All We Ever Do Is Say Goodbye

LOOK AT HOW SEXY MY BB M.WARD IS. four 4 u matt coco, U GO MATT COCO!!

Also I don't know if I will be writing in this much anymore. :/ I mean I already have a shitload of other useless, narcissistic social networking sites and blogs to keep up with. What the fuck am I going to write in here? Mindless, academic drivel about my thoughts on War & Peace? A sensical review on Passion Pit's album? Blogging about my boring days are boring, especially since I write the same exact thing in my own little ~private~ journal or whatever. No one reads that, obviously, but I feel a bit redundant.

Unfortunately, I have been slightly obsessed with Tumblr lately after not "getting" it for months. I post random little bits and pieces there, and everyday I also post a pointless Song of the Day. It's also fun seeing all the random lolz and pictures and quotes people post. Try it if you don't have one. It gets fun after a while. AND ~FOLLOW ME~ IF YOU DO.

I think I will post one or two more entries in here, mainly end-of-the-year type of lists since I have kept a track of every new movie I have seen and every concert I have been to in 2009. Can't wait for 2010 just for that reason. However, I will just be extremely active on Facebook, Tumblr, and Twitter.

I had a terrible weekend but I would rather not post about it.

I end this pointless post with lyrics to the amazing song "Baby Boomer" by Monsters of Folk. Just because I really, really love the lyrics. I wish I had great songwriting skills like M. Ward or Conor Oberst. Writing skills in general....skills in general, actually.

We gotta stand a little closer
To what it is we’re leanin’ on
Who was it that first said it?
Could it be he could be wrong
About the pilgrims and the natives
Having dinner on the lawn?

I think if I was ever king
I would buy a censorship
Where the only books upon the shelves
Were the ones that I had written
Oh, and put them up in borders, set my photo down the spine
To tell the story of the livin’ without forgettin’ those who’d died

And I would die a happy man
‘Cause I did the best that I could do
To find a better way of living,
Should we leave that up to you?

Who was it that first said it, the one who said it best?
You got to L-O-V-E your neighbors, at least the ones who are still left

And we gotta stand a little closer
To the lessons that we’ve learned
Is it just a premonition?
Could we really get ourselves both burned?
I’ve been sent here on a mission to find what we agree upon
We don’t agree about September,
Could we agree on Vietnam?

I think if I was ever publisher I’d buy a pirate ship
Where the mission at each position is to shoot and to click
Clean the photos up a little, censor the ship out of it
So when we put it up in borders, turn a profit on the trip
Charge the public for the overhead of 1492
And if they need a better reason tell them we got livin’ proof

And I would die a happy man
‘Cause I did the best that I could do
To find a better way of leaving,
Should we leave that up to you

Who was it that first said it?
Yeah that’s what I’m trying to say
You got to L-O-V-E your neighbors, at least the ones that live today!

Games For Days

Cathy and I saw Paul Banks aka Julian Plenti aka the lead singer of Interpol at the El Rey on Thursday. I got home from school and then walked to the venue. I can't believe I had never been to the El Rey before. I'm going to fangirl/squee here for a moment, but holy fuckballs, Paul looked so fucking FOINE that night. Plaid/flannel shirt and surfer boy hair. The Spencer Pratt-esque flesh coloured beard is gone! Tbh his looks were the reason I got into Interpol. Then I completely loved the music.

Pictures & video coming later, because I haven't uploaded all of the videos yet.

I saw Precious on Wednesday and Pirate Radio earlier today. Both good movies. I recommend Precious. There was a girl throughout the film who looked super familiar to me, and when I got home and looked it up, yep, I went to high school with her. Crazy, right? One of Precious' classmates, Joanna, the ~flourescent beige~ girl, graduated a year before my brother did (aka two years before me). My brother had a class with her. I think this is her first movie. I hate my fucking high school so bad but that's pretty cool. I mean, for your first big acting thing to have Oscar-buzz AND Mariah Carey? Shit just got real.

Last night Alexa and I went downtown right next door to my job and saw Green Day (lol) on the Nokia Plaza for FREE. Shit took way too long, and I wouldn't have gone if I had known we had to stand up the entire time. I thought it was INSIDE the theatre for some reason, not outside. I definitely wouldn't have gone if I had to pay for it, lol. We left a little early because I was tired and we were hungry. For some reason they were filming this for Carson Daly's NEW YEAR'S EVE special so they gave us free bottles of tea and a lot of Happy New Year noisemakers, party hats, and party tiaras. RANDOM.

Speaking of Alexa, she met Julian Casablancas a couple of weeks ago, after his 2nd show at the Palace. :( She even gave Julian's synthesizer/keyboardist...a ride home! She told me the ENTIRE story and I soaked up every minute of it. Hopefully we'll be seeing the last of Julian's residency this Friday and maybe we'll meet him? I doubt it, but it'll be cool, even though lately I've been against meeting my favorite people because of how awkward it will be for me.

RIP 18 years ago today Freddie Mercury :(

I registered for spring classes this morning, right before school (it's funny because I only had ONE class today that I had to go to, which is fron 5-615pm). I don't know why they let me register this early, but they are probably doing it so I can hurry the fuck up and graduate already. I know, me too, CSULB. I want nothing more than to graduate from college already and be done with school.

I'm taking:

AIDS & Society - TuTh 930-1045
Development of Sociological Theory - TuTh 11-1215
Medical Sociology - TuTh 1230-145
Aging & Society - TuTh 2-315
Communicaton Conflict Resolution - TuTh 330-445

I wanted to take Child Abuse & Prevention; Sociology of Popular Culture; Hollywood and Beyond: Gender, Race, and Sex In the Movies; or Mental Illness & Society but they didn't fit in with my schedule :( Damn budget cuts. I mean, mental illness. I love that shit. Maybe next time if I need a random class.

I don't have a break in between either :( I might drop one of them (definitely not my communication class) because it might be too much for me. I don't know. But I do want to take as many classes as I can so I can graduate already.

~~~

Up until earlier today, I was reading two books at once, Women Without Class by Julie Bettie (for my Race/Class/Gender course) and Official Book Club Selection by Kathy Griffin. I finished Women Without Class today and I am almost done with Kathy Griffin’s memoir. I really enjoyed both books, and I definitely need to read more (hopefully) good books/novels in the future.

===

Baby Love: Choosing Motherhood After a Lifetime of Ambivalence by Rebecca Walker

The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins

Something Blue by Emily Giffin

Love The One You’re With by Emily Giffin

The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls

Lucky by Alice Sebold

Push by Sapphire

Pushed: The Painful Truth About Childbirth and Modern Maternity Care by Jennifer Block

Giovanni’s Room by James Baldwin

The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison

This Book Is Broken: A Broken Social Scene Story by Stuart Berman

Franny & Zooey by JD Salinger

==

I read Something Borrowed by Emily Giffin in less than two days. It was amazing. I loved her book Baby Proof as well. I still need to finish The House of God by Samuel Shem (that I started reading because of my professor when I was in London). I want to read more books about ~race~ and ~feminism~ so I should probably start up Communion by bell hooks again and seek out more books by Rebecca Walker. I think I want to read more books/novels about midwifery and homebirths. Agnosticism, too, or anything to do with religion (or lack thereof). I probably sound pathetic, but I can't help what I am genuinely interested in :(

I hope next year I dedicate more time to reading books for fun. In order to do that, however, I need to stop being online so goddamn much.

Suggestions?

Everybody Here Wants You

Jeff Buckley would have been 43 years old today if he was still alive.

I explained this in my recent Tumblr post, but "Everybody Here Wants You" by Jeff Buckley is an amazing, amazing song that gets me every time. I remember where I was the first time I heard it and how I felt, and how I couldn't wait to listen to it everyday, which is exactly what I did. I don't really feel that way about a lot of songs. I'm always surprised at how much I love his music, his voice, his thoughts, his story. I've read Dream Brother:The Lives and Music of Tim and Jeff Buckley twice already (although admittedly I've only read the Jeff parts twice and the Tim parts once). Sometimes I get really sad that I wasn't born maybe ten years earlier so I could have seen Jeff in concert, but then again, would I even be into this type of music if I was born a decade earlier?

I'm also sad I won't be able to attend the Jeff Buckley tribute concert at Largo tonight. I love the Largo (coincedentally, Jeff's girlfriend at the time of this death, the fabulous Joan As Police Woman, played there last September, a concert in which I attended)!

I'm also sad I won't be able to meet Kathy Griffin tonight. Damn you, Kathy, for changing the date from the 23rd to the 17th!

Speaking of Kathy, her memoir is pretty good. I'm currently reading it right now, along with a book called Women Without Class, which is something I have chosen to read as part of my book review for my race/class/gender class. The author is a sociologist who writes about her travels to a high school in northern California that is basically half-white, half Mexican-American, and talks with many of its female students over the course of an entire school year and writes about her findings. I honestly chose the book because it was the shortest in the list, but it's actually really good so far.

On Saturday, my friend Cathy and I attended the Paley Center's panel dicussion of Parks & Recreation. I guess we bought the tickets too late, because we weren't actually in the same theatre as the discussion. We were in a closed-circuit room next door, watching it all on tv! Woo hoo! Yeah...But that was okay. I got to see the episode of Parks & Rec that's going to air on Thursday. It was really good. I love this show. Afterward the actual discussion went on with almost the entire cast (minus my girl Rashida Jones, and Chris Pratt) and the writers/producers. It was weird knowing that everyone speaking is RIGHT NEXT DOOR TO YOU but I could not see them. I did see a couple of the cast members after the show (Paul Schneider & Aubrey Plaza), though, randomly walking out of the room. It would have been cool to see Amy Poehler again (who I just saw in person 10 days earlier at Conan) and Aziz Ansari (who Cathy & I randomly saw jaywalking to get to the Guitar Center in August). But whatever, it was fun.

I also got my hair straightened (for the first time in months! Missed manageable, better-looking, pressed hair) and cut earlier that day. Encyclopedia-dramatica change! This is basically what it looks like:

There's another picture I posted in my Facebook 365 pictures section.

I wish I didn't write so much about my life in here. I wish I wrote more philosophical posts and shorter passages.

Out of the Blue

Alexa, Cathy, & myself after the Julian show last Friday taken by LA Weekly. via http://www.laweekly.com/slideshow/view/28752503/12

Here are a couple of shitty pictures I took of the show I wrote about in my last post.

Alexa took ths during intermission, methinks, when everyone who didnt get to take a picture with Fab before the show rushed over to him & Albert. And probably Devendra.




post intermission, costume change, Christmas lights on bodies




I did this on purpose so I can take a picture of the drunk British guys in front of us. The one on the right was the one who almost lost his wedding ring. I think this was right after he was on the side near the wall with his head in his hands for no reason.

Here's a video someone took of "I'll Try Anything Once"!! He messed up in the middle, haha. <3

You know what's weird? I have nothing else to update about, really. Unless you read my useless ramblings about life and links to my favorite things on Twitter. Or take a gander at my Project 365 pictures on Facebook. Or my Song of the Day postings on my Tumblr.

Self promotion doesn't hurt.

You Only Live Once

November 6, 2009. One of the best concert experiences I have ever had.

HERE's a video and shorter summary of the night, but here's my perspective...

I got off work at 530. Coincidentally (and extremely conveniently), the venue was walking distance away in downtown Los Angeles, so I walked to the Downtown Palace Theatre after I got off of work. My phone died on me, but I managed to meet up with Cathy anyway, and later, Alexa (and two of her random guy friends). We weren't let in the venue until 9pm, which was kind of weird, but worked. The opening act came on right away. I found out in line that my camera ran out of battery strength just like my phone, which was awesome. I ended up using Cathy's camera the rest of the night.

The venue is a small, intimate venue with seats. It is very old but the architecture is really beautiful inside; it's like the baby of the Orpheum, which was just down the street. Even though I have been to a lot of small venues, and many way way smaller, it felt more like a family event here, probably because I was with people and during the actual show, it was quite obvious mostly everyone there were actually fans of Julian/The Strokes. I loved it.

The greatest things about the show happened before Julian came on.

Cathy, Alexa, and I had general admission seats (like a movie theatre!). We moved from where we were in the back middle to the third row on the side. Sweet spot.

These two British guys were sitting in front of us. During the opening act (Rainbow Arabia), one of the guys wrote a text on his cell, showed it to Alexa, and it turns out he lost his wedding ring and needed help finding it. When Alexa told me what happened, I told Cathy and all of us were trying to look for his wedding ring around the seats during the show. Alexa told some people behind us and we were all looking for his ring! He grabbed a flashlight from one of the security guards and a few minutes later someone found his ring. I giddily pointed to it as it happened and clapped like a madwoman. Most of us who knew what was happening clapped, too. I was so happy for him, ngl. I felt like I couldn't think straight if he couldn't find his wedding ring.

He and his friend then proceeded to get very, very drunk. His friend kept talking to Alexa about how they are on holiday from England and his wife was going to kill him if he really lost his ring.

Later on, we all saw Fabrizio Moretti (of The Strokes) and Devendra Banhart in the balcony. We had amazing seats in the orchestra in which we could easily look up to all the people going crazy for Fab and wanting pictures with him. HE IS SO CUTE. He obliged with everyone. Apparently Albert Hammond Jr (Strokes), Liv Tyler, and a couple of other celebrities were there, too! This was about the time I hated the fact that both my phone and my camera weren't working. It was exciting to see. I remember seeing Fab, Devendra, & Fab's gf Binki at my old job a few months ago but was too scared to say or do anything. I did get have eye sex with Devendra, though.

Finally, Julian came on! We all got super excited because The Strokes haven't toured in 3 years so this was the closest thing to seeing The Strokes live again, and this was the first show of Julian's Friday night residency in Los Angeles during the month of November. We all love Julian, and missed him. During the show it was quite obvious he loved us, too.

His solo album has only 8 songs on it, so he played most of the songs from that and the b-sides as well. After about 5 or 6 songs, he told us they were going to take a "5 minute break". During intermission, more Fab chaos continued from the balcony, and Alexa took some pictures with Cathy's camera. All three of us took pictures together. It was that kind of atmosphere. Everyone was happy. There was this super gay guy dancing along with everyone for no reason and at one point he tried to get onstage. We saw another guy getting pictures with people but we couldn't figure out which celebrity he was. We saw a guy with really nice hair.

Right before Julian came back on, I asked the drunk British guys where exactly they are from. Yeah, that's right, I spoke! I told them that I went to London earlier this year and they got really excited. They asked me where in London I stayed, and when I told them Kensington, they fake-dismissed me because Kensington in London is the equivalent of Beverly Hills or Bel-Air in Los Angeles. The wedding ring guy asked me if I had heard of their band (who's name I forgot/can't spell so I can't look it up and show you guys), and when I said no, they got fake-offended and said "THREE NUMBER ONE HITS!!" But lol Alexa and Cathy told me later they hadn't heard of them either, & we're supposedly all ~**~indie~* and shit so i'm going to guess they were so drunk they pretended they had three number one hits or they were just triyng to fuck with us the entire time.

Anywho, Drunk Brits were hilarious in general, and very, very outgoing, especially Wedding Ring Guy's friend who looked like an older Alex Turner of Arctic Monkeys. When the two were looking for something again, Alex Turner 2.0 told us that he just lost his passport!! Right when he said that, Wedding Ring Guy showed him his passport. Close call! We made a joke about Wedding Ring Guy losing his ring again just as the lights went down low for Julian. At that point Wedding Ring Guy took off his ring, and tried to give it to me! HAHA. I laughed and kept saying no because I knew I was going to lose it (I am assuming he playfully wanted me to hold it for him the rest of the night), and plus homebody was drunk as fuq and didnt know what he was doing. It was funny, because during the show he sat back down playing with his phone, and periodically during the rest of the show he would randomly leave the row and stand right against the wall. At one point I saw him closing his eyes and dancing to the music by himself. At another point, Alex Turner 2.0 asked Cathy if she could get Wedding Ring Guy for him because he was sitting down with his head in his arms for no reason and not paying attention to the show.

When Julian and his band came back from intermission, the stage was set up completely different (props were there), and he and his band were now dressed in suave white suits. Julian looked good, and at one point danced like an idiot. One of the greatest Julian moments happened when Julian said, "We're going to play a cover!" We all assumed it was Julian's amazing cover of SNL's "I Wish It Was Christmas Today", but no, it was...A STROKES SONG! It was just him and an organ player performing..."I'll Try Anything Once"!! HOLY SHIT. I fucking love that song, used to be obsessed with it, and I couldn't believe I was hearing it live. It's the original, slower version of my favorite Strokes song, "You Only Live Once". The crowd was singing along like CRAZY and at one point Julian looked so happy and surprised we were right there along with him. He talked with us a lot during the show, lol. He is adorable.

The show in general was pretty short but pretty much worth the money we paid Alexa (who sold us her tickets), and all the fun that happened before and during it. I now have a total of three wristbands on me, one from Conan and two from Julian (I didn't even drink!). We got our picture taken by LA Weekly and stayed out late eating at a Japanese restaurant afterward. Before the show, they were filming something in the restaurant next door to the theatre, and we found out from a crew member after the show that they were filming...PARKS & RECREATION. AKA MY NEW FAVORITE SHOW, for srs. Amy Poehler (who I just freaking saw in person on Wednesday!), my girl Rashida Jones, and Aziz Ansari (who confirmed it with his tweets)???!?! I was amazed. But anyway, it was a long, fun night.

Although Albert Hammond Jr's solo shit is incredible, and Julian is obviously amazing, we all love The Strokes, miss The Strokes, and cannot wait for their new album! Long live good live music and unexpectedly great concert experiences!

Dear God (Sincerely, M.O.F)

Well, it's been interesting. I can't even remember what I wrote about in my last update so I'll write a little about what happened on Wednesday.

I went to see a taping of Conan again!

If you read my old blog, you may remember I went to a test taping back in May (where I sort-of met Conan) that was non-televised, but yesterday I went to a...televised taping. I went with my friend Chelsea!!! The guests? AMY POEHLER, Magic Johnson, Larry Bird, & The Bravery. Very Boston-centric show, I know. I can't believe Amy Poehler was on when I happened to get tickets to the show. Amazing. When I went to email something to NBC about my tickets, they accidentally canceled it the same day so I had to hurry up and call them to correct the problem. I don't think it would have been a problem for us to get in anyway since it was their fault.

The show was great. Hilarious. Some douchebag in the audience was wearing a homemade "I LOVE JAY LENO" shirt. Conan didn't come out to say hey to the audience before the show started, so we all saw him for the first time when the tv audience sees him being introduced by Andy. It started so suddenly. William Shatner was a surprise guest! He recited Levi Johnston's fake tweets and apparently they are very angry with him about that now. He is very red in person (Shatner I mean). Larry Bird was live via-satellite. Magic seems very nice. The Bravery kind of blew, but I don't like them anyway. Amy was amazing and hilarious. I got ridiculously hungry afterward. We ate at Carls Jr & I threw up when I got home.

Oh god, I think that's it. What did I do Monday? Tuesday? See I forget. Work and school. I hate work with a passion. I dread going to work. Just because it sucks. I think I just mainly dislike people I work with. No one in particular, either. The vibe is just wrong. But I do what I gotta do. I specifically requested Tuesdays and Thursdays off for school but for some reason I am working on Tuesday. Must correct this shitty problem.

Today after my last class ended at 615, I went to my statistics professor's office so I can talk with her about my shitty grade in the class and go over all the shitty mistakes I made with my last quiz. She is so nice omg :( I don't know why I'm doing so badly in her class when she is so incredibly helpful. The quizzes would be easy if I just studied more, I know it. Going over my quiz, she saw she made mistakes of her own when correcting mine and gave me two extra points, and is giving me a chance to make up all of my mistakes for extra credit. Going to a professor's office hours is worth it. I never, ever go, and since I'm doing badly I should use the opportunity more often, even when I am scared.

You know what I did for the first time in her class recently? I never told anyone this, but I actually "blurted" an answer out loud without raising my hand. And I got it right. THAT'S A BIG DEAL FOR ME. I know people do it in class ALL the time, they ask a question or shout an answer without raising their hand, but for me it's like, no. I almost never raise my hand in class, why would I why say an answer without raising my hand? I wasn't even scared either, it was weird. My prof was asking the class if they know the percentage of people who practice Judaism in the United States. Someone said "5%", she said not exactly, but I already knew the answer was closer to 2%, so I said "two percent" out loud, and I was right. Of course no one did anything because people do stuff like that all the time, but lol inside I was like "Did I just do something outgoing people do?" HA. This was also the same class in which I learned I am the only one who watches Ugly Betty.

ANYWAY.

Lately I have been thinking a lot about religion, life, what our purpose here is and everything. I was apparently raised Catholic and went to Catholic schools most of my life, but I don't currently subscribe to any religion. I personally think the idea of it is unnecessary, although I do believe it was made to comfort some people. I consider myself agnostic, and not an atheist. I have questions about everything. I posted about my thoughts somewhere today and the opinions and answers others shared about this topic was enlightening. I may share more thoughts about this in another post, but maybe not. Religion is a touchy subject for me. Politics is as well. I don't really like talking about those two. I don't feel like I am intelligent enough to write proper thoughts about it for no one to read...no one to read...oh yeah, NO ONE READS THIS THING! Okay, next post you'll see me blabbering on and on about religion and agnosticism and Buddhist beliefs...or something.

Which reminds me, in my race/class/gender class tonight we watched For the Bible Tells Me So. It is a fascinating documentary about homosexuality and religion. It was my 2nd time watching it, but watching it again this time intrigued me even more. I love how we happened to watch that movie the same day I ask others' opinions on a very similar topic.

Julian Casablancas tomorrow! I miss my Jules and my Strokes. Hopefully the Strokes will have an album out next year. I just found out like 2 seconds ago that Julian lives in LA now. He lives in Silverlake!! So that's now 3 out of 5 Strokes members who live in my city, as far as I know. What happened to them being the quintessential New York band?

Temecula Sunrise

O HAY. Happy November, no one!

On Monday, Karla and I went to the Hello Kitty exhibit in Culver City. Afterward we went shopping at Target. I hadn't been there in a while and oh my god, they had the greatest shit, but then I remember I didn't have a lot of money at the moment and plus, everyone else in the world has the same clothes because everyone shops at Target, so I didn't know what to do. I bought some stuff anyway. We then went to the Old Navy at the Beverly Connection and then Souplantation! Karla had never been before and I had been there once a long time ago. Our new favorite place now.

Then we found out Sergio got suspended from work over a stupid reason. We were going to Glendale anyway so we asked him if he wanted to meet us there, so he did. We didn't really do anything then. It was a long day.

On Tuesday I had to miss part of school AGAIN for work. It was the grand opening of our theatre, finally. The premiere of Michael Jackson's This Is It was held at our theatre, and I did not see one celebrity, even though people like the Jackson family, Katy Perry, Adam Lambert, & David Cook were in the same building as me. When I got out of work, I saw the Kardashians! Kim, Kourtney, her douche bf, and their mom walking out of Katsuya. I tried to get cell phone pictures but they are shitty. I was walking right behind them. They happened to leave in a black Escalade, the same car my mom drives, and she was waiting for me just a few feet away from them lmao.

Work is boring and shitty, by the way. I was assigned to clean restrooms and that's all I had to do that night. Nothing else. Boring and busy. We are ONLY playing This Is It until next week! All 14 screens, that's it! The movie is already playing EVERYWHERE else so you know what that means? No one is coming to our theatre! Yikes! I worked on Wednesday and it was slow as hale in concession.

SPEAKING OF WEDNESDAY...I had a ticket to see Regina Spektor at the Greek Theatre but I didnt go because of work and I couldn't get that day off. So I sold it right before I went to work at 2:30 that day. I felt like I sold my child or something :( But that's ok, Regina and I shall be in the same building once again someday (I saw her once, when she & Kings of Leon opened for The Strokes...six years ago!).

On Thursday, Sergio and I were planning to see This Is It together (since he has plenty of time now, haha) but I had to work and go to school, and the time he wanted to see it conflicted with my schedule. He went with some other people at Arclight when I had school, and since I wanted to see the movie badly, I made plans to see it with my brother after school at my job. The rules for seeing a free movie are shitty and stricter than Arclight, but whatever, it's a free movie.

I loved the movie. I just wish I saw it in a packed theatre full of MJ fans. Tony wanted to sit all the way in the back in case he felt like getting up and dancing, haha. He didn't GET UP and dance, but we danced to "Thriller" in our seats.

I usually don't eat popcorn but I only bought it to copy this:




this is one the mezzazine floor of our theatre

ON FRIDAY, what did I do? I worked. Still boring, still slow.

Saturday, Halloween. I woke up at like, 2:30pm. :( I had remembered about one of my new favorite bands, Dirty Projectors, playing in Echo Park that night so I immediately bought tickets a few hours before I went to bed on Friday. I guess it was sold out by the time I woke up on Friday because Cathy couldnt get tickets, but I managed to find someone who happened to be selling one ticket for the 7pm show (there were two shows, one at 7 and one at 9:30 that was sold out; I was going to the 7pm show) so we met him there. The show was in some weird recreational center by The Echo, but it also looked like a cool art space. It had a neat fireplace. The guy who was selling his ticket had been to my theatre the night before!! That was cool.

The show was alright, but they sounded kind of different live as opposed to on the album. But it was still good. A band called Little Wings opened for them. Cathy and I went to eat at Canters afterward where we saw a man dressed up as Ronald McDonald, a woman dressed up as a Skippy peanut butter jar, and a few male dancers in stripper heels and silver sequined outfits. We went cruising around West Hollywood and saw people dressed up as Slash, Ghostbusters (!), Pikachu, and a lot of slutty police officers.

I think the male lead singer (in the hat) looks a lot like Michael Ian Black, but that's just me






singing my favorite song, "Stillness Is the Move"










cool fireplace or w/e

TODAY, my sister & niece came over and we went to the Beverly Center because Andi needed shoes for someone's wedding. I didn't buy anything. Except ice cream at Baskin Robbins near our house. Then when we got home my mom and I got into a debate about...religion.

So that was my exciting week.

Tony just showed me a video Carmen uploaded of Noah. He's giving away candies to the trick-or-treaters! He is so excited/scared and is dressed as a monkey!!! OMg <33333

When I Get To The Border

Let's see. Thursday. My friend Cathy and I were supposed to continue our yearly tradition of seeing Michael Ian Black & Michael Showalter perform during the fall/winter but alas, a couple of days before I find out that it's canceled. It's the only show during their tour that's canceled and it has to be in LA :( The show was originally at the Orpheum, then the venue changed to the much smaller Music Box at Henry Fonda, then it's canceled. Money returned. Laughs unfulfilled. I was kind of disappointed, then I read Michael Ian Black's blog and kind of understood. He seemed really genuinely depressed, talked about his depression, and admitted that the tour hasn't been as popular as they hoped it would be. Apparently the show was canceled due to "scheduling conflicts". Idk. Hopefully they will make it up soon.

So instead of seeing MIB/Sho, Cathy and I went to hang out that night anyway (afterschool). We ate for the first time at Cafe 101 (101 Cafe? I always forget), a place I keep hearing about but have never been to (weirdly enough one of the first times I heard about it was from Michael Showalter's blog a couple of years ago in which he wrote how he ate there after one of the show I went to in LA). It was good. Then we ate ice cream at Scoops near LACC. I love ice cream so much, ugh fatty.

What else has been going on? I don't know. I hate writing about work because it will take forever. We have basically been having training all week. Wednesday we did a rehearsal of sorts which went badly. Ok, it didn't, but yeah. Since we were already trained we just practiced and had our fellow employees as guests. I think I did pretty badly at box office, but concessions was ok. The first "guest" I had was one of the cleaning ladies around the theatre who didn't speak English. I was nervous at first but luckily this was my opportunity to attempt my very bad Spanish for a guest (well, I've done it before, but I guess new job is new). The lady was super nice about my Spanish & helped me along, haha. I really want to be fluent but I am always embarrassed about speaking Spanish to Spanish-speakers because I think I'm bad at it. I'm going to try to brush up on my Espanol more. I mean I know more Spanish than my mother's native tongue (Tagalog).

When I was a "guest" it was ok, but I can tell most people probably have not worked at a movie theatre before or served food at a counter before. This one lady was really bad. But that's ok, they will all be better than me when it opens & I'll get fired.

Yesterday was shitty. Only because I am PMSing so everything was pissing me off. I officially hate 80% of everyone at work for no reason & when they were discussing the rules I got really pissed because they are all weird. Ugh. I don't even feel like explaining it. Plus the theatre opens Tuesday and EVERYONE has to be there which means I have to miss part of school to attend AGAIN and they don't care about anyone's availability right now.

I have to miss Regina Spektor's concert at the Greek Theatre on Wednesday for work, also. Selling my ticket rn :(

Russell Brand is also performing next Tuesday & Wednesday in a fucking cemetery in LA (i think) but I'll have to miss that for work too :(

After work they were just beginning the Thrill the World thing at the Nokia plaza next door. The event is like 50,000 people around the world getting together to set a record for the most number of people performing the "Thriller" dance at the same time. I HATE HOW I DIDNT BRING MY CAMERA. I took some pix tho. It was pretty cool seeing it. I got goosebumps ngl. That guy Chuck Lidell (?) was there & almost everyone dancing dressed as zombies.

Yeah, that's pretty much it.

Tumblr/365 music stuff: http://www.temazcal.tumblr.com
Prodge 365 pics: http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=34592937&id=30604370&comments=&alert=#/album.php?aid=2141624&id=30604370

The Right Place

Bob Dylan show? INCREDIBLE.
Monsters of Folk show? AMAZING.

In my previous post, I expressed how anxious I was going to Bob Dylan (on October 14 at the Hollywood Palladium) by myself, but it wasn't really that bad. I thought I was going to see John Doe from X open up the show but I guess I got there too late because about 20 minutes after I arrived (I was sitting), the lights went down low, some music came on and suddenly, "Ladies and gentlemen, BOB DYLAN!!!"

I was going to stay in the way back where I was but as soon as I saw him onstage I couldn't help myself. I went straight down to the crowd. Everyone looked so happy and drunk as fuck. Everyone was dancing around. Plenty of old people as expected, but a lot of people my age/mid 20s as expected as well. A lot of the smoking of the weed, including towards the end of the night when this one 40-ish old guy was straight up smoking a fat joint right next to me.

I had trouble seeing about 51% of the time because people kept moving around so fucking much. I had been to the Palladium about 4 times before Wednesday and security wasn't as tight as it was that night. NO CAMERAS were allowed, even though I managed to sneak mine in. However, as soon as I started taking a picture, the security guy came up to me and said, "No cameras! This is a warning, okay?" That blew. So I have no video & like three shitty pictures, mostly from my phone. For the final song, "All Along the Watchtower", I didnt give a fuck and took a picture anyway when BD and the band gave a final bow.

One thing I was worried about was his voice, because I read nowadays Bob Dylan shows are pretty much a hit or miss because of his voice and his age. I thought it was great. He sounds exactly like how I expect a 68-year-old smoker to sound like. He had a cowboy hat on, mostly played the keyboards, played guitar for one or two songs, and played harmonica a lot. At one point he even looked like he was enjoying himself, which made me happy because he was happy LOL.

I did not see someone I wanted to see who I haven't seen in a long time. I did see one guy I thought was him, though. I got so pissed when I realized just some random old guy I don't know.

I REALLY WENT ON THE 14TH!!! He played October 13-15 at the Palladium but I guess they didnt change the marquee for night 2.

that was when the security tapped me and told me no pictures. only one from my camera

lol can u spot bd

After the show there was a high speed chase going on that ended on Sunset & Vine, right where we were, and some guy got arrested. We were all looking heh heh

===

NOW MONSTERS OF FOLKKKKKK

Monsters of Folk played a monster-sized set last night at L.A.’s Greek Theatre, running through 35 songs in just under three hours — with no opener and no intermission — in support of the indie-rock supergroup’s self-titled debut, which came out about a month ago. The Monsters comprise My Morning Jacket frontman Jim James; singer-songwriter (and She & Him guy) M. Ward; and Conor Oberst and Mike Mogis, both of Bright Eyes, and at the Greek the band’s set alternated Monsters of Folk cuts with material from each member’s respective catalog. Simply put, if you ever wind up in a game of Name That Tune with one of these dudes, come prepared." (via Rolling Stone)

We got there at around 7pm, and we bought margaritas since I'm 21 and yah yah yah. The bartender was in disbelief that I was in 21 ("I look 16, don't I?" "YES!") but was really funny about it. Alexa and I passed right by Jason Boesel of (my favorite band) Rilo Kiley on our way to the merch table. We made eye contact, but I did it on purpose like, "Yeah, I know who you are, you're in my favorite band but I won't attack you". He was by himself & rly cute. When I told Alexa he was in Rilo Kiley (I think he heard me), Alexa got all excited and kept saying throughout the night that we should stalk him (he was ended up sitting near us somewhat).

I bought a white Monsters of Folk shirt that read, "We play folk so you don't have to". After the show I exchanged it for a black one that just said "Monsters of Folk" continually with the tour dates on the back.

We had pretty good seats.



A lot of people came late because they probably thought there was an opening band. Believe me, it filled up quick.

The show actually started at around 7:45, and the immediately began with "Say Please", my favorite song of the year.













I LOVE YOU, MATT WARD. He was definitely the best performer of the night, in my opinion. After a couple of MOF songs, it was just M. Ward performing a few of his songs ("Lullaby + Exile" with Conor, "To Save Me", "One Hundred Million Years", "Vincent O'Brien" & "Chinese Translation") by himself. He is amazing. Awesome on guitar. Lovely singing face. I love him. I'm glad Alexa thought he was the best of the night, too.


M. Ward performing "Chinese Translation"

Jim James comes in at a close second for me. His voice is um...killer? Idk. He's pretty awesome. Really funny too. He mentioned how pretty the lighting for the trees were behind us (it's an outdoor venue) and he said, "We'd like to thank Lucas Films for the amazing CGI technology for the trees" hahaha. I think I'll be downloading checking out My Morning Jacket songs pretty soon.

So yeah, besides MOF songs, Bright Eyes/Conor Oberst songs, M. Ward songs (as mentioned previously), and My Morning Jacket songs were played as well. I don't really listen to Bright Eyes or Conor so I didn't really do anything when Conor played his songs. Alexa doesn't know him and afterward she told me she doesn't like his voice and was happy that I agreed with her.

As for the MOF songs, they pretty much played everything except..."Temazcal". THEY DIDN'T PLAY TEMAZCAL WTF. Besides "Whole Lotta Losin" (the song in my amazing dream), I was looking forward to that song the entire night. I got so pissed when they didnt play it, but not as pissed as my dream 2 weeks ago when I realized it was only a dream. ANYWAY. At least they played "Whole Lotta Losin". At least they played "Dear God (Sincerely M.O.F)". At least they closed with "His Master's Voice". At least I went to the show in general. It was incredible.



"WHOLE LOTTA LOSIN". Excuse my video beauty.


Dear God

This video from someone else is way better though:




I think he's looking at me (jkjkjk)

i like this one because it shows all of them ~rawkin out~. even the touring drummer.

Besides not playing "Temazcal", I didn't like how annoying some of the crowd was. I've never seen so many people leave to get beer or walk around aimlessly through the aisles during a show. Especially these hipster girls in our aisle. That was annoying. The couple of in front of me was annoying and the guy's head was too big & I couldn't see half of the time unless I sat or stood at an angle. Good thing they left a little early.

Also, besides seeing Jason from RK, I also saw Carrick from Everybody Else on our way out. Z from The Like and James from Maroon 5 (and probably a heap of other people from my favorite bands) were there, too (Conor mentioned some people tonight who are "traveling musicians are on the guest list") but I didn't see them.

Jim James also introduced M.Ward as "my friend, Montgomery Ward!" Hahahah I love him. I don't think anyone else got it though, or did they?

After the show Alexa and I got some McDonald's and talked for what seemed like an eternity. Good shit, though.

So all in all, although no one reading this cares about my pictures or video, it was an amazing show & I highly recommend everyone listen to Monsters of Folk. And M. Ward. I'm so glad my amazing dream propelled me to get tickets to this show at the height of my M.Ward/MOF obsession.

===

In other news, I saw Paranormal Activity with Alexa, my sister Ruby, and my niece Andi after work and before the show yesterday. Drama involved, but we managed to make it 20 minutes late and still get scared. Only the last few minutes were scary to me. The movie was ok overall. The people inside the theatre were funny though, with their good ol' comments.

I saw Good Hair with Sergio on Friday night. It was really, really good, and although the movie is indeed "pro-natural", it still made me want to get my hair relaxed anyway. I kind of miss it. Also, I think I was one of the only black ppl in the theatre watching it.

I am so sad I am not seeing The Decemberists tonight at UCLA for poopy work. U guise, I think it's my destiny to never see them live. :(

Sick Muse

I am now posting my Project 365 pictures solely HERE on Facebook. Check it out!

I have also started a new Project 365 of sorts. 365 days of songs! Except this will last forever probably, especially since I have over 1,000 "loved" songs on LastFM. I am posting these Songs of the Day in my Tumblr. YAY! Guess which song my inaugural song...

Yay for my new job! YAY FOR BOB DYLAN TONIGHT!



Even though he is about 40 years older than this picture and looks nowhere near that age, I still love him and I cannot believe I am finally seeing my musical hero and a fucking living legend in concert. In a tiny, intimate space. I'll be going alone, surrounded a bunch of old white men, but I don't care. Well, I do a little, because I'm awkward and shy, and I don't look like your typical Bob Dylan fan, blah blah blah...

That's funny his son's tweet just popped up on Echofun...