I finally found some guitar-based sounds that are pretty cool. Here is a darkwave/goth band from England called The Hearse. I could seriously listen to this all day while painting my nails black, ripping up fishnet stockings to turn into a fishnet shirt (oh way, you can buy those as shirts now), dying my hair black, masturbating and playing with my toys. All of this while burning incense and trying to conjure the dark lord. You can preview their album and buy it for a cheeeep €3.33 at Bandcamp:
I also finished The Brothers Karamazov today. Holy motherfucking shit. The only real daunting thing about the book is the length. But it’s fairly simple to follow the story even with the Russian names and nicknames. This is the best book I have ever read, and everyone should read it too.
We first met on the greatness that was LiveJournal. He was feralboy, and lord knows what the fuck we initially bonded over. Queercore? Zines? General weirdness?
Anyhow, in 2003 or 2004 onto LA he moved. Lots of moshing at MJs, Akbar and Bricktops ensued, lots of drunken nonsense, introducing Tyson and Catherine, watching them get married and spawn. He told me early on that he only planned to be here for only 5 years, but LA does get its hold on you.
Next thing you know 12 years passed and there we were, a day before New Year’s Eve at Damon’s Steakhouse in Glendale. He’s off to tramp it up in other environs. I hate him.
Of course the night ended with Scrabble which I won. Catherine did not appreciate this too much.
I rarely spend my leisure time in Koreatown. Sure I’m there to take The Grandmother to her doctor appointments and what not. But just to hang out? Very rarely. There are many reasons for this:
– Very shitty drivers
– Even shittier roads
– Racism (This probably applies only to me and other hapas.)
– Shitty customer service
But here are the two reasons why all four of the cons above should be nullified:
– Great food
– Great hours
Seriously. Late night food and dessert galore. It makes me wonder why more areas don’t have this. I talk a lot of shit about my peoples, but at least we have that figured out.
So Madd and I went to IOTA Brew Cafe for some food and ANKO for shaved ice.
Well, my vacation will soon be over. Back to bitching about The Grandmother soon!
I have been out and about and all around this last week or so. Here are some b-sides and outtakes that didn’t fit.
I was trying to explain very quickly and succinctly to a cousin the game of Bridge. I eventually said, “You know, the card game they always played on I Love Lucy.” To which he replied, “I have never seen that show.” He brings much shame on our family.
There were two things that dampened things at Grand Park for NYE. When coming out of the train station, we saw a line to get into the party where they were doing bag checks and metal detector wand waves. It was a very long line, and I thought we would be stuck in it when midnight struck. Bummer. But then we realized there were multiple entrances, so we walked around and were able to get in with no problems.
Also after midnight, Madd and I got out funnel cake. We were busy eating it when some band started doing a cover of the Pixies’ “Where Is My Mind.” Of course some stupid white boy hipster decided that it was going to be a sing-along. If I weren’t busy eating yummy funnel cake, I would have stabbed that asshole in the throat with my plastic fork.
In line to get into LACMA, there was a cute young black couple standing right behind me. I was talking to the girl for a little bit and I could see the boy getting a bit miffed. I looked at him and said, “Don’t worry honey. I’m gay.” He seemed a lot better after that. Stupid breeders.
And just to reiterate, Adele, Sam Smith, Rihanna, Jason Derulo and Taylor Swift make boring ass music. Are people that moved by boring ass shit?
Since it’s New Year’s Day, my family and I got together for the traditional 떡국 meal. Korean rice cake ovalettes, meat, seaweed and egg in a broth. Lord knows how to romanize the word, but you get the drift. As for the get-together itself, I grade it an A since we were missing some folks. Boo! But it was still fun!
[Look at me. I’m being all optimistic and happy so far. 빤짝!
I don’t know why New Year’s Eve gets such a bad rap. Of all the holidays it has always been my favorite. Maybe it’s the sense of rebirth. Maybe it’s the decided less religious and military/patriotism aspect of it. Maybe it’s the booze and drugs. But judging from the interwebs, I may be among the few of my friends who really enjoy New Year’s Eve.
Madd and I were going back and forth the last couple of days trying to figure out what to do. I didn’t really care what we did, and she wanted to see fireworks. Unfortunately here in LA, the only thing we could find that had fireworks were some shitty ones at the Queen Mary and some stupid ones at Marina Del Rey that would start when New York City celebrated their New Year’s at 9 pm local time. What kind of bullshit is that?
We ended up going to Grand Park to celebrate with around 50,000 of our closest friends. Metro was free, the event was free and even though there were no fireworks there were 3-D projection onto City Hall. We had funnel cake which is always a win. Here are some snapshots:
Edit: Here is a 30-second video of the revelry in DTLA.
Silly silly me. This past Saturday was a SUPER HAPPY FAMILY FUN DAY EXTRAVAGANZA, or at least as much of the people we could assemble here in LA. It wasn’t a day at Golf ‘N Stuff in Ventura followed by a Del Taco pigout in Oxnard. We didn’t have Meesch and Nick and Raf and Jeff and Fatkid. But it was as close as we could come to have it feeling like the Santa Barbara days of yore. And by “yore” I really do mean it.
It’s weird that I hadn’t seen some of these assholes in a decade (!!!) But there we were eating lunch at Wildcraft in Culver City. We decided to go off to the Museum of Jurassic Technology, yet another place I had been dying to go to for quite some time.
Partly to avoid having to murder Dallas Aunt and mostly because of my deep burning desires, I went on an expedition across LA yesterday. Because I hate driving and hate looking for parking, Metro was my friend.
Museum of Death
When I lived in Los Feliz and would walk into the heart of Hollywood, I often walked past this place. Working at Hulu and writing about sports left almost no time for me to go to such places, and the next thing you know I was back in San Pedro caring for the Grandmother and unable to go anywhere.
Serial killers, infamous murders, war casualties, executions, Heaven’s Gate, autopsy photos, shrunken heads and GG Allin. It’s certainly gory and makes you appreciate life.
There was one odd thing about the place, however. It had an odd smell. It wasn’t the smell of death or anything like that, but it was very sweet and floral as if deliberately trying to distract us from what we were witnessing. Maybe it was the perfume from other guests? I don’t know.
It wasn’t horrible at all, but it did make it that much more surreal walking through the place.
Farmer’s Market
A Rapid Bus later, and here I was at Farmer’s Market. I wanted to go to The Gumbo Pot for their muffaletta. I wasn’t fast enough to take a picture of the whole meal I had with a side of gumbo and some hush puppies, but here is enough of it to hopefully make you salivate.
Of course since I was out here, I had to buy my favorite little marzipans.
LACMA
Of course the raison d’être for this trip was to go back to LACMA and go through the New Objectivity show. Of course since admission is free after 3 pm on weekdays for LA County residents and it being open late, there was a nearly hour-long line for tickets. But it was worth it to traipse through the exhibits.
I forget how overwhelming it all is to try and absorb everything. It really does require multiple trips.
I’ve been listening to the Wax Trax Black Box 3-CD set the last couple of days. These were songs released by Wax Trax Records from 1980 to 1993. Sure some of the songs sound dated, and some of these videos are just plain cheesy. Even though most of these were a little before my time, I always believe in knowing your history if you’re going to get into anything. Dance/stomp away.
