jimmy

Yup I went to see them again, and you can read my review at LAist. They’re one of the few current bands out there that I like a lot. One thing I forgot to mention in my review was how many dykes there were at the show. I love me some dykes so it was just reassuring to see them in full force.

Things have been quite hectic, so much so that all I do on the weekends is stay in and vegetate. Really. I’ll wake up, go on the internets, watch some movies and roll over and go to bed for the night. But come Monday I know that things will go 100,000 mph yet again.

The only problem is that now my weekends are so boring. I need to remedy this right away.

Flickr Photo by Capital M

In mid-September Ben, Cathi and I will converge upon New York City to take in a game at Yankee Stadium. You heard it correctly. Three die hard Dodger fans will be traveling to New York City for a Yankees game.

But I’m planning on being in the city for around four days. Now I’ve never been to the Big Apple, so I need recommendations for the weirdest and most interesting places to go. There is no way I want to be with throngs of cattle going to Time Square and all that other nonsense.

I don’t travel very often and rarely take a vacation, so I am really really excited.

Photo by Sirmichael

If anyone wants to know what goes down at an LAist BBQ, this is pretty much it. Yes that’s me deepthroating a bacon-wrapped hotdog while sweating like a greased hog since it was 400 degrees outside. It didn’t help that earlier I climbed the Baxter staircase for a piece I was supposed to write months ago but couldn’t because of my sciatica.

And why is it that I’ve been obsessed with Skinny Puppy and Otis Redding the past couple of weeks?

So I did my best impersonation of a sports reporter today. I got press credentialed for this afternoon’s Chivas USA game against the New England Revolution at the Home Depot Center. It was a fun game despite their loss.

Being a press box virgin I had to keep reminding myself of the unspoken rule of the press box: do not cheer. There were many times when Chivas made an offensive push, but I had to keep in mind that rule.

Another thing that came up was right before the second half. A guy sitting next to me who writes for Goal.com asked me whether I thought a certain player would be playing in the second half. I bullshitted my way out of it, but I hardly had the balls to say that this is only my second professional soccer game I’ve attended and I barely know what an offsides call is.

So that was my afternoon.

I know this is not an official video, but I think it’s well done.

Anyhow, I nabbed tickets to see My Bloody Valentine play at the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium on 10/2! You don’t know how excited this makes me. As with most things, I was late on the MBV bandwagon. I didn’t really cherish them until 2000 when Fatkid reintroduced them to me. Listening to them now makes me wanna cry and masturbate at the same time but not in the fucked up emo way. You know?

I am in the middle of reading In Search of Schrodinger’s Cat by John Gribbin, a nice introduction into the world of quantum physics and the history leading up to those theories. Yes my inner geek has a major hardon from reading this book. I’m up to the part where Niels Bohr theorizes the structure of an atom in a way that attempts to tie classic physics with these new theories in the early 1900s. And how Max Planck help led the way to all of these discoveries reluctantly.

Yup. That’s me.

So with my 29th birthday last week, I am now on blood pressure medication and vicadin for my sciatica. Acupuncture didn’t work. Chiropractor didn’t work. So here I am on pain meds and physical therapy.

But most importantly, I am now sports editor for LAist. That’s right, a fag is a sports editor. So everyone can kiss my ass. Ok back to crying myself to sleep.

More than a month ago, I helped Cathi move in with her now hubby Tyson. In the ensuing days I had an achy back. Nothing unusual, but I sensed the pain would move and reside in my buttcheek. Which it did.

Under normal circumstances I’d be uncomfortable for about a week, then the pain would go away.

But not this time. The pain in fact got worse, spreading down to my thigh where it would shoot around randomly. Walking would put me in such pain, I would be tearing up. And don’t let me sneeze. A sharp pain in my buttcheek would send me in the fetal position.

I was slathering on Ben Gay like Britney Spears would snort coke (allegedly). The pain would die down for an hour or two, but it would inevitably come back with a vengeance. It doesn’t help that at work I spend my time sitting down in my cube then running over to the printer and go back and forth like a trained monkey. By last week I was hobbling like an 80-year old. By Monday my leg started going numb.

I can’t tell you how this has made me feel like an old man. Thoughts of amputating my leg have cometo mind. The worst is the fact that I want to go shopping for a nice outfit for my birthday, but I can’t walk around that long without the pain becoming completely unbearable.

So I did what any normal person would do: go see an acupuncturist on Wednesday night. I was stuck with needles down my spine and leg, and the needles on the back of my thigh were hooked up with electric currents. It was really nice. Since then my leg has been getting progressively better. Today I was able to do some housework without having to use any Ben Gay.

Hopefully by my birthday on Thursday the pain will be gone.

Speaking of my birthday, Friday night. 8pm. Cobras & Matadors. Tapas. Sangria. Booze afterwards. Yum! Let me know if you wanna come if you didn’t get an evite.

I was supposed to have a productive Sunday.

I was going to wake up, do laundry, rearrange my living room, go to Target, go grocery shopping and maybe get some nookie time permitting. Well I woke up (one thing accomplished) at around 7:30 this morning with a pounding migraine. Neither coffee nor food nor a shower did anything to calm it down. In fact I just got queasy. So I took a nap two hours after I woke up, and woke up just in time for the Lakers game against the Dallas Mavericks.

After the game, I took another nap and didn’t wake up until 7. So with my day down the crapper, I’m just resigned to watching Alien on the Fox Movie Channel while writing this.

Anyhow yesterday, I discovered the best thing since golden showers: Amazon’s MP3 store. It’s guilt- and DRM-free. And they have a good selection. I got the new Xiu Xiu album and Lou Reed’s Transformer among others.

Well I think it’s back to bed for me, and a hell day tomorrow at work. Oooh! Aliens!

My concert partner-in-crime Angie and I went to see them and opener No Age at the El Rey this past Friday. She had never listened to either band, and I’m a huge huge fan of the Liars.

I didn’t catch the name of the band who warmed up the crowd, but they were the standard LA freak-noise hardcore homage band that populate the Downtown all-ages scene. Then No Age came on, and they were great. They have the vibe of those late 80s or early 90s indie bands. Sorta like Dinosaur, Butthole Surfers, Big Black and the like. Very fun set.

As for the Liars, well they just blew me away. This was my first time seeing them live, and they just crushed every song. Even though lead singer Angus Andrew’s back exploded in January, he still had the energy despite sitting on chairs through most of the set.

The highlight of the set for me was when they played “We Fenced Other Houses with Bones of Our Own” from They Were Wrong So We Drowned. Although some people people hated the album, I thought it was a brilliant piece that successfully straddled the line between experimentation and pop. Plus it’s a concept album about witches. How brilliant is that?

Overall, the show was an exorcism of our collective laziness complete with the trance-inducing drums and falsetto chants. It whipped us all into a frenzy and put a smile on everyone’s face. Every beat had a life unto itself, and we were all there helpless just riding that rollercoaster.

It was a goddamn fun show, and you’ll see me there next time when the Liars come to town.

And for that I apologize. Things have been hectic at work. I guess when you are the only staff accountant at a start up company at year-end, things get very very crazy. For a good couple of weeks in January I was pulling in late hours barely having enough time to come home, make dinner and go to bed only to have everything repeat (much like Groundhog Day.)

But here is February, and with it is the month of shows. I just saw Autolux at the El Rey last Friday, and will be seeing Siouxsie with Rasputina next Saturday and the Liars with No Age the following week. I am so excited about that.

And it looks like May will be pretty crazy too with Ladytron and the Kills performing. Look at this here video from the Kills and tell me you are not clenching your sphincter in anticipation for their album.