something new

So I've decided to try a new technique with my writing. A little more creative:

He tells me I have pretty eyes, after polishing off beer number ten.
"Anyone ever told you that?" he asks.
"Every once in awhile," I say, when in reality this guy is the third drunk across the bar to pull this line.
It's not that I'm offended. I mean, I get people drunk for a living, so I'm bound to get some people who've had enough liquid courage to think I would actually be interested in them. At least they aren't some drunk asshole trying to start a fight.
Wait, actually a drunk asshole is better. At least I can kick them out without feeling guilty. It's a little harder to turn someone away when all they are trying to do is get some ass.
Back to Mr. Original at the bar. He goes on to tell me about the multiple apartments he owns and how he wants to buy more, but isn't sure if it's the right time.
I really could care less, but since it's been a slow one at the bar I decide to put in my two cents and say, "Give it another six months or so. They're predicting that's when the prices will hit their lowest and everything will go up from there."
"Yeah I'll give it a month and then I'll see," he says, either not listening to my advice or thinking that this girl (me) behind the bar couldn't know more than him about the economy.
He goes on to tell me all about how during the last recession things weren't as bad as they said they were and during this 'downturn' (it's not a recession, or no one wants to admit that it is) the same is true. He doesn't know anyone who's struggling that bad, he tells me.
I think about the millions of homeless all over the country or those who come into the bar looking for something, anything to make some money. But I don't say anything because this guy is rich, white, and talks only about himself. There's no changing a person like that.
So I continue to pretend to listen to what he has to say. He's talking about over 10 people living in some of his apts at once and the gang problems in the areas around his apts and I think I should ask, "You think all these people are fine?", but because I'm too tired to fight I balk.
Maybe he's doing this all on purpose and I'm supposed to call him out. I don't.
"You really do have pretty eyes," he says.
"Thanks," I say, reluctantly. "You want another one?"
"Yeah and the check."
I give him the $65 and he spends his whole last beer complaining about the $6.50 beers.
"I just work here," I say.
He hands his credit card and finishes his beer and offers up something about how he's never coming back here again.
Once again, I could care less.
I go to clean up his mess and pick up his credit card signature, which is just that a signature, no tip.
Great. If pretty eyes can't get you at least a $5 tip, the recession must be real.

nostalgia is for suckers...

So today I'm djing a 30th bday party for someone I don't really know. I'm sure she's nice enough, but I can not say I'm looking forward to this. AT ALL. In her list of things she wants to hear are the usual Madonna, Michael Jackson, and various other 80s songs that everyone's heard a million times.

I have a theory about those who like '80s music': They have little to no music IQ, therefore they go to the easy stuff that they grew up listening to. I will be the first to say that there is not all that much good music coming out these days, but if you look hard enough there is something. And there are also decades of good music before the 80s.

I went through my 80s phase just like everyone else, then I grew up. To those who love the 80s, that's ok, I guess, but broaden your horizons just a little...

ohhh man

I just got the greatest headphones of my life. Here are the little darlings:



I am forever changed and never want to listen to music any other way. I am hearing things I have never heard before and they don't give me a headache if I wear them for hours! They are noise-canceling for when I DJ too. YESSSSSS!!!

PS In case you are wondering, they are called Technics RP-DJ1200A headphones.

it never gets old

In yet another example of everyone connected to the Bush Admin taking absolutely no accountability and thinking that they are above all other citizens, according to this LA Times article, Karl Rove has refused to testify regarding allegations of political pressures of the Justice Department. This is the second subpoena he has ignored. When will he finally get what he deserves?



Maybe we will get some answers when John Edwards and Karl Rove debate in September. He may have no chance of being president, but maybe he can do something most people don't have the balls to do. One can only hope.

$1 Million

Today I read a news story that Brad Pitt/Angelina Jolie donated $1 million to four different Iraq war relief funds. I think this is a great effort, but it's getting me to think: how much is $1 mill to those two? Don't they get at least $10 mill/movie? Their charity does not stop with this effort, obviously, but still. This amount coming from these two actually doesn't impress me that much. I hope it's because I don't see how much money they give in many different places, but I doubt it.

These two people seem to be very giving, but I'd like to think I'd give way more if I could. Is $1 mill still a lot? To me and most of the world it is, but to people as rich as these two, not so much. I think if they gave upwards of $10 mill their cause would get much more attention, which is what I assume they are doing by releasing their donation to the press.

Check the story here: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/06/25/brad-pitt-and-angelina-jo_n_109230.html

the rest...

of Indiana was full of family and that's about it. I found out that most of my cousins are awesome baseball/softball players and they are all pretty funny. My youngest cousin can eat 2 hot dogs, a huge bag of onion rings and a chocolate shake. She's only 9. I was amazed.

Here in LA everything is finally cooling off after an AWFUL heatwave. Thankfully the heat here is dry, not humid, so it wasn't so bad. It was still so hot that if you went outside you felt like the sun was melting your skin off. Everyone went to the beach, except for me. I avoided outside with a passion. TOO HOT!!

PS I have recently started having allergies. My throat is scratchy and chest feels like it's caving. I have a stuffy nose. Does anyone have any ideas on what might help me? Benedryl is not helping....

finally more indiana...

Ok so it's been awhile. I've had a birthday and laziness to deal with. Here's how the rest of the Indiana trip went:

The second day I slept way too much because of the red eye and little nap time the day before. I finally woke up around noon (?) and just sat around looking at old photos for awhile. My family is crazy about cameras apparently. And back then I was crazy about being in photos. Then my grandmother took me out for lunch at this cute little restaurant and one of my old classmates' parent was my waitress. For those who don't know I was in Teen People, so in my small town I'm kinda a celebrity. So this lady made a big deal of it and finding out that I was in LA, she said, "Oh isn't it scary?" I guess I should have told her there are three rival gangs who all have knife fights right outside my window, but no, not scary at all. Instead, I told the truth.

Anyways, I finally decide to set off for my three hour trip to see my best friends, the scc. The drive was long, but nice because I got to remind myself just how different Indiana is from the big city. When I finally arrived at my destination Tim was just getting home from work. Tim is like the boy version of me and he is one of the best friends I will ever have. I hadn't seen him in 2 years, but it felt just like old times right away.

His brother was there too and Nate eventually showed up. We decided to get some beers (36 of 'em) for the four of us and proceeded to drink each and everyone of them. On Nate's first beer Tim made him laugh so hard he puked (gross) and after Tim had 3 beers (maybe a few more) plus a wine cooler (it was all we had left) he puked. Me, Nate, and Tim's bro went to get more beers, which was not necessary. I honestly thought I was going to die on that car ride. Tim's brother was quite entertaining putting his whole body through the sun roof though. Don't drink and drive.

Nate and Tim passed out way too early, so me and Tim's bro stayed up drinking for a bit. He's so much younger than me I felt like I was giving him life advice or something and that I was like 50 years old. Weird, but at least I didn't have to go to bed. In the morning we both had awful hangovers. Tim and Nate were fine. I guess there is some benefit of going to bed early. But nothing a little Advil can't cure.

Eventually I had to go home. It's always tough saying bye to those guys, but for once I didn't cry like a retard.

I arrived back in the HC around 5, just in time for my joint birthday party with three other cousins. Let me explain this to you. Every year we have a bday party for me (25), with three other cousins who are 20, 15, and 13. It has become too much. Actually it was too much about 10 years ago. The only reason we put up with this is to keep my grandmother happy. But really we are all getting too old now.

After the 'party' I go to one of my cousin's ball games. He pitches a no-hitter. I practice throwing popcorn into his younger sister's mouth for most of the game. It was fun. Then I went to another cousin's game. She played alright, but by the time I got there I didn't really get to see much of her skills. She played on the field I used to play on though and it brought back a lot of memories of when I was forced onto the field to pretend like I wasn't afraid of the ball.

home day #1

The flight from LAX to Indy is about 4 hours. I took a red eye and even with the use of Tylenol PM I managed only about an hour of sleep. I did get to see some beautiful/terrifying lightning below me when we were going over Kansas.

I landed at 7 a.m. and my mom was waiting for me with her new husband. He is always a little awkward around me, but I know she loves him so I just deal with it. I was incredibly tense about going home and the exhaustion wasn't helping. We stopped for breakfast and then began the two hour drive home. I tried to sleep, but, of course, my mom talked most of the time.

I took a nap as soon as we got to my mom's house. It was just like always, except even more cluttered. I do not understand why my mom (and grandmother and great-grandmother) think they have to keep everything. If you know me well you know that I don't have a hard time giving things up when I'm done with them, almost to a fault. I do this because of my family's hoarding habit.

As soon as I woke up my mom took me over to my grandmother's for the Memorial Day bbq. My whole extended family was over there. I'm the second oldest out of all of my cousins, the oldest of the girls. They all kind of look up to me, so everyone was trying to get me to do things with them. I managed to play tennis with my youngest cousin, which was interesting. She's eight, but apparently she looks just like me. Everyone was taking pictures left and right. It drove me crazy.

It seemed that almost everyone was doing alright. It was weird being at my grandmother's after my grandfather died. I went to his grave for the first time and that was sad. I felt very bad for not coming to his funeral last year. But I really think my family members would rather me spend time with them alive and not spend my life savings trying to go to their funeral.

Oh and we all got to do smores. This was always one of my favorite things to do when I was little. We just put the marshmallows over the grill. SOOOOOO GOOD! The first day was nice and a lot less pressure than I expected, thank god.

i can't drink like i used to...

Or can I? This whole year I have really, really cut back on drinking. As in I drink like once or twice a month. So, when I got back with some of the old scc crew this week I really thought I would embarrass myself by really going for it and puking all over the place. Although this would not have been far from the norm of a few years ago, I managed to out drink one or maybe two of the boys (Nate I will never catch you) without throwing up or blacking out. I did have a major hangover the next day though. That never used to happen...

More details of my trip in the next few days. I'm just trying to adjust back to city life after time traveling to 1992 in Indiana, so give it a bit. All two of you who read this.

mama im coming home

So finished my movie marathon last night with 'What Have I Done To Deserve This?' It's a foreign film directed by Pedro Almodovar who directed Volver. He has a funny sort of technique. Kinda quirky. I wouldn't call his films my favorite, but I like them because they are different. The old lady was the best part.

I also watched the end of Apocalypse Now! and I really really liked it. I'll have to watch the beginning now. It is such a beautifully shot film. One of the best I've seen in awhile. I'm getting Heart Of Darkness next week, which is the documentary on the film. I'm now even more excited than before.

Tonight I fly to Indiana. I'm not happy about the idea of sitting for four hours with my back still very sore, but you gotta do what you gotta do. The week will mainly be spent with family, but I will be seeing a few of my best friends on Tuesday and I can't wait. It's been way to long and I'm expecting a really really fun night.

ouch

We have an ant problem at our house. It's something we have learned to deal with, so when I saw a trail of ants to the trash yesterday it didn't bum me out too much. I just took out the trusty old Raid and sprayed the whole trail and then grabbed the trash and hurried out the door. Unfortunately the Raid had not dried and I fell slapstick style. Sooo I now have a bruised tailbone. This has given me yet another excuse to not go out. I watched movies instead.

Lars And The Real Girl-About a kinda crazy guy who gets a fake girl who he thinks is his girlfriend. So that he won't go even more crazy the whole community pretends it's real and she begins to fit in quite well. When he realizes people care about him more than he thought, he finds trued love and realizes he doesn't need a fake girl anymore. Ryan Reynolds plays the main guy.

Overall the movie was alright. The message was a little too sappy for me, but the actors made it a bit more real. I really liked that it was hard to tell what era it was. I guessed late 70s or early 80s, but when they visit graves you see it is something past 2003. I suppose some of the cars and the computers gave it away too.

Coffee And Cigarettes-This film was directed by Jim Jarmusch. My recent viewing of Down By Law inspired me to become familiar with his work. I'm still not so sure that I like it. His stuff is a bit too slow and uninteresting for me. This movie was no different. It is composed of many short films that I guess he has shot from the 80s to now. Cate Blanchett's part in it is really good (I'm just recently realizing this) and Bill Murray with Gza and Rza is alright. Jack and Meg White's not so much. Overall, not so good. Down By Law was alright though, so I've decided I still need to do some research on him before I can be sure how I feel about his style.

More reviews to come, cause I'm out of school and don't want to do anything else...

it's been awhile...

School's out for the summer!! I've been super busy this semester and haven't posted in months, but that will all change now that school is out and I have no plans for summer school. So expect posts about movies I've viewed, books and articles I've read, shows I've seen, and projects I've worked on.

a wanderer

Started school yesterday and it looks like it's gonna be a boring semester. Although my Astronomy professor is pretty entertaining. She says things like, 'Oh well the lights are out, now I'm in the dark. Well...I guess I'm always in the dark, so it doesn't matter.' She knows her jokes are bad, but just keeps going. You can tell she loves her job and that's what's the most important, I suppose. Oh and I will be writing for the school paper for one of my classes. Should be interesting.

Me and a friend of mine are now collaborating on a zine called The Blah! Zine. We are currently working on the third issue, which I hope to be out in the next couple of weeks, but we will see. We have tons of stuff in it like comics, various other art, poetry, recipes, instructions on how to embroider, plus more so it might take a bit to get it all together. We'll see.

Yesterday as I came home from school I saw two cop cars, along with a fire truck and ambulance, down the street from where I live. Since I'm human I looked to see what was going on, even if I maybe didn't want to see. Unfortunately all this left me was a peak of someone on a stretcher with a white sheet on it, but it didn't look like the sheet was over the face. Now I'm wondering what could have happened? Was it a crazy person they had to tie down? Was it a dead person and the cops were just getting a look at the face? Was there even a body on the stretcher? I'm not sure it should matter except that if someone got killed down the street from me that's a little weird. I suppose I should not be so interested in everyone else's business. It just gives me half the story and leaves my mind creating the rest. Stupid mind.

And Guiliani dropped out of the race. Who's he kidding? He hasn't been in it for the last 3 months or so. The America's mayor a big haha and fuck you.

movies, movies

Since I loved the book so much, this week I went to the theatre to see Persepolis. It left out some cool parts of the book (as almost all books done into movies do), but it was still awesome. The movie is in black and white, so I thought it might be a bit boring for some reason, but the animators are amazing and really did a lot with the blueprint Marjane Satrapi gave them. As soon as this comes out on DVD I gotta buy it and I hope it wins the Oscar for best animated movie. Even though Oscars don't mean that much anymore.

I also saw Sicko this week, which was alright in that Michael Moore sorta way. I almost always agree with his points, but I don't like the one-sidedness of his movies. Even though I agree I would like to hear what the other side says. I think if he did this he would appear a little more credible and less annoying.

As a side note, I wish everyone would leave the Heath Ledger story alone. Yes it's sad, but please let his family deal with it. Things like this are personal. It's embarassing that so many people want to know what happened to someone they didn't know and want to create things that are probably not ture. Unless, of course, you know him, there are many more important things going on in this world. And that goes for all of you Britney chasers too.

winter reads

My quest to read all 7 Harry Potter's during this winter vacation is on-going, but I have had a chance to do some other leisurely reading while on break.

The first one of note is The Complete Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi. This book shows what it's like to grow up in Iran during the Revolution. The great thing about this book is that it's not trying to convince the reader that Iran's politics is right or wrong. It shows the confusion one is confronted with when living in a country that is trying to modernize. Persepolis doesn't live her whole life in Iran, but even when she has leaves the country for something like ten years, leaving her eventually homeless sleeping in parks in Austria, she returns to her parents in Iran and finds her friends are much different than she remembers and that her parents really do know what's right for her. I suppose one must know this is a comic and it's based on the authors life. It's an easy read and one of the few comics I have ever been able to get through. Persopolis' life was much different from what you or me would call normal, but this book shows that normal is all in the eyes of the beholder.

Another book I managed to get under my belt is The World Is Flat by Thomas Friedman. This book discusses exactly what it took for the world to become flat and some things the world can do to adjust. It's hard to see so many jobs outsourced, but this trend is only going to get more popular. As it does Americans must learn to specialize and become better at what they do. No longer can people be mediocre at their job because if this is the case the job can be outsourced and much more will be done by someone more eager to do the job. One interesting point he brought up at the end is that people must be willing to use their imagination to do better. He used 11/9 (the date the Berlin Wall fell) and 9/11 as examples. The fall of the Berlin Wall took much imagination for the positive while 9/11 for the negative.

One way to help make imaginations positive is to help bring other countries into this flat world, but in a good way. Developing countries must be introduced to the new world gradually and they must be trained in the right way. Industrialized countries must be willing to be honest, fair, and not always about profit. This may be hard at first, but the more countries involved in the flat world, the more resources and skills are available. Developing countries must learn to trust industrialized countries so that they can integrate and start making profits for themselves. This will probably be hard because of the way most developing countries have been treated in the past, but one can only hope time will heal. And fast.

rain

So Christmas break in California doesn't mean stomping snow off my boots or below zero with windchill. Instead it means rain and a jacket. And rain here is rarely worse than a sprinkle, so I can't complain. Currently southern Californians are freaking out because there is supposed to be a three day downpour. So far I've seen lots of clouds, but only some showers last night. No thunder. No lightening. Boorrriinnggg.

My break has been spent working, reading, sleeping, and movie watching. For those who don't know I'm trying to read all of the Harry Potters over break for no real reason except to say I did it. So far I'm almost done with the fourth, but I've started lagging because this one is long and I'm starting to understand why they are not all released at once (well besides the fact that it takes years to finish even one book, let alone seven). Considering the genre, these books are pretty good. I'm not one of those 'Trekkies' and I never read the Lord Of The Rings trilogy, so going into this I wasn't so sure. But now halfway through I approve. I understand why so many parents read these things to their kids. I would hope these books help more kids get into reading. I was an avid reader growing up, but around the age of 13 I was embarassed of this and tried to pretend I didn't like reading. I actually read very little (besides homework) until I was about 20. Probably not a wise choice.

High school is a weird age and I just saw another movie that covers teenage angst nonsense. The movie is called Juno and I was actually excited to see it. Unfortunately I was disappointed. Not enough Michael Cera or Jason Bateman. And although they tried to make it liberal and blah blah blah I felt that it was basically saying if the teenager didn't have the kid she was a bad person (Nation writer Katha Pollitt elaborates on this more at http://www.thenation.com/doc/20080121/pollitt). Lame. Oh but Kimya Dawson helped on the soundtrack and it was pretty good. Overall not a terrible movie, but a disappointment for sure.

Hmm..well I'm gonna go wait for the rain to happen and watch another one of the Coen Brothers films. I got a box set for Christmas. Oh and PS No Country For Old Men was pretty cool. Pretty pretty pretty cool.