leftovers

The Thompson Twins. They were my very first favorite band. I've been with them through the ups and downs, and the fall before last I finally got to see their songs performed by Tom Bailey, the frontman who was most responsible for the band's actual music anyway. Of course I would have preferred to see the whole band live, but it was really more than I ever imagined would happen anyway and was an amazing experience. Collecting these albums was a journey for me, the first of many similar journeys as I found and fell in love with other bands throughout my life time, but the Twins will always be the one that started it all! 10. Ether (Babble) 1996 The second and final release by Babble, the band the Thompson Twins eventually morphed into, is not really a bad album per se.  It's very chill and ambient and therefore easy to throw on in the background, but as a result it's just not that memorable. The only songs that stand out for me are "Hold the Sky," ...

There have been a lot of random things happening and unfortunately I haven't been good about blogging this year so let's play catch-up! These photos are not at all in the right order but I'm too lazy to rearrange them so I'll just discuss the events out-of-0rder. These first two pictures are from an afternoon at MEAT Clown Studios in North Hollywood. This is me as the "Meat Magician." This is Dylan as the British "Meat Clown." MEAT Clown is sort of the mascot for The Stranger Page , a website and "outsider art" studio ran by my friend Shawn, who directed my music video for "Alien Nation." He and his team have been making these YouTube videos that parody local television commercials, for "discount meat products" featuring their spokesperson, Meat Clown. Several different people have participated now, portraying different Meat Clowns. They film them in front of a green screen and are, for the most par...

For a Sunday it was a pretty full day. We woke up and I had to get around pretty quickly to be up to Ben's for Invisible Material rehearsal. On the way, I stopped at 7-11 to get some beers, and got a 12 pack of "Game Day Light," which became somewhat of a punchline. We ripped through our set for Las Vegas a couple times and it was sounding pretty good. We still could tighten up the endings of some of the songs but overall it seemed that we're pretty much ready. Ben picked out the set list and he did a great job. After we rehearsed, Brandon and Robin left but I stayed for awhile to hang out because I was going to meet Robin and Michelle at the TV Academy to watch the new Ridley Scott Robin Hood movie starring Russell Crowe. Dylan didn't really want to see it, so he rode his bike all the way over to Brandon and Angie's, so I was going to meet them after the movie. As I was driving from Ben's to the Academy, it occurred to me that I was driving across t...

Today, Tiger came in to my office to tell me that he is leaving for Hawaii tomorrow! I'm so happy for him. He's going to Oahu, so I couldn't give him any pointers since I've only been to Maui myself, but I told him to check in with Brandon and Amy since they have both been to Honolulu. Anyway, Tiger had been next door to my work talking to Greytone about his upcoming exhibit there, so he had just dropped in to say 'hi' and 'goodbye' and I happened to be working late, otherwise I wouldn't have gotten to bid him adieu. Hello 2010, goodbye junk! NEW YEARS RESOLUTION LOG ENTRY 86 "King For a Day" by the Thompson Twins, 7" single. Going through the stack of 45s the other day while happily DJ'ing at home, I found a few that I had doubles of so this is the first of that pile. "King For a Day" is a one of my favorite Thompson Twins singles and I remember as a kid, I used to order records from this guy who advertised in Goldm...

I just love sleeping in on Saturdays, especially when I don't have anything I have to do! Last night, Dylan had said he was going to make chocolate chip/almond pancakes when we got home, which didn't end up happening, but it caused me to wake up with a hankerin' for them. So, I got up and immediately set to work in the kitchen. I used the last of the Icelandic chocolate chunks that Kolbrun had sent, mixing them in with the pancake batter, as well as some Trader Joe's Almond Extract and sliced almonds. I made 4 pancakes and left them in the oven to stay warm, while I made some breakfast burritos. But these burritos were special - I put bacon, fresh grated cheddar, tomatoes and fresh salsa in them, and then fried the wrapped burritos in the pan with some butter. Yum!!! It was one of the best brunches I have ever made! With the pineapple coconut syrup we had brought back from Hawaii, the pancakes were almost too rich. .. well, almost! After brunch, I started working...

I didn't make it to boot camp since I stayed up so late working on music last night. Nothing too fantastic happened at work. At home, Dylan and I were going to watch our shows, but it turned out they were not on because of the Winter Olympics in Vancouver. I have weird feelings about this because I should really have watched the male figure skating. When I was a kid, I LOVED the figure skating so much that I begged my dad to build us a skating rink in the yard and being that I generally would not shut up, I got my way. My dad dug a flat little pool in the yard east of our house and lined it with plastic tarp, then filled it with water. Once the water froze, it was our own private ice skating rink! It was one of the coolest things my dad ever did for us, although he did a lot of cool things for us kids. But this one was really impressive. How many poor farm kids had their own ice skating rinks? Anyway, I idolized Brian Boitano and Brian Orser and would make up my own figure ...

It felt like it had been forever since I had been to a boot camp at the park. I used to hate the Runyon Canyon days but now the Plummer Park days are the ones I dread. I did make it this morning, but it felt like just barely. Afterwards I went home and laid down with Dylan, who was still in bed but about to get up, and after assuring him I wasn't going to fall asleep, I promptly did so. I had a meeting at 9:30 at the Braille Center for the East Hollywood BID which I was slightly late to as a result of my accidental napping, but it turned out to be fine. I had stopped by my office on the way to pick up some brochures the Media District had made when we were going through our renewal, which I thought would be helpful for them as they plan their own renewal. Dylan and I met at Fresh and Easy after work for grocery shopping. We got quite a bit of stuff and tried to keep it all healthy. At one point I jokingly tossed a box of Oreo Cakesters in the cart and Dylan just looked at me ...

Since I had went to the trouble of buying a jump rope last night, I was not about to miss boot camp, although I kind of wished I had once I got there. It was a really intense work out and I could not keep up with the other guys. Sometimes I can force myself to keep up with people, at least to a degree, but sometimes I just really don't know what's wrong with me. I suppose it's probably my diet and lifestyle. I think I know all about eating right and what foods to avoid but I just have a hard time implementing it into my actual routine. I guess you could say I am addicted to junk food when it comes down to it, which is just awful. I feel it when I am trying to work out and it makes it harder to eat right when I do try. At work, I found out today that I am probably going to have to move to a different office in the same building which means I really need to get my stuff organized. Thankfully I had already started it, but I've been alone in this office for over 5 ye...

I was so worn out from the weekend that even though Robin pushed boot camp back to 10am on account of it being President's Day, I still couldn't be arsed to get up in time. I slept in until sometime after 11 and then I promptly went to the kitchen to cook brunch. I made omelets with fresh chive and shredded cheddar and tomatoes, with bacon. Dylan made coffee. We watched some DVR and then I messed around on the computer, going through a lot of my music files. I went through the "unassigned" file and realized everything in there was pretty much either crap, or just empty files. I got that cleaned out, and then I listened to all the songs in the "Petunia Bonaparte 5000" file. Petunia is the drag alter-ego of my friend, Nathan, and we started working on songs together last year but life got in the way for both of us and we stalled after getting 4 songs in various states of being finished. Petunia did perform one of the songs, "All the WeHo Boys Say...

I made myself get up at 6:30 and get ready for boot camp. While I was getting ready, I woke Carrie up accidentally but she didn't seem to mind. Robin worked us out hard; when he's sick and doesn't do the exercises himself, I get much more self conscious because he can see how badly I do. I have never been good at working out and I seem to get worn out before others do, but I am trying. At least I didn't throw up. When I got home, Carrie and Dylan were both up and around, and Carrie had done all the dishes! I laid down for a little bit and then got ready for work; Carrie and I left at the same time. She was taking the bus to the subway to the airport. Encouraged by the two recent reviews of "Open For Business" (one in Frontiers in LA and the other in Edge Boston, both of which I had contacted myself), I mailed out 5 CD's to various radio stations. I don't know if radio stations (even college stations) actually play random CD's they get in the...

It is with no small amount of restraint that I attempt to tell this tale without going completely overboard and writing a full-fledged novel. It was, after all, The Thompson Twins who became my first "favorite" band. Although I had dabbled in collecting beginning with Tiffany (I collected all her cassingles and kept them in their own separate carrying case), the Thompson Twins are what started a lifetime of hunting and gathering pop music relics. My earliest, haziest recollection of the Thompson Twins takes place back when my cousin Travis and his family moved out to a very large ranch house and I was helping him unpack, or more likely just obsessively snooping through his belongings. I remember being particularly interested in his "Dynamite" magazine collection. "Dynamite" was one of those full color pop-culture/eductational rags that cool grade schoolers ordered from one of those Weekly Reader type book club pamphlets. Although the magazine was s...