is like 6'8" and he's part of a tall pride support group that comes out to see him every show. i don't know. but i'm short, and i ended up directly behind one of 5 or 6 people there that were above 6 feet. tallness is not bad in this context, just weird.

3. the singer for dengue fever is an incredibly attractive vietnamese girl.. she looks like an erotic ceramic doll. maybe this is why the front 3 rows of the crowd were all sketchy guys by themselves. including one guy directly in front who must have taken 150 pictures during the 40 minute set. like this band was breaking news and he worked for life magazine and was going to get an award for photojournalism because one of those shots would be perfect. but no he was just creepy standing there going 'click''click''click''click''click''click''click''click''click''click' the entire fucking time.

so jonathan richman goes on. the weird/opressive atmosphere continues:

4. it's really hot....and really packed. so everyone's so close together that it's difficult to clap during or after songs or even get into it at all. so people are reduced to standing and staring. weirdly quiet, and opressively hot and quiet. at times.

5. one of the aforementioned tall guys behind me was alternately heckling jonathan or singing all the words pretty poorly to his songs. wierd that he'd do both, opressive because he did it the whole time, and it was also pretty quiet in there (see above, and also it was an acoustic performance in a small space so it was naturally quiet so people could hear, so everyone could hear him going off, and everyone knew that jonathan could hear him going off, and at least i felt bad for mr. richman, and i bet other people did too).

more later.

Wednesday, August 21, 2002

on saturday night a tarot card reader told me that i should keep writing. that that's where my money will come from and that i would get published. this was out of the blue and not in response to a particular question. she also told me that i would soon have an affair with a married woman with strawberry-blonde hair. and that it would be fun and i should go for it.

this was at a party where, as soon as i got there, there was a wet t-shirt contest, with 80% really, really unattractive contestants, and about halfway through the girl next to me turns around to the guy tending bar and screams "Dad! Don't Look!" It was his daughter's turn. another daughter of his was also in the contest. he turned away then as well.

Monday, August 19, 2002

new less-tits background, workers.

new fake blog.

new job? i just found out that the powers that be at the company i work for isn't going to hire anyone permanantly at my position for a while. I am a temp and my position is dues-payer/production-assistant/bottom of the totem pole. and they've been telling me since the end of june that they were going to hire me on. it would have meant a raise, which i need badly, and benefitts, which i can't even spell because i never have had them. so back looking for a new job i go. fuck.

still broke from vegas. this sucks.

tetris is so unrealistic.


so here are a few things.

first off if you click on the 'flying rebholz' picture below you go to the vegas pictures.

second, does my new post-apocalyptic-erotic background mean that you feel weird reading this page at work? if yes, let me know and I'll change it to something with less tits.

third, doesn't being a blockhead and misinterpreting your alarm clock usually lead to more sleep and being less responsible? i pulled into work this morning, then looked at the clock in my car. i was a full hour early, somehow. i checked my cell phone. yup, a full hour early. what the fuck. i don't remember doing anything weird to my alarm clock. . i just managed, somehow, to only look at the last two digits of every single clock i looked a this morning between getting up and pulling into the parking lot. at least i've gon from being a complete bum who's late for everything to a completel nucklehead who's really responsible. or something. i'm tired. i need more sleep, like say one more hour, and i'd be feeling great.

happy fucking monday, people.

Tuesday, August 13, 2002

this morning: listened to slant 6's soda pop * rip off for the first time in a while while driving in to work.

this evening: going out to dinner with my dad

this weekend: gypsy party in long beach. it was at this annual party, last year, that i met the hedgehog (ron jeremy).

next weekend: sunset juction festival. 2 days in my hood featuring: sonic youth, mary wilson, sleater kinney, the lords of altamont, arlo, and max, matt and i giving out free mohawks in front of destroy all music on sunset.

the weekend after that: my friend dan's wedding in philly.

what the fuck? comments don't work. i'm on it people.

Monday, August 12, 2002

q:
a: not much. i was working most of the time. well, on saturday at least. came in to work at 9 am, left at 6:30. came in at 9 on sunday too, but then realized that my boss was there and left after an hour. you see, i came in for two reasons. the first is that i lost all my money last weekend in las vegas, playing roulette and casino war, and i desperately needed some overtime in order to make rent --

q:
a: yeah, but what can you do? it was a lot of fun at least. i had never been to vegas before. anyway so the second reason was that they're upgrading the dubbing room at work and in order to replace downtime during the week the powers that be decided to have the engineers come in on the weekend and do the real serious plugging and unplugging of all the wires, etc., on the weekend. and they needed someone to let these guys in and lock up when they were done. so i volunteered. i needed the money.

q:
a:ok, so my boss was there, and i can't waste time as efficiently when he's here, and i was tired, and i wanted to have some time off this weekend, so i got the hell out of there and called some friends (woke them up, sorry bout that) and tried to get them to come out to the beach. couldn't get them going, so i went back to the east side of town (20 min drive) to bother them and throw a football at them while they were sleeping in order to wake them up. which pissed my firend matt off because he was dreaming about this tank that he had which had been stolen by a crazed biker gang and he had come to a sit-down meeting to find out where his tank was so he could get it back and just then i throw a football at him and wake him up and he never finds out where his tank was, or gets it back.. this pissed him off for the rest of the day, this missing tank, and had i woken him up 5 minutes later I'm convinced my sunglasses would still be in one piece.

q:
a: yes, my sunglasses.

q:
a: well we eventually got to the beach at 2 or so, after numerous stops (getting food, renting a surfboard, juggling cars, picking people up, etc. just stupid shit). and we get to the beach and. actually what's cool is that i sucessfully stood up on a surfboard for the first time.

q:
a:thanks. i could have done better if the waves were better and i get some more practice, but still, i'm pretty proud of myself. and i'm a much more effective paddler now that I've been using my pull-up bar and excer-

q:
a: oh yeah, sorry. actually, i'm not sure how it happened. matt, still retaining some anger from the tank incident, decided it was time for sand wrastling or something, and started whipping me with my t-shirt. and i get pissed (i wasn't in the mood for sand wrastling. it's a rare mood, often brought on by tank-anger) and somehow my glasses come off and after the wrastling i pull them out of the sand and they're broken. which sucks, because i really liked those sunglasses.

q:
a:well, you know the cover of the 'best of the velvet underground & nico' cd where they're all wearing sunglasses? that has always been my personal benchmark for sunglasses cool. since i got that album, probably. when i buy sunglasses, that's what i want them to look like. i'm not the only one who has this particular sunglasses/album cover relationship, i'll have you know. i'm no freak. and only once had i gotten sunglasses more velvets-cool than these, and that was from a vendor on the streets of rome, and for $5. and that's never going to happen again. but these sunglasses, they were -- well, you know those old-folks, glaucoma wraparound glasses?

q:
a:ok, these were like those, but sort of updated for the millineum. sleeker. with actual frames, while retaining the full-eye protection from harmful uv rays. and they're polarized, so if you tilt your head from left to right certain things, like car windows and other polarized glass, change brightness. which i always liked. sort of monochrome-psychedellic. and so boxy-weird-velvets that i loved them.

q:
a: at the last k-mart before the entrance to joshua tree national park. i realized i had no sunglasses for 2 days caming, and i needed something, so i go in, and there they were. i was in love. but not in love enough to go back there for another pair.

q:
a: i forget. around $12.95. not much.

q:
a: actually, i did, a month and a half ago. it was during the walkmen tour. we stopped at a strip mall, for water and sundries, and walt, the keyboardist, comes out with almost the exact same pair.

q:
a: well, they were like the newer model or something. like i had the 2k1 model, and he scored the 2k2s. i guess he has similar sunglass taste. we also share an appreciation of dub reggae (augustus pablo, king tubby, etc.)

q:
a: actually, they probably do. but i haven't been to a k-mart in la for a long time. there just aren't too many. it's like "strip malls, strip malls everywhere, but no k-mart in sight." and i'm still pretty broke.

q:
a: yeah, but i won't get that check till friday, and I'm worried that my rent check will bounce, so I'm trying to spend as little money as possible. haven't you read my blog at all?

q:
a: that's right, i didn't ok here goes: no money spent friday or saturday, except gas used. then on sunday, $4 for a sausage sandwich, $2 for a pint of apple-cherry-pomagranate juice, $9 for dinner, then $3 for a late night flapjack. and i think i spent another $5 in there somewhere.

q:
a: yeah, but i had worked all weekend, raking in overtime, etc. it's better than the hundreds of dollars i blew in vegas the previous weekend. i'm not worried.

Friday, August 09, 2002

spent $9 on dinner wednesday, but this is acceptable because

a) it was out of $10 that matt owed me from vegas, not figured in to my rent calculations

and

b) it was at phillipes, a 94-year-old lunch-counter-type place downtown that originated the french dip sandwich.

tihis is acceptable, right?

i'm out of gas, and it costs damn near $60 to fill up the machine. fuck. there is a way to make this work.

liz found some of the old-school footprints i have left on the internet. can you? there will be some sort of prize for whomever unearths the most awkward or embarassing record of my early days on the internet (think 92-97) and puts a link to it in the comments section. good luck.

Wednesday, August 07, 2002

spent $5 on a real milkshake tuesday.

spent $0 wednesday.

i know who starla nutpicker is.

Tuesday, August 06, 2002

i spent $0 today. probably drove 40 miles. say 15 mpg, so 2.6 gallons at $1.60 is about $4. not bad.

Monday, August 05, 2002

holy fuck. vegas spit me out but good. i lost $200 at the tables, on top of batchelor-type expenses, gas and food. if i don't spend a single penny for 2 weeks i can do it. i can make rent. from here on out (or at least for the next two weeks) this will be a journal of asceticism.

i will keep track of how little i have spent, like in the warhol diaries.

but damn was vegas fun. i will put a picture or two up here within the next few days. i loved every minute of the town until the ATM maching started insulting me cause i was broke, drunk, and stupid.

we spent most of our time, and i spent most of my money, at a two bit no-hotel cheapo leprachaun-themed casino called o'shea's. they had $2 blackjack, $3 roulette, and casino war, possibly the greatest gambling game since $1-a-round rock-paper-scissors.

anyone want to buy some of my stuff? i'm putting my firstborn up on e-bay this evening to pay off my debts. watch for it.

Thursday, August 01, 2002

so my car will hit 100,000 miles today. i plan to pull over, light a candle, and have some soda and cake. i'll take a picture, too.

one day till vegas.

still no idea who starla nutpicker is.

Monday, July 29, 2002

also, when i talked to alissa yesterday, we were discussing getting together over thanksgiving when we'll both be back in dc. we said we'd call each other and chat sometime soon, deffinitely before thanksgiving. then she said something like "but I'm not worried, i mean, i read you everyday." and i read her everyday, along with all the other people/places linked to over there on the left. but it just sounded weird when i heard it, vaguely paranormal and futuristic, somewhere between brave new world and a hive mind.

lots of new stuff on here. links to things i like, and comments and all that. i had a productive sunday, if you call staring at a computer screen for a few hours while it's beautiful outside 'productive.'

i think i talked to more out-of-town people i care about this weekend than i have in a long time. liz, alissa, my grandfather, grandmother, mother, and brother. it felt good.

saw the lords of altamont on friday night. they rocked the fuck out of spaceland, and will be playing a free show at the knitting factory LA on wednesday, so anyone in town should try and check them out if you haven't before. also i feel i need to link to the sharp ease because i didn't before and they also rule.

I've been getting e-mails from someone I know from back in DC, who goes by 'starla nutpicker.' she won't tell me who she is, no matter how much i beg. i have some wild guesses, but that's all they are. i need help. if you know starla, please get her to spill the beans.

if you want to see lots of pictures from my tour with the walkmen, then go here. it might take a while to load, though, so be patient. modem users beware.

this weekend is my friend dan's long awaited "batchelor weekend" in vegas. I've been putting off a vegas trip since i've been in LA, mainly because i've been broke, but there's no way i'm not going this weekend. trouble is, I'm still broke. I tried gambling when i was in vancouver, since there was a casino in the hotel. (not that I haven't gambled before. quite to the contrary. I've bet on anything and everything under the sun, from where fellow travellers were staying one night, to how many megabytes are in a terabyte. one of my favorites is dollar-a-round rock/paper/scissors, but i digress.) I played roulette all night, and was up probably $50, but i didn't really understand what that meant, cause it was canadian money, so i stayed there and lost it all ($25C) and went to bed. so wish me luck in vegas, cause if i win big then realistic records can start working on a few projects at once, and if i lose big i'll be another broke asshole in vegas.

(selective boldface back by popular demand.)

Sunday, July 28, 2002

I'm going to try and mirror this page at my pacbell webspace just for kicks. if it doesn't work, don't get mad.
choose a song that...

1. reminds you of an ex-lover: pogues "fairytale of new york"
2. reminds you of an ex-friend: dr. octagon 'moosebumps'
3. makes you cry: springsteen "highway patrolman"
4. makes you laugh: the b.o.t.s. 'mc born kicks a dope freestyle for the helium kids on the corner"
5. makes you wanna dance: 'gospel time' beenie man
6. reminds you of the one you want: 'our time' yeah yeah yeahs
7. reminds you of the one you love: n.o.u. 'you're my miss washington d.c.'
8. you wish you wrote: 'time' richard hell and the voidoids
9. you never want to hear again: eminem 'without me'
10. you want to get married to: sam cook 'if you need me'
10.5. you want to get buried to: many rivers to cross, jimmy cliff, the version on disc one of the trojan UK Hits 3-cd box.
11. makes you want to mosh/bang your head: nation of ulysses "nousptda/the shape of jazz to come"
12. sums up your teenage years: 'make it precious' jonathan fire*eater
13. you like to wake up to: jonathan richman/modern lovers 'roadrunner'
14. you like from your parents' collection: 'red headed stranger' willie nelson
15. you love that a friend introduced to you: springsteen nebraska the whole album
16. you love the video even more: highwaymen "highwaymen"
17. reminds of your first crush: 'that song from the robin hood movie' by brian adams. (i know. but i was young)
18. you love from a favorite movie: "better off dead" from the movie of the same name, sung during the prom scene
19. makes you think of the moon: santo & johnny 'sleepwalk'
20. makes you think of stars: 'california stars' billy bragg & wilco
21. makes you think of the sun: 'blue velvet"
22. makes you think of sex: the bassist from radio vago
23. makes you think of being alone: velvets 'stephanie says'
24. you love to hear at clubs: the slickers 'johnny too bad'

ok, now yours.

Thursday, July 25, 2002

what up. went to a show on monday at the smell. erase errata w/ the sharp ease and some other bands. fun. thursday already. not sleeping well this week. it's the full moon, which comes up every night big and orange then sits outside my window laughing and keeping me up. at least it's not my upstairs neighbor fighting with her man anymore. it's all on me, and i don't have to lie in bed half or a third asleep wondering where the lines between discretion, exhaustion, worry, and annoyance are and how that ven-ish diagram relates to whether to call the cops to shut them up/check that they're ok and not killing each other or just wait till they shut up/die so i can fucking sleep. that happened last week.

watched the first 75 minuted of CQ last night. I'm glad the copy i saw didn't have more. it looked cool but was pretty fucking boring.

because of the full moon i expect a wild weekend.

Thursday, July 18, 2002

i write nothing for a while not because i hate you, but because my life has returned to thesort of boring shit that hapens day to day and there's nothing interesting going on. no fun interludes, just murakami and lunch breaks. shashi im tired of reading about your m and ms. alissa i'm proud of you. i want to go to sleep. goodnight.

Monday, July 08, 2002

so we're going with Realistic Records as the name of the label, cause it sounds like a label that should have been around for a while, and it's also an oblique reference to our first release. we're shooting for having the Recoys LP out by christmas in order to have a reunion show/record release party at the black cat or something when all the massive is in DC.

it took a full week to feel like myself again after getting back to LA. luckily there was a loooong weekend to kick back. standout moments included the liz mcgrath opening/afterparty at la luz, the "prom '82" party sat. night, and sleeping a lot.

what I'm bumping: richard hell & the voidoids "time" & blank generation LP, television "marquee moon", atmosphere godlovesugly, yeah yeah yeahs EP, new blackalicous lp.

Wednesday, July 03, 2002

also, let me just say for the record that abigail stole my minor threat conspiracy link. and didn't credit it. and she's a librarian, who should know the importance of proper documentation and references. not that I care so much, just i want her to know that i know. also a shoutout to alissa.
so I'm back from the walkmen's west coast tour. so much fun. so pissed that we missed the show in vancouver because of traffic in seattle. i got to see some old friends (kat, nez, shashi, dre, etc). it's tough adjusting to a stationary lifestyle after 10 days of constant travel and rock and roll. I'll try and do a day-by-day of the tour at some point. not quite yet, though.

went to see hot hot heat/radio 4/arlo at the knitting factory last night. hot hot heat was off the hook. it was the first all ages show I'd been to in a while and let me tell you the kids are alright. brought me back to dc and shows in church basements and such. there was even a bit of a pit, which if you've ever heard hot hot heat might surprise you a bit.

now radio 4 just sucks:

a) there are 5 of them, but they're called radio 4. come on.
b) the singer's hat.
c) bongos?
d) they suck.

it's like hot hot heat and radio 4 sat down to divy up the clash and hot hot heat got the interesting parts. oh well. and arlo rocked out, but I had seen them 4 times on the walkmen tour so I went home to get some sleep after a few songs.

so my roommate max and i are starting a record label (we're postumously putting out a proper album by the recoys as our first release) and we need a name. the three contenders as of now are:

1. Blood and Whiskey Records
2. Three In Front Records
3. Realistic Records

which is the best? let me know your pick or any other suggestions by clicking here.

Sunday, June 16, 2002

and then there's this.
i wrote this letter to my friend paige. i figured it had general interest, and so i post it here. i may start putting more things I've written up here and not just tell stories and talk about things that have actually happened to me.

whats up you wanted stories of the city of angels. 3 months ago. but it takes a while to get enough good ones for a letter. i haven't yet, but I'll write one anyway. sorry the friction funding didn't come through. the day will come, though, and we'll be ready. you should definitely do the nyc/publishing house thing. you haven't ever lived in a big/really big city, have you? i've been here a year and a half now, and I feel like a battery is charging up even though it's exhausting to live here. like when i get out of here in however many years and go somewhere more stable like you were talking about, I'll be able to get a lot done in whichever direction I'm headed (writing/movies/music/etc.).
la is crazy. I've been working steadily for the first time in a while, starting in late april. much needed stability. lots of crazy stories, but most are best told in person with gestures and silly walks to illustrate. writing some. we got a writers group together among my friends once a week for a while there and that helped a lot just to get my head in the right place to start writing again. I just got a typewriter...well not just, but i only recently started using it.....and i get good vibes out of it when i'm writing on it so i'm going to keep using it. it's nice to know that someone else, or a bunch of other people, used it before. i wrote this on it yesterday:


i have visions of other worlds
red worlds
with people-creatures
with vague and undefined
features climbing out of the
shadows that cloud this other world or my
visions of it.
blue worlds that rest like an hour before
dawn on a sunday. orange worlds.


they creep through my mind when i
try to sleep off the week.
i think they want me to send them something
but i don't have their address and it will
likely be years before i can find what
they need.
they must understand my situation
i mean, a man has to make a living these
days and, in the wake of the tragic events
of september 11, which have shattered
our nerves but deepened our resolve, i must
churn out product for the war machine.


this is not a time to cavort with aliens.


i just don't have the time to
let their signals wash across my thoughts
and don't know if i shoul--


write in the morning. squeeze the dreams
out then, when they are juicy and just then
retreating. pound through their door then,
catch them before they have woken enough to know to run.
they will pay for leaving their window open. every man
has his place in the war machine. i will accept their calling.
the fall, the boyant cry of the hunted that has just escaped from the slaughter:


why is there blood on my pantleg.
why did i pick this revolution
did i think it would succeed?
you must release me some time, if
only to oblivion. you cannot hold
my soul forever. take what you need
now, and quickly, and let me moan
away to memories of the end of
august and quiet summer nights in the
north country where the soft breath
of winter remains in the air even then.
where the streets are empty and
the quiet rhythm of the sea echoes
off the rocks of the inlet. i've reached
the end of my line.
---



not particularly coherent or polished but it's more interesting that anything I've written in a while so I figure it must be the ghosts in the typewriter. tell me more about school and such and what's up in your life.

Wednesday, June 12, 2002

i was off coffee, off caffine for good. i had beaten the monster. and now i'm back on the stuff. the sad failures of continued addiction will likely define my short jolted life. i wish no one ever put ice in coffee. cause regular coffee, with ice, is just too good.

Arts and Letters Daily has a pretty interesting articly about halfway down the page attempting to synthesize huntington and fukayama's theses of current events and the near future in light of our current moment in history. pretty interesting, and included not because i really think you care, but just so you know that i still understand big words.

why you gwan try an test de champion?

Monday, June 10, 2002

i leave my mind open for a second and the monsters come in. fuck. it's like with vampires. you invite them in, even offhandedly, and they are allowed free reign by the rules of the spirit plane. i f'n hate the rules of the spirit plane. so last night i invite them in, say i'll write a bit every morning while the dream-creatures are not yet fully awake either and i can trap them, squeeze them out, but instead they just trample me this morning and i don't wake up till 11 am and work starts at 10:30 and I'm a half hour away.

fuck.

Friday, June 07, 2002

ok so i think now that i have a job and some money i'm going to try and put out a 7" record by the recoys, the now defuct, pre-walkmen band that isn't jonathan fire*eater. I 'll put it out on a subsidiary of I Think Records, the st-louis-originated hip-hop label that i started w/ A-Double and DJ B-Money. but this subsidiary needs a name. any ideas?

thanks to liz for promising to provide the official walkmen west coast tour wedding dress pillow. check her blog if you're thouroughly confused right now.

those fucking brits.

will we all die in nuclear armageddon?

i heard on public radio that colonizing cultures' music empasizes the upbeat (marching shit like house and rock and waltz and hip-hop), colonized cultures' the downbeat (reggae/ska, go-go, etc..), as a rule.

reading Island by huxley right now. pretty cool. dense. bought the wind up bird chronicle by murakami today and can't wait to read it because

Sunday, June 02, 2002

it's 4 am on a sunday morning and im exhausted but i love you, so:

just dropped a friend off. on the way we got stuck behind the new york times delivery people so we stole the sunday times from someone's driveway. east cost people: cherish your daily printed media. the LA times fucking sucks. i'm not doing anything tomorrow but reading the paper. cover to cover.

which reminds me. fuck all those new york bands. fuck my friends bands. flogging molly rules. they're my new favorite band for right now cause they're the pogues but punker.

which reminds me. I'm the "tour manager" for my friends the walkmen when they do their west coast tour at the end of this month. baiscally it's a free rock and roll vacation with my friends up to vancouver and i can't fucking wait.

been reading a lot lately. huxley, anais nin, murakami, borges. which reminds me. richard brautigan fucking rules in the same way that tom waits and leonard cohen rule.

i said "rules" and "fucking" a lot. fuck you.

sleep.

Friday, May 24, 2002

so i went to see dj z-trip at root down last night. it was the first time i'd seen him since he blew the fuck up (i.e., cochella, linkin park, etc.). it was also the first time i'd been to root down in months. i used to go all the time. good music, good crowd, and i knew one of the djs (egon) from doing hip hop college radio back in the day. then, after it was rated the best dance club in the city by citysearch, the crowd started to get a bit less fun(ky) (fewer breakers, etc.), and i had heard everything the 3-4 regular djs play too many times. the one really great night near the end of when i was going to root down all the time was when z-trip showed up unanounced and rocked the fuck out of the place. that was probably the most fun I've had at a club in la. everyone was dancing and going crazy with every mix. z-trip had just moved to la from phoenix. this was a few weeks before he got his residency at vermont on wednesdays. so...i was pretty excited to go see him rock the same spot.
it kinda sucked.
we (max, matt, and i) got there a bit before 10 so we could get in for less, and there was a line down to the end of the block. and a vibe right out of heavy metal parking lot. weird. overheard people talking about how they were uncomfortable at gabah because it was too ghetto. weird. some guy kept talking to me about this mix z-trip was going to do with some tool song that would blow my mind. weird. jump to when z-trip gets on the wheels. the place is packed, more like a rock club than a dance club. i've been dancing for a while and am smushed up against the stage . he starts playing and i turn around away from the tables to dance with people and not just stare at the dj. i'm staring at like 100+ people, no one dancing, everyone staring at the stage. ok, fine, z-trip's a rock star now. i get it. that's cool. i turn around, look at the tables like everyone else, and prepare to be rocked. it never really came. there were a couple cool mixes that got everyone excited ("jane says" + "h to the izzo", for example) but there were too many dips in the energy level. z-trip also gets the bozak for using pre-mixed cd's and those fun, but cheating, cd-tables to make up for the fact that he didn't have such and such on wax, or couldn't mix this or that live.
you need different sets to rock a stadium and a club. z-trip tried to rock the e-z stadium mix at root down, and it didn't work.

Thursday, May 23, 2002

a few quick notes:

-i cant believe it's actually thursday already. that rocks, especially because of the three day weekend and the official start of summer. i wish everyone barbeques and the beach this weekend. let the summer begin.

-i just heard from Abigail for the first time in years. awesome. she is my favorite librarian ever. my decimals get all dewey whenever i think of her.

-liz is coming out to LA in mid june to play. that rules. there will constant visitors and new arrivals this whole summer. the air will be thick with blood and whiskey. in a good, secret agent way, not a oh shit my drunk friend is in a puddle of blood and whiskey sort of way.

-the library of congress just gave the bozak to the riaa, which means web radio, like KWUR can keep making our lives better. this, along with the aforementioned abigail, is why i like librarians.

-there's a place called record surplus douwn the road. im going during lunch...

Tuesday, May 21, 2002

so alissa (a-money) just left town, it was good to see her, although I wish I could have shown her a little bit more of la than destro's basement. oh well, she'll be back.

my dad's in town, so that means that I get to eat well for a few days. we went to the sushi bar at matsuhisa last night, the place that zagat rates highest in the whole town for food. all i have to say: holy fucking shit. i've been to that place before, but each time i eat there it blows my mind and I just want to roll around naked in raw fish. sorry for the mental image, everyone.

also feel free to e-mail me if you want to, especially if you know why hunter s. thompson is in beruit. i'm assuming that this means that he's at least attempting a return to somewhat serious journalism after the last decade or so of his lunatic drivel for espn.com and others. i subscribe to the school of thought that his last really readable and insightful work was fear and loathing on the campaing trail '72 and that everything past that was either a) him too fried in the noggin to really say much or b) him calling it in for a paycheck, just tossing together some rambling about booze, peacocks, and paranoia and sending it through the mojo machine to people always willing to gobble it up (myself often included). anyway, let me know, if you know.

Monday, May 20, 2002

i did go to the beach during my lunch break. maybe its just because i havent been to the beach yet this year, but it blew me away. clean, clear air and heavy winds, clouds exploding everywhere in the sky, sand and sun, so sensual, with my feet in the sand and the waves. i'm sold on this place again, i just kept reminding myself "this is my lunch break" and after 25 minutes walked away recharged, drove back to work with my shoes off.
so tired. but its so nice out. morning rains cleared the crap out of the LA air and it's beautiful. i might go to the beach on my lunch break.

Sunday, May 19, 2002

shit. i just wrote like a page and a half and it dissapears into the ether. it was funny too. i'm still at work at 11. im getting tired and now im frustrated.here's the gist of what i wrote, im not going to write the whole thing again:

i shouldn't be at work on god's day, but i'm getting mad overtime and getting paid for watching tv and fucking around on the internet. cool with me. 13 hours + at time and a half.

i'm a dork/simcity 3000 is ruining my life.

it kept me from checking my cell phone messages last night and finding aout about a house party that the lords of altamont were playing. they rule and it would have been more fun than what i did last night, im sure.

it made me go back home at 2 or 3 am and keep playing the game and when my friend matt came over he tried, first mentally and they physically to get me to stop playing and interact socially and instead i ended up stabbing him a couple times with a corkscrew to keep him from getting between me and my gaming.

simcity 3000 unlimited is the opposite of sex. when that movie came out my now roommate max and i argued about what the opposite of sex really was. he maintains to this day that it's marijuana. i think it's this game, cause you can interact with people while smoking weed and can have sex while you're stoned, but you cant do either of those things when you're in the evil grip of this game.
inspired by sixo and liz, and being bored at work on a sunday, im going to start one of these. if you don't know me here's my life and this should get you caught up to the present day. i was born 2/22/78 in baltimore, then shipped to dc and lived on capitol hill for two years until my folks got scared and moved to the suburbs outside of dc. i went to high school in dc, and led a bit of a rock and roll existance there, then went to college in st. louis, led a bit of a hip-hop existance there, then graduated and moved back into my parents attic in dc. after 6 months of that i was going crazy and neeeded to get out and come out to los angeles. so i did. that was a year ago. i lived in west hollywood for 9 months or so. i moved out to silverlake, a less glitzy, more rockin neighborhood just a bit northeast of downtown in january. and now i'm bored at work on a sunday and so here's a blog. i'm going to go play with it now that you have the basic gist of my life down.