The summer of 1996 was a difficult one. Earlier in January I had come out to close friends having been tired of trying to pretend to be straight. I did have a girlfriend at the time of coming out which didn’t make things easier. But it needed to be done.

However it didn’t need to be done to my family. I knew how such a revelation would be received to a Korean family. I didn’t want to have to deal with the fallout and felt more comfortable with my family thinking that I was a fuck up. They could deal with that. An atheist queer, not so much.

During the summer I decided to visit Cathi at UCLA where she was doing a summer program thing where she would receive college credit for taking summer courses while living in the dorms there. So it was a nice time to go out to Westwood for the day.

I got home late, and all hell broke loose. My mom laid into me, and I stupidly blurted it out: I’m gay. It’s not anything you can take back. My mom promptly went into the proper Korean response to crisis: wailing, hysterics and melodrama. She was going to kill me and then kill herself if this subject was ever brought up again. So yeah, it was just another healthy Korean household with a teenager.

With all of this in the foreground, the problems with my dad were simmering in the background. Thanks to his excessive drinking, in 1995 my dad had a series of three strokes at our house in Zachary, LA (outside of Baton Rouge) that rendered him paralyzed. Since he refused to come out here, we put him in a nursing home. Imagine that, being in your early-50’s and being in that environment.

And to top things off because of his two-pack-a-day cigarette habit, he had severe emphysema. It was so bad that at times in the humid heavy Louisiana air he would be unable to breathe forcing him to constantly be ambulanced over to the emergency room.

In the summer of 1996, just weeks after the atomic bomb I unleashed to my mom, we got word that he had a pretty bad spell and probably would not make it. So my mom and I had to travel out to Baton Rouge. Since we’re not the rich type, of course that meant a road trip which is a great environment for two people as strained as we were.

We left Los Angeles just after dinner time to hopefully avoid the traffic and the heat of the desert. By around midnight we were in the Arizona desert on the I-10, and I decided to turn on the radio to see what was out there. I found a college station that was playing “That’s What I Get.” As if driving in the isolated desert wasn’t David Lynchian enough, the surrealism kept pouring.

“This is a good song,” my mom noted. Huh? I was in love with Nine Inch Nails at the time (going so far as wearing a trench coat into the summer months), and my mom likes the song?

I realized that my mom made an effort, and that she did what she could with what she was equipped with. Having her only son tell her he was gay was something she had no coping mechanism for. We were mostly silent throughout the road trip, but that moment in Arizona while listening to Nine Inch Nails was probably the most civil discourse we had in a year.

Anyhow, my dad didn’t die that summer. In fact we took him off the tubes the day after the bombing at the Olympics in Atlanta. He made it through another year before dying the week before my high school graduation. By then my mom and I were more at ease with each other. Like the Korean War even though there was no peace treaty signed, we did have our demilitarized zone. I never talked about being gay – even to this day. And my mom was just resigned to the fact that I was too far gone for her autocratic control.

Jamie Stewart’s music is very difficult to absorb. The beating heart of Xiu Xiu, his music is a depressing explosion of teen angst and horrific life circumstances with little regard to pop music structure. In fact Xiu Xiu can be said to be one huge hissy fit against pop music.

Up along the rocks
It’s good. It’s not so hard.
I bite my tongue.
Who cares? This chance to drop off.

“Apistat Commander” starts out with a quiet pulsing beat topped with a forlorn melody whispered ever so quietly by Stewart. After the first verse and chorus, a burst of popping percussion pierces the serenity hinting at the chaos that is to come. Even though the chaos of the chorus is expected, what happens is completely out of left field.

Instead of a tirade that destroys the world, what we get is a Spector-esque wall of sound with Stewart wailing ever so melodically. Instead of a jarring experience it’s the epitome of catharsis rarely accomplished in music.

All that you left, you left for someone.
All of this life that’s wilted on.
Oh this relief it’s the hardest thing.
Oh my god. Oh my god. Oh my god.

This song was perfect when it came out in February 2003. We were already in Afghanistan and were getting ready to invade Iraq. The world was a very polarizing place to be in.

Just days before the album was released, millions of people around the U.S. and the world rallied to protest the inevitable war and the level of deceit that polluted the world. I attended the protest in Hollywood marching down Hollywood Blvd. before snaking to the corner of Sunset Blvd. and Vine St. for a rally featuring Gore Vidal, Susan Sarandon and other celebrities.

I hadn’t eaten the whole day and during the rally looked to walk back to my car. As I was walking out there was a splinter protest group filled with wannabe anarchists who started clashing with the police. The police were starting to arrest people, and I just made a bee-line the other way. No way I was going to be arrested on an empty stomach.

As I was walking away, I heard a policeman scream, “Hey you! In the red Che shirt! Get back here!”

Fuck. But I figured if they really wanted me, they would run and grab me. They didn’t. So I went through a side street and managed to get to my car.

With all the media coverage that night, it felt a bit empowering. I was a part of something that made a statement, made an imprint in this huge world of ours. But then to hear the Bush administration dismiss it and plunge head-first into war, I realized just how impotent we really were. Politics is just a farce giving people the illusion of having power. See Plato’s Allegory of the Cave.

So Xiu Xiu’s music really touched me. It was a cathartic way to yell against this machine. It probably is just as effective as the protests, but at least it was more fun.

There is something cool about Cibo Matto’s music beyond the kitsch of writing about food that the media seemed to be fixated over when their debut album Viva! La Woman came out in 1996. The songs were mostly about love set to the soundtrack of broken English and samples splashed with a spoonful of surrealism.

How else do you describe lyrics such as, “Let’s eat carrots together until…” in “Beef Jerky”? Or, “White pepper ice cream / It’s like a line drawing / It snipped my heart / White pepper ice cream,” in “White Pepper Ice Cream”.

They graduated on their second album Stereotype A with more disparate sounds that somehow felt cohesive at the same time: the bossa nova of “Moonchild”, funk of “Lint of Love”, hard rock of “Blue Train”, psychedelic rock of “Sunday Pt. 2”.

But “Birthday Cake” was a different. It was a blast of punk rage demanding to be heard. Something has to be said of the shouting screeching of Miho Hatori while saying, “You know my love is sweet.”

I first heard this song while watching a PBS show called “On the Road” or something like that. It sounded so different to Garbage, Hole, Nine Inch Nails and everything else that was going on, it just blew my mind. I would have liked to say I was addicted to them, but I didn’t buy their albums until I moved on to college.

It was one night at a nondescript party somewhere in Isla Vista. I saw Wifey, and for some reason at one moment he was the only person I knew there. This was at a time when we didn’t like each other and would rather have had a testicle removed by an ice cream scooper than deal with one another. He was listening to his discman, so I went up to him snidely and asked what he was listening to.

“Oh you wouldn’t know them,” he countered just as snidely.

“Oh yeah? Just tell me.”

“Fine. Cibo Matto.”

“Oh my god. Cibo Matto? I love them!!”

And I start doing the breakdown to the song “BBQ”.

That was the first time we really bonded and could tolerate one another. And we became the bestest of friends.

So it really was appropriate that I went to see Cibo Matto at the Hollywood Bowl with him on Sunday. They were part of a program put together by KCRW called “Big in Japan” headlined by Yellow Magic Orchestra and also featuring Buffalo Daughter, Towa Tei, kabuki and taiko drum performances. Take a minute and see what is wrong about the last sentence.

If you answered “none of them were actually big in Japan,” then you win.

But it was a good show. The traditional performances were nice. Buffalo Daughter was good. Towa Tei did a great job keep a continuity throughout the show.

And Cibo Matto. OH Cibo Matto. They started out with “Beef Jerky” and transitioned to “Sugar Water”. Like heaven. Then some “Spoon” and “Sci Fi Wasabi” which, I don’t care what anyone says is awful live. Then a new song that was groovin. Then the drum beats. “SHUT UP AND EAT!!!!! TOO BAD NO BON APPETIT!!! SHUT UP AND EAT!!! YOU KNOW MY LOVE IS SWEET!” And I was in heaven for three minutes.

The painfully short set ended with “Know Your Chicken”, but I can now say I finally saw Cibo Matto live.

Now the bad part of watching a show entitled “Big in Japan” at a place like the Hollywood Bowl is being around a bunch of people there for a “cultural experience.” These are the people that take things way too seriously and have no critical abilities in their own head, so if KCRW says it’s good then it must be good.

While Yellow Magic Orchestra were playing, Wifey and I were nonplussed and we expressed that to one another. We weren’t screaming at all. Just talking just a smidge over a whisper. But this raving cunt in front of us snapped at us! “Can you guy shut up please?”

Shock! It’s a fucking concert not a damned library!

So we just got up and left.

But I did get to see Cibo Matto live, and really wasn’t that all that mattered?

On Saturday night the awful stench emanating from Dodger Stadium wasn’t merely the Dodgers in their 6-1 loss to the Florida Marlins.

During the game a small fire broke out in a storage warehouse for paper products for Levy Restaurants between the top deck and reserve levels near Section 13 on the right field side of the stadium. Billowing smoke emanated from the stairwell of both levels forcing fans on the right side of those levels to be relocated. The Top of the Park Store was also evacuated.

The fire was contained and extinguished by the Los Angeles Fire Department within 20 minutes with no injuries reported. Unfortunately for the Dodgers there was also no stoppage of play.

“It was something different,” Manager Don Mattingly said.

Unfortunately what wasn’t different was the play of the Dodgers. Despite missing Marlins’ ace Josh Johnson, who is on the 15-day disabled list with right shoulder inflammation, the Dodgers still could not capitalize on the procession of relievers they faced all night.

“I don’t know why there were so effective,” Mattingly said. “Obviously we weren’t able to scratch anything together.”

The only damage they did was against the starter Brian Sanchez in the third inning. Sanchez, who was close to hitting his 50-pitch count limit at that point, gave up a leadoff walk to Dodgers’ starter Hiroki Kuroda. With Andre Ethier on first and Kuroda on third with two outs, Matt Kemp hit a double to score Kuroda for the lone run.

Against reliever Edward Mujica (W, 5-2) who in 16 appearances against the Dodgers had given up a .329 batting average and 17 runs? Nothing for two innings.

Against reliever Burke Badenhop who gave up seven runs in four appearances against the Dodgers? Also nothing for two innings.

“You’ve just got to have a plan, stick with it and try to execute,” Casey Blake said. “We just didn’t have enough runners on base, didn’t get enough big hits tonight. A team can be effective like that sometimes throwing four, five guys out there like that.”

The Marlins had no such problems against Dodger pitching. Every Marlins position player reached base safely and only Mike Stanton went hitless. That of course meant that Kuroda (L, 5-5) wasn’t able to rebound from his poor performance on the South Side of Chicago on May 22. The Marlins touched him up for five runs in 5 1/3 innings on 10 hits.

“He’s tough,” Marlins’ first baseman Gaby Sanchez said about Kuroda. “His ball moves a lot, moves all over the place. We just went up there and tried to hit his mistakes.”

“He didn’t seem to have command of his fastball tonight,” Mattingly noted. “That always puts you in a little bit of trouble.”

Kuroda acknowledged the poor locations of his fastball but attributed it to his sliders.

“One of the reasons I gave up a lot of hits tonight was my slider didn’t have a lot of movement,” Kuroda said. “I went to challenge a lot of hitters in the strike zone, and they got the best out of me.”

Minnesota Twins defeat LA Angels 1-0 (10).

Chivas USA tied Columbus Crew 3-3.

LA Galaxy defeat New England Revolution 1-0.

TONIGHT’S ACTION

LA Angels at Minnesota Twins. 11:10 a.m. FSWest, AM 830 KLAA.

Florida Marlins at LA Dodgers. 1:10 p.m. FS Prime Ticket, AM 790 KABC.

In a rare show of sociability for me, I went over to Brendan’s for an impromptu punch party. He posted on Facebook earlier in the day, and having had his punch before I was more than willing to make the trek to Highland Park for the goods.

The punch was filled with citrus goodness, vodka goodness, champagne goodness, syrupy goodness with proportions being haphazard at best. Basically it was a good way to get pretty fucked up.

We ended up watching Starship Troopers and Richard III (the Ian McKellan version) and having a nice talk on nonsense. Of course being around new people I busted out with my charming Lord of the Rings is merely visual masturbation talk. Sorry. Hated those films.

At one point I started talking about one of my favorite late-night television shows “Weird TV.” According to Wikipedia it aired in Canada, Los Angeles and Seattle on Saturday nights. Here’s a clip from one of the episodes. (Sorry. The embed link doesn’t seem to want to work.)

I’m just wondering who else caught this back in the mid ’90s.

Here’s a picture of Brendan making more punch:

I first met Jonathan Moncrief after the 2010 Winter Olympics when I decided I wanted to cover hockey. Aside from casually watching hockey here and there, I was very wet behind the ears when it came to hockey. In fact I had been to only one live game before.

We quickly became friends, and I really used him and the other writers to help me learn to analyze hockey – something I’m still not 100% comfortable with. And he in turned used me for Dodgers information when he covered them for the Examiner.

I didn’t hear until pretty late in the game that he was hospitalized earlier this year. While it was concerning, he seemed upbeat as he was tweeting and writing Facebook updates from the hospital. And of course all of use razzed him saying that all the Coke in the press box was safe from his pilfering. Yuk yuk yuk!

He contacted me last night wanting a ride to Dodger Stadium from Union Station today – Kings’ players Brad Richardson and Jarret Stoll were going to be at the game throwing the first pitch. I told him last night to be there by 2:40. This morning I realized that I would be a little early, so I texted him this morning to be ready by 2:30. But I never heard back.

At around noon I was farting around and a Facebook notification popped up on Tweetdeck from Andrew Knoll of Hockey’s Future saying, “RIP Jon Moncrief.” Apparently he had another pulmonary embolism and died this morning.

I’m still in a state of shock. The press box at STAPLES Center will not be the same. And I am just saddened by the death of someone I was happy to call a friend.

After reading a piece that people seemed to like, I get depressed. It was an awfully written piece that seemed to be done in 10 minutes. But not the 10 minutes like I do where I fret about the flow of the story, how quotes are used and if there is an actual narrative before giving up and saying, “Fuck it.” But 10 minutes where perhaps he gets paid by the number of posts he makes a day and is trying to fill a quota.

Okay so it’s like this, my personal blog, except I don’t get paid and I don’t care who reads this. Actually yes I do. I want everyone to read this because, well I don’t know. I just do.

Overheard at Dodger Stadium:

• You’re my 25th favorite Mexican.
• His voice goes up three octaves on the most mundane plays.
• This tastes like beer water. No beer piss. I need some man beer.
• That run should count!
• Hey Jon you wanna here something? *Fart*

With today being the last nice day according to the weather soothsayers, and today being my last day of being a bum for a week with the upcoming Dodgers homestand, I impulsively decided to hit the beach. Despite living in Los Angeles for most of my life, the beach and I are relative strangers.

But I just wanted to get a base coat of color for the summer, so I packed my iPod, Kindle, camera, water bottle, towel and blanket and motored to Redondo Beach. Here are some pictures and commentary.

This is the view as I exited my car. Yes there are steps that lead down the cliff and onto the huge kitty litter box. Also note the absence of people. This is only a positive.

Well on my way down there was a very evenly colored man with lovely abdominals climbing up the hill as part of his exercise. I wanted to lick the sweat off of him, but knowing how irritating it is when people fuck with me when I work out I leave him be and find my spot.

I found a nice spot to lay my blanket out. Unseen in this picture is that there’s a small incline where it appears the water meets the sand. So there’s no fear of the water reaching me.

I did take off my shirt (shock!!) and hopped into the water. Not only did I forget how cold the water is off the Southern California coast, but the waves were pounding pretty hard. I’m in the water for all of five minutes, and I returned to my blanket. I laid out, opened my Kindle reading The Lure by Felice Picano while listening to the second half of the Smashing Pumpkins’ Siamese Dream. For some reason going to the beach brings me back to high school.

Oof. My pasty white legs. Thankfully sand was covering most of my awful feet so I don’t have that much shame. Can you imagine the time when my legs actually had color and weren’t translucent? I actually remember.

I turn over, change music to the best of Deee-Lite, continue reading and become oblivious. Eventually I feel toasty even though I do not detect and color change. I put on my shirt, pack things up and run off to my car. And no, there are no shirtless pics of me thankfully.

This is one of the best things about the excursion. The road I parked on was freshly repaved and the sidewalks redone, so what used to be parking meters were just stubs. So except for the gas this was a free excursion, and who doesn’t like free?

And this is looking south toward the Palos Verdes Peninsula.

I really need to do this more often because not only is it therapeutic, I am really fucking pasty. That’s it.

Catherine sent me an IM last night saying, “Party for the rapture?”

Being the good goth boy, I automatically thought it was a Siouxsie-themed party. And of course that is always a yes. But wait a minute. Is it an anniversary of the album’s release? And I really didn’t like the album. If anyone knows me at all, they know my favorite Siouxsie album is Juju. So what gives?

I do a quick Google search and come to find out that some wahoo is predicting the world is coming to an end next Saturday. Well not the end end, but the start of the end of the world.

That means all the Christians will disappear in a blink of an eye leaving the heathens to scour the earth. Good riddance. That is something to celebrate.

And with celebrations comes outfits. What to wear?

Or how about this fetching jacket?

So many decisions, so little time!

Thinking through all of this I suddenly remember that Catherine is Catholic. But every Protestant knows that all Catholics go to hell, so no worries.

To celebrate my last free day for a week, I did cardio at the gym this morning. My body fucking hurts, and I can’t walk correctly. There was a cute guy in the treadmill in front of me, but he had chicken legs and awful tattoos on his forearms. On his left forearm was a bass clef. On this right forearm was some stupid insignia of some sort. Let’s just say that it turned my outtie into an innie.

Cigarette Count – Wed., May 11, 2011: 5

A couple of weeks ago in order to be properly depressed before covering a game at Dodger Stadium, I decided to do some window shopping at Beverly Center. It worked. I felt poor, fat and old – a great combination if I say so myself.

Anyhow for some reason I decided to look at things online and decided that if any of you really love me you’ll get me these two things.

Loafers! I would wear these sans socks in a tragically non-ironic 1980’s way. I would make my inner Molly Ringwald proud.

Costume National jacket with a nice cinching belt! I have a jacket that’s similar to this, but it doesn’t have a cinching belt so it just looks bulky on me. Since I like to have things actually fit my body and not be too terribly baggy, it’s a bit of a problem.

By the way, I really want to punch that model in the throat. In all of the items he modeled on the Zappos website, he has that stupid grin that detracts from the clothing. The cornfed thing may work in real life but not in the modeling world. He needs to watch some America’s Next Top Model and get some fierceness.

Did some gym work today. A cardio warmup with some legs, arms and back work with some cardio to bookend it. Nothing cute or worth mentioning at the gym which is a little depressing yet reassuring. Cute people at gyms make me want to murder.