leftovers

We got up and then Brandon, Angie and Tiger came over for brunch, like we had planned last night. Angie was making pumpkin pancakes, and I made eggs with parsley, cilantro, tomato, cheese and almonds. We had mimosas also (of course). After brunch, we watched this movie "Off the Charts: The Song Poem Story" that Brandon had gotten from Netflix. Several months ago, while exploring on Wikipedia, I had come across this phenomenon of 'song poems,' which is where people would respond to an ad in the back of a magazine that would say the company was looking for 'songwriters.' The person would send in their lyrics, and then for a fee, a company would set the words to music and make it a song. Usually the ad would make some claims that they would also distribute the song and try to make it a 'hit,' but in reality they were just churning out these songs non-stop and making money from the poor saps who thought they were going to be the next big songwriter. ...

Tiger had a new show opening at Grey Tone photo, which is right down the street from my office, so Dylan and Brandon both came over after they got off work since they haven't seen my "new" office since it's been recarpeted and refurnished. I was happy to show off my new digs to them. Then we walked down the street to Grey Tone. We were the first people there besides Tiger, Don (the owner, who used to be one of my Board Members at the Media District) and the bartender. People started trickling in soon, though. He was showing his Action Figure series, which are photos of little plastic toy dolls shot really close up and then blown up really big. He started a decade ago or so, with these army guy action figures, zooming in on their faces to show what image we are giving to children as what "masculine" means, and then he began collecting all different types of little action figure toys and taking portraits of them all. There was a wide variety, from female...

Dylan and I went down to AJ's house in Fullerton for brunch and a band rehearsal. We have two shows coming up - an electro gig at a new 80's club downtown tomorrow night called Erotic City, and an acoustic gig at Palihouse, where Red works, on Monday in West Hollywood. Red couldn't make it to rehearsal so it was just the four of us and we rehearsed the electro set first without Laura because initially she thought she might not be able to make it. Then, after we talked about it, Laura decided she could make it, so we rehearsed it again with her. Then, we rehearsed the acoustic set with Laura using brushes instead of sticks, and me using the piano sound instead of the electronic sounds on my keyboard. After rehearsal, Dylan and I drove up to Echo Park for Tiger's art show at pLAyLAnd, a new gallery/space that was having it's first event. It was really interesting. Quite a few artists had work there, and many of the pieces were conceptual/interactive, such as the...

I was so tired when my cell's alarm started going off this morning that I slept in about an hour later than I wanted to. Rick and Melodie said they would be on set starting at 8am because they wanted to finish cleaning up to make sure we got the deposit back, and to get all the b-roll stuff shot. I got out of bed just a little before 8am and I had a couple stops to make on the way. First, I stopped at Target to get a white t-shirt for the final shot, some hair product since I was all out, and sandwich stuff for lunch. I also called Melodie to see if they needed anything else and she asked me to bring latex gloves. I arrived by 9am and had donuts for the small crew working, which was just me, Rick, Melodie, Quentin, and Matt. After we got most of the paint cans loaded into Tiger's truck and cleaned up all the paint spills on the floor, we started shooting the b-roll stuff, which was like shots of paint hitting the background wall and splattering off of the instruments. We w...

I made it to boot camp; we were at Runyon today and we were supposed to bring jump ropes, but I forgot. I had to borrow someone else's and the workout was so hard. We jumped roped for 3 minutes, then did high knee hops up and down the tennis court, then had to run up to the top via the stairway, touch the fence, and run back and do it all again. I was sweating up a storm and was far more tired afterward than usual. At work, I realized I needed to pay bills so I called Susan to see when I should come up. She told me it was Diana's birthday and they were going out for sushi so I should come join them and do checks either before or after. So I went up around noon and actually got all the checks done before we left for lunch. We went to Mikado which is on Riverside Drive just across from what used to be the Studio Suite where Shitting Glitter played a few gigs, and a block away from where Dylan lived when we first met. I have to say this was one of the most memorable lunches ...