Category: Uncategorized

while the existence of LA’s new radio station ‘indie 103‘ doesn’t exactly qualify as breaking news any longer, i only recently got around to giving it a listen, and i have to say, i’m intrigued yet confused.

their station ID’s proclaiming to be ‘YOUR independent radio’ had me a little curious, as i assumed it to be a clear-channel trick to nab an otherwise anti-radio market niche. and as it turns out i assumed correctly, as explained in this illuminating LA weekly article. but since ‘independent’ and ‘clear-channel-affiliated’ are about as far apart as penguins from santa, i didn’t see how it could be that there is now a radio station that manages not to make me cringe quite all the time. (generally i’m opposed to radio itself because it doesn’t come with a button allowing you to skip to the next song if this one doesn’t do it for you at that moment, and radio hasn’t introduced me to anything new since junior high).

as the article tells, apparently CC only deals in ad space and the former owners of that frequency (entravision, a hispanic/dance station) hired someone to do the programming who is not directed by the Man himself. now we have a station where i have heard cursive’s ‘art is hard’ played on city-wide fm radio on multiple occasions? i certainly won’t complain about that. do i find it sort of weird that indie is a demographic now? of course. does it make sense that for some reason heavy rotation of the beastie boys’ back catalog of non-singles has been deemed part of the indie canon for the purpose of this radio station? no, not at all, but i’ve heard at least one track on each of the several drives i’ve opted for indie 103 over ipod for curiosity’s sake, and i usually just laugh and bear with them — i guess they’re just learning.

my only complaint is that if they really want this to work, they better step it up a notch, you know? say, with actual dj’s and/or a website with any information whatsoever. they’re making it pretty plain that the station’s certainly not a mechanism for helping indie artists or labels, what with the whopping twelve singles actually named by artist/track on their website and absolute lack of song ID on the air at any time. but maybe if on the next nielsen survey there’s even the slightest bump, i guess this could be the first step in the right direction.

[and as a post-script to non-angelean readers — is this a phenomena occurring anywhere else in the US right now, with the seemingly paradoxical ‘indie radio’? or am i being test-marketed to as we speak?]

****additionally, you can listen to a stream and make your own judgments, if you care.

the weeks of working late nights seem to have died down for the moment, and the snowboard trip this last weekend was a blast. got to escape LA for some cold mountain air and snow, do some free drinking and boarding — i even managed to stay on my feet save for only a few tumbles. can’t say i didn’t find leaving work friday with coworkers, spending two days with them, then coming back to work sunday to do more work for a monday meeting all a little strange, like i didn’t even really have a weekend, but it was definitely worth it. as was maybe sleeping a total of 6 solid hours between the two nights. we all had a ton of fun and it was worth the exhaustion.

feeling a little uninspired though blog-wise. not that i’m bored and not doing anything, just that what i’m doing doesn’t seem to be very anecdotal. can only write so many times, ‘working late, going out for drinks, reading books — happy, basically,’ because that more or less sums things up lately, it seems. i’m excited about the coming presidents’ weekend and the extra sleeping and lounging that will accompany. i’m looking forward to a non-valentines day evening with jen where we will celebrate our mutual misfortunes in love with wine and cinema and probably a large dose of complaining about not finding anyone to fill our respective romantic needs.

which begs an update: new years resolutions have gone okay, seeing girls and all. although technically successful, no sparks are flying anywhere, however, and i’m in no danger of having an exciting new belle. looks like that means putting some effort forward once more this month and going a new direction. and dammit, that’s going to mean more work. maybe i need to start listening to ‘eye of the tiger’ more, but i feel like my whole outlook needs a little more firing up. everything’s just been ‘pretty good’ lately and i haven’t been jazzed in a while. perhaps i should start a nice coffee/cocaine habit?

definitely need something though. a jolt. a kick-start. i’ll let you know when i find it.

bad blogging lately because i’ve been busy nonstop at work this week. at least i get to go on a free snowboarding trip to mammoth this weekend through some work people too (eat it!). that means i won’t be sitting at home catching up on posting though either, so i thought i’d just share this picture with you. part of me wanted to go off inventing all the funny scenarios suggested by this spray-painted sign — who is hat man? who is his frustrated, trash-hating rival? and what kind of hat are we talking here? — but aside from not having the time to do that either, it’s almost funnier to leave it all a mystery.

(suggestions can be emailed or left in the comments until i get back to a less busy week and can do some better posting of my own).

post-script to that last one: i have to make ted leo the pay day song as well, because for some reason i never realized what a strong track biomusicology was until at this very show. it really hits hard though so i’m glad i finally learned my lesson.

and in other music-related avenues, does anyone have my copy of elliott smith’s XO? i was going to put it on the other day and can’t find it, so i’m assuming i either have a very precise thief or i loaned it out and forgot to whom. i guess i could just burn a copy from my itunes at work where i have it copied, but i have a strong distaste for CD-R’s compared to actual packaging. any info leading to the successful return will be rewarded.

not that it won’t receive enough coverage elsewhere, but all i’m saying is, why janet? both the songs she sang were old, she’s not really hot anymore as far as celebrity buzz goes, and only quasi-hot physically but with a nice dose of scary. why couldn’t she have ‘introduced’ the show, and then had jessica simpson be the one dancing with justin at the end? it’s not as if i think she’s the hottest thing around and that would have let me die a happier man, but i’m sure it would have been preferable to most males tuned in to the event. with janet i just laughed mostly.

regarding more tasteful performances though: ted leo at the echo on friday. can you say perfect? well, maybe not perfect because the echo could use a bit better sound so they don’t have to compensate by just turning up the mid-quality system up to a higher volume. otherwise though, outstanding. played my favorite songs except for gold finch and red oak tree. stove by a whale for the encore was just what i wanted. oh, and i missed the fourth and female pharmacist — perhaps she was home sick or sitting this tour out to spend valentine’s with a special someone? — so i guess it could have been slightly better, but really it didn’t need to be better than it was.

back to the super bowl real quick: if you need some home-made mozzarella sticks at any point in your life, call up me and mike and ted because we had that shit down on sunday. they were delicious and gorgeous and probably better than any from your various american food diners, so of course we ate like 10 each and couldn’t really move after combining those with a pound each of nacho cheese. i think i can hear my heart and arteries crying this morning, but let them weep, it was soooooo worth it.

my most exciting stories for this week are that i watched 5 episodes of the shield on dvd in one night, easy rider isn’t a very good movie if you’re not a hippy, and today, in a daring trans-national tastebud temptation, i had chicago-style deep dish pizza for lunch followed by some floppy new york-style pizza for dinner. living on the edge? well, working late, actually.

so i’ll steal a story from a few weeks ago i’ve been meaning to give justice. see, down the hall from my apartment lives a very minor celebrity you may have seen and shortly afterward forgotten about in that jerry seinfeld movie. frankly, i can’t say, because i haven’t seen it. my friends tell me he wasn’t very funny though, this guy.

anyway, he put one of those cardboard skeletons with rotating posable joints on his door for halloween way back when, in what i thought at the time to be an admirable zest for the season. maybe he’s going to do this for every holiday? maybe he has some personality, unlike most of the people here who seem to constantly ignore any attempts at jest when we share an elevator ride. maybe he’s a cool guy.

well halloween came and went. as did thanksgiving, christmas, and new year’s day. every day the elevator doors opened and across the hallway there was that silly thing still ‘waving’ at me. was there something sinister at work here, or was this just the laziest display of holiday cheer i’d ever seen?

so one day earlier this month, while my buddy dominic was staying over and i was feeling saucy, i figured i’d at least make a little update to the display for the new year — to keep it fresh, you know? i figured hey, this guy’s a comedian; he’ll either appreciate the joke and leave it up, or chuckle and say to himself, ‘all right, they got me’ and take it down. below is a picture of dom and gino posing next to the old bag of bones, and a close up shot of my addition.

he took it down a few days later.

aren’t you glad i have a digital camera now? time for some max payne.

[now hearing this: the shins, again. i think i have a problem. if i keep listening to this cd as much as i have been, i’m going to get SHINS SPLINTS! oh my god, i couldn’t resist that one.]

i know that on your birthday you’re supposed to get insanely out of control and drink til you can’t remember how old you are now, but i didn’t. i’m sorry. i was just having such a damn find time at our party, i didn’t get around to drinking that heavily. i kept mixing cocktails and taking too long to finish them because i was having so many great conversations and enjoying myself so much i didn’t even think to down any more drinks than i would if we hadn’t spent hundreds of dollars on the supplies.

i have to say thanks to everyone who came though; i honestly haven’t had that purely good a time in ages, and it was a gorgeous birthday weekend. i’m still smiling just thinking about it. maybe i wasn’t while i was scrubbing cranberry-vodka stains out of the carpet sunday morning, but that’s just a minor glitch in an otherwise rosy memory.

well, that and finding that of the dozens of guests and loads of saleable goods in our apartment, for some reason the only thing some special weirdo saw fit to steal during our party were the two bottles of cologne from my medicine cabinet. to that person i say good luck; i can’t say that those fragrances ever made a successful contribution to my fortunes with women, and perhaps for you they will be a be a better catalyst. happy hunting!

(and ps: if anyone wants to send a late birthday present, i have a new suggestion.)

[now hearing this: the last episode of the shield season one dvd. pretty fucking good.]

well well well, today is the big day, my 23rd birthday. how will i spend it? let’s see, it’s noon and so far i’ve talked on the phone with my lovely friend shannon amidst a few rounds of playing max payne 2. both were really fun — she’s doing super well, and i shot up a lot of bad guys. she’s sort of my inspiration to push ahead in this year’s dating game, since she’s got a serious boyfriend she likes so much and who’s so handsome and all that. i’d like to think i can do just as well for myself; besides, there will always be that little twinge of ‘i can’t let her win!’ attitude no matter how mature i am most of the time about it. nothing but love though, i’m just jealous she’s so set up and i’m still working on the romantic part.

the remainder of the afternoon will probably be of the relaxing pre-party variety. do a little light cleaning and putting away of easily-breakables. read a little. decide what delicious cocktails we want to buy and then go buy things to make them with, pour them into, keep them cool, and possibly munch on between them, so i don’t throw up after several rounds of drinking them. and probably dinner with the best friends who show up early before the rest of the crowd gathers.

i have to say yesterday was a pleasant surprise, birthday-wise. my team at work was all super-nice, and my bosses got me gifts they definitely were under no obligation to get. and the whole crew went out for a birthday/chinese new year lunch which was a lot of fun. it was a really good day and i have to say as far as my job goes, i’m pretty satisfied. birthdays seem to have a similar evaluative effect as do new years, but since that was so recent i think they got split, with the 1st being a time to plan on personal changes, and the 24th being a time to realize i’m in a great place career-wise, so at least i’ve got a piece of the pie figured out.

you know, i wish i had some birthday pie. hear that everybody? someone bring me a birthday pie tonight. all this pie talk has made me hungry. i meant this to be a quick ‘it’s my birthday!’ post but look at all this introspection — perhaps some lunch will straighten me out. don’t forget to come to the party tonight if you’re in the hood.

[now hearing this: hey mercedes, who really ought to have dragged wheat out to the west coast to keep touring with them this year, but noooooooo, we’ll probably get saves the day again. WEAK.]

busy week. every waking moment has been somehow occupied by activity or errand or guest. not that i’m complaining. although no one’s a huge fan of working until 10pm when they have a new book at home they were hoping to start. this one’s a detective story!

and speaking of reading, i have to say that i love harper’s magazine quite a lot. it’s a nice way to fill in the gaps of my mostly-novelized-fiction reading diet with a few needed vitamins and minerals, i.e. political and social commentary, short fiction. but does anyone else have what i would call magazine guilt? i love reading the thing so much, but obviously it sometimes gets laid aside in favor of books, with me fully intending to pick it back up another day. time passes. then, like a few days ago, the next issue shows up, and i haven’t even gotten past the reader mail from last month’s copy! where did those four weeks go? and now it’s like i’m reading on a deadline because i don’t want to let down my precious literary periodical, because i do care, really i do! just give me a chance to make it up to you! i’ll read this month’s issue before next month’s even hits the presses, much less gets mass-mailed to my tiny apartment postal box. i will! you’ll see!

speaking of which, last month’s index said that the second highest source of income in mexico is money sent home from immigrant US workers. so does that make ‘income’ one of mexico’s biggest imports?

[now hearing this: spoon — aren’t they about due for some new stuff?]

alright i sort of fell off over the weekend. but it was a long, lovely one filled with fun and not so much with computers. i went out every night wednesday through sunday, so please forgive me. i went to a hollywood party where i was arms length from paris hilton making out with nick carter from the backstreet boys, after which i couldn’t get into my valet-parked car and had to sleep on a coworker’s couch, borrow one of his shirts so it wasn’t too obvious i hadn’t been home since the day before, then get a ride from someone else after work to retrieve my poor vehicle. i went on two dates that were lengthy and interesting. i tried to arrange another but haven’t yet. i made birthday party invitations (check them out because my roommate’s the great artist behind them, but you should also come to the party), i won at poker, i saw lost in translation again and loved it even more, i had one of the best burgers i’ve ever tasted in my life, i finished a video game and a book both of which have taken too long, and i’m about to start another of each. i slept in, felt great, and went to work today relaxed as could possibly be.

oh, and i also got a haircut after six months of wild, unchecked growth. my hair had never been so long in my life, and i was starting to look pretty emo — all mopey and shaggy but kind of cute at the same time (see figure 1). but you should have seen what it was like when i came home and the untamed beast of my coif fully reared its ugly head. it was scary and out of control (see figure 2), so i had to finally do something about it. then, after a long hard day of hacking and trimming away, i finally stood a handsome, freshly shorn and upright citizen again that might even pass as respectable (see figure 3). gotta look hot for that birthday party this weekend.

figure 1	figure 2
figure 3

oh and to officially finish off all that long-winded and overdue best of 2003 crap, here are a few stragglers that needed to be put down for the record. thanks, 2003, for not really sucking at all, in retrospect.

best radio single: ‘hey ya’ by outkast — i’m pretty sure i don’t know a single person who doesn’t love this song. if i did i would shake them like a polaroid picture until they saw it my way.

best fun adventure: spring break road trip. vegas-salt lake city-boise-portland-san francisco-los angeles in just as many days and with all my favorite people almost. perhaps unbeatable, although i will certainly try.

best purchase: my new laptop or my mountain bike, not sure which but both great for different reasons.

best drinking story: wrestling with joe in our gravel backyard for some reason for a really long time and slinging scenester insults while performing various leglocks and getting very very dusty and dirty.

best drinking lesson: don’t puke in the bed, it’s gross.

best new TV show: arrested development — holy shit, if you don’t watch this show you’re a moron. best thing on non-cable tv without a doubt. my roommate and i are hopelessly devoted to it, so if you want to come over on sunday night you’re welcome to bask in the glory with us. we have a hard time understanding how something so hilarious and good made it onto a major network.

best way to end a best of list: assuring that normal blogging will resume soon and all this boring nonsense is over until next year.

[now hearing this: appropriately, ‘yesterday’ by the beatles.]