Congrats - TIME Magazine voted you "Person of the Year"! What's your acceptance speech?
I'm afraid there's been some kind of mistake. I didn't win it, you did.
(boo)
I'm not sure why our downtown-dwelling friend KC chose to have her birthday party 20 miles away in Westwood. There's no good way to get there from Los Feliz on a Friday night, so we met up with the party at the end of a Persian dinner, in time for the present derobing (she and her coworkers are the wardrobe crew for a well-known television show, so my poetic license when I say "derobing" instead of "unwrapping" is allowed, if only I hadn't had to explain it here.) We had brought a great gift, an amazing wine carafe my girlfriend found at the MOMA store. It came wrapped in orange and silver, and the hot pink envelope from the birthday card I picked out at Uncle Jer's really fit KC's aesthetic.
Meanwhile, there were a lot of candles and picture frames among the offerings, so we were pleased with our contribution. We were also pleased at the sight of Doughboy's red velvet cakes as the waitstaff brought them to the table. Unfortunately, the party had decided to move on to the W hotel, and so we were recruited to cart the red velvet cakes there. (A dangerous thing, to be sure — we envisioned a scenario where we showed up with only two of the four small cakes left and cream cheese all over our faces.)
We drove to the W hotel, dropped the car at the valet ($20 + tip), and got interrogated by the doorman. We weren't on a list, and everything on Friday and Saturday night is by reservation or invitation only. We managed to talk our way in, but the guy said we weren't allowed to bring the red velvet cakes into the bar. So we had to leave them at the concierge, whose podium bore in brushed steel lettering the single word: "WHATEVER". How corporately rebellious.
We went into the bar area, where a waitress actually asked people to leave a little sofa lounge area that our party had reserved. I wondered momentarily what it must have taken to reserve a spot in this over-the-top bar. I soon found out that the party was required to purchase two bottles of liquor for at least $600.
I know. "What?!?!"
I quickly did the math, and even if we had full representation from the dinner party, each share was going to come out to $50, which meant a $100 bar tab for me and my girlfriend. To give you an idea of the pricing structure, a bottle of Stolichnaya (for which my dog is named), which normally retails in the $25-30 range, cost $300. If you wanted to get really crazy with a bottle of Johnny Walker Blue Label, which normally can go for $160-175, you'll shell out a cool $750 at the W (clearly heavily discounted compared to the Stoli markup).
Our friend explained that there was another friend who was also celebrating her birthday and staying at the W, and that likely she and her friends would cover that tab. If we didn't want in, we could go and order drinks at the bar. We were happy to take that option. We asked if she would like a drink, and she ordered champagne. That, a glass of truly awful Cabernet for me, and my girlfriend's "Blueberry Breeze" martini, cost $42, or roughly the price of our dinner and two glasses of wine before the festivities. And I think the bartendress was stoned.
In the plus column for the evening, I got to meet KC's boyfriend for the first time, and we had a conversation about his experiences in the ER at USC County hospital. It was somewhat unnerving to listen to listen to him casually talk about intubating a man with severe AIDS-complicated pneumonia and thinking, "Bye, do you know you've got a 5% chance of having this tube taken out of you while you're alive?" Eesh. He also talked about his 2 years in the Peace Corps in Honduras. I told him the closest experience I'd had to Honduras was a bad neighborhood in Alhambra.
Years ago, I managed to score tickets to a surprise Beck show at The Knitting Factory in Hollywood. It was a great show (Elliott Smith walked right past my girlfriend — that's how long ago it was). We figured that was the last time we would see Beck at such a small venue. This was confirmed a year or two later when we saw him at the Universal Amphitheatre from the nosebleed section.
Well, let it never be said that Beck has forgotten his 'hood. He played a show last night to a couple hundred people at The Echo in Echo Park (3 blocks from my old apartment). My girlfriend managed to get two tickets via our friend the browser Reload button at the Ticketweb site (even better: no money to Ticketmaster). We got there early enough that we were able to walk right up to the stage. How close were we? This was taken from my cameraphone:
This is the way all shows should work:
- $15
- Start at 7:30pm
- No opening band
- Play for an hour
- You can continue on with your evening
We took a walk through our neighborhood Sunday afternoon, and as we were making our way home, my girlfriend suggested we detour down a little-traveled street parallel to ours. We were approaching a house with a fence made of vertical bars around its perimeter when we saw a little dog running toward the corner closest to us. It started barking in a hoarse, pipsqueak voice, running from point to point along the fence, clearly rather put out by our presence.
We laughed a little. We both love dogs and comment on whichever ones we see when we're out. This one was some kind of bizarre mix, like a Yorkshire terrier crossed with a poodle or Brussels Griffon. It was really small—note more than eight pounds—and had curly hair that got in the way of its eyes. The little guy was a strange-looking dog, so we continued to laugh a little.
As we were passing by the fence, my girlfriend said to him, "Oh, you're so cranky!"
He redoubled his efforts, bounding around the front yard, barking up a storm, ricocheting off the fence and generally being pissed off. As we got toward the center of the fence, we were at our closest proximity to him. This infuriated him, and he turned to spin up another furious protest...and ran through what looked like a severely trimmed back, possibly dead rose bush. His barks turned to screams as a branch broke off and stuck to him.
Our smiles immediately dropped. He was yelping and still running around the yard, stuck between a V of branches with thorns on them. "Oh my god," my girlfriend said.
I tried to beckon the little dog over to the fence so I could try to remove the branch, but he wasn't having any of it. He was utterly panicked. We looked to see if anyone inside the house was coming out. Nothing. The screams were loud enough to start drawing the attention of the neighbors. We looked around and shrugged our shoulders, and I thought I was going to have to try to scale the fence to help the little dog. He ran around the corner of the house, still screaming bloody murder, and then it stopped.
"I guess someone in the house got him?" my girlfriend said, I think trying to convince us both.
"I hope he's not dead," I said.
We walked on, unable to really do anything about the situation. By the end of the block we were already chuckling about it, but we still felt bad.
Windows, Mac, Linux - What's your preference and why?
Submitted by ramblingsbymark.
I've used a Mac since my dad brought the little beige 128K Mac home in 1984. I used to go with him to Mac User Group meetings at UCSD, and fall asleep until the very end where they demoed shareware games.
I strayed around 2000 and bought a Windows laptop. Then I installed Linux on my old PowerMac. I hated both. When Mac OS X came out, I knew I had found home again.
The two key questions I asked my girlfriend on our first date were: 1) dogs or cats, and 2) Mac or Windows.
She answered both correctly, dogs and Mac. From there on, the only religious debates we've had have been actual religious debates.
No, not Vox. And no, not Trott. [1]
Voxtrot. As in that hip new brit pop band out of Austin, TX that sounds like Belle and Sebastian, The Smiths, and every other hugely adored indie band you can think of.
We bought tickets the day of, and fuck you very much Ticketmaster. Our $12 tickets each had $9.50 added in service charges. What, did you send an individual messenger to deliver each ticket to the Troubadour box office?
The show itself was quite good. We arrived while the band was just coming on. The place was packed, with everyone looking at everyone else and thinking, "I didn't realize this many people knew about them."
Their songwriting is excellent. Their showmanship will come in time. Lead singer Ramesh Srivastava has a great voice, though it lacks some polish and subtlety, he's got a good indie pop range. Really, the only problem I had was with Ramesh's exuberance. He's like the president of the student body, gangly arms gesticulating wildly during a pep rally for his band. You can tell he's smart. But compare him with Stuart Murdoch from Belle and Sebastian or with Morrissey, and there's a lack of restraint. He's smart, but doesn't come off as clever, because he's literally spewing everything he can think of in between songs.
Maybe enthusiasm is the new cool, and I'm just getting old. I just doubt that Morrissey ever announced the address of an after party during any of his sets.
[1] Dave gets credit for putting 2 + 2 together.
They originally billed it as a wine tasting, but by the time we arrived at Cobras and Matadors just a few blocks from our house last night, it had been reworded as a Wine Pairing. This was their first event, basically a prix fixe menu of some of their best tapas served with Spanish wines of their recommendation. It wasn't as geared toward wine tasting as the events we've attended at Silver Lake Wine (no anecdotal coverage of the wines themselves), and wasn't as scholarly a review as those we've experienced at the Irregular Wine Tasting at The Echo. It was really about the food:
- Asparagus and goat cheese croquettas (fried...yum!)
- Pork tenderloin with charred apples
- Bacon-wrapped dates stuffed with blue cheese and almonds
- Apple and cinnamon bread pudding with vanilla bean ice cream
Each course was served with something just shy of a full glass of wine, except for the entrée, which came with two glasses. The pairings did a lot to highlight the food. And at $29 a head, it ended up being a really good deal (we've easily dropped twice that at a regular dinner there, for less food and drink.) Recommended! (Just don't eat lunch beforehand.)
This happened:
At the tomato vendor's booth at the Silver Lake Farmer's Market, they happened to also be selling navel oranges. A backpacker-yoga-type guy remarked it was early in the season for navel oranges, wasn't it? Yes, said the vendor.
Yoga Guy: "Well, I'm going to have to contemplate the navels." [pause] "Do you get it?"
Tomato vendor: "No."
Me [jumping in]: "Contemplate your navel?"
Yoga guy: "Yes!"
Me: "Omphaloskepsis is the technical term for that."
Yoga guy: [blank stare]
Me: "Navel-gazing. Omphaloskepsis. I've been waiting to use that word for years."
Yoga guy: "Omphaloskepsis? It starts with Om. How interesting. Maybe that sound crosses cultures?"
Me: "You may be right."
Yoga guy: "I usually am."
Tomato vendor: "Good for you."
What is your earliest memory?
Submitted by Megan.
As I get older, I increasingly doubt my earliest memory, because it seems too early. I couldn't have been more than a year and a half old. But the fact that it's been burned into the ol' neurons since such an early age – I've had this memory with me for as long as I can remember and can call it up instantly – I still can't fully deny its validity.
It's not much of anything, really. The time is compressed or distorted, but I can distinctly remember being passed from my mom to this other presence, this male presence that wasn't my dad, and being walked into what is the back bedroom of my grandparents' house. The presence had a calmness and tranquility to it, and I'm pretty sure I fell asleep.
That's it.
The reason it's significant for me is that it's the only memory I have of my maternal grandfather, who died in an accident not long afterward. Even today, when I walk into that room at my grandmother's house, I know that's where my earliest memory happened.
Tell us about your first kiss. Who was it with? How old were you?
There was a new girl at school junior year. I was the shyest kid in class. It took me weeks to talk to her, and I don't mean two weeks. I mean more like eight or nine. In fact, I think we first spoke to each other on the day before Christmas vacation, when only the good nerdy kids bothered to show up for school, and we just hung out in the classrooms of our favorite teachers. She was beautiful, with long dark hair and huge brown eyes – but equally shy, and had roughly two friends at school.
We picked things up after Christmas vacation and started talking on the phone, but we were never able to see each other outside of school. She lived on the nearby marine base and had a very strict father. Her father was a marine, if I haven't made that clear. A marine.
To be fair, she had been protected from a very young age because of health problems. She had been born with her heart positioned backwards in her chest and had been through a number of surgeries. The girl with the backwards heart.
When junior prom was announced, I asked her, and she made it clear that she wanted to go, but was scared to ask permission from her father. We spent some time figuring out the best way for her to ask. Then she said she wanted a sign of encouragement. I had a tennis match coming up (yes, I joined the tennis team when a classmate pointed out I didn't have any extracurricular activities to put on my college applications). She said, "If you win your tennis match, I'm sure he'll say yes." It was a silly statement, but we needed something to hold on to.
But jesus, I hadn't won a tennis match all year. I played first team doubles with my friend Alex, and we always had a great time, but we didn't really have a killer instinct. We were more interested in playing mindgames with our opponents, but that usually didn't work well since our opponents were almost always beating us. This request was about the same as asking me to swim the English Channel – possible, but unlikely.
I want to say I applied myself and trained like Rocky and beat the living daylights out of our next opponents. It really would be the proper time for a music montage were we making this story into a film. In truth, we had the scheduling windfall of playing the only local high school team worse than us. We beat the living daylights out of our next opponents, who looked like they had been recruited at the last minute from the chess club. Oh joy! I rushed home to call her and share the news.
Her dad said no.
That wasn't the end of the story. Somehow over the ensuing weeks she managed to wear him down and agree to let her go, provided he drove us there and picked us up. I agreed, because I had no leverage.
The day came. We had coordinated my tie with her dress color. My feathered hair was perfect, and she looked beautiful. But I was sick, and on cold medicine. The event was at one of the hotels in Waikiki (I realize I haven't mentioned I lived in Hawaii). It was strange to see all these kids who wore t-shirts, board shorts and occasional footwear to school every day now all dressed up.
The event included dinner and dancing, and we sat at an empty table and just kind of gazed at each other for a very long time. One of the beach bimbos that sat down at our table with us asked what drugs we were on. Dinner was served, and when the dancing began, we moved out to a sofa in the hallway. I said it was because I wasn't feeling well, but really I was scared to death of dancing.
The setting was there. We held hands. Looked at each other. Moved closer. Closer. The theme song of the prom, The Cure's Just Like Heaven, came on. Closer. We stayed that way for a long time. My heart was pounding, and somehow I still had it in my head that even though our eyelashes were fluttering against each other, she still might rebuke my attempt at a kiss. I could feel her breath.
Then one of the teacher chaperones walked by, and we backed off and had to start the whole process over. Not even inching closer. We were centimetering closer. My cheeks were flushed. It had been so long that my leg was falling asleep. Finally, our lips were actually touching, but just the corners. She was waiting for me to turn my head to make it an actual kiss. Waiting. Waiting. I had a conversation with myself in my head, weighing my options, trying to convince myself to go through with it.
Finally I tilted my head, and we were kissing. It was sweet and soft and melty. The whole time I was thinking "I'm kissing her!"
And too soon, the event was over, and her dad was waiting for us in the lobby. We held hands on the ride home, and she wound up catching my cold. The girl with the backwards heart.
