September 27, 2003
Radiohead At The Bowl
=IMPORTANT! There are counterfeit tickets being sold on E Bay to the Hollywood Bowl shows on 9/25 and 9/26 - Please DO NOT purchase them as they will not be valid to get into the show.
This notice was on RadioheadÕs website and I can vouch for it because the guys who sat behind us last night at the Hollywood Bowl were apparent victims of the scam. There were doubled tickets for a couple seats and two of the holders were ejected. The legitimate ticket holder however was saying that he believed his tickets were stolen in the mail because he never received them. He had to go through hoops with TicketBastard to get replacements before the show. He had the receipts to prove it. The other guyÕs fate was unfortunate because they probably paid a fortune and were unwitting victims. Probably out on the street and a couple hundred dollars broker.
I heard a lot of buzz throughout the night from people that were at The Bowl for both nightÕs shows. As much as IÕd like to have been to both, itÕs unfathomable to me. These shows are on my list of things I will go deeper in debt for, but aside from the fact that itÕs a difficult ticket to get in the first place, I have to pick and choose these days what IÕm going to pay sixty Š eighty dollars a tic for. IÕm just grateful that I live in walking distance to the Hollywood Bowl so I can skip the twenty-dollar parking price.
On our way in, I said to David Š So, what are they going to do about these cell phone/ camera contraptions when these venues donÕt allow recording devices? Will they eventually ban cell phones too? Will doctors need a note from their doctor? Well, there is always going to be a way to bootleg music and I canÕt even begin to imagine how these phone/cameras will infringe on peopleÕs privacy but thatÕs the deal. We arrived at our seats and lo and behold the guy in front of us spent the entire opening set by Supergrass taking their photos and sending it on to his friends. As the night went on, I could see several twinkles of tiny digital screens flashing through the crowd. I can say one thing for the crowd Š a lot more tech savvy and a lot less g-string.
And speaking of which (savvy not undies) - Radiohead delivered. Worth every penny and then some. I had earlier in the day had another spat with a friend about the user-friendly manufactured music that is forced upon us these days. Radiohead came to my defense in a big way. I could barely break my trance to applaud. It was chilling. The LA TIMES today reviewed the Thursday night show and said it best with:
ŅÉmusic that is so independent and absorbing that it invites pop fans and would-be musicians to live up to rockÕs grandest mission: stepping away from the norm.Ó
September 24, 2003
Todays Celebrity Sighting
It was only appropriate that where I saw Dyan Cannon was at Whole Foods Market. A few years ago when I started watching a lot of Lakers games (and I do watch a lot of them) that I pointed out to my boyfriend that every time the camera caught Dyan, she was eating. True. I am very good at scanning the audience even when the camera is bouncing down the court as fast as Derek Fisher and seeing who's attending each night's game. We've made it a game being on the lookout for Dyan in mid chew. I don't think I've ever seen Jack Nicholson eat one kernal of popcorn but I swear Dyan alone keeps the concession stands in business. She attends a hellofalot of games so therefore eats a hellofalot of junk. She obviously balances it all out by shopping at Whole Foods cuz we can only hope to look that good at her age!
Insuring Your Assets
The dog with the largest ears in the world as recognized by the new 2004 Guiness Book of World Records, is Mr Jeffries the Bassett Hound. Jeffries, whose ears measure 29.2 cm (11.5 in) lives with his owner, Phil Jeffries, in West Sussex, England. Mr Jeffries' full name is Knightsfollie Ladiesman and he is the grandson of Biggles, the face of Hush Puppies shoes. His ears are insured for 30,000 pounds ($47,800).
September 22, 2003
September 21, 2003
PAWS ART
PAWS/LA has put up their new site for Pet Art 5.The auction is November 9, 2003 and you can bid on my donated work, Fanny or Jeff Koons's plaster & glass balloon dog or many other pet related artworks. Even if you don't buy, I hear the event is one of LA's best parties of the year and PAWS/LA is always looking for help and donations.
September 20, 2003
The Grove
Fairfax & 3rd, Saturday September 20. The fountain is in mid dance to Bette Midler's "Do Ya Wanna Dance" and I'm settling my head after Robert Rodriguez's shootemup, "Once Upon A Time In Mexico". I don't know whether I should go take a siesta or take a boxing lesson and drink some tequila....
September 18, 2003
Commenting On Entries
FYI - The Commenting (rants) capabilities for this site have somehow been dismantled so even if you were to make a comment, it wouldn't show up. I apologize and look forward to your comments soon.
Rock n Roll Host
It was only a matter of time before I wrote about my music hero on these pages. We just lost one of AmericaÕs music heroes, Johnny Cash the crusty and crackled southern guitar cowboy that sang of criminals and pain. HeÕll be missed, but still with us is the pasty and SADLY BEAUTIFUL songwriter and rock God from the Land of 10,000 Garage Bands, Paul Westerberg who sings LIKE a criminal IN pain.
-If beinÕ wrongÕs a crime, IÕm serving forever
-If beinÕ strongÕs your kind, then I need help here with this feather
-If beinÕ afraid is a crime, we hang side by side
-At the swinginÕ party down the line
I remember the first time I heard the Replacements, the now-defunct band that Westerberg fronted. It was, I think 1984 and I was riding with some friends in a 1960Õs Mustang and reading aloud Jack SkelleyÕs ŅFear Of Kathy AckerÓ when Unsatisfied came on the radio. My friend Pam acted like it was yesterdays news but within days we listened to nothing else except the album from which it came Š LET IT BE. Like Springsteen had done for the workingman, Westerberg had done with teen angst. I was no longer in my teens and neither was Paul, but it transcended and still does. Twenty years later he still writes with self-deprecation and wit that matches no other Š and many try. Westerberg songs make Dave Mathews and John Mayer songs look like the watered-down, user-friendly kiddie pop that they are.
Yeah, IÕm biased. The Replacements were the best garage-grunge-punk-pop band of the eighties and they spawned a thousand bands since that have had greater commercial success than ŅThe MatsÓ will have ever known. Critically though, The Mats are and will always be on the map. Though it seemed for a while that we may never see anything from Paul, he thankfully plugged away in his Minneapolis basement and continued to write and record. He denounces major labels because of their lack of loyalty and the restrictions on his freedom. After all Š can you imagine some young executive telling John Lennon, Tom Waits or Johnny Cash what he canÕt do? I realize thereÕs an argument to that. Those guys have sold millions but Replacements / Westerberg fans are just as loyal if not more than any Beatle fan.
-Well sheÕs kind of like an artist
-SittinÕ on the floor
-Never finishes, she abandons
-Never shows a soul
-And sheÕs kind of like a movie
- Everyone rushes to see
-And no one understands it
-SittinÕ in their seats
-She opens her mouth to speak and
-What comes outÕs a mystery
-Thought about, not understood
-SheÕs achinÕ to be
So it was last night that my friend Chris and I went to a screening of PaulÕs documentary, COME FEEL ME TREMBLE, at the Silver Lake Film Festival. Put together with photos and (ŅIllegalÓ) footage from his last record-hawking tour, he put together 88 minutes of film for his insatiable fans. Chris had hoped that it would be a bit of a nostalgia trip, informing an unknowing audience of his past with the band. It didnÕt. Nor did it show what his life was like outside of his basement other than the tour. It basically gave us something to hang on to, like he does with every new album. Keeping himself just below the radar except to those of us clamoring for anything we can get.
There were juicy tidbits of course. He told the story of him going up in a hotel elevator with Kurt Cobain (who was an obvious follower and student of The Mats). They said nothing to each other. The cameraman said to Paul, ŅYouÕre kidding. I would think he would be dying to say something to you.Ó Paul responded, ŅHe was just dying to be dying and I was just dying to be anywhere else. We got off on the same floor, got to our doors at the same time, fumbled with our keys simultaneously, got in our rooms and both slammed our doors.Ó
-Well you came
-And you stayed
-No one here to raise a toast
-Be my guest and I will be a host
-To a rock ÕnÕ roll ghost
-We donÕt know until weÕre gone
-ThereÕs no one here to raise a toast
-I look into the mirror and I see
-A rock ÕnÕ roll ghost
He also laughed at the demise of the Replacements saying basically that their failure was their success. Or vice versa maybe. He ventured that it wasnÕt a big surprise that Bob Stinson, the guitar player died. (But not until about ten years after they kicked him out of the band.) He says half jokingly that he has been waiting for Tommy Stinson, the bass player (who was fourteen when they formed and never learned to drive because he dropped out of school and went on tour) to die and since he hasnÕt, maybe then it was supposed to be his turn next. Thankfully, Tommy is alive and well and under the shaky arm of Axl Rose, playing bass for Guns Ōn Roses and making music with his own band, Perfect. Chris Mars, the drummer, has also made some critically acclaimed records, is an accomplished artist and he and Paul have patched up their decade-long fight. There was even thought put in recently to a Replacements reunion but allegedly (for now) Tommy said no because Axl needed him. And Paul, whose only remaining vice is cigars - is married and a father, and sometimes refuses to play a requested Mats song just because he canÕt remember it, continues to recognize, and write painfully true music. Like Chris Mars once said, ŅItÕs not that the rest of us didnÕt submit our own songs to play Š PaulÕs were just always better.Ó
-"shocking how nothing shocks anymore,"
-The message read as it washed ashore
-Skies turn black as my eyes look down
-Written on the back are these words IÕve found:
-weÕll inherit the earth but we donÕt want it
-ItÕs been ours since birth, whatÕcha doinÕ on it?
-WeÕll inherit the earth but we donÕt want it
-LayinÕ claim at birth, whatÕcha doinÕ on it? "
-Waterfalls of grain flow through our hands
-WeÕre too weak to stand and too weak to stray
-Big trees sway and the air is still
-Lovers climb at the top of a hill and say
-"weÕll inherit the earth but we donÕt want it
-ItÕs been ours since birth, whatÕcha doinÕ on it?
-WeÕll inherit the earth but we donÕt want it
-Laid our claim at birth, whatÕcha doinÕ on it? "
The following links will get you to some of the more important Paul / Replacements pages which will take you everywhere else.
-ŅAny place is better than hereÉÓ
Yeah, thatÕs me and Paul in 1997 behind the Troubadour in Hollywood. We couldnÕt get tickets to that show but had seen him twice already that week. We just happened to drive through the alley on our way to drown our sorrowful attempts at scalping tickets and there he was with less than a minute before going on stage. We pulled up, I asked if I could take his picture and he said, in pure Paul sarcasm, ŅSure, I got time.Ó I hopped out, slammed my camera into the nearest hands and Paul and I stood arm in arm. He asked how I was. I told him I was fine except that I wasnÕt seeing the show. Click, the picture was taken and someone shouted, ŅPaul, youÕre on!Ó And away he went to roaring applause. When I got the film back, my friend said she had never seen that expression on my face ever. Hell, IÕm not sure I recognize that girl either, but I know that picture wouldnÕt exist if we had gotten tickets. And a picture is worth a thousand words. Westerberg lyrics are often priceless.
September 15, 2003
Cheap Bikinis and Travel Agency
Just goes to show ya' - you can get anything in L.A. I think next door is an Armenian Bakery and a pawn shop.
September 12, 2003
John & Johnny
Both groundbreakers and legends in their own crafts, we must bid adieu to John Ritter and Johnny Cash. When I got up this morning I thought I'd be only making a farewell entry to the Man In Black. It has been speculated for some time that he might depart this earth so it wasn't too surprising that he followed his wife after only four months. But what a shocker that John Ritter has gone to join the Eminent Regal Beagle.
I turned on MTV this morning and they were playing Johnny's latest, "Hurt", the cover of the Nine Inch Nails tune. It's just about one of the saddest, yet beautiful things I've ever seen. They'll probably be playing it a lot in the coming days so if you haven't seen it....
Barbara Walters once asked Johnny if he thought he would go to Heaven or Hell. He answered, "Heaven. I've already been in Hell."
If only there really was a bar called the Regal Beagle in Santa Monica like in "Three's Company", I'd put on all black and go down there and toast a couple of cool guys.
September 11, 2003
I Love New York
To mark this day, September 11, 2003, I share with you a picture of myself in 1990, standing on Liberty Island, across the waters from the World Trade Center. Leather, plaid, stripes, and more hair than Cher's wig room. I'm sure thousands of people have almost exactly the same picture (minus the fashion kaleidoscope) but I'm glad to have mine in the photo album.
Check out my recently revamped website that shows my 9/11 artwork. Making the art was a labor of love and I thank everyone who contributed by drinking beer and sending me their bottle caps. Cheers and peace.
September 10, 2003
MORE 9/11 ART
I've added detail photographs of my 9/11 Artwork at Buzznet. Thanks to Brian Flemming's mention, I realize these pieces are more conducive to an up close and personal viewing. Just remember - a look at a few of the bottle caps represents over a thousand....
Take a look!!
September 09, 2003
Septemberances
Click on photos to see them larger. It will take you to buzznet, where my photo albums will be.
Two years ago on September 11, I was working as an agent at a commercial talent agency. I got up that morning at my usual hour and took the dog for a walk. When I returned, I flipped on the TV and there it was. I'm not even sure now whether I saw the second plane live or if Katy Couric was relaying the repeats. I don't have to tell you how it felt watching this. I don't have to tell you how it felt getting ready for work. Driving to work. Los Angeles had already quieted down enormously. Studios and theme parks were shutting down, not to mention stores and banks and LAX.
When I got to work, the first person I saw was my fellow agent and friend Barbara, who, coincidentally was now NOT celebrating her birthday. We kept the TV on all morning while the agency owner tried to decide whether or not to close up shop. There was nothing going on in the entertainment world that day as far as wheeling and dealing goes, and certainly no casting. We spent the morning calling actors and turning them back from scheduled auditions. Most everything was postponed. And, in fact, it slowed everything for months thereafter and they made less commercials and there were less auditions and less money moving and less to do. Within two months I was laid off and within four months Barbara was laid off.
Anyway, the boss did decide to let people go home around noon but before we did, we went next door to THE STEAK JOYNT. As par, the only places doing business in times of depression and disaster are BARS. We watched the TV together and hoisted a couple strong ones to the folks in New York and to our friend Barbara who knew too well that this day would forever mark her birthday as the worst day in the nation's recent history.
When I got home, I picked up my digital camera and pointed it at the television. Through the following weeks of tears, I clicked away at everything that I saw presented to us through the televised media. For months therafter, I continued clicking whenever there was a benefit concert or news conferances or presidential speech, the World Series or the return of football. I had over a thousand photos depicting various stages of the Twin Towers collapse and the people and nation in reaction. I edited them, sized them, printed them and then created several pieces of artwork using hundreds of collected bottle caps as frames for these pictures and applied them to painted canvases and 2 by 4's and whatever else. More than anything, I guess it was a good therapy for me. I'm not sure Barbara, with everything else she has to deal with in her adult life, can even look at these now very familiar images. (I get many different reactions to the artwork - some have immediately teared, some look away, and some delve in and look at every single little image.)
I called Barbara last week to find out what she might be doing for her birthday this year. She was not even happy to think about it let alone discuss it. She said, "It's already started. I don't want my birthday." She meant that the coverage had begun. The media, the hype, the reminders. Maybe she would feel wrong to celebrate, maybe she feels gypped. Maybe its one more thing she doesn't need to remind her of what she thinks is her continuous lack of luck. Contrary to those reactions, Barbara is one of the strongest and wackiest women I know. Though I share with you my 9/11 artwork in memory of the infamous day and our losses, I hope you will join me in wishing my friend a great and happy birthday.
September 04, 2003
JOB INSECURITY
Well, for those of you (family, I guess) that were concerned about my job situation... I will soon be working in some office somewhere on some studio lot... I won't be assisting the post production/digital/opticals company in the film world after all, but sticking with my long time friend and now mentor in the comedy/television world. He has a list of credits as long as the tattoos on his arms and hopefully, thanks to his current development deal we will soon be creating some original/irreverant/left of center sitcoms. Something we are, in my opinion, severely lacking. Then again, if he creates some rehashed, popular crap, who am I to complain? Can you say, "No he's not here right now, he's in a meeting, he's behind closed doors, he's on the phone with Rupert Murdoch..." In other words - he's on the golf course.
It ain't rocket science, but it's a craft.
September 01, 2003
Viva La Bronson
I was never a fan of Charles Bronson until I saw him blow off Ed McMahon. I worked at Neiman Marcus in Beverly Hills for several years and both men were semi-frequent customers. There I was in the handbag department making pretty dispays with pretty Pradas while Ed was surveying the Gucci bags. I saw, at the same time Ed did, Charles Bronson heading toward the escalator with his young Bel Air wife. Ed started hooting to him like a teenager at an NSync concert. "Charles! Chuck! Hey, Chuck!" Now on the moving staircase, Mr. Bronson looked our way with nary an expression. Ed, having eye contact but no reaction from the movie star, points to himself and calls out, "It's Ed. Ed McMahon." Not skipping a beat or even moving a hair on his tough-guy face, Charles Bronson made the slightest of nods and disappeared up the stairs. It was a Hollywood moment I couldn't help but savor and now that Charles Bronson is gone, I will not soon forget.