tacky/beautiful

My people has never been known to have a great sense of design or ability to restrain our desire for all things cute. Most of our life is a palette of color and composition that has been vomited by a drunk picasso, but on occasion, the art of dyslexic style has been pushed so far, it circles around to awesomeness. Look at the interior of this random car I found parked in the san gabriel valley - a leopard print dash cover, winnie the pooh cup holder, a purple furry steering wheel cover, glittery heart stickers, mickey and minnie and mickey and minnie, tiny figures dressed in the asian zodiac atop a cotton cloud diorama and tigger the tiger hugging the rear view mirror! What do you do if you're a passenger in this car. Are you mesmorized by this interior or do you automatically head in the direction of the closest sanrio store. Actually, if you notice, there is no hello kitty or its ilk in this car. This person knows what she is doing. Word.

Crafts services

Look. If I say I'm a get you a sandwich, I'm a get you a sandwich. It'll be a good sandwich. I'm not sure what it'll be, it might be the super torta from philadelphia steak and hoagie or the number 7 from the eastside market. Either way, you'll be well fed and you will like it. This is my promise, much like the marine's have their creed about rifles and physician's have their hippocratic oath, I have mine about sandwiches. Because its important.

Michael and prior have finished shooting their film, strangers, and are editing and adding music trying to make it on time for the hawaii film festival. Considering that they did it with a store bought camera shot around los angeles, its a pretty awesome film. Well its awesome because I play guy in background number 2. Actually they think I'm awesome because I bring them sandwiches. Its a win win situation.

GR Softball - Roughriders

He heard me say, "thats weak sauce" and he came towards me off the 3rd base plate visibly upset. And I'm thinking, what the hell is he doing and if he wants to get into a brawl, I didn't care because I wasn't having a good hair day anyways.

The giant robot softball team is now 9 and 0 having beaten obstruction last thursday as we aim towards having a perfect season. We're friendly with most of the teams in the league, shaking their hands quietly after the last out and giving them and the game a modem of respect. But there always seems to be one guy on the opposition that's just crazy like a mother fucker and gets easily aggravated over every call the umpire makes or doesn't make during the game. Dude, its just a softball game, none of us are paid to play and cnn doesn't cover us on their telecast. But here comes mr. mad, growling and yelling....GRRRR. He was on 1st base when the batter hit a line drive to the outfield. He rounded 2nd base and decide to streak toward 3rd where I stood on the outside of the plate waiting for the ball to be thrown in. But the ball sailed slightly to my right and when I made an attempt to catch the ball, there was a little bit of incidental contact. Just a little bump, at worst, a little owie that his mom could kiss and make it all better but maybe she had chapped lips. This guy starts yelling and whining at the ref saying I was in his way and that he could have been hurt. I'm 5'4 full of too much rib eye steak. He's 5'9 and looks like he has a 24 hour fitness membership. Who's zooming who? So I said, "thats weak sauce".

Which must have affronted his manhood quite abit as he stopped the game to march towards me with a hot tempered head. But before he got close, michael walks between us going head to head yelling back into his face. Sean at 2nd base starts peeling off his guards - forget the pads, its going to be knuckle to knuckle. Oh man, we have never gotten into a fight before, but the thing is, michael is like super ninja shortstop guy while sean is big ole brick layer man and I'm just the player that wears glasses with the smart mouth. Everyone maintained control and the game resumed for another inning. Than the player got kicked out - note to guy: don't be shouting "pussy" in the stands when the umpire has already given you a warning. So he had to leave the premises but the best part of course was winning the game 14 to 9.

Myspace myconomy

Myspace just let go of a bunch of people, about 30% of their employees. Thats a lot of people, mostly programmers I suspect. I use to work there. In fact, myspace, got me fired from one job, than hired me, promoted me, promoted me again, moved my dept to santa monica to beverly hills back to santa monica than to el segundo, promoted me one more time and than fired me. And than we were named in a lawsuit together. She was like the crazy fun girlfriend that didn't work out but is now fucked up. Internally, there was alot of shit going on too from supervisors smoking chronic in the parking lot, kids sleeping atop their cubicles, an employee with strong christian values deleting safe profiles, epileptic seizures in the lobby, people drinking beer, a fight in the kitchen and actresses doing mouth exercises during a fire drill. It was like the wild wild west. Hey, why don't you guys trying hiring a little better?! One of my superiors took me aside and said to me, "bill, do what you need to do and answer questions later". Of course I didn't answer to him so I'm not sure who had my back at the time. Aside from department, one guy in the IT dept did. He's still there - hope he's ok.

Lassie foundation come home

The crowd made me feel comfortable as skinny white boys wearing extra medium shirts, short asian girls with cute haircuts and people with horned rimmed glasses stood around the floor at the echoplex waiting for the band to play. The Lassie Foundation was a shoegazy "fuzzy pink noise" band formed in 1998 and received a strong indie following but broke up several years later, I guess due to real life - Jeff schroeder went on to tour with the smashing pumpkins as their new guitarist and happy tagawa banta began raising a family. But for whatever reason, eight years later, the band decided to play a free show at a small local venue. Who the hell knows why but I told my friends wendy and angelyn, that I was making my way to the front row to be close to the the music that at one time, enveloped my heart, made me feel carefree, hopeful and in love.

Man they played a short set but all their shows are always too short. Standing five feet away, I could watch the weeng weeng ricochet erratically through the air but with intent as jeff manipulated the notes of his guitar to do his bidding. Happy is playing the vibes providing a soothing backdrop while wayne, in his soulfully blissful voice sang about "good times coming" and "stealing to be your one in a million". One of the best things about the band is that I don't know all their songs but when they play, it just all sounds great and by that I mean it doesn't hurt my ears even standing so close to the amps without earplugs. Man, I wish this could have lasted all night.

Wayne ended the show with a song dedicated from happy to her husband Brett standing in the crowd. She had asked the band to reunite and play for their 10 year anniversary. And than it all made sense.

Voice of the lobster

On rare occasion, as a little guy, my mom would make me lobster and i thought to myself, I must be grown up because I never see that dish at mcdonalds or in my lunch sack. The best thing about it was this sauce/gravy that had ground pork with black beans, sliced ginger, minced garlic and chopped green onions. Oh man, I miss my mom's cooking.

Google seems to pull up several recipes called shrimp with lobster sauce. But here's the thing, there is no lobster in the lobster sauce and the sauce itself is what my people and my mom would put on lobster. But yet, here it is, on shrimp. Not lobster.

So I made this for myself and put it on a bed of pasta just to see how it tasted. Not bad. Maybe next time I'll actually make it with lobster. Maybe for my little girl so she thinks she's all grown up.

Crazy saturday night...

Young girls living life before they get old, dreamy guys walking with cute half asian girls outside of art shows and a secret concert at a publishers abode - lot of things to do on a saturday night in los angeles.

But sometimes, people stay home, by circumstance or by design and so it is with martin, he of the wife with her five favorite books sleeping next to their 1 year old margot. He was working on his comic before I called so I bring over some strawberry pie and its the least I could do for keeping me company. We do this from time to time during the late nights and like 2 old men, we'll talk about his earthworms or ikea furniture or paladins. Sometimes Jenny is in the kitchen laughing at us although tonight, she's ill in bed. She was the first person to call and console me after a close friend of mine passed away so she would always be protected under a blessing of sanctuary - if this was the world of warcraft.

Peak season in california for strawberries are from April to June. This should keep us occupied for a few months. Wonder what else is happening the rest of the year.

note: it was like in the 90's in los angeles yet martin insists on wearing socks.