Late night jam

"Coming home after a Friday night out with friends" should have this track included on the soundtrack.

Kings of Leon - Knocked Up (remix)

[also, thanks AT for the Chromatics]

Evenings activities - Razorback

When I started at my new job almost a year ago, I shared a teeny tiny office with a guy who was temping as he continued to act and write. We would sit back-to-back, elbow-to-elbow all day, talking about random stuff - his freelance gig for sumo wrestlers, my trials with certain work challenges, the housing market. You know where this is going. We became friends, he finished his gig and I moved offices, but we continued to stay in touch. Well, it turns out he finally finished his play and initial reports are that its really good. So I'm heading down for a evening of culture to laugh, cry and cheer at the precise moments that will subliminally imbue a 5-star rating into the LA Weekly theater critic who is also attending.

Classical Music

I finally made a trip to Walt Disney Concert Hall. It was for the LA Philharmonic's Green Umbrella series where they highlight new classical music and hang green umbrellas from the ceiling (oh those crazy artists). I knew someone playing in the show (and my attendance was courtesy of my friend's parents) and was really excited to see him play and also to check out the interior of the space of the building.

The music was interesting and dynamic, if a bit different, but it was incredible to see a familiar face on stage (one of 4 in the quartet). Unfortunately it was a one night only thing. For more on the show you can check out the LA Times review. Also, if you fancy classical music, check out the Calder Quartet.

As for the hall, I was pretty underwhelmed by the interior space (not the hall itself, but the other spaces in the building). The exterior is stunning from every single angle, but the interior left me hanging like the missing hanger steak at the pre-concert dinner. For one, the carpet looked like it got cleaned with buckets of rotting flowers (this was the best pic I could round up on the interweb). While writing this post I learned that it was designed by Gehry himself, which confused me and drove me to investigate further, where I found the following snippet from an LA Times story.

Los Angeles architect Gehry, however, explained how he designed a floral pattern that adorns Disney Hall's carpets and seats in homage to just one woman: the late Lillian Disney, whose $50-million gift in 1987 set the project in motion. The hall is also flower-like in form and is surrounded by lush gardens. "I told her I'd make a flower garden for her," said Gehry, as he leaned into a clear podium with his hands clasped. Gehry described his role in the project as "a great experience, personally."

So, is that how you honor a $50 million dollar gift - with blood red flower petal carpet? Should I expect more from Frank Gehry? Am I totally missing the artistic and symbolic subtleties -is that carpet seen as beautiful in the land of carpet critics? I have no idea. All I can say is that it was offensive enough to me to generate this response and in a space that glorious on the outside, I expected a little bit more...

Bad tattoos

My buddy just got a tattoo, it was actually the first time I went and sat in on a tattoo session, its pretty interesting. There's a full community of artists and supporters (people cleaning, people hanging, etc). Thankfully his turned out well (as did my sisters) but that is not always the case as this pretty priceless photo gallery poignantly demonstrates.

For more humor on bad tattoos, check out the rest of the Radar Magazine story about the book, No Regrets: The Best, Worst, & Most #$%*ing Ridiculous Tattoos Ever

My friends made the news

A couple of my boys from the minny were featured on the local news in a clip about mpg efficiency and gas prices (they appear about 1:10 into the clip). Love the straightfaced sarcasm from my boy. Hilarious.

Galactic Pizza

College rulez. I met so many awesome people in a little city in the midwest (Madison) and they continue to do amazing things. Pete, who I met through my friend Andy, started Galactic Pizza in Minneapolis with a killer one-two punch of super hero hilarity and super-conscious social responsibility. I eat there every time I'm back home. Amazingly, I saw that he was featured on CNN Money! Here's the quick breakdown: his restaurant makes really good pizza with locally grown organic ingredients (even vegan!) and donates a portion of profits to charitable causes. The tasty pizzas are available for delivery by crazy costumed super hero delivery drivers who use electric or human powered vehicles. The costumes are made by a local seamstress and delivery people are able to create and develop their own super hero identities. They also have quite a compelling Vision of the Future.

Check out CNN for more info and pics and if you're ever in Minneapolis, head to 29th and Lyndale, uptown for "pizza with a conscious."

Thanks Erin!

UPDATE: Thanks to Cara's comment, not only do they deliver pizza but they also foil robberies. This makes my day! Hilarious.

Squirrel Wrestling

I've gotten a few requests for this in the last couple of weeks. Here it is in all of its glory, Squirrel Wrestling...



Oh sundays, what would we do without you?

Birthdays

I'm quickly approaching another bday - a big one. Without getting too philosophical, I'll just post the invite to the party, the 7th flyer in the make if funky series. Hope to see people there!
Speaking of bdays, it was my sisters today, Happy Birthday Sis!

The Airborne Toxic Event

My friend is in this band and they are great and she's really nice, so I'm supporting them. I saw this video today, which covers a residency they had at Spaceland in LA. They have a show at the Troubadour on Tuesday, March 3rd! Let me know if you want to go!


UPDATE: show is on Monday, March 3rd. see you there.
-posted by maze

Nerves (dotcom)

I'm coming to the realization that it might be time to try online dating. I haven't ever done it. I'm usually too nervous to even post a picture, much less go and start a conversation with a total stranger, but as they say, desperate times...

So as I'm preparing to reveal my inability to decifer the relationship status of attractive people and desire to think about at least the possibility of someday changing my relationship status (im looking at you myspace/facebook, if you can last that long) to the greater metropolitan area, I'm reminded of an earlier time.

Back in the old days (right around the turn of the century), I was living with my friend R. We would take morning runs around the neighborhood scouting curbed furniture (ended up outfitting a good portion of our place with it - tho we have since upgraded). One day we came across an old school typewriter and adopted it. It quickly became a outlet for observations on our trials and tribulations as single dudes new to the area. Everything was fair game, from utter embarrassment to random, surprising successes. There were some phenomenal entries that are lurking somewhere, though I haven't seen them in years.

So i've toyed with the idea of tracking my virtual dating foibles here and have not yet landed on a decision. On one hand, it would be hilariously fun for me. On the other, it would be hilariously fun for everyone else (at my expense). Plus, I'm still getting used to the blogging thing, where anyone can land on this page and read about me. Originally, I never mean to talk about personal stuff. I only wanted to share what I thought was cool and interesting, but that lead to things that were cool and interesting that happened to me and viola, conflict.

more to come...

Elephant Art

My friend Dave and I met in college through a mutual friend and bonded, as many people do, over a 4-year period of copious beers and parties. We have kept in touch over the years, usually based on each others various trips to the coasts (LA and NYC). He is the executive director of a pretty cool non-profit called The Asian Elephant Art & Conservation Project which sells art by elephants to help raise money for their well being. I was shocked to see the non-profit featured on one of everyone's favorite blogs, boingboing, this morning. Hope he sees a big spike in traffic and awareness of what he's doing.

I've been to his office in NYC and seen a number of paintings in person. They are really really striking and often beautiful. Surprisingly, they are fairly affordable. I've heard that Elephants will most likely not survive outside of captivity beyond this youngest generation. So you could say the art is a little slice of history. Check out the site.

my friends make me proud

in california weed is for all practical purposes, totally legal. if one wants it bad enough, joint pain or an ailing pet lizard is enough to secure a doctor's note. this is not the case in colorado where my tree loving friend often travels to ski. neither is it accepted on the airplanes that transport my friend to colorado, nor, most importantly, by my friend's protective jewish mother.

thankfully, my friend has uncle in colorado who shares the same affinity for the skunk. i'll call him uncle mj. on this particular trip uncle mj and my friend didn't overlap, thus there was no hand off. they say pressure brings out the best in men and well, these two worked out a fool-proof plan to hid the doobie. the answer, like all the best in life, is brilliantly simple. you can find your very own jewish mom proof pot hiding machine here.