Friday, April 11, 2003

seasons, a long drive, and goodbyes, part II: a long drive

....A long drive then, down sunset boulevard, which streches the length of the city from the pacific to downtown, passes both UCLA and my house, and will give me time to think.

I turn onto sunset, and the sunset is behind me, the road is curving and....

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and then my lunch got here, and i've got work to do, and i have to finish this later. sorry folks. i'm trying though, i really am. where the hell is salam pax?

Wednesday, April 09, 2003

i went a' walkin'

bored at home, i went for a walk last night, around the neighborhood:down benton, down sunset to silverlake, then up to effie. probably saw 2 people on the sidewalk, other than those hanging out infront of rock and roll clubs. i didn't plan to rock, though, it just happened: about halfway through my 'evening constitutional' i realized i needed some rock and roll. this will happen. i popped into the silverlake lounge first: $5, acoustic, ugh, peace out dudes. on to spaceland. $8, black keys headlining. i'd heard the name before, in some distant but positive context. why not? lets rock. opening band was boring, australian retro/southern rock -- they had apparently just opened for the stones in aussie-land. it felt like the lords of altamont without the acid, and the acid is what makes the lords great. selah. during this set everyone was pretty short, shorter than me, which is rare. i'm not too tall.
then black keys. the crowd gets taller. i stay the same size.

an aside: if you are 6'3", and have a white-fro 2 feet in diameter, in the majority of rock-club situations you don't need to be in the front few rows of folks. i don't care how much you love the band, you're 6'3". and look at your hair. thInk about it dude.

so although i was at most 10 feet from the stage i couldn't see that much, which thankfully was alright. black keys still did it up, playing some of the most honest and rocking blues i've heard from 2 white guys, jon spencer without the new york city, blues with a different kind of explosion, dirty and dusty. his voice was a bit breathy for my taste, too 'fake-authentic,' but when the vocal and guitar lines moved together, or when the jangle of guitar notes on the downstroke resolved breifly to a brief two-note melody on the up, i didn't mind so much.

oh and beck was there, which i guess makes sense, because apparently they'll be touring together.

more of this later, i will finish it, but it might take a week. i have it all in my head though. it's not going anywhere.

Tuesday, April 08, 2003

seasons, a long drive, and goodbyes, part I: seasons

i woke up late for work yesterday. i just forgot to turn my alarm on. it happens, but it has been happening to me too much. my eyes shot open, my clock showed 2 minutes after i was supposed to be at work, and my commute during morning rush was an hour. fuck. drove to work, unshowered, no breakfast, angry and dirty and embarrassed. ready to give up...something. pissed that i was so stressed about a relatively mediocre job in the entertainment industry.

uneventful day at work, and i left a bit earlier than usual. i'm taking a journalism class at ucla. my plan, in the medium term, is to go to journalism school somewhere on the east coast. I miss seasons: that magical moment just as the first snow is accumulating on city streets and everything goes silent, snowflakes shine as they float past streetlights, and you can actually hear each flake falling on top of another like white noise in heaven as a cab crawls carefully over the slick streets; the first spring day when you can go out in a t-shirt, and you are free, finally, you skin feels like it's glowing and everything is green and everyone is smiling; the five-o-clock-alypse, a thunderstorm that rolls in from nowhere on sticky summer afternoons and drops huge raindrops like kamazazi bumblebees as viscious lighning cracks, lights up the sky, now thick and dark but blue and beautiful ten minutes ago, terrible rumbling thunder, and, if you're lucky, you have a copy of 'flight of the valkyries' in your car or your walkman, and you turn it on, and you are on top of the world; the crisp smell of winter, and fires, the crunch of leaves covering the ground, whips of smoke from fireplaces, and football.

as a means to the end (the end, in this case, is seasons, whereas los angeles is, in part, the end of seasons), i am taking this journalism class.

but when i show up i realize (read: the security guard told me after looking at the enrollment papers I hadn't looked at well enough) that my class didn't start till next week. re-cue anger and embrassment. two similar fuck-ups in one day. if i lived anywhere else I'd have taken a long walk to clear my head, but this is los angeles, and if they see you walking aimlessly they think you're a terrorist. A long drive then, down sunset boulevard, which streches the length of the city from the pacific to downtown, passes both UCLA and my house, and will give me time to think.

next: a long drive
the walkmen are on the road right now to memphis to record their second album. vaya con dios, gentlemen. jinners has a rundown of their triumphant 3 night stand at the bowery ballroom in nyc.

Sunday, April 06, 2003


pigface would like to welcome you to the photo gallery from last night's sharp ease show at the decor squat.