f a title

from walls all around my office the airbrushed faces of celebrities (made up as pirates, rock stars, and revolutionaries) stare out at me from movie posters. Each movie star looks directly at me, like a dead uncle from a haunted oil painting. The men on the posters want to fight or tell me a bit of hidden wisdom, depending on their age. The women want to fuck me, or make love to me, depending on their character. There is a strict formula for these one-sheets. I have a poster on the cramped wall of the closet that I work in, but there aren't any people on it. It's for the movie Volcano.

Some of you might remember the movie Volcano. It was a Tommy Lee Jones "vehicle" about, remarkably enough, a volcano that erupts under Los Angeles. The great thing about the movie is that the volcano destroys the Beverly Center, a truly hideous mall in West Hollywood, in the last 10 minutes of the film. I hate the Beverly Center. There are two great things about the poster. the first is that no one is staring out at me, as it shows a wide shot of Los Angeles being engulfed in lava, and the second is that LA doesn't really look like the city on the poster. I mean, it's got our landmarks, but the city just doesn't look like the one on the poster. You can't see the Capitol building, the Hollywood Sign, and downtown at once from the north. The 101 doesn't cut through them like that. It's just so wrong it's fun.

Also, slate's Adam Kirsch has this article about the lack of great writing about los angeles. He mentions, citing Mike Davis' numbers, that since 1909, there have been 138 books or movies that "have dealt with the destruction of the city by fire, flood, earthquake, nuclear holocaust, or alien invasion." It's not that bad.

at least it's an ethos

I looked out my balcony just now and saw the big dipper sitting in the sky between the treeline and the bottom of the balcony above me. I'm exhausted. But I need to mention a few things.

The first is that Howard Dean just raised almost $4 million dollars in 9 days, $3 million of that over the internet. The truly bizzare line from his campaign site: "he [Dean] knows we made $7 million and will blog shortly from the car." The democratic race is now looking like a 3-way contest between Dean, Kerry, and Leiberman, with Edwards next to out of it already and the other 5 already footnotes to the campaign. And the frontrunner is a blogger.

The second thing I want to mention is that I'm going to try and keep politics off Affordable Justice for most of the rest of the campaign. Instead of talking about it here, I plan to write a weekly column about the presidential campaign for The Realist, the online journal of Realistic Records. It hasn't launched yet -- that's probably a few weeks away. If you've checked out some of the links over on the left, many of the people writing for the realist will be familiar to you. Hopefully it'll give all of us a chance to get focused and write some longer-form articles. Hopefully it'll be interesting.

do the funky penguin pts. I & II

i'm starting to get over the jet lag. i had part two of my root canal this morning. it was great, or, it wasn't terrible and painful.

i'm spinning next thursday night in echo park. I want to put together an "america" set, since thursday night is the night before july 4th. some things in the crate so far:

'star spangled banner' - jimi, probably the rainbow bridge one, not woodstock
'the americans' - a canadian talks about how great americans are, "even though they've been kicked around a bit lately," over an orchestral march, off a 45 on westbound, early 70s?
"we the people" - the soul searchers
"funky president" - james brown
"american justice/fight" - scream

this is a bar without a dance floor, just cats playing pool and hanging out, so these dont have to be disco killers. the hipster vibe is heavy, though. it's hard to tell if it's 83 or 2k3 in this place sometimes, so i can't/won't play 'born in the usa,' because it'd be way too easy. but still: help! suggestions...I'm doing 12-close, and it's a holiday that friday.

nyc

wow. what a weekend. i'm still recovering. thanks to everyone who came out to the recoys show on friday. thanks to noah for putting me up most of the weekend. thanks to liz, alissa, pico, haylz, and jinners for having friendships with me where links count. it was great to see all of you. it's pretty silly that i don't live in new york.

there's a couple things going on behind the scenes that i can't talk about right now, but they will be good.

oh, yeah, my friend nuria is the literary editor of a tattoo/piercing fetish site, evilBADevil, and it just launched a few days ago. check it out. it makes my hoohah go woohah!

The Scrum

the scrum steals my point about governors vs. legislators becoming president. or makes the point that i was hinting at.

whoa

thanks to everyone who came out to the recoys record release party. it was the most people the band ever played for. here are some pictures from the show and a few from later that weekend. click the image below to go to the photo gallery:


some things to look for:
1) the recoys disappearing in some of the photos like marty mcfly in back to the future.
2) a profesional rodeo rider in a hugh mcintosh t-shirt.
3) max and I popping a bottle of Moet to celebrate the release of the record. attmittedly the bottle is 'independent record label' sized. we're still going to make the 'coys recoup it. suckers.
4) notorious rockers and rock-bloggers all up in the crowd shots.
5) the love. look for the love.

from a gray day in the land of KDAY to BK, what you say?

as i was driving to work this morning, i passed a fourty year old woman having what appeared to be a really pleasant conversation with the 101 freeway. she was gesticulating, and every once in a while would lean in as if to tell the freeway a secret. the freeway smiled back in a patronizing way, and shared with her the secrets of ten thousand motorists, alone in their cars, as if to let her know that its lips were in no way sealed.

in three hours i get on a plane headed back east. tomorrow, i'll visit my grandmother for what will likely be the last time. on friday, we're having the record release party for the first release by my record label, realistic records. this is the first project i've been involved with in a while that has come to fruition, completely blossomed into what it was supposed to be, and i'm proud and excited. i'll be spinning records at the party if everything goes according to plan. i'll play 'get out my life, woman' by iron butterfly early on in the night. i just picked it up for $1, and it's funkier than my socks. on saturday and sunday i'll relax and catch up with the friends i never see any more. on monday i fly back towards the left coast with the rising sun pushing the plane back home.

anyone want to buy a monie love 12"??? what about a recoys record???

b

it's early evening here, and the sun is creeping along the long reception table toward my elbow, shoulder, ear.

ahh, the clouds came in and i was distracted by this place, and now it is time to go home. the sun never hit me.

holy poop!

the recoys records got here. they look great. the first mailorders were shipped 20 minutes ago.

i went to a party at a car wash on saturday night. kool keith was there just kicking it. i mention that because that's been on my list of things i want to do in this life, being at a party where kool keith was there just kicking it. i'm successfully crossing things off 'the list' much more quickly than i thought i would. i'm guessing, however, that my personal jet pack and condo on the moon are still a ways off.

get 'em while they're hot

we're accepting pre-orders for the Recoys LP at the realistic records site. order now and your record will be shipped out the second we get them. check out the mp3s on the left to check out what you're getting. if you want to order more than one at a time, e-mail me and we'll figure it out.

ok, fine, I'll do my own research.

since no one stepped up to do my research, i'll do it myself. just a sec.

ok, i'm back. so in modern/post-modern days there has been one president elected directly out of a position in the federal legislature: ex Senator John F. Kennedy. before that you've got to go back to Warren Harding, who was also a senator. other than that there have been a grip of governors, a war hero, and a few veeps.

now THAT'S realistic!

potus question

because i know you guys dig research: Which Presidents of the US were not Governors (or VPs) before being elected President? or, When was the last time a President was elected out of the house or the senate?

I ask this because everyone in recent memory has been a governor, other than bush 41, who was VP, ford, who wasn't elected, and before nixon i can't do this off the top of my head.

all is quiet on the western front.

The Recoys LP Rekoys is essentially out. copies are in the mail and we'll start to do mailorder here once they arrive. maybe i'll set it up this weekend. The official record release party is a week from tomorrow in brooklyn and you're all invited. please come by. i'll see you there.

lip synch contest pictures are/will be available on a photolog i'm starting.

my lunch is here. i'm out.

am i missing something?

one of my big gripes with the english language is that sadbeautiful isn't a word, and there is no analog for it in our tongue.

program note

the date for the recoys/chimps show/record release party has been changed. the show is on June 20th, which is great, because now I'll be able to go.