Author: brian

last night gino and i bade goodbye to our two purple couches. after three+ years of service on both their parts, traveling from college residences to young adulthood, sitting in a stadium-style two-tiered arrangement for football games and movie nights (goodbye to you as well, cinder blocks!), and hugging the walls, getting trampled, stepped, danced and spilled on party after party, it was time to move on.

now we take the giant leap into carpet cleaning, couch upgrading, and eventually new-tv-buying, as we transition out of the ‘free stuff we got from some guy’ phase and into the vaunted ikea-centric mid twenties. oh to be one notch above the bottom. although the few days of transition are quite funny, as the two of us sit on foldable beach chairs in the middle of our wide open living room, inches above the not yet unsoiled carpet, watching late night with conan just as we did that first year back in ’03. aaaah, memories.

part of me is hoping someone will come and rescue our couches from the curb, giving them another loving home before the los angeles department of public works comes to cart them off to their inevitable destruction. or perhaps we should have had a funeral pyre ourselves, to commemorate all those loving afternoons of calling seat-save or brushing nacho crumbs off between touchdowns. my best idea was to covertly set them up on the roof of the car dealership right outside our balcony, where we could look fondly down at them and chuckle at our absurd prank, but the lack of ladders and the surprising heaviness of furniture proved to be an obstacle. mostly i just hope that when i get home today they are already gone, whisked off to a better place where i can imagine them still happily cradling blissful youth as they intently watch sopranos or cheer for the home team, instead of arriving to find them the temporary bed and bathroom for swarthy hobos. [shudder]

my long holiday weekend was exhausting. it’s hard work having beers and barbeques and parties almost every day for five days straight. going to work was almost a welcome break if i didn’t have to get up at 7 to leave — that was a bit harsh.

i think i went for the circuit as far as party variety too. friday night mike and dom rolled in for the ‘late night beers and laughing with a small group of friends’ at my place. saturday we went the ‘afternoon beers, world cup, and video games’ route, then that night i threw my first and fully successful surprise birthday party for jessica at my place for the ‘big party with tons of people and drinks and loud music and dancing’ card (she was super excited, almost cried, and gave the definitive ‘best birthday ever’ afterward…one million boyfriend points awarded).

sunday was a day of rest sans drinks but with movie night (nacho libre was funny but so weird and that’s saying something coming from me), but we capped it off royally by hitting both the ‘pool party and barbeque’ as well as ‘rooftop barbeque with beer pong and fireworks display’ bases monday and tuesday respectively. dang, i’m exhausted just thinking about it and have been drinking water ever since to refresh this wearied body of mine.

i’m sure i’ll be able to catch up and relax with two concert nights in a row followed by a party this weekend; or maybe the weekend after while i’m in vegas… [deep breath]

this blog is straying farther and farther away from ‘brian’s thoughts and stories regarding his life’ and more towards ‘music and movie reviews plus some star sightings’. i’ll try to rein it in once i’m not so darn busy every moment of every day and have time to reflect or take part in some hijinx of some sort.

for now, let me just tell you that i’m on a hot streak with having celebrities walk past me. we went to an LA film fest screening of a scanner darkly last night and although there were no impromptu live concerts by 80’s rock icons — where were you on this one, devo? — on the way up the stairs leading to the seating entrance at the greek theatre, i nearly bumped woody harrelson out of my way without even realizing it. jessica had to nudge me and say, ‘hey, look who’s in front of you’. i’m kinda slow.

then later we saw him again coming down the aisle right before the movie, along with keanu reeves and richard linklater. it was quite a ‘whoa’ moment. (sorry, i couldn’t help it). also, for some reason, the guy from dead poets society with the big nose that gets beat up for stealing the jocks’ girlfriend, as well as the artsy black turtleneck main guy from the movie empire records. how about that?

if only the movie were as interesting as the random celebrity. frankly i was a little let down on the sci-fi scale and it came off as more of a drug-paranoia movie. the suspense was sort of lacking, there wasn’t really any ‘action’ per se, and i don’t know… it was just a little flat. not bad, just uninspiring. i think i’d rather go home and watch my waking life dvd again.

i’ve got to get these down before i manage to forget them, but i’ve had a star-studded past week. last monday at the futureheads show — a fine, fun performance which really sold me on the new album which i had previously doubted, but now quite approve of even if it may not be as energetic as the first — we were standing around near the bar after the opener (french kicks: like the walkmen without the creativity), when my friend jen pointed out that none other than seth cohen himself, adam brody was walking by right behind us! i think that’s now my second OC cast member sighting, having seen mischa barton briefly and from a distance a couple years back at coachella. my mission is to collect all 4.

then this weekend topped that by far. we were innocently going to an LA film festival screening of an inconvenient truth in a plaza downtown. one of those nice amphitheatre-type open-air corporate park sort of places. fountains, etc. word was that al gore was going to put in an appearance, which was kind of cool. i always approved of that guy, it’d be nice to get to clap for him and show support. then out of seemingly nowhere, after his required thank-yous and rallying cries, he says he wants to introduce his friend, and, shit you not, i heard the former vice president say, “and now, ladies and gentleman, JON BON JOVI!”

against all logic, bon jovi and his guitarist richie sambora (whose name i couldn’t have told you until this night, but apparently my friends were all quite aware of) emerged from the wings with guitars (richies was a DOUBLE HEADED ACOUSTIC), and played unplugged versions of ‘living on a prayer’, his recent country-ish hit, a cover of ‘peace love and understanding’, and finally, amazingly, ‘dead or alive’. it blew my mind, especially on a day i had most definitely NOT had the thought, “hmm, maybe today i’ll see a live acoustic bon jovi set”. wonderful evening.

the movie turned out to be really interesting, even despite the preaching-to-the-choir aspect. mostly because even those of us who appreciate the need for energy reform might not realize just how drastic the damage has become. he shows shome charts that simply make you shudder. i’d see it if i were you, then trade your car in for a bike. or a rickshaw maybe.

being a bit behind on my blogroll reading during the last busy week or so, i didn’t realize the music blog community was so abuzz about the last few live mountain goats shows, with one point of particular excitement being the serendipitously sublime sing-along version of ‘no children’ that everyone got to be a part of. since he was ill, he couldn’t sing it; but it’s such a spectacular song you can hardly leave it off the set list out of fairness to the audience.

largehearted boy has a recording from the show in san francisco, and hearing it again reminds me how fun a moment that was. i think only with a song that great and a singer that well-liked by his fans can you get a room full of hip indie kids to drop all pretensions and sing their hearts out like that. not to mention the impressive percentage of people who know the lyrics backward and forward (myself included). it was pretty inspiring. his reaction on this recording says it all.

nearly as exciting though is having stumbled upon marathonpacks, who’d posted a studio version of one of the songs of the goats’ upcoming new album get lonely that appears on some pitchfork comp or other. those details don’t interest me nearly as much as having an mp3 of a new track to listen to probably more than i should. and lucky for me, it was the one of i think three songs he played last week off the new album where right in the middle i thought to myself, “oooo, this is GOOD.”

i promise someday soon to write about something other than music, too, but it’s just so easy!

my good friend spencer has introduced me to the most marvelous firefox plugin, called stumble upon. it’s one of those collaborative filter deals where you thumbs-up or down any site, and the good stuff theoretically floats to the top. only it’s built into a toolbar with ratings, tagging, and of course the all important ‘stumble’ button where you just get taken to some random based on what you like and don’t like. today’s stumbling has turned me toward this brilliant piece of word math.

lazy posting this week, but the streets last weekend were decent despite my never being able to understand a word of any live hip hop show’s lyrics, no matter what. lady sov was slightly ill and pissed that her monitors weren’t working so she had a short set. the mountain goats wednesday were awesome as usual, but he too was getting over an illness so he said he had to play an all-quiet-songs set or avoid damaging his voice. a little bit disappointing that two acts i’ve been looking forward to seeing for over a month both were circumstancially forced into giving B-grade performances (who am i kidding, the goats were still an A, just a different kind of A). hopefully the futureheads haven’t caught whatever singer-virus is going around too.

so june seems to be big concert month after a long drought, and i mean long. other than coachella, i don’t think i’ve been to a single major show yet this year, which is truly pathetic. however things are looking up up up, as just this month i have streets & lady sovereign tomorrow night at the fonda, army navy & irving monday at the viper room, mountain goats wednesday at the troubadour (hooray!), and futureheads the following monday at the fonda again. plus at least two shows in july so far, flaming lips AND belle and sebastian both at the bowl. oh thank god, i’m not getting old, i’m just getting selective and bands tour more in the summer than the winter. smart on them. needless to say, i can’t wait to get back into the fray.

may summer blockbusters
and while on the topic of summer, have you been keeping up with your summer blockbusters so far? i’ve seen the big three i think so far — poseidon doesn’t count right? come on, you know nobody saw that shit — and i’m fairly disappointed. mission impossible III was great, i can’t lie. philip seymour hoffman as a cool villain, the action was good, the drama was high. not outstanding-good, but a solid movie.

x-men III (why am i seeing so many third iterations in such a short time span?) was a huuuuuge letdown. if you haven’t seen it by now i’m no longer concerned about vaguely hinting at the plot, so let me put it this way: killing a major character is a big deal. you don’t just do it because you’re a lazy writer looking to add drama. it better be a huge climax to a tense and gut-wrenching buildup, not just a way to get around working out problems with your crappy plot. and they don’t do it once, they do it THREE TIMES!? come on, man. besides that, they essentially castrate two other huge characters, erase half of the minor ones they introduced, never develop a few of the other ones (arcangel added exactly what to the movie?), and then give themselves an out at the end rendering the whole story essentially a do-over? give me a fucking break. when does the next batman come out?

and yes, this week i even broke down and saw the da vinci code, and i’m sort of at a loss on that one. i thought when i was lazily reading it that it was paced too much like a movie, but then watching the movie it was too much like reading because it was aaaallll expository dialogue. so you can’t win. the book created suspense in a really cheap way by using a three-page chapter structure, but then the movie had all these weird pauses where it was like being in school instead of a chase movie. what can you do? well, if you’re planning ahead, you’ll do one or the other and not both, because both are flawed but entertaining. however the dramatically delivered line, “i’ve got to get to a library” ranks nearly up there with, “get these mothafuckin’ snakes off this mothafuckin’ plane” in ridiculous quotability.

i’m a horrible horrible democrat! i didn’t vote yesterday in the primary/special elections. i try to read all this political commentary and stay abreast of what’s going on in our government, and then the one or possibly two days a year i’m called upon to do a little reading and subsequent decision-making i fail, ‘because i had a busy day’. it’s so disappointing.

however, at the same time i’m also relieved that my gut preference on the main office i was concerned with, primary candidates for the race for governor, still went the way i think i would have voted. so although i can’t list a lot of reasons i’m going to vote for you, mr. angelides (that is, not yet), i have to say i appreciate the fact that you are both passionate-sounding from the clips i’ve heard of you on NPR, and funny-looking from every picture i’ve seen of you so far on yours and the LA times’ sites. it’s a good start that you’re generally billed as ‘the more progressive candidate’ too. i’m generally for more progress.

i promise when it’s time to vote for who gets to serve instead of just who gets to run, i will show up and pick the best choice between you and kindgergarten cop, whoever that may be. and to do enough learning before then to know who that is.

so many little tidbits from the last week but maybe not that exciting, i’m just going to try to do something fun with them by pairing them in unlikely fashions:

three-day weekends are the best because you can fit so much fun into such a small span of time, BUT x-men 3: the last stand was pretty much stupid because they put so little effort into the script for such a big movie.

i’ve re-discovered my old love for making root beer floats on an almost-nightly basis, AND have recently purchased a brand-new, non-crappy, un-futon, real-deal bed for myself and re-discovered my old love of sleeping comfortably.

new addictions are fun! i can’t stop hurrying home to kill zombies in resident evil 4 lately; PLUS i can’t stop singing when drunk and near a microphone (see: creedence’s ‘bad moon rising’, oasis’s ‘wonderwall’, or the pinnacle, dirty dancing theme ‘the time of my life’ with my girlfriend).

you cannot have too much of a good thing. for example i have played beer pong at barbeques for three weekends in a row now, ON TOP OF making breakfast burritos two out of the last three sunday mornings. both with my special lady by my side (is that love or what?). i will not rest until i am undeniably talented at both of these pursuits.

see, way more fun than bullet points. i hate those. now i think it’s time for an amoeba trip.

this NY times article about blogging versus employment is funny. they make it sound like every other person blogging about work gossip either ends up fired or with a book deal. bitch, please. most people don’t care who annoys you at work, and if they do and you write using identifiable names or details and end up getting caught, it’s because you are not very smart.

incidentally, i chose a long long time ago the benefits of using my real name (old friends, relatives, etc. can easily find me, sometimes even by accident; i get to be the number one person in the world with my first and last name on google) versus those of writing anonymously (being able to air petty grievances, incriminating rants, or truly regrettable stories in a public diary without them being traceable). mostly because i find the internet a more useful tool for communication purposes than exhibitionism. plus, me doing something seedy or being pissed at someone one day doesn’t necessarily need to be recorded permanently anywhere other than my own memory, does it? it’d be like letting someone wiretap your brain. you may not be guilty of much, but it’s still just not a real good idea to have permanent records of everything.

i did have a slightly similar incident though during one of my college internships with a small company in the very infant days of collapsing (please do not go back in the archives to look, those old entries are embarrasing). i won’t bore you with details but i ended up erasing all references to them and moving on with my life. now i work for a successful large player in the advertising business, and their company no longer exists.

YES, i find that fairly satisfying. i’d like to think i brought them down from the inside.