leftovers

I woke up this morning to the sounds of an elementary school halloween party and costume contest. There is a school just adjacent to our apartment building and the playground (if you can call a huge asphalt lot a playground) is just about 100 feet away from us. It was so soothing and comforting to hear songs like "The Monster Mash" being played in between announcements of "most creative costume" and "most colorful costume" and the sound of children cheering and laughing. It reminded me of all that's good in the world. Here's to a fun and safe Halloween! In celebration, I am posting my band's brand new, spooky video for "I'm a Vampire"... enjoy!

I wanted to take a break from all the politically infused blogging and write about something on a lighter note. With Halloween coming up, and a street near my house where there are actually some deciduous trees that have been shedding their leaves, I am filled with memories of Halloweens past. Oct. 31 has become one of my two favorite holidays, right up there with good ol ' Christmas. I am truly a sucker for holidays and decorating, and this year is no exception; my boyfriend says it looks like Halloween threw up in our apartment right about now. It's true, I go over the top and decorate with candles, garland, lights, window clings, props, and wall decorations. I've got spiders, ghosts, witches and bats all over the place. On the wall above our TV is my "black cat corner" with tons of cute kitties to be found. My memories of childhood Halloweens are all very fond. Some general things I always remember are going trick-or-treat at my grandparents farm before we ...

Type. Read. Delete. Type. Read. Delete. That's the constantly repeating cycle that I've been going through with regards to my blog, in this wacky and tense presidential election season that we're in here in America. So many nasty things being said, so many accusations being leveled, but scariest of all is the trotting out of the "extremists" and airing their ill-informed views on national news. Most of my life I prided myself on being fairly in the "middle" - I never even considered myself much of a political person and I'm ashamed to say, but have admitted it before, that I didn't even vote in the 2000 presidential election. And, just today in writing this blog, I went back and realized that I would have been eligible to vote for the first time in 1996, when Clinton ran for re-election against Bob Dole. Not only did I fail to vote in that election, but even if I had, it's very possible that I may have voted for Dole simply because he ...

For the past month or so, I've been active in volunteering not only for my usual cause of helping the homeless, but also for No On 8, The Equality For All Campaign. This marks the first time in my life I have been an active participant in a political campaign. The reason I have chosen to become involved is because this is a cause that is more near and dear to my heart than perhaps any other. Proposition 8 has been placed on the ballot by members of the religious right who seek to overturn the California Supreme Court's May 2008 ruling "that the California legislative and initiative measures limiting marriage to opposite-sex couples violate the state constitutional rights of same-sex couples and may not be used to preclude same-sex couples from marrying." Since this is my blog, I'd like to take a moment to tell my personal story. I knew from a very early age that I was gay, despite the constant awareness that, from my perspective, the whole world seemed to be ant...

So I thought this was going to be my first blog about the Emmys, but I looked back and saw I had written about it in 2006. For a brief refresher, my boyfriend has worked at the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences (the organization that puts on the Emmys) since before I knew him, and as such I get to be his guest at the awards show each year. Except, that is, for last year, when his friend Leah insisted that he take her instead. I was a good sport and let her go, although I was bemoaned the chance to attend the last Emmys at the Shrine. This year was the first time the ceremony took place at it's new home, the Nokia Theatre at LA Live. I had been there once before to see Duran Duran on their most recent tour in support of Red Carpet Massacre. While I thought the venue was decent for a concert, I didn't see how it would translate into a ritzy awards show. The first sign of trouble came when we pulled of the 110 freeway and approached the Nokia using the round-a-bout dir...

I had a weird dream last night. I was riding in a car with this guy I know (a friend of a friend) and he kept almost wrecking and killing us. I was very upset. After the third time, this old lady and her husband told me they were going to kill him. The lady gave me the keys to her SUV and house and told me I could have them since she would either be in hiding or going to jail. I drove off and heard a shotgun blast. Then I became someone else, a character, and that character met and fell in love with an older man. The character felt good because he already owned his own home and car (that the old murdering lady gave him) so he didn't feel like he was using the old man as a "sugar daddy". Thankfully I woke up before it got any stranger. Of course, after I woke up and got on the Internet I was reminded just how strange real life is at the moment. I couldn't avoid seeing the name Sarah Palin whether in the headlines or in my e-mail inbox. I remember back in 200...

I was at a meeting yesterday hosted by the Los Angeles Board of Public Works.  To welcome us, one of the Commissioners asked us if we knew what the purpose of city government was.  Nobody volunteered with a succinct, accurate answer so the Commissioner said the main purpose was to provide "security" for the citizens.  As such, most of the city's budget goes to the police and fire departments.  All other services are considered ancillary. The Business Improvement District that I work for has a similar M.O.; over 60% of our budget goes to our security program, while the remaining funds are spread thin throughout our cleaning, maintenance, improvements, advocacy, and management programs. It suddenly became painfully apparent to me that humans spend a great deal of their time and money to protect themselves from other humans.  It's amazing that we can accomplish anything when our main function in life is to prevent and clean up other people's messes.  Why is this?  I ...

this is a continuation of the previous blog entry (in case you haven't read that one, you should start there first!) ... this is a new feature of my blog, detailing my experiences seeing live concerts of my favorite bands, and music-related pilgrimages.  So, I'm sitting there at the Rosemont Horizon watching the Human League play, and it's the first time I've seen them play.  Moreover, it's the first time I've seen any of my "favorite" bands play, and the Human League had been a constant staple of my music library for almost a decade at this point.  It was a truly awesome and life-changing moment for me.  Up until that point, I had never really "gotten" the live experience.  I had heard live recordings that only made me want to hear the studio recording.  Previously, I had thought, why go to the trouble to sit in an uncomfortable seat or make your way through a crowd just to hear a band doing a second-rate rendition of a song that sounds bet...

This is a new feature on my blog, where I will tell the stories about my experiences attending live concerts by my favorite bands.  Having just seen the Human League on the Regeneration Tour earlier this week, which was my 6 th time seeing them, I thought I would recall my first encounter with the mighty League - which incidentally was not only my first music-related "pilgrimage" but also the first time I really saw a concert by one of my favorite bands. Human League wasn't my first favorite band (that honor goes to the Thompson Twins) but they have been the most enduring group in my record collection (or iTunes library as it goes these days) since my tweens .  I remember first borrowing their album "Crash" on cassette tape from my friend, Angie Dewey, and ultimately collecting every single one of their albums - many on various formats - over the years and up to this very day.   It wasn't until 1998 (August 15 th to be exact, thank you internet !) that I ...

The farm that I grew up on was just about a mile or two northeast of Paradise off of Highway K-18.  It was a wonderful place and I don't think I would have rather grown up anywhere else.  Our house was in a valley near Eagle Tail Creek (a tributary of Eagle Creek) and although I don't know much about the history of the farm itself, I know that the house we lived in was built in the 50's by the Fowler brothers, and that there was at least one house there previously which supposedly my grandma Strecker lived in at some point.  I also was always under the impression that part of the basement had retained the original foundation from this house, as parts of the north and eastern walls appeared older than the rest of the walls, but my mom recently told me that was not the case (she thought). Part of the fun of growing up on a farm was exploring the many different areas and buildings.  Although it was not what you would call a large farm, it did have several outbuildings, includ...

Most humans have noticed the odd coincidences in life that seem to hint at something more going on in the universe. There is definitely a zeitgeist and it seems to me that there are definitely such things as fate, destiny, karma and a little bit of magic. I learned about synchronicities through a book I read which was actually fiction but seemed to tap into something very real yet unseen. The book was called "The First Verse" and I highly recommend it. In the book, the three main characters play a game which is actually a sort of divining which does exist in real life, culling meaning from passages selected at random from various sources of literature. In "The First Verse", it's mainly from books, but other signs are also taken in. When several signs point to the same thing, or when several things happen at once that are related, they call it a synchronicity. After reading the book, I have indeed noticed more synchronicities in the real world than I had...

I'm a firm believer in following one's dreams. After all, that is what brought me here to LA 8 years ago; my dreams of living in a large city, having a boyfriend and being in a band. In fact, I've wanted to be in a band probably since I was around 12 and first fell in love with the Thompson Twins. But, that's a story that's been told a few times. My other dream, and one that is perhaps well less know, goes back even further . As a child, sometimes I would get hungry and prepare myself a snack in the kitchen. For as long as I can remember, being in a kitchen has always inspired me to pretend that I'm a cook in my own cafe. I would lovingly prepare peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, imagining that someone other than myself would be eating them shortly. As I've aged, I find myself thinking more and more about that distant day in the future when I will, in fact, operate my own cafe or diner. And in these fantasies, the cafe is located in my hometown of ...

Some people seem to spend their entire lives searching for something that's just without of reach. That something is unknown, indescribable, and in fact, intangible. It doesn't exist, and thus the wild goose chase begins. Whether you call it love, happiness, acceptance, success; there are those who are not happy with whatever amount of it they achieve . It's always about more, or a different kind, or something else altogether. It's true that you don't always get what you want, but that sometimes you find what you need, and that you don't know what you have until it's gone. Old sayings that have become pop songs that live on as sage advice throughout generations. Maybe I'm boring, maybe I'm simple, maybe I'm disillusioned myself but I think being happy and successful is just not being miserable and a failure. If there is one person worse off then you, perhaps you should be happy for what you have. You may have to put some effort into this....

I like, scratch that... I LOVE Victorian Architecture and on many occasions have passed some time looking at or drawing floor plans and designs of Victorian houses which someday I would love to live in. If I ever grow up and have a big house of my own, I would want it to be a Victorian, keeping many of the original features with only a few subtle modernizations such as central air. While looking at some plans online, I found one for a country house which has specified in the plans an 8,000 gallon cistern which collects rainwater from the slate roof. It claims that rainwater from a slate roof is "pure and clean, free from color, and used with ice in summer is better and healthier than well water." Many homes back in Kansas had cisterns and wells; the farmhouse where I grew up actually had a system of eaves which fed into a cistern which you could pump manually. Little metal cups suspended by chains would pulley around the inside of the well when you rotated the handle, and o...

It is such a time of contemplation for me and many of those around me. Currently being at the "ripe old age" of thirty is yet another factor contributing to my philosophical state of mind. I realize that so much of a person's perspective comes from within their own mind; the way they see things, regard other individuals, and the assumptions they make whether consciously or not. I'll use myself for an example. Throughout most of my life, at least from grade 5 on, I was always pretending that I was in a band, or imagining what it would like if I would one day be a pop star, to the point that I would draw album covers, create track listings for albums, even imagine entire scenarios and fantasies involving the bands I had dreamed up in my mind. I continued this until finally, when I was in college, my brother and I somehow convinced each other that it would be a good idea to form a band. My brother knew this young fellow, Joe, from his high school cross country team who ...

In the midst of all the weirdness going on in my life right now, it's nice to have a couple things to ground a person. The strongest force in my life that has always kept my feet on solid ground is my family. So I was delighted when my cousin Andrea called to tell me that her daughter Tana was going to be mailing me a "Flat Tana" which was a small, flat cut out paper person bearing Tana's resemblance as part of a school project. I was familiar with the book "Flat Stanley" which spawned the idea, having already attempted to fulfill another girl's school project awhile back when she sent it to the TV Academy and Dylan received it. Unfortunately, even though I went to the trouble to take lots of pictures of that Flat Stanley, and developed the pictures myself, Dylan never ended up mailing the poor thing back. Well since this is my cousin Tana we're talking about, of course I'm going to mail it back, and we have already had some adventures! Tana'...

Wow!!! When formulating this title, so many "v" words came to mind, but I had no idea I'd end up using 6 of them! I should have used 7 since there is a "v" in "seven" but that would just be overdoing it. To break it down, I'll go word-by-word: VALENTINES: I'm a holiday person, what can I say. Whenever a holiday approaches, my mind automatically reverts back to elementary school days, when our teacher would lovingly create some bulleting board featuring cardboard cut-out decorations symbolizing whatever special day was drawing near. Thinking of this makes me feel good, because I know my mom continues to make scholastic bulletin boards to this day. Valentine's Day is usually one of my favorite days, even back when I was single, if only because of the flowers and chocolate. It's a pretty holiday, and has nothing to do with religion, and is meant to celebrate Love - so what's not to like? However, that part about LA Valentine's that...