leftovers

This was a difficult year! While I heard so much good music this year, it was very hard to look back and try to organize and rank what I heard. I had to actually wrack my brain and scour the Internet for other top songs of 2009 lists to make sure I wasn't leaving anything out. I still reserve the right to change things later! I'll start off with my "honorable mentions" which go to three very different gay boys who all had big years in 2009. First, my friend Bradley has been working on his forthcoming album from which this song is from: "Rock Hard" - Swivek . I know he has been putting so much work into this album and he asked me to direct the music video for this song, which I am still working on. In addition, I also did a remix of the track, so look for that early in 2010. Another remix I worked on was for the next song: "Bottom Your Way to the Top" - Logan Lynn . I had seen one of Logan's videos ("Feed Me to the Wolves") ...

So this decade, which hasn't really gotten a proper name that everyone agrees on yet, is about to draw to a close... and what a decade it's been. I was born at the tail end of the 70's and consider the 80's my "childhood" (it's the decade from which most of the music and movies I love come from) although the 90's were host to my high school and college years. But what about this decade? Well, it was my 20's and the first 10 years I spent in Los Angeles. A lot happened and I think that, in the future, I will look back on this decade very fondly. The end of a year is always a time to reminisce and take stock. This has been a good year. I liked it. It was the year I traveled to Boston and reunited with my good friend Courtney and met her husband, Tyler. My band's third album was finally released after a long and arduous process which forever changed the band. 2009 ended with an amazing holiday vacation to Maui with my parents and siblings....

I'm not one of those alleged left-wing Christmas haters, but this time of year is full of mixed emotions for me. Of course, I love the holiday season and the festive atmosphere and decorations, and spending time with friends and family. As a recovering former christian myself, I have years worth of fond memories of Christmas and traditions that I'm glad to have, but in recent years I've grown to despise some aspects of December 25th, namely the commercialism and the Christians who continually try to shove their religious preferences down everyone else's throats. My thoughts about the holidays were brilliantly portrayed on two of my favorite sitcoms last week, so I wanted to share those instead of going off on some rant of my own, because truly if nothing else, this time of year should be an occasion for all of us to celebrate each other and respect our differences, coming together in love and hope. On ABC's "Modern Family," Jay, the patriarch of the fami...

As I was lamenting the passing of another Halloween last night, I played a little game where I tried to remember each Halloween since I've been in LA, what I wore, and where I went. It was actually so much easier than I thought it would be. Here, for your pleasure (and so the next time I want to remember this, I'll just look it up), is a list of the 9 Halloweens I've had in LA. 2000 - This was my first Halloween in the big city and was one of the most fun. In the middle of October, I threw my first LA Party which was for my friend Ben's birthday. I rented the rec room in the condo and decorated for Halloween. Unfortunately, before the stripper arrived, the security guard informed us that the rec room closed at whatever time it was, 10 or 11pm, which I hadn't been made aware of before. So, we had to move the entire party to the studio unit my brother and I shared! Also that month, I had just really gotten into dressing in drag so I did it several times arou...

It's just unfathomable that I haven't, until now, composed the Tiffany entry in my "How I Fell In Love With" series. So, after a remarkable performance from my favorite redheaded pop singer the other night, it is time to correct this travesty! Said performance took place on Tuesday, Oct. 27th at Upright LA Cabaret, in the bar of Vermont restaurant. I'm ashamed to say that I almost considered not going to this show, as I have been to so many Tiffany shows during my time in LA that I thought I'd sit this one out. I am so glad I didn't. The show was Tiffany's most intimate to date, just her and a piano player on a small stage in a cozy venue with just the right amount of tables set up for her friends and fans to witness her belting out a selection of her hits, songs that inspired her, and a few surprises. It was simply awesome to finally hear her sing "Here In My Heart" and "Landslide" but I was really happy to hear her sing ...

I remembered what I had set out to blog about earlier tonight. Recurring Dreams - always a fascinating and bewildering topic to me. What do dreams mean, and moreover, why does certain imagery or a storyline constantly weave itself into our nocturnal movie theatres? This one has been going on for awhile. I always have dreams where we either still live on the farm in Paradise, either as a whole family, just Dylan and I, or just myself. Sometimes we are just visiting, or squatting, or some weird situation has brought us back there. Whether or not any of this is explained within the confines of the dream, one thing is almost always bound to happen. At some point in the dream, at least one car will come down the driveway and we don't know who the person driving the car is. Then, they either turn around and speed back up the driveway, or they keep going deeper into the farm, heading east towards the creek and hills. There's always a slightly sinister feeling to these dreams, l...

so believe it or not, 2009 is pretty much over. Sure, we've still got half of October, then two whole more months, but for all intents and purposes, it's over. We're all going to be so busy from here on out that it's just going to fly by, and whatever is going to happen is gonna happen and we're just along for the ride. Tonight was supposed to be the 10th Annual Celebration of the Hollywood Media District, which has been my employer for the past 7 years. Here's the story of how this came to happen. Back in 2001, things were getting ugly at my first job in LA, and I'll be nice and not mention the name of the place I worked. But, things were getting bad between my employers and I, and I'll go ahead and admit that a lot of it was my fault. I maintain that gays, unlike straights, really don't start going through the regular process of adolescence until they "come out". I mean think about it, in junior high and high school, straights star...

I may be a gay male and sometimes boggled by the female mind (and perhaps occasionally insensitive to certain aspects of womanhood that I don't understand), but part of me also considers myself a feminist. I have been surrounded by strong, independent, intelligent women my entire life. My grandma, Eva Strecker, was a hearty, earthy woman who would wake up early, tend to a huge garden, do the washing, kill a chicken and fry it for dinner, all while smiling and telling stories. My mom followed in her mother in laws footsteps, teaching at a small school in Waldo, KS, taking over when Eva retired. When I was in junior high, my mom and dad both went back to college to get their masters degrees. My mom has always been an inspiration to me and continues to be to this day. My little sister, Adrienne, takes after her and has become the first person in our family to earn a degree in law, and is now a practicing attorney who just bought her own home, and she just turned 28. Hopefully th...

I have so much blogging to catch on that it's been intimidating me into procrastination. So, rather than never finish it, I'm just going to very quickly type out some random streams of consciousness. Music is of course such a big part of my life so I want to describe some of the amazing music I have witnessed in the past weeks. On Sep. 19th, I picked up Brandon and Angela and we drove all the way out to Pioneertown, CA, which is a bizarre little place about 2 1/2 hours east of LA. From Wikipedia: "The town started as a live-in Old West motion picture set, built in the 1940s. The movie set was designed to provide a place for the actors to live, and at the same time to have their homes used as part of the movie set. A number of Westerns and early television shows were filmed in Pioneertown, including The Cisco Kid and Edgar Buchanan 's Judge Roy Bean . Roy Rogers , Dick Curtis , and Russell Hayden were among the original developers and investors, and Gene Autry f...

I had gotten it in my head that I wanted to start taking Architecture classes this fall, and even went as far as registering at LACC (Los Angeles City College) and filling out that FASFA form. But the last day to enroll and pay for classes was the 28th and that came and went. I did think about it that day, but I just didn't feel right about it. I may still do it, but it was going to be a pretty big commitment (6pm-10pm every Monday and Wednesday) and I'm not sure if I need one more thing going on in my life. Right now my life is my day job, and music. A lot of music. I can't even keep track of how many balls I have in the air when it comes to music. Music is what I have loved most throughout my whole life, so it's hard to imagine me doing something else, but the fact is I am getting older and more and more jaded with the music "industry", or the chances that I have of ever making any money from music. I want more money. But will more money make me hap...

This has been a sort of rough week. This morning, my friend (dare I say one of my favorites) left for a new chapter in his life, in Portland Oregon. I had only been hanging out with Kevin for the past 8 months or so, although I have known him for a few years. I'm sure he will have a great life in Portland, and I'm sure I'll be fine here in LA, but it always sucks when someone you enjoy spending time with moves away and you can no longer spend much time with them. Tomorrow morning, my friends Von and Jessica are moving to start a new chapter in their lives, in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Von and I go WAY back. I remember in the infancy of my LA life, I would go to gay bars in the San Fernando Valley for the various Karaoke nights and I would notice the two lesbians that would sing, then write in their journals, draw pictures on napkins, and sing again. Amy was the outgoing, wacky one with short blond hair and a strong, melodic voice, and Yvonne was the quiet, reserved one wh...

Ok, so welcome to drunk blogging. Dylan got a palm pre so I am hamburger mary's typing.this. So heres my question. In public restrooms, or anywhere girls will be using the  toilet, I leave the seat up, because I don't want the next guy to come piss on the seat. And I don't want some girl to wonder if I pissed all over the seat and just haphazarly wipe it off. Just so it stays clean and there's no question about it. But some girls say its rude and I should leave it down. What do you think?

I am on a roll here! I just remembered something that I wanted to write about. Often times, right before I fall asleep or as I am falling asleep, I will have sort of a bad dream or bad vision, it's not really a nightmare because I am not completely asleep yet and it is usually just very quick; also it's not usually "scary" per se, but just disturbing or startling. Most of the time, it's that I'm in a car and rear ending another car, but there are lots of other scenarios. Last night, it was a new one. It was just a vision of main street in my hometown, Paradise, but everything was crumbling and it was all overgrown; in fact, the street was gone because weeds had sprouted up through the asphalt. It was so realistic and it shocked me right back awake and left me out of breath for a few seconds. As odd as it sounds, I think it represented one of my worst life-long fears which I'm sure has even deeper psychological implications. What happens to a person ...

I just realized I don't really have any pics of myself on here lately, so here's some from my band playing at Pacific Pride festival in Santa Barbara, CA, last weekend.