leftovers

I saw Scritti Politti live for the first time last night. In fact, it was their first North American show ever. Back when I was a kid, my family and my mom's sister's family lived very near each other and we would always have separate family vacations in the summer time. We would go to Wyoming or Colorado or South Dakota or somewhere not too far away but at that age still felt like very exotic places. The thing I hated the most about these vacations was being away from my cousins. I was always wishing we could go on vacations together. Anyway, it was 1988 and my cousins were away on their vacation. I took it upon myself to watch MTV and compile a report for my cousin Travis on any new bands coming up while he was gone; as if he was really that concerned. I took my self-imposed task very seriously and, upon his arrival told him about two bands I had seen. The first was Erasure with a video called "Chains of Love." The second was Scritti Politti with a video f...

OK, so I was planning on this "how I fell in love with" series to focus on my favorite bands. But, in the spirit of Halloween, and in light of recent circumstances, I've decided to open up the realm of possibility and tell you about my introduction to a certain notorious family... The Addams Family! (duh duh duh duh *snap* *snap*) Back in high school, when I was still very much obsessed with the television show "Twin Peaks" which had already been cancelled, I used to satiate my hunger for all things Peaks by following the various actors from the rather large ensemble cast, keeping tabs of all their current projects. I was particularly fond of the show's main stars, Kyle Machlachlan and Sherilyn Fenn. I also delighted in tracking some of the more obscure characters and the actors who portrayed them, and one such example was Carel Struycken who played "The Giant" in several season two episodes. I discovered he would be playing "Lurch" ...

I decided to do a blog series titled "How I Fell In Love With:" which will highlight my favorite bands and tell the stories of my introductions to them. Perhaps this will be interesting only to people who also like the same bands, but there is a market for that I believe. Besides, these bands have inspired me to be who I am, to follow my dreams, and to strive for the extraordinary. Without them I would probably be working at a hotel in Kansas. Not that there's anything wrong with that, it's just not my dream. I decided to start with The B-52's because it's an easy story to remember. First I want to state that some of my dates and chronologies in this recounting may be slightly incorrect, but I made the decision to go with my memory rather than fact-checking the web for verification. Anywho, it was the summer of 1989 and MTV (which still played music videos)was featuring a video called "Channel Z" by this wacky band, The B-52's. They had...

Last night I had two dreams (again) that were somewhat interesting or noteable, if only to me (and who else matters, really?) In the first, I saw a RARE Human League video on VH1 Classic that I had never seen or even heard of before. It was a pretty basic video. The song was called "Chrysler" and it was recorded for a compilation cassette that was given away with Chrysler cars back in the 80's. It all made perfect sense to me in the dream because I remember my parents had bought an Oldsmobile once when I was in grade school and it came with such a cassette. In the second, I was shopping for Dylan's birthday present at GB Records in Hays, KS on the closing day (it's actually been closed for a year or so.) It was sad. I wasn't there when they closed, and I was happy without having to have it as a memory. I could have always gone on pretending it was still open. But no, now I have a horrible memory of trying desperately to find CD's for Dylan while th...

I used to use this blog as a secret diary sort of thing, where I could express my innermost (and typically extremely mundane) thoughts without having to deal with the myspace masses infringing on my privacy or self-induced lack thereof. But hey - Screw It! If I'm going to take the time and energy to write all this shit down, someone might as well read it. So, I've made my profile viewable (I guess I didn't really even know it wasn't before) and I think I'm going to actually TELL some people about this blog. Or maybe I'll go read other people's blogs here on blogspot and try and entice them into reading/commenting my blog by doing the same for them. I was going to write something clever here to prove how my future blogs will be more entertaining and fun to read, but it's time for me to go to the gym. Basically I want to be rich and famous, so I'm going to start doing anything I can to sell out to the masses. Going to the gym to get a hot body is ...

This weekend came in like a lion and went out like a lamb. On Friday, I left work a little late and debated in my mind whether to go home and take a nap (as I knew Dylan was) or go to the gym. Although normally it would be hard enough to chose the latter, it was made more unappealing by the fact that I didn't have any clean socks at home, so I hadn't packed any to work out in, and I also didn't have a change of underwear (or so I thought.) However, the prospect of going shopping for new socks and undies, or rather the other items I would pick up at the same time, was appealing enough that I decided to just go for it. I went to the dollar store on Vine and Lexington and got what I thought I needed. In the car, I transferred the socks and underwear to my gym bag, only to discover that I did in fact have clean undies packed, what I lacked were shorts. I was really about ready to throw in the towel this time, but then I decided I could go to Ross and get some shorts. Sec...

It has been another interesting week. Early in the week, my cousin Travis had his first child, with his wife Natalie. They now have a beautiful baby girl named Alice Olivia Angel. Growing up in rural Western Kansas, Travis was like my older brother, but cooler than that because he wasn't really my brother so we never really fought. Also since I didn't live with him, he had a mystique and coolness about him. My mom used to joke about "the gospel according to Travis" because whatever Travis liked, I liked. Natalie, his wife, I met in the 5th grade. Her family moved to Natoma from Mankato, Kansas so she was the new girl at school, a year ahead of me. I had a crush on her on and off from then until the beginning of college (when I finally came out). The crush ended when she and Travis began dating. I was so happy for them that there weren't really any hard feelings at all. I mean I was pretty much "out" by then anyway, if only to myself. I even d...

Tonight is the first show of Shitting Glitter's "Dive Bar Tour" which isn't technically really a tour, since we're not leaving Los Angeles, and we only have one actual date on the tour thus far... semantics. Anyway the "goal" of this "tour" was to play all new songs, in an attempt to step up the pace on the creation of our next and third album, "Food Drinks Music". Of course any time you speed something up against it's very nature, there are going to be growing pains, but I think we're coming out on the other end much better than we went in, and I'm pretty proud and excited to play these new songs. On one hand, it's very scary since the songs aren't really necessarily done, we don't quite have them learned or memorized yet, and it could all fall apart at any given moment. On the other hand, I think the ideas and sounds are there, and it will be very exciting to get the ball rolling on these and share them w...

It's turning into fall here... actually, Autumn began Sept. 23rd, almost 2 weeks ago. But here in LA it's often difficult to feel any change in seasons. However I have gladly noticed leaves on the ground and lower temperatures, both of which I appreciate. Back when I lived in Kansas, I was obsessed with the changing of the seasons, because there the change was usually pretty profound, and I would always find myself reminiscing upon the events that had transpired in the previous years at the same time. Now I'm nearly thirty and I find that I spend all too much time reflecting on the past; the recent past as well as relatively ancient history. If I'm not thinking of the past, I'm speculating about the future. The present tense is just that to me; usually feels like some sort of limbo. If I think of the present, I think of things that are unfinished, things that never get any easier even though you'd think they would, and things that I want to do in the futu...