the demolished man

2009-07-05T16:16:00.000-07:00

2008 was an interesting year, but I find myself over a year after my last post living in the same apartment in the same town with the same job. Things feel very different, while on the surface nothing fundamental has changed.

I am working on certain elements of my life and have become pretty happy with the changes that have resulted thus far, but I feel that even though I think New Year's resolutions are bull and it isn't January I am going to set some resolutions down here and revisit them later to see how I have done.

So here goes:
-Maintain a very low level of alcohol consumption (I drank for the first time in several months last night and I am not enjoying my reduced energy level today)

-Run more (I have started running semi-regularly but I need to make it a fixture in my life)

-Make my new house the best living situation I have every had, this means that I want to be a tidy, respectful housemate with a clean, nicely laid-out room.

-Keep reading (I am doing pretty well right now but I need to keep it up)

-Start thinking longer term (Save more, think about what I really want down the road)

2008-01-16T13:21:00.000-08:00

Well it has been about two weeks since my last post. Not a lot has happened, mostly just reading and watching Netflix. As it gets closer to the end of the month I have been taking on more of the responsibilities at the shop including hiring new employees to fill our open shifts. I now realize that job interviews are a pain in the ass for both the interviewer and the interviewee. I wish I was more excited about the upcoming promotion, but I am going to be really bummed when Dylan leaves the store and it is hard for me to get excited about something that is entirely motivated by money, or lack thereof.

I wish money was not such a big issue, but it is really hard to get by on only one paycheck a month. I try to be really good about managing my money but something always seems to come up to get rid of any savings that I have accumulated. It makes it really hard for me to try and plan anything for the future when I can't save any money for that future now.

2008-01-01T18:21:00.000-08:00

New Year's was a complete and total bust. Mind you, that was to be expected but it is still annoying.

Lucero - "My Best Girl"
I just finished reading Parable of the Sower while listening to this song and I felt for a moment that both my ears and mind were completely satisfied. It was a moment of simple brilliance; a book filled with the kind of sadness that comes equally riddled with hope absorbing into my mind and a song that is mournfully romantic and ultimately sobering filling my ears.

Here's to 2008. listen more, learn more.

2007-12-21T21:49:00.001-08:00

I think everyone should have to work retail at least once during the holiday season.

Listen to: Jason Isbell "Sirens of the Ditch", Teddy Thompson "Upfront & Down Low", Deadstring Brothers "Silver Mountain" and Cherryholmes "Black & White" a real best of 2007 will be forthcoming.

Listing those albums makes me sorta a hypocrite since I own only one of them and usually just listen to Matt Bauer's Nandina whenever I am at home.

I have to decide what album is going to be my Christmas present to myself. What do you think internet?

2007-12-13T20:31:00.001-08:00

It seems like this blog only really works in spurts.

Summer was as usual uneventful, moved way too many times, but am finally settled in a little apartment with Jesse. I walk to work every day and usually stop by the Co-Op on my way home. I have realized that I thrive on routine and that is part of the reason why I am still in Davis and still working at Armadillo.

Primary Concepts opened at its new location and looks amazing, now if only more downtown shops provided the same kind of atmosphere. Every time I go in there is someone there that I want to see and interact with. Kai is turning out better and better tattoos, and they are holding art openings and some small shows.

I am finding very few compelling reasons for leaving my house these days, my netflix subscription and library card have become my default activities after work. I seem to go through reading spurts much like I do with writing in this blog, I will read 3 or 4 books a week for a couple months, then I will get sidetracked and not use my card for half the year.

I am going to try to write about one song/album/movie/or other that has caught my interest recently.

Currently my default album at work is the Earlimart record Mentor Tormentor which came out sometime this summer. Part of that is the fact that by virtue of their name Earlimart are located behind the counter and so are easily at hand. But the other part is that I feel bands like Earlimart, Autolux and a few others are groups who music is especially conducive to cold weather. The record has bits of Elliott Smith, the aforementioned Autolux and the Shins interspersed with beautiful vocals and mellow but complicated song arrangements. Plus they have a song called "We Drink on the Job" on an earlier album, a statement that I can certainly get behind even if I do not currently indulge in that behavior.

Reading: Fortress of Solitude by Jonathan Lethem
Listening: Jim Lauderdale - Bluegrass
Watching: Weeds, Smallville, How I Met Your Mother

2007-03-21T11:04:00.000-07:00

lipstick again last night, this time with just my sis and her crew, it was really awesome to see pete and mykle dancing (which they did towards the end of the night). i am amazed that lipstick has been fun the last two times that i have gone, which just reinforces the idea that the people you are with are way more important than anything else. i have been trying to utilize this idea as much as possible, i feel sometimes that i can be too solitary. i am very content sitting in my very comfortable house reading a book or watching a movie when i could be out and about socializing with people who i feel are my friends and yet i see most of them so infrequently. my goal for this spring is to spend much more time out doing things, of course that will cut into my netflix obsession, but i think that i can deal.

jesse returns from tour today, it has been kinda a weird separation because we have been in contact but he has been travelling and playing shows and doing really amazingly from what i can tell, while i have remained here doing what i normally do. it has made me want to travel, i need to move around, i want to see the places that i saw as a little kid and hope that they are just as amazing now.

i watched a david gordon green movie last night called Undertow. i think that his films capture all that i love about the south, the scenery is so languid, yet so vibrant and all the characters are very human, prone to mistakes and yet very endearing. i have never gotten into a director so completely that i wanted to see all of his films, and i think i like green even more because at least from what i can tell he is fairly unheralded. i think he has found some acclaim on the critical level, but i brought him up last night in a car of fairly astute movie goers and no one knew the name.

i was told last night that when i talk about music that i like, i do it in a way that makes people want to listen to it. i really like hearing things like that because so much of my life in the past couple of years has revolved around music and getting people to hear music that i think is amazing. i really hope that this ability to talk about music translates into being able to write well about it. my piece in theLegend should be coming out soon, and i am kinda aching for the editor to give me another assignment. i really feel like i could do the writing thing, and my first submission wasn't anything special so i want to write more to prove that i can develop the chops necessary to do this on a bigger level.

i can't believe that after so little time here, kai is leaving again for like another three weeks. hopefully that will be the end to her and mykle's travels for a bit because i really love having them here in davis.

time to go prep for my radio show and hope that this week unlike last week i actually get to do a show. i have been told by erik that next quarter my show is moving from wednesday to tuesday, but i get to go back into the old hour and a half spot that i really like. i want to step up the content of my show a bit, i really need to work on discovering new stuff, so much of the stuff that i play week-to-week is stuff that i am already familiar with and it is chosen simply because i do not have a lot of time to prep. so that is going to hopefully end, i want to play more traditional songs, whether it was recorded recently or not, i love it when music sounds old.

2007-03-11T01:31:00.000-08:00

Well after a pretty hectic week, I have kinda taken a couple of days off from the general craziness. And it has really been pretty good, watched Amores Perros with my sis, Mykle, and the folks tonight and then picked Kristen up from F and 6th. Everyone I know had apparently been celebrating that fact that it was spring-ish while I was at work. It is strange to live on a schedule that is completely different from everyone else, pretty much everyone I know lives on a Mon. through Fri. schedule I live on a Wed. through Sun. So while I am relaxing, everyone else is either in school or in class and sorta vice versa, except for the fact that because I work mid-shifts so I can go out at night but I do miss out on things like this afternoon. Either way, being mellow has been nice, especially since I think I am going to try to pack the fun in over the next couple of days because Jesse leaves for SXSW on Wed. I think he will be back for like a couple of days and then Kai is going to leave for Italy, everyone is getting to take these little trips here and there, and yet I haven't gone anywhere since the last time I went on a mini-tour with BRL. I really need to get out of Davis and go some where cool, with ample distractions. I realized now how much I loved having Kai live in SF (except that I love her living in Davis more) because I could always take a day or two and visit her and forget about Davis and everything that goes along with it. Don't get me wrong, I love davis, but it is such a small town that every now and then you need to get away with everything that it entails for a little bit.

2007-03-07T11:40:00.000-08:00

Well the wine and dessert party went very well, it was fairly low-key and no one spilled wine on our newly cleaned carpets. I think I am a much bigger fan of mellow parties where the emphasis is on conversations these days, I don't know, maybe I am getting old or something, but the idea of going somewhere and trying to yell to some over terrible loud music doesn't really appeal to me.

However, that being said, Jesse, Katie, Kai and I all went to Lipstick in Sac last night. We decided to go when Jesse and I made an abortive attempt to see the 300 preview screening, which sold out over an hour before we got there. I haven't been to Lipstick in quite a while and this was the first time that I have ever gone as early as we did, it is free before Ten and so we took advantage of that and made it in the door just in time, although Katie had a bit of a problem because apparently Old I doesn't accept passports as a valid form of ID. But that got resolved later due to a little help from her photographer friend, Thomas. Anyway, after we all got inside Jesse, Kai, and I proceeded to dance for the rest of the night. Last night really proved that company is way more important than surroundings. As long as the people around you are fun, you can have fun anywhere. Also, I kinda wish I had brought a notepad because Shaun and Roger totally played some tracks that I need to use for my own set.

I guess that I might DJ at Delta this friday while there is a show going on, but i am not really sure, because the parents are coming into town that day to see the sis, so I will have to see what our plans are.

2007-03-04T09:09:00.000-08:00

I spun music at the Delta of Venus on Friday, and while it is definitely not Rock It it is kinda a nice little event. Although there is certainly an emphasis on the little part, this is the 3rd month in a row and no one time has drawn more than about 30-40 people. Which is kinda strange to me because the event is free, all ages, on a weekend night and at Delta which pretty much covers all of the beefs that people have with Rock It. However, I like DJ-ing at Delta because there is no real pressure about attendence, any time that I DJ at the Grad I field constant questions from the staff about whether people are going to show up. Whereas when I DJ at Delta, I show up, chat with Lee for a bit, and from then on it is up to me and Nix.

Kai has returned from Antarctica, and it is amazing to me how much I realized that I missed her when I first saw her again. I had thought consciously about missing her while she was away, but it too her returning for it to hit me. And although I have not seen him yet, Mykle is back too. The addition of those two people has now made Davis 100% more amenable to me. I still have no desire to be here for that much longer, but with my sister living in the same town I can certainly enjoy it for a little while longer.

We are having a wine and dessert party at my house tonight (which means that anyone who reads this is of course invited) which I am going to have to show up fashionably late to because I have work until 8:30. This is the first real, planned party that has gone on while I have lived in this house and so it should be pretty fun. I can't say that I wholeheartedly agree with the theme because I am not really a fan of dessert. Aside from maybe a little ice cream here and there and then a slice of pie (not cake, never cake) on a birthday, I never eat any dessert foods. Although I do concede the point on cookies, but I don't really consider them a dessert, they seem more like a snack food to me.

I have been having this really bad habit of falling asleep watching movies recently, which I am usually pretty good about, but for some reason lately I keep missing parts of the movie. And then, if they are from Netflix I have to weigh the pros and cons of holding on to the movie longer to re-watch it all the way through, or just returning it so I can get something new. Thus far it is about a 50/50 split but after i fell asleep watching the Protector last night I think the scales lean towards holding on to it (although the fact that today is Sunday and the mail won't get picked up till tomorrow anyway, has something to do with it).

The first night that Kai was back we went and watched Babel at Chris and Jess's house, and I must say, I was not really impressed by it. Sure, it was a beautiful movie but I never really got invested in any of the characters. To some extent I cared about the little boys, but I had no interest in the deaf mute's storyline and only a rudimentary one in Brad Pitt's. Wes at the comic shop offered me a free pass to go see the 300 at the preview screening, but it is one of those screenings where they give out way more passes than there are seats and so you have to get there pretty early to get in. So now I have to decide whether I want to go to Sac and get a chance to see the movie early, or whether I am content to just wait for it like everyone else.

2007-02-28T12:51:00.000-08:00

It was nice to actually get some weather in Davis over the past couple of days. The month of January was very surreal, no rain at all and parts of the month seemed like the middle of April. I like the weather in the middle of April, but I am also a big fan of months where you can tell what season it is. That was one thing about growing up in SC, I never really had the experience of winter settling in, unless it was when we were travelling. And because my family was not big on the wintersports, I never really experienced real honest winter. That lack makes me want to live somewhere with miserable weather in winter, even though I am not that big a fan of the cold. Maybe I should move to Antarctica?

Last night I watched Over the Hedge with Pete and Jesse, this was the third or fourth animated kids movie that I have watched in the last few months, which is a number that is way up from previous years. And it is sorta surprising to me how much I have enjoyed each and every one of these movies. I can't figure out whether my animated movie drought came from a lack of quality films out there, or if I am somehow more receptive to them now than I was a couple of years ago. I can't think of any changes in my life that would make me more invested in these kind of movies, although Jesse says that the word on the street is that I am nicer these days.

I always have this problem with Wednesdays, they are the start of my week, and so I dread getting moving and headed down to my radio show because that will mean that the work week has finally begun. I feel like if I am just staying in my house then the week is put off for a few more minutes, this usually results in me rushing down to the station at the last minute to prep for my show.

Kai is supposed to arrive back in Davis tomorrow which is going to be very overwhelming for her, but I think for me a little bit as well. I haven't seen her in so long and I know I am going to try to cram several months in to this weekend, but I imagine she will be crazy tired and jetlagged, so I think it will be a little bit of a struggle. At the very least there is Katie's show tomorrow night and Axel F on Friday, both of which I think Kai would really enjoy.

2007-02-26T11:24:00.000-08:00

Last night's Rock It! was better than any we have had in a while, still not really successful but a good time nonetheless. I think that I am still going to keep doing it at the Grad, but I really want more of a positive response from people. Part of being a DJ is receiving validation from those around you and when people don't show up it has the opposite effect. Nix and I are doing our monthly at Delta of Venus on Friday, so that should be a pretty chill time. The vibe at Delta is so much different, and I think most of that has to do with size. It is much easier to receive the validation I mentioned when people are in your face and the spot looks packed.

That being said, the most exciting thing about the coming week is that Kai finally comes home on Thurs, it has been such a long time since I have seen her and I miss her so much. I am a little bummed that I won't be able to meet her at the airport, but I have to work and she will probably be back in Davis around when I get off. I know that she is going to be jetlagged, but there is a show at Delta that night she would probably like and then Axel F on friday, so I hope she is prepared for a whirlwind of activity. So many people have asked about her and are excited to see her return, I think she is going to be a little overwhelmed.

Well, I've got a Hong Kong action movie to watch and a deck to build, so I am going to enjoy my rainy Monday.

2007-02-23T23:07:00.000-08:00

i am sitting here tonight watching netflix with kristen and i actually have no desire to leave the house tonight. last night was not a bad time, but it was very run-of-the-mill and being mellow tonight just sounds good to me.

pan's labyrinth was fantastic and visually amazing.

rock it is on sunday and we will see, if the turnout is anything like the last few i am going to be very disappointed. people have been coming out to other dance nights/parties recently so it really becomes kinda personal when they decide to skip mine. i know that i play a dance set that's as good or better than most DJs in davis, so it is hard for me to see how the music would be a problem. so let's cross our fingers and hope that turnout is awesome.

i finished my article for the legend and submitted it because i thought my deadline was today, but it turns out that i had until next friday. it was pretty easy to write, mainly becuase it is short, only around 400 words, but also because i feel like i got really good responses from POS. i initially had an interview that was around 1200 words, but then found out it was going to be short and had to cut a lot out. i like having too much material and having to to be picky, i think the four or five questions that i chose were the best and elicited the best answer from POS. but you can judge for yourself because i am going to post the rest of it on the legend blog over the next few days.

2007-02-20T16:18:00.000-08:00

i just finished writing my first article ever for the LEGEND magazine, i am pretty happy with it, it is an interview with the artist POS and all of my anxiety about it being long enough and having enough good content were put to rest when i figured out that i would have to cut way more than i thought. i am probably going to post a bunch of what i cut on the LEGEND blog and then the finished piece will be in the next issue of the mag hopefully.

i am going to try to go see Pan's Labyrinth tonight, so we will see how that is, the folks loved it and i have only heard good things, so i am pretty excited.

today has been a productive day so far, i am happy.

2007-02-19T11:11:00.000-08:00

Well the interview with POS for the legend went really well, it was a lot easier to engage him than I thought it would be and I feel like I got enough material for a good article. Now I just have to take it from digitally recorded form and make it into a coherent article. everything about this work is new to me, since I have never really written anything more substantial than some record reviews. However, I think this writing gig is a really good step for me and hopefully I can swing some kind of modest pay from it soon.

With the writing thing going on I have been focusing less on the DJ-ing, although I did DJ at Delta for Valentines Day. That was the first time in the last couple of months that I have actually been really stoked on playing records, I think Rock It just kinda got routine and the lack of any positive response from people kinda jaded me.

2007-01-27T16:30:00.000-08:00

Wow, a long time since I have posted, a lot has happened in the last month and a half but I haven't really felt like airing it out on the 'net. And I am not going to do so now, tonight I am heading to SF to do my first interview ever as a writer for the LEGEND magazine. One of the things that I have started doing in the time that I haven't posted is to start blogging for the online component of the Legend located at the Legend and now I have a chance to put something in print. It is a really awesome opportunity but I am a bit nervous because I have never done anything this formal before and the idea that something I write is going to end up in print is a little crazy.

We will see how it goes.

Watch Children of Men best movie of '06

2006-12-11T14:03:00.000-08:00

well, i guess you could say that a lot has happened since i posted last, but that would makes sense seeing as it has been over a month.

the biggest news is that after several unsuccessful Rock It!s in a row it has been cut back to a monthly event. the news really didn't come as much of a surprise, because the last three or so have really been sad as far as turnout goes. i don't know what it is about this town that makes people so apathetic, everyone says that school is the big problem, but i know that not to be the whole story. sure people go out more at the begininning of the quarter when they don't have any school responsibility. but with davis on the quarter system like it is, the begininning of the quarter is maybe two weeks long, get to the third week and people have midterms already. however, when i was an undergrad i remember plenty of people wanting something to do on a school night. which is the only night that Rock It will ever get a chance to be on, people (usually people who don't come out) always tell me that it would do so much better if it was on a friday or saturday night. while that might be the case, you are never going to convince a venue to book something that i consider a success when 60 people come out. but the most frustrating thing about the cut back is that everywhere i go, i see more hipsters in davis than there ever have been, this culture is exploding right now, and yet none of the so called hipster kids in davis have shown any inclination to get involved on any level. i guess they are too busy sitting in their dorm rooms chatting on myspace.

obviously i am kinda bitter about the whole Rock It situation, it has been a lot of work for me and at this point i am really not getting very much out of it, the same people come out every week, except that every week there are less and less of them.

we will see what january brings.

2006-11-02T13:20:00.000-08:00

I went to SF with jesse and a couple of other friends to see Justice and MSTRKRFT perform at the mezzanine last night. We had a bit of trouble finding the venue, it's hidden in an alley and there are several alleys in the same area with the same name. The space itself is pretty rad, big dance floor, nice DJ booths, basically a place that I would love to DJ at some point. Once we got there I figured out that I knew two of the guys who were spinning before the Justice/MSTRKRFT set, one I met while working at Dim Mak and the other was the guy who does Lipstick in Sac every week. There weren't many people dancing when we arrived, but after I spent some time talking to a friend that I ran into, the dancefloor started to fill up. From then on it was pretty much nonstop dancing until we left the place exhausted at around 115. I was really surprised because most of the time indie hipster-ish shows are pretty notorius for a lack of dancing especially in SF, but this was not the case here.

MSTRKRFT played a really sweet set, they really only played one of their own songs, most of the stuff was pretty house-y and all very electro. They transitioned very smoothly over to the Justice guys and everyone started dancing even harder. I was pretty much just hanging out with Jesse at this point, which was really cool, I like being able to hang out with him independent of other friends or girls.

When Justice went on they had two hipster girls dancing on the side of the stage acting as their onstage entertainment. For about 10 minutes they were the only ones on stage, but slowly people began to jump up there and start dancing as well. Once a few more got up there a tide of people including Jesse and I got up there and basically danced our asses off for the rest of the night.

I can't remember the last time I was that tired after a show. I only recognized a
couple of the songs all night, there was a Justice track and one from Hot Chip, other than that it was mostly house-y electro and booty bass stuff. Basically all of the kind of stuff that I would like to play at Rock It, but can't because people would rather hear 6 year old rock tracks. I think the Rock It crowd is more accepting of different genres than most indie nights, hip-hop goes over okay and I can play some electro, but if I try to play too many tracks that people don't recognize they will leave.

The night before I DJ-ed at the Grad's Halloween party, it was a tuesday so it normally would have been Rock It, but because of Halloween there were several other DJs and it was much more of a Bros and Hos audience. Jesse and a couple other people came out, and it was totally awesome when Justin and Mariah won the costume contest with their Dead Kennedys ensemble. My set was pretty short, but I managed to keep the dancefloor mostly entertained and then spent the rest of the night dancing. I am hoping that the one week off will revitalize Rock It so we can get one good one and then the following will be 80s night and hopefully that will go off as well.

2006-10-17T12:51:00.000-07:00

well Rock It is going alright, although last week was a little slow, I hope that the numbers pick up again tonight. it has been a little hard to adjust to it being a weekly event, but i think it will get easier as time goes on.

i have been getting completely hooked on a couple of tv shows (the Office, Battlestar Galatica and Heroes). Heroes is the first show in a long time that i have actually made time for while it is on network tv. commercials and the previews for the next week are killing me, they almost destroy the show entirely. plus, at least so far the show has proved pretty inconsistent, one moment it is totally amazing (japanese guy showing up from the future as some kind of ninja) the next it is almost laughably bad (the promo for next week with the message from the future). meanwhile i have been watching the office and battlestar on netflix and they are both very amazing plus the whole no commercials thing makes them even better.

2006-10-03T13:38:00.000-07:00

Rock It! goes off again tonight, and hopefully it is just going to build on the success of last week. I am pretty confident that more people will show up, the weekly thing really seems to be helping people to get stoked about it. I had planned on going to sac and doing some record shopping today, but my sister borrowed my car to go to santa cruz, so it looks like i will be out of luck.

Half Nelson left the varsity already, and that bums me out, that was a movie that i was really looking forward to. I think I might be the only person who isn't totally going apeshit over the new Gondry movie, I want to see it eventually, but I feel like his movie are a bit too much of a head trip sometimes. they are always beautiful and interesting, but they sorta fall into the requiem for a dream catagory, great movie but i don't really want to re-watch it all that much.

I am almost done with the first season of Rome and I feel a little bummed about it, I don't know what happened but somehow after about the first 4 episodes my opinion started to change for the worse. I am going to stick with it and finish the season but I don't really have high hopes.

I have started watching network television again and it is weird experience. I really like the show "Heroes" but that is mainly because I am a comic-book nerd at heart. I saw one episode of the show "Jericho" and it seemed like it might have potential, but it is on a night that I normally work, so I won't get many chances to see if it actually pans out.

2006-09-28T11:56:00.001-07:00

So the re-launch of Rock It has been successful thus far, the first two in Sept. were good but didn't really blow up. Which left me a little disappointed, but they did provide a good segue to the one that just happened. Almost 100 people showed up this time and it seemed to be a really successful night, the dance floor stayed full and people looked like they were having fun.

While I love the fact that the Grad has all of its gear in a booth it is a bit of a pain because of the disconnect that it creates between me and my audience. Occasionally I lose the audience because I can't really read what they are feeling. But other than that I am pretty damn happy with the Grad's contribution to the night thus far, I just hope that they continue to support it. Because if they do I think that word of mouth will spread this year more than it did last year and that means more and more people.

I finished angel a few days ago, the ending was really good, but felt anti-climatic compared to the end of buffy. I have already started watching Rome, and have plans to watch/re-watch Deadwood, Carnivale and Weeds.

Little Miss Sunshine was one of the funniest movies I have seen in theaters in quite a while. I haven't seen Half Nelson yet, so I hope it hasn't left the Varsity.

Other than that I am facing a pretty busy next couple of weeks as I really try to lock in a solid crowd for Rock It, hopefully if that happens some of the promotion work will be done for me and I can concentrate more on the night itself.

2006-09-06T00:31:00.000-07:00

man I am really bad at this whole regular updates thing...maybe i will try to get better, but I doubt it.

The big news is the Rock It re-launch, starting next week we are going weekly on Tuesday nights, it has been a bit of a pain in the ass getting that fully confirmed, the Grad keeps telling me one night and then switching it around on me, but now that the first one is only a week away I think that we are finally settled. I really hope this turns into a bigger and better night, I think the facts that it is weekly and not on Sunday will help. It is going to require more work, but I think the last year has prepped me pretty well for this, my mixing has gotten a lot better, and I think I throw a pretty decent party.

the other night I totally took over Amir's iPod at a party and proceeded to rock a very decent set for about an hour. During that time I managed to fill the dancefloor several times and had a couple people thank me for essentially monopolizing the music. I also had a random dude in Armadillo today recognize as someone who DJs at the Grad. And I am not going to lie, it feels good to get recognized for that shit. I still don't think I am that amazing as a DJ but as far as a dance party goes I think I am pretty damn good. I feel that DJ-ing is a bit of a double-edged sword in a way, I want recognition for being a good DJ and I want people to come out and have fun at my nights, but I don't think my personality is totally suited to it. I think I tend to alienate people a bit too much sometimes, and that can adversly effect the DJ-ing because then they won't come out. A few people who were once regulars basically stopped going over the summer, and I don't know if it was actions of mine, or if they just got busy with other shit. Either way, it seems like the Grad has faith in me and believes that I can hold down a weekly spot, and I believe that I can as well, it is just a matter of getting more people that I don't really know to start coming regularly.

that is that area where I really wish I had more help, I am really not that great a promoter and it is a lot of work for one person to take on, but unless I find someone totally dependable that I really mesh with I am going to keep doing it all by myself.

these next two weeks are basically just going to be prep for the big nights which will be the first three weeks of school, that is when everyone is going to be in party mode and that is also when you can lock people in so that they become regulars for the whole year.

in other news
I am still trying to finish off the whole Buffy/Angel saga, I am on the last season of Angel, and then I can really move on to some other extremely addicting TV show. I was in a rut as far a decent movies went, but I recently saw Brick, All the Real Girls, and Talladega Nights and am looking forward to Idlewild, Little Miss Sunshine and Half Nelson (especially since I think there is a cute girl who works at the movie theater).

I have been working more than is good for me recently since one of the managers at Armadillo took a vacation, and so I have only had one day off in the last pay period. But it means that I will finally have cash this friday which will help with all the assorted bills and shit that I have to catch up on. that and a decently successful first new Rock It are pretty much what I am looking forward to in the next week.

2006-07-21T11:08:00.000-07:00

no matter how much i want to, i never seem to be able to update this blog more than infrequently.

I really expected that Axel F was going to jump off at some point. It really seemed like a solid combo of a weekly night + a DJ who plays slightly more accessible music (Mr. Glass) would result in a solid turnout from week to week. Instead we have been lucky to get more than 20, which means that it is likely that this coming tuesday will be the last Axel F. I have gotten really bummed out by this night's failure as well as getting frustrated with Davis' totally apathetic nature. It seems like Davis' one requirement for entertainment is that it must be free. I can't tell you how many people have bitched at me about the fact that Rock It has a cover charge, these are the same people who toss change in the hat when it goes around for a touring band. However, these people are perfectly willing to go to a bar and buy 5 dollar drinks all night. It makes no sense to me.

Rock It will happen this sunday for the first time in over a month (which is totally shitty) and it is going to be interesting to see how the first Rock It of summer goes over. I really hope that people who for whatever reason have not come out to Axel F make the effort to come out for Rock It. These next couple of Rock It's are going to be instrumental in the decision for next year, the Grad wants to go weekly and is probably leaning towards Tuesday nights, but if these nights do well in the summer they might give me friday which would be pretty sweet, and a lot more work. I have kinda decided that I really don't care if I compete with Lipstick on a weekly basis, the people who would be torn between the two can go back and forth, my biggest concern is drawing 18+ kids from outside of davis. If I can do that I think my night will be a success.

2006-07-08T13:05:00.000-07:00

I have been on a brief hiatus from posting as well as DJ-ing mainly because all my time has been spent watching the world cup (the only time every four years that I am really into sports). But the DJ-ing will start back up this tuesday at the new night that I am doing with Nix aka Mr. Glass, we did one two weeks ago that went decently for our first time but I would really like it if this night became pretty consistent. It is going to be weekly for the rest of the summer which should help bring people out a bit more. Rock It will be happening on the 23rd and 30th this month and then the next one will be the 13th of August which is going to be sorta like my birthday celebration, I am going to get guest DJs to do most of the work while I spend my time dancing and hanging out, I hope it works out well.

I did my first radio show on KDVS last week after a long break and me forgetting the first week that I was scheduled. But with all that in mind, I thought my show went well, I played a total hodge-podge of what I consider to be my summer music. The fist half was all country/folk/singer-songwriter stuff and then I abruptly transitioned to instrumental hip hop, some soul-ish stuff and ended with a few dancey tracks. I did get an email and a call saying people liked my show though, so I will probably keep playing similar-ish stuff. Whenever it starts getting hot I have to listen to country and this year Slim Cessna's Auto Club, Midlake, Caitlin Cary, Sixteen Horsepower and as always the Devil Makes Three are the bands that have been grabbing my attention.

On the more dancey side of things I really like the Hot Chip release, MSTRKRFT bummed me out by pushing back their release and everything I have heard from the forthcoming Rapture release sounds fantastic.

2006-06-15T12:07:00.000-07:00

alright, so i just heard the new beyonce single, and nelly f might have a little competition for pop single of the summer and this is with "crazy" basically already off my radar.

summer totally makes up for the music-drought that is dec. through feb.

also, as soon as i can figure exactly how to host mp3s i am going to start posting some of my favorite tracks. most of them i am sure you will be able to find elsewhere, but i will try to keep it fresh and up to date.

2006-06-12T14:52:00.000-07:00

alright, so updating this fell off a bit. but now I am back and hopefully better than ever.

musically this summer is shaping up to be pretty rad.
We've got Hot Chip's new album coming out this week, MSTRKRFT next week, and I think Lupe Fiasco is the week after that. Plus, hopefully the Pipettes will release something in the form of a full length this summer. All of those releases will make for a great summer sonically and i haven't even brought up the Nelly Furtado album. I am calling it now, that will be the pop album of the year, i have heard 2 dynamite singles already and a third that may still grow on me before the week is out. all that she really needs to pull off the album is a good slow jam, with guest vocals by Ne-Yo and she will be set.

2006-05-22T10:56:00.000-07:00

well the back-to-back Rock It's in May had fairly poor tunrouts, around 50 apiece, but I seriously think that I did one of my best sets ever at the one on the 14th. On several occasions throughout the night I had people rushing back inside to flood the dance floor. That Sunday was a very weird day, it was the day that I found out that I won't be living at 720 next year, which really bummed me out. But then Rock It happened and I got to hang out with Dana afterwards, so the night was a good one overall. I already found a house to live in next year that is going to be almost 100 dollars cheaper than 720 was and except for proximity to the Grad it is in a better location.

but enough about that, on to what I have been digging lately.

I have a friend who just started a music blog and who has been posting some really cool italo-disco/electronica tracks and i have gotten pretty into some stuff like Dinosaur L and Vivian Lee.

I found the latest single from Outkast, from their forthcoming soundtrack to the movie Idlewild, which looks like it will be an amazing movie. Andre and Big Boi in a prohibition-era musical. The song is called "the Mighty O" and it sounds like "Minnie the Moocher" or at least something along those lines.

Aside from that I have been watching a lot of Red Dwarf (thanks Dana) and the other night I watched The American Astronaut
which might just be one of the most innovative films that I have ever seen. It's basically a Sci-Fi/Musical/Western/In Space which is definitely a genre that needs to be explored more. Kai, if you haven't already seen this you must ASAP.

Also, my friend allie gave me the CD of the music from "Once More With Feeling", I haven't listened to it yet, but I am convinced that it is going to be amazing.

2006-05-09T12:32:00.000-07:00

the first of back-to-back weeks of Rock It! went down the other night. overall it was a sorta disappointing night, the turnout was only around 45 people. it baffles me that 200 people can show up to a dance party at a house (that ends up getting broken up by the cops) and 100 can't show up to Rock It! at this point it feels like there are only a few people in this town who care about the night as much as i do. i pretty much keep doing it for them and i will continue to do it as long as the grad is happy.

but enough of that, all i can really hope for is a better turnout this sunday. sorry Mom.

recent tracks i have been digging:

there is this one track from the Pipettes that i keep hearing about called "Pull Shapes" and i finally listened to it on their myspace today and quite frankly it is amazing. they are this adorably attractive girl group that harkens back to the heyday of Spector-produced groups of the 50s and 60s. unfortunately, at this point i have not been able to find that track anywhere, i have other tracks of theirs and some are quite good, but "Pull Shapes" is addicting. i need it.

in the midst of some really intense beer pong matches on cinco de mayo i heard most of the Kirb and Chris album N*#$%z and White Girls and it is pretty damn cool. all of the instrumentals on the record are from classic 80s artists; the Cure, U2, the Cars, etc. then Kirby Dominant and Chris Sinister rap over the top of them. i loved the concept when i first heard about it, and i can say at this point that the record succeeds on almost every track that i heard.

i watched Kingdom of Heaven awhile back and it was pretty disappointing, i am a total sucker for "dudes in chain mail hitting each other with pointy things" movies but this one was really not that good. i will say it was better than troy, but overall Empire (the miniseries) was better. season 6 of Buffy is kinda bumming me out, i am most of the way through the season and thus far i am not nearly as invested in it as i have been in past seasons. i think it might be the fact that Giles has left, Dawn is pretty annoying and thus far there is no "Big Bad" in the season, we will see how it finishes.

i have actually gone to the movies quite a bit in the last couple of weeks which is a rarity for me. i saw Stick It the day it came out with Jesse and thus far, it is my movie of the year. utterly enjoyable and fun, basically the perfect movie for the perfect weather that we have been having. since then i have seen Thank You For Smoking and Tsotsi (we just got and art house theater in davis...so awesome!) both were good movies, but neither got to the level of Stick It
. TYFS was very good and quite funny at times plus the glut of really good actors was almost too much at times. Tsotsi was good, but i felt that while it avoided a lot of problems, it never really delivered on its potential. i may go see Brick today in sac, so we will see if that can top Stick It. i have heard that it is very noir-ish and i am more of a sucker for that than i am for the medieval hack-and-slash.

2006-04-27T09:00:00.000-07:00

by request of my sister i am going to link my daily music blog addictions, then i will get into the stuff i have been digging lately.

Are You Familiar?
Pretty Pony
Sixeyes
Daughters of Invention
Palms Out
Disco not Disco

the last place that i check is the Hype Machine which is essentially a search engine for music blogs.

after that roundup i should probably actually talk about music.

this week i have really been getting into the rapper Lupe Fiasco, he first popped up on a Kanye track off the last album and totally killed it, completely stole the track away from 'Ye. his record comes out early this summer, but the video for the song "Kick, Push" is already on MTV2 and FUSE (which i totally love right now). not only is he a rapper that skates, but he has an amazing flow and he wears glasses. i am really curious to hear the rest of the album.

the new Islands track "rough gem" sounds almost exactly like the best songs off the first Unicorns album, which in my mind is a good thing.

i heard The Cardigans "love fool" at lipstick for the first time in a long time. i had never really considered it for a dance night before then, but it totally killed the audience there and at Rock It! this past sunday, shout out to Romeo & Juliet!

i am also getting really hooked on the new Phoenix single also thanks to lipstick, as well as the dudes in Brilliant Red Lights.

that's all for now, nothing really new to report on the movie front, been watching a lot of buffy/angel. i am going to start watching empire, which is all about ancient rome, in a bit so i will report on that later.

2006-04-16T18:59:00.000-07:00

i really love it when something that i have been waiting/looking for comes into the store as a promo. this has only happened with the John Vanderslice record, and now with the new album by the Presets. i had heard a few tracks from the Presets from various online blogs and was intrigued to hear more, so i was very pleasantly surprised to see it in the promo bin the other day when i arrived for work.

overall the album is good, not amazing, because it fails to deliver on the potential of its best tracks. "the girl and the sea" is my current addiction and will most likely feature prominently in the Rock It! playlist this coming sunday. another track that might see the light of day (or night?) at Rock It! is the newest song by the band Pony Up!, the song is called "the truth about cats and dogs (is that they die)" and aptly demonstrates their talent for writing the cutest pop songs about disturbing subjects. Pony Up! is an all-female band that writes cute, but oftimes sexually provocative songs with simple beats and nice harmonies. i actually worked their first album during the summer i spent in LA working at Dim Mak and they were one of the only bands outside of Bloc Party that i thought had a legitimate chance at blowing up. i think this new album might be their ticket if this first song is any indication, that song plus the fact that steve aoki is currently some sort of indie-hipster demigod is certainly a good starting point.

i watched the Goblet of Fire the other day, and thought it did a decent job of re-telling the book, but it has been awhile since i read it, so i don't know for sure. i also think that the Harry Potter books have kinda been written like movie scripts since the beginning, sure they were books first but they were books that were written for a market.

2006-04-10T02:59:00.000-07:00

i was going to update this blog more frequently, but i guess i got distracted for awhile. here's hoping i can do a bit better in the future.

i wanna try something new at this point, i think i want to segue this blog into something more than just a place for random rants. i am going to start writing about the music, movies and books that i consume as part of my daily life.

this week's music:
the new matt bauer ep: i saw this guy twice in the last week and both times he was performing material from his new album. the new songs all have that same hauntingly beautiful feel that has made "window hill" off his previous album one of my favorite songs of this winter.
paul davis's podcast: this can be found on his blog which is located at: http://anginamonologues.blogspot.com/ and it is full of folky goodness.
murder by death - until morale improves, the beatings will continue: i am listening to this song as i write this and i felt i had to include it, even though it is not particularly new. it has a really fantastic sound that i wish the band replicated in their other tracks. plus, the line "i'll drink whiskey instead of water 'cause i can't stand to be sober in this place" really appeals to me.

this week's movies:
v for vendetta: i really liked this film, but the group of people that i went with came out of the movie as a mixed bag. i think part of the problem was that all of the advertising for the movie made it seem very action-oriented when in reality it was much more psychological. i would have known that the story was not particularly action-packed if i had read the graphic novel first. but, in hindsight i am actually glad that i did it in this order with this particular film. i am not sure that i would have enjoyed the movie as much if i had seen it first because it takes several departures from the story that helped with the pacing and tone of the movie but might have upset me if i had known about them at the time.
9 songs: i put this movie in my netflix queue because i was curious to see what it was all about, pitchfork made a pretty big deal about it a few months ago because it featured all of these indie bands performing live as well as on the soundtrack. i made it about 9 minutes into the movie before i started fast forwarding to the live performances. from what i could tell, the movie is essentially a concert DVD interspersed with sex scenes and really boring pseudo-poetic rants about antarctica.

this week's books:
slow river - nicola griffith: this book took me a lot longer than normal to finish, which is strange, because normally if i like a book i will have it done in a day or two. this one took me more like two weeks, it wasn't a particularly dense read and i actually liked it for the most part. i liked her other book stay a lot more. that book felt like it was a woman writing andrew vachss, whereas the characters in slow river were just not as compelling.
the summer country - james a. hetley: i just finished this book earlier this evening, i found it at the library while looking for something by an author with a similar name. the jacket blurb was fairly interesting even though i don't usually like books that mix fantasy and modern times. however, this book also had a positive review from lynn flewelling (author of luck in the shadows, one of my favorite books of all time) and that is enough for me to give any book a chance. i am going to let her words speak for me in this case; "a wonderful debut, by turns beautiful and utterly brutal."

2006-03-15T00:03:00.000-08:00

i am feeling pulled in a lot of ways right now, and it really isn't helping my overall mood. i don't know whether i want to stay in this town, or if a change of scenery is what i really need to do something real with my life. there are several reasons why i don't really want to leave davis, i love working at armadillo, it is a great place to work and my co-workers are awesome. i really want Rock It! to succeed, but the last couple have sorta discouraged me. i like my current living situation and the idea that i might not have to move when the rental year is up is very attractive. at the same time i can't help but wonder what i could be doing if i got out of this town and potentially moved somewhere that had more opportunities. davis can be a really great town, but there really isn't a lot of infrastructure in the area. at times i think that moving to sacramento might be a good idea, but i also kinda hate a lot of what i see there. i am just really confused at this point in my life, i don't think that more school is what i want right now, in fact i don't think i would do very well if i tried to go back to it. but i also feel like i am not really doing anything right now and that makes me feel sorta useless.

i really need to snap out of this funk that i am in, and i am hoping that it will end soon. i also really need Rock It! to go well this sunday, last sunday was not that great a night, the turnout was really low and i really feel like it needs to seriously pick up, or it could potentially be in trouble. i am going to talk to the grad tomorrow and i hope that danny is still behind the night, but i know that the turnout needs to be upwards of 80 for the grad to be really happy and it hasn't been there for the last two.

hopefully things will start looking up soon

2006-03-10T11:58:00.000-08:00

alright well it looks like updates are a monthly thing right now.

The past month has been fairly busy with Rock It! happening twice a month and Armadillo. This month the nights are happening on consecutive weeks which should give me an idea how feasible a weekly might be. I am still not convinced that davis can support such a night, the attendence at this one will be a pretty good indicator. I would really like to get a steady 150 people out each time, but so far I have been unable to replicate January's success. The last one in Feb. was kinda a disappointment, only about 80 people showed, which is the second smallest attendence that I have had. I am going to try to chalk it up to bad weather and a bad week, and hope that this sunday is a good one. I think my sets have been getting better, and people seem to agree for the most part. It is really interesting to see what goes over well with my crowd and what doesn't. For example, Kelly Clarkson is always a big hit, but Justin Timberlake totally divided the dancefloor last time. I just bought a mixer, so now I will be able to fool around at home/possibly use it to DJ at other stuff. I am hoping that it will also help to improve my mixing.

that's all i really wanna talk about for now, i will update this more later

2006-02-14T13:19:00.000-08:00

well i don't really update this thing very much, but there are certain times where i feel like i need to write some stuff down.

rock it! seems to be going pretty well, on feb. 5th about 100 people came out, which was a solid showing although it was a bit down from january. we will have to see how the one on the 26th does. there is a really good core group of people who come out almost all the time, dance and report back to me how much they love it. i am really stoked that people are getting behind this event, but i really want to make it super-successful and to do that i think i need to lure in more people who might not necessarily come to dance. my priority when i go out to DJ nights is always that i want to dance to music that i like, and socializing/people watching/drinking is always secondary. however, i know that a lot of people don't really like to dance, but they still go out to things like lipstick in sac. i need to figure out a way to bring those people as well as people who may like the music but may not be all that "indie". i really think that rock it! has the potential to bring in 150-200 people each time, but i don't think that will happen unless more casual people come out. danny from the grad keeps trying to talk me into taking on a weekly tuesday night, but i really think that would be the death of rock it! if i tried to make the switch. i mentioned to danny that the only way i would really consider it, is if it was a separate night from rock it! altogether, but the only way that i would do that is if i could find someone to partnet with me on the tuesday nights. the trouble is, i don't really know anyone who would work. for now i am going to stick with rock it! and hope that two sundays from now goes really well.

today is valentine's day, and i don't think it has ever meant less to me than it does this year. i kinda want to avoid anyone i know tonight, so i might head over the the grad for their silly event since the odds of running into someone i know is very slim. i kinda wish i could just stay at home, but my house is a beacon for people whether i want to be alone or not. all of evan and alex's friends seem to come over whenever they please, and that plus jesse and kat makes for a full house almost all the time. and while occasionally not having to worry about finding something to do is cool, there have been times this last week where i just wanted to quietly read a book and that proved impossible. ben is able to retreat to courntey's, and rob is almost never home, so that just leaves me around because i have nowhere else to go.

i am in this weird limbo right now, and i really want to find something or someone to snap me out of it.

2006-01-19T18:18:00.000-08:00

well things are still sort of endlessly complicated, but i think that i am doing a bit better. lisa is moving out of the house in the next couple of weeks to head up to portland, and someone is coming by in a bit to see if they want to live here. it will be interesting to see how the dynamic changes once lisa moves out. right now, alex, evan and i are around the house the most and because of that we spend the most time together. ben says he will be around more, which will be nice, because he is a great guy to hang out with. rob is enormously busy and probably will never be around all that much, especially since he plans to run for city council. that should be interesting.

i went for a walk in the greenbelt today, partially inspired by my sister's recent photo post of her travels to SC and various SF places of interest. i have had my camera for awhile now, and when i look at all the photos i have taken i think that i should be able to get more use out of it. i am going to carry it with me a lot more now and hopefully more pictures will be the result. as i was walking by one of the two ponds in the northernmost part of the greenbelt i saw something that looked like a river otter, upon closer investigation i confirmed that guess. seeing an otter really surprised me, i don't really know how it got there, the greenbelt is pretty much surrounded by houses, even at the extreme edges. i walked further and ate my lunch near the larger pond which was full of kingfishers, geese, egrets, a grebe or two and of course plenty of mallards. on my way back i stopped by the smaller pond and watched the otter for awhile longer it was then that i noticed that there was another smaller otter on a small man-made island in the middle of the pond. i don't think that this pond is large enough to support two otters, but i hope that they stick around for awhile so that i can go out and visit them again. it is hard for me to believe that davis can seem so much like a city at times and then you can go for a 20 minute walk and see river otters in the wild, or at least semi-wild.

the only other thing of semi-importance to report is that Rock It! will be occurring twice in Feb. on the 5th and 26th. this is a major coup for me, i had hoped that we would eventually get to this point, but i did not think it would happen so soon. it basically validates the reason why i started these nights in the first place which was the fact that kids like me in davis didn't have a lot of fun outlets during the week. college parties get boring real fast, and not being 21+ limits most kids entertainment opportunities. of course, these same kids would never think of going for a walk in the greenbelt, which is a real shame to me because i believe it is one of the really truly unique things about davis. and yet, most people who go here graduate without ever enjoying it.

2005-12-20T15:51:00.000-08:00

My last post came at a particulary bad time. I have since started feeling a little better about myself although, my overall mood would be considered slightly depressed. This is strange for me because winter has always been my favorite season and I do not usually get sad when it rolls around. But for some reason this year is different.

This past week can be summed up simply as confusing. There have been some monumental lows (which I am going to decline to talk about) and some amazing news, all within the span of the last five or so days. I am going in to meet with the Grad tomorrow to talk to them about the upcoming Rock It! and the possibility of starting to do that twice a month. Which is essentially as often as I would ever want to do that event, I don't think that Davis can support a weekly event at this point in time, maybe if Rock It! builds up to a really solid, concrete level we could think about it, but right now twice a month is all I could ask for. I am also going in to talk to the Grad about possibly spinning a set on some of their other nights, we I was asked about this, I was completely blown away. I don't really consider myself a DJ at this point, I just think I have a good idea of what people want to hear and when. And it is a big leap for me to go from DJ-ing the fairly modest indie rock dance night that I also promote, to doing a set at one of the Grad's 18+ dance nights which regularly attract 300-500 people over the course of the night.
We will see how thursday goes.

2005-12-17T03:41:00.000-08:00

life is not particulary awesome right now

2005-12-13T08:06:00.000-08:00

This playlist began as something that I could listen to before I went to sleep at night, but now has evolved into a sort of all-purpose playlist for winter. I have been listening to music a lot more than usual lately because my room is extremely cold and therefore I am usually huddled in blankets for a good portion of time before I get up/fall asleep.

Current Playlist:

Cat Power - He War (She's playing in Feb. and I kind of want to go, although I usually don't like mellow live shows, the reason why I did not go see John Vanderslice when he played in SF recently, which I sorta regret, partly because he seems like such a cool guy that I want to support him any way I can)

Cat Power - Free (These two Cat Power tracks are off You Are Free, and are probably the tracks that I like best, off of the album that I am most familiar with of hers)

She Wants Revenge - These Things (I kinda don't know why this track is on here, except that I have been listening to a lot of She Wants Revenge lately and so a track made it on here almost by default)

AFI - Morningstar (Some would call this a guilty pleasure, but I don't believe in them, you should never feel guilty about anything that you like)

Gorillaz - Dare (I first heard this song in a pizza place maybe two weeks ago, and since then I have come to think it should have been the first single off the new album over "Feel Good Inc."

Garrett Pierce - Left Side of Space (I can't believe that this is the same guy that I subletted my room to two years ago, Garrett is so talented)

Calla - Swagger (This and the other Calla song are damn good, but are only in this playlist as substitutes for "The Strangler")

Of Montreal - The Party's Crashing Us (I dare you to listen to this song and not feel good)

Lil' Wayne - Shooter (I found this song on a music blog the other day, and it is amazing, the sample is one of the most soulful things I have heard in a long time)

Death Cab For Cutie - Crooked Teeth (I am not even that big a Death Cab fan, but I really like the fact that their major label debut is as good as anything they produced on Barsuk)

Calla - It Dawned on Me (Calla's new album is my current addiction, although I only listen to it at work, if I could find a way to make one of their songs work at Rock It! I would be so happy, but Calla is not the kind of band that anyone would really want to dance to. However, they are excellent for lying in bed on cold mornings)

Smashing Pumpkins - Eye (Kai, this song is also to your credit, I think it sounds very uncharacteristic for the Smashing Pumpkins and that is probably one of the reasons why I like it so much)

Matt Bauer - Window Hill (Kai, I owe you for turning me onto this song, it is silly that I had never listened to this, especially since he plays in Davis so frequently, but now I know, and now I love)

The Stills - Still in Love Song (This is currently my favorite song to dance to, it is not a new song, but my love of it is fairly recent, and while I think it is a great song to dance to, I think it is like the Arcade Fire, or the Walkmen in the sense that they are not dance bands, but certain tracks have so much raw emotion that they become danceable)

Laymen Terms - Verity (I found this CD in Amoeba's bargain bin, every time I go record shopping I make myself buy one CD that I know absolutely nothing about. I buy it solely based on the album art, band name, and other superficial factors, most of the time I get burned and end up with a CD that sounds nothing like what I expected, but this CD is actually quite good and the album art is made entirely up of these really cool looking woodcuts. At least I think they are woodcuts.)

2005-12-09T22:29:00.000-08:00

This past weekend was jam-packed with activities, and now it is Friday night again, and I am planning on sitting in my room and watching The Great Escape, because quite frankly Steve McQueen is the shit. However much I want to go out and go to parties/socialize sometimes it is nice to just have some time to myself.

The Rundown:
Friday Night - Jesse, Kat, and I went to see the Devil Makes Three at GAMH, this was a very good night for several reasons. First, because Jesse did not flake at the last minute. Second, because I love the DM3 and no matter how jaded I get about other live shows they will always entertain me and make me feel good. Third, I got to see a bunch of people that I have not seen for quite awhile, Dan S., Luke, Davey, Siobahn all showed up at the show. This was pretty rad, I love all those kids and wish that I could see them more, we talked a little bit about them all coming to Davis, but that likliehood is very low. Kai came back up to Davis with us and spent the remainder of the weekend with me.

Saturday - Kai and I went and had breakfast at Delta, and then she took my car to Sac as I went to work. we met up after work to go to Jesse's house because he was having a few friends over. There were some people there that I don't get to hang out with much, and so hanging out with them was very nice.

Sunday - Kai and I went to Little Prague for breakfast, which was a nice change from Delta. I spent most of the day in a stressed out frenzy and I am amazed that Kai, Jesse and Kat were able to put up with me. Both times I have DJ-ed thus far I have gotten really stressed and irratable before the actual event. The night itself turned out great, I started DJ-ing a little before 10 and although people didn't really start dancing till around 1030 by 1130 there was a solid crowd on the dancefloor. I felt that my DJ-ing was a lot better, my transitions were smoother, and I didn't really ever feel frantic. As usual the silly requests started to annoy me a bit, but that is just something that I am going to have to get used to. The aftermath of the night was that overall about 25 more people showed up, which made for not an excellent turnout, but a very good one. The other thing that I am going to have to get used to is who shows up and who doesn't. People who are supposedly really good friends of mine have never come to one of my nights, while people I only know casually have made time in their schedules to show support. The people who show up I really respect, it is all too easy to make excuses not to come out, and showing up after telling someone that you will is harder than it seems.

It looks like Jan. 8th will be the next night, which will be awesome, because it is on a sunday night (which I prefer) and it is early in the quarter, so school should not matter that much. I really want this one to just explode, it would be great to totally stun the Grad with an amazing night.

Alright, Steve McQueen time for you to take on those Nazis

2005-11-14T03:54:00.000-08:00

So I am sitting here at 4 am on the morning after playing my first game of D & D in several years. I used to have so much fun playing with Isaac and company and it makes me really happy that I am doing it again. However, in the days leading up to playing some insecurities that I have had all my life, that I thought were mostly gone, cropped up again. Which is weird because lately I have been a lot more comfortable and open about embracing my "inner" nerd, but I still would not have told most people that I was going to spend my Sunday playing D & D. However, Jesse and Katt were both more than a little open about sharing that info with anyone and everyone, which made me twinge with discomfort each time.

Now the hardest part is going to be waiting until next Sunday to play again.

I really wish I read "better" books, most of what I read is pulp-ish fantasy or sci-fi. I primarily read the stuff because I can read it super fast and it is a decent form of entertainment. But when I read something like Bester, Mieville, Gavriel Kay, or even Carey to some extent I actually "feel" the story. I have been moved to cry by fantasy novels (and recently while watching the Two Towers I almost teared up) but I don't feel like I read enough books that could be called "good" fiction. But most pure fiction is not all that interesting to me unless there is a particularly strong archetypical character (like Burke from the Vachss novels).

2005-11-04T12:46:00.001-08:00

So Tuesday marked the date of my first ever DJ night, basically everything about the night was in my hands. From the initial idea, to presenting it to the Grad, to promoting it, and finally to actually putting on the night itself. It was a fairly long process and at the end of the night I was fairly exhausted. Initially I was not that pleased with how the night went, I wished more people had shown up and that my DJ-ing skills had been a bit better. But as time has gone on, and I have not only talked to the Grad again, but also talked to many of the people who did come out, I have realized that while the night may not have been an unqualified success, it was successful.

The Grad has tentatively agreed to host my night (which I call Rock It!, after the Herbie Hancock song) again on December 4th. There are several things that I am going to change, the most important being that I do not want to have to DJ the entire night by myself. Initially I wanted a DJ partner, but now I am leaning more towards simply having someone who can give me a breather every once and a while. I think that if I had come into the entire endevour with a partner it would be a different story, but at this point I kinda feel like it is my creation and I do not want to give up control. Plus, I have not really been able to think of someone that I could enter into that kind of partnership with. Jesse is probably the most likely, but he has even less experience DJ-ing than I do, although he is much more musically inclined. Either way, we will see if I get the go-ahead from the Grad, which looks very likely, and then we will see how the next night plays out.

I think the biggest thing that I learned from promoting the first night is that most people are unreliable. I thought that about 100-150 people would show up because it seemed like I had confirmed that many were going to be there, but in reality only about half that number came out. I would like to think that I am more reliable than most when it comes to these things, if I am not going to make it out to an event then I usually tell the person that I won't be there. If certain people hadn't told me that they were going to come out on Tuesday then my expectations for the night would not have been so high, and I probably would have felt better when the night was over.

This has been a very weird week.