leftovers

The big day is here (how many times have I started a blog like that)? It's Halloween - my favorite holiday/time of year! Since I was a kid, I've loved dressing up for Halloween, I love all the spooky stuff associated with it, and of course - THE CANDY! I've always been a candy monster. I've already blogged about Halloween years past so I'll just stick to the here and now. I decided to have an "early" Halloween party this year - beginning at 1pm. Of course, no one actually arrived that early, but I wanted people to have the option of coming over to hang out, work on costumes, eat, watch scary movies, listen to Halloween music, etc, before the parking gets too difficult - which it always does. West Hollywood puts on the annual Halloween Carnival which is one of the biggest Halloween parties in the world - hundreds of thousands of people show up to walk up and down the Boulevard, checking out costumes, taking photos, and enjoying the entertainment at th...

So the Halloween festivities continue! Today, I mainly went shopping to find all the stuff for my "real" outfit tomorrow, which I only decided upon last night when I was at the museum and it came to me - Boy George! He is such a hero of mine and I have loved him since I was in junior high, despite all the flak I took for it. I would always say "he's not gay, he's just really into fashion!" So I walked down to CVS and stopped at some other stores along the way, finally going in to Out of the Closet on the way home where I got the bulk of what I hadn't found elsewhere. Dylan was not too excited about going out, but I like going to the bars in WeHo around Halloween, before the actual day, which is so crowded. The few days before are usually festive but you can still actually walk around and get inside the bars and get a drink. We met Brad, Alf, Kristen, Rob, and Mike at Mickey's. I wore my Cheshire Cat costume that I had worn for the Demented Disn...

We got up and around, which took much longer than usual since Andrew and Luther take longer to get around than anyone I've ever met. Dylan was very impatient and got into a pretty lousy mood, which always bugs the heck out of me when it's a Sunday and we have nothing to do anyway, so why get upset? Anyway we went to Silver Spoon for brunch out on the patio and finally Dylan ended up getting in a better mood. We had talked about going to a movie with Andrew and Luther later in the day, but after they left we were just lazy and didn't do much of anything. Eventually evening came and Dylan and I decided we wanted to go out for dinner, but as usual we were undecided as to where we should go, so as we have done so many times in the past, we just started walking west on Santa Monica Blvd. This turned into a comedy of errors, as it seemed just as we decided (or settled) and approached a restaurant, they would be flipping the sign to say "closed" or stacking chairs up o...

Kevin called while I was at work to say he was back from visiting his family and so he was going to go to our apartment. I told him that would be fine and I would be home soon. We had planned on going to Cut & Paste Rock & Roll in Long Beach which Annie was putting on at DiPiazza's. I might have mentioned that Shitting Glitter played at the first CPRR and had a good show, and got featured in the District Weekly, which is like Long Beach's version of LA Weekly. I really wanted to go and support Annie, and also a few of the acts that were performing - my friend Wendy Ho, Jasten's band Nancy Fullforce, and my friend Kalil aka MetaHuman was performing the track I helped produce, "So Pomo." But Kevin was beat from driving all over today (he went from Santa Barbara to Orance County back to West Hollywood) and Dylan had to work some event at the Academy, and I really was not up for driving to Long Beach by myself, and I didn't want to spend any money eith...

It's always so hard to go back to work after a great weekend. I had a lunch meeting with Sarah in my office, Jim who took my old job at the Media District, and Lydia, who is a community activist and formerly the Beautification chair of the Central Hollywood Neighborhood Council. We met at Tender Greens and ate out on the back patio, which I was previously unaware of. The purpose of the get-together was just to discuss ideas of how the BIDs could collaborate with the Neighborhood Council on projects such as beautification and quality of life issue. We discussed the possibility of funding dog-waste stations throughout Hollywood. After work I got home and Kevin was there so we hung out. Later, we went out to Fubar; Dylan was too tired to go so it was just Kev and I. It was really dead - there were only like 2 other people in there when we first got there. The bartender really wanted us to stay as he must have realized the looks on our faces when we walked in and saw how empty it...

Dylan and I got up and had brunch; Kevin was already out and about. We wanted to go swimming, so we called Jennn who had just gotten home from work and was tired, but said we could come use the pool in her building, so we did. Kevin is not the "swimming type of guy" (according to him) so he was out shopping while we swam. Later, we met back up with him and we walked down to WeHo to have dinner at Bite. He treated us, which was very nice of him. I felt bad having ordered two glasses of wine with dinner in light of that. So then we walked down to St. Felix and I bought a round of drinks for everyone, we love the drink they have their called "Stockholm Syndrome." I love any drink that involves fresh rosemary. Hello 2010, goodbye junk! NEW YEARS RESOLUTION LOG ENTRY 225 Well, this is a sad day for my new year's resolution. After some technical difficulties (my iPad ate a whole list of things I had gotten rid of, I misplaced c...

Today was a VERY, VERY big day for me!!! We got up and chatted with Kevin and then I got ready and headed to Hollywood - I wanted to finally buy those Scissor Sisters tickets that I had tried to get before. So, this time I got to the box office of the Palladium on time, and got two tickets! I walked over to Floyd's on Cahuenga and Selma to get my haircut, and then I went to Iguana on Hollywood Blvd. to try and find something to wear tonight. Club Blender's theme for the evening was Durrty Disco, so I wanted to find some Studio 54 type clothes, but couldn't decide on anything. I stopped by the grocery store on the way home to get the supplies for my dishes - there was to be a potluck at the Palms BEFORE Blender, and then Kevin and I would perform between the potluck and the actual club night. My dishes were going to be my mom's Hot Hamburger Dip, which I make often and it's always a hit - it was one of my favorite things my mom would make when I was younger. I als...

My Kylie Minogue cover ("Get Outta My Way") has been getting lots of plays on my SoundCloud page. I posted it to an LGBT musician's group, so I think that's where most of the plays must be coming from, although I also posted it on Facebook so some of them might be coming from there. I'm getting really excited about my gig coming up. I'm not sure if I mentioned this yet (I probably did), but I talked my friend, DJ Rawburt, into letting Kevin and I perform at his Club Blender this Saturday night at the Palms. I know I have bitched about the Palms before, and have probably told many people that I would NEVER play there again, but this is different since it's a solo show, and since it's Club Blender. Also, as much as I have a love/hate relationship with the Palms, it is a place that I have spent A LOT of time at, have had MANY great memories there, and it will always be a part of me. So, in a way, it's kind of fitting that I would have my first s...

Every year, the Stunt Performer's Group has a big party at the TV Academy to honor their nominees for the Emmy's, and it's always a theme party and one of the most fun of the year. This year the theme was '50's and they had Bowzer from Sha Na Na there as the host. The decorated the courtyard in front of the theatre to look like a diner, and it was really cool! I didn't have time to really go find an outfit, but Dylan said I'd be fine if I just wore a white t-shirt, jeans, and did my hair up in a pompadour. I was worried because I thought I didn't look very good to be going to a cool party, but when I got there, all Dylan's co-workers were complimenting me on my hair and asking me how long it took me to do it. So, I was fine after all! Since Dylan's head is shaved now, he borrowed my Elvis wig. The party was really fun. They had some dancers that did a sort of "west side story" routine to kick things off and then they had a video o...

Today is my uncle Ronnie's birthday! Happy birthday! I went across the street to Dillon's Irish Pub to meet the manager there, she had e-mailed me and wanted to say 'hi' since she knew Katie before me. I took a copy of the Visitor's Map and Guide, hoping that I could get them to advertise, but she said they were not interested. After work, Dylan was going to meet me at Bodega Wine Bar, a new place in the Sunset & Vine BID, in the Sunset Vine Tower. As I was waiting for him, I stopped in the Borders books and perused the Belinda Carlisle autobiography, "Lips Unsealed," which I am sure I'll have to read someday soon. Then, Dylan was right across the street so we went to Bodega, which was really nice. Their whole philosophy is making wine accessible to everyone without any snobbery. Almost all their wines are priced the same (the house wine being a bit cheaper, and the premium wines a bit more, but still all the same price) and they let you sampl...

I tried to get up early enough to go to the box office at the Hollywood Palladium to buy Scissor Sisters tickets, but the box office closed at 2 and I wasn't there until about a quarter after. So then I went to Ross Dress-For-Less but I didn't get anything. I ate lunch at this Hawaiian BBQ, but it wasn't as good as Ono. I met Dylan at home and we went to Candle Delirium so that we could get gifts for his cousin's grandma Joan (it was her 80th B-day) and for Jason and Ismael's housewarming. He took off to go up to Joan's and so I went next door to One LA to get underwear since tonight is the Club Blender Underwear Party (after the housewarming). I ended up buying a pair of $42 underwear, which I know is ridiculous - I wonder where my money goes. Back at home, I recorded myself playing the Kylie cover I've been working on ("Get Outta My Way) on my camera as a video, and then watched it - it wasn't nearly as bad as I thought it would be. I did so...

It was a pretty hot day so we were thrilled to be able to go hang out in the pool at Brad and Alf's. Since we had been drinking so much of Brad's liquor lately whenever we would go over there, we stopped at CVS and got him a big jug of Captain Morgan - his favorite. We also got some beer for ourselves. Tommy and Ryan were there too and we all just lounged around most of the afternoon, which was nice. Marc was out of town; he had gone to San Diego Pride with Amy and AJ. Shitting Glitter was playing there so it was a little strange to think that they were all down there and I wasn't. We had missed the last episode of True Blood so we had two episodes to watch. Tommy and Ryan left to get back to the OC (they don't watch TB) and it was our turn to get dinner, so I walked down to Sammy's Thai and got four different entrees with sides and egg rolls. When I got back, we started the show. Both episodes were really good and the dinner was great too. After they were o...

Dylan and I had all these big plans for the holiday weekend, but already they were starting to get pushed aside in favor of just relaxing. We had intended to get up [fairly] early and drive down to Newport Beach for this gay yacht party which sounded fun, but also for me those things are much better if we go with a group of people. Sometimes I don't like having to make new friends, especially if it's with a bunch of hot gay guys with hot bodies. Not that I don't want them as friends, it's just hard to go up and talk to them sometimes. So, we slept in and then we decided to walk up the street for brunch. We were going to eat at this place called The Griddle which is just on Sunset and Fairfax but it's always so busy we've never braved the crowds there. I t hought maybe since it was a holiday weekend, it wouldn't be as bad, but I was wrong so we ended up checking out this little Italian place called Vivoli Cafe that I've always wanted to try. They ha...

As soon as we got up and around, I walked down to Gelson's so I could get the tube of biscuits to make my 'famous' LA Pride Parade donuts. I use a shot glass to poke the holes out of the middle of the biscuits and then fry them in oil in a pan, then put them in a bag of cinnamon/sugar to coat them, and that's that! I started doing this for Pride a few years ago when Shitting Glitter was going to be in the Parade AND the Festival, and we had 3 people spending the night in our apartment, and many more meeting us that morning a block away for the parade line-up. That was a fun and crazy Pride Sunday morning, so the fact that this one was considerably less hectic was both a relief and also somewhat of a disappointment. I complained to Dylan that no one was there with us in the apartment that morning - you'd think living right in West Hollywood that someone would inevitably want to crash with you during pride - but Dylan pointed out we hadn't really invited anyon...

A little overwhelmed from the partying last night, we slept in nice and late but still felt groggy and tired when we got up. We wanted to make it down to the festival in time to make it worthwhile, since it was $20 to get in (I had saved a bit of cash by purchasing my ticket online). We walked down to the festival by ourselves, but once there we quickly ran into friends. First, we saw Dudley and Mark and hung out with them for awhile, and then we met up with Marc, Robert, Brad, Alf, Tiger, Tommy, Ryan, and some others. We had some time to just walk around, look a the booths and what not until we realized it was almost time for Kelis to play. Before today, I didn't really know anything about Kelis other than her song "Milkshake" which had been a huge hit a few years ago. I didn't really know what she looked like or have any idea what her voice really sounded like. So, when she came out looking very cute and sexy in a little pink suit with a mini skirt, I was prett...

I met Amy for lunch today to talk to her about my schedule and how busy I am going to be with my new job so I had to let her know that I wasn't going to be able to really be involved with SG for awhile. She was very understanding and we ended up having a nice lunch together. I was really worried about it, but it turned out that I was worried for nothing. It was day 1 of LA Pride and so I was in a great mood after work and wanted to get the party started! I stopped at Rite-Aid on my way home to get a photo album for the photos from Canada (which I had printed the other day), some booze (a huge bottle of Smirnoff), and some other odds and ends. When I got home, Dylan wasn't there yet, so I started working on "Winnipeg Beach" and ended up finishing a demo of it that I was really happy with. I burned it to a CD, e-mailed it to Brandon, and then headed down to meet Brad, Alf, Tommy and Ryan at Mickey's to kick Pride off. On the way, I called Brandon to have him li...

I felt pretty rushed considering everything that was happening today at my work, as we were interviewing 5 candidates for my job, and we were leaving for Canada the next day and I hadn't even started to pack or figure out what I was going to wear. The interviews didn't start til 3pm so that gave me time to get caught up and tidy my office. We decided to do the interviews in my office so we could at least use the conference table once - the fate of the office here is up in the air as they kind of want us out here so they can rent it to someone. So the office is probably going to move to another studio but that will be for the next person to deal with. I moved the office from CFI right before they demolished it, into Ren-Mar Studios, 5 years ago. Out of the candidates, one of them was a friend of mine who I know well from working in the Hollywood Community who is looking for a career change (she's been a makeup artist for years and years on many different movies). The oth...

I sat my alarm early cause I wanted to wake up and cook breakfast for everyone before we had to go to the airport, since I had bought artichokes to make artichokes benedict and I knew mom wouldn't use them if I didn't. So I got up and tried to make breakfast as quickly as I could for me, mom, dad, Dylan, and aunt Sharon. I ended up just making eggs benedict for most of them but I put a steamed artichoke out on the table for everyone to share and then I had one myself so it went over really well and everyone liked it. But, then I had to rush to get ready and finish packing; I had pretty much gotten everything packed the night before, though. It was a whirlwind getting out of the house and I had to hug Royal goodbye of course and then we all loaded into the Highlander and headed up 35 which was completely backed up so dad exited and took some street further north so when we finally got back on interstate it was moving again. I told mom she couldn't cry when we said goodbye...

This morning I had meant to get up early, but ended up sleeping in pretty late. I'm never sure if my sleeping in late means that I was really tired and needed the sleep, or if it's just the fact that I've allowed myself to sleep and sleep whenever it's not imperative that I wake up. We got up and walked a couple blocks up Laurel to our friend Joe and Sunny's place because they were having a garage sale. Marc was also there, selling some of his stuff, and Dylan's co-worked Nicki was too because she lives in the same building as Joe and Sunny. It was fun but we didn't buy anything. There was a lot of crazy costume stuff since Joe and his partner Cindy have an act called the Boofont Sisters and they were both selling some of their old costumes. But since Dylan hasn't really been dancing as Coco Ono much lately, he wasn't really looking for dress-up stuff. We walked down the street looking for a place to have brunch after that. Joey's was too b...

After work today, we had a gig at Palihouse, which is a fancy-shmancy hotel in West Hollywood just up the street from Marc's place. So I loaded up my keyboard and drove over there, but there wasn't any easy parking so I just parked at Marc's and walked. When I got there, Red, Laura, Amy and AJ were already there so we got set up and did a quick sound check. This was our acoustic show because they have acoustic acts there on Monday nights. It was also Red's parent's 30th anniversary so they were there with some of their friends, and Red's brother Jeremy, and quite a few of Red's friends. Because of the family members, and the acoustic setting, Amy seemed a little uncomfortable and ended up dropping a lot of the lyrics out, most notably an entire section of Slut Buffet. We also didn't end up doing all the songs we rehearsed, but it was a good set anyway. I really like doing acoustic shows, although this wasn't truly acoustic since we were plugged...