this was a good weekend of drinks, Darjeeling Limited (so-so), mulled cider get-togethers and AND, i had a photo in The Saturday Times. yay! 12/2/07 Another amazing Arcade Fire show last night with Clinic opening. the venue was huge but it was really fun. they were in top form as it's their last shows ever for a couple years. May go tomorrow too. we had special wristbands too that got us into the drinks area after with arcade fire dudes there. pretty cooL!! Saw American Gangster today instead of going to the Imperial War Museum as planned but that will happen! 11/18/07 Just gor back from NY and DC! PICS HERE. It was great to see old friends and the parents and sister. Had a great bday there too, it made me miss NY a little and people there but I was also glad to come back to London. I celebrated by accidentally stubbing my toe so hard i fractured it a little. ew! it's easier to walk today but more puffy and purple! ew ew. So instead of running for a few weeks, i might try swimming. totally scary! but supposedly the best excercise ever. cool! Nov. 6, 2007 Tomorrow i go to NY for the first time since i moved from there a little over two years ago. I'll see parents, old friends (NY and SF peeps), turn 33 26 and SHOP. i'm excited for all this but really excited to buy things that are like half the price of here and supercool and NY, maybe see Warhol films and just enjoy the Big Apple. 10/24/07 Vienna/Bratislava was really cool, Vienna more so--went to the zoo, a castle, the Leopold Museum, St. Stephens Cathedral and lots of walking and eating yummy food and desserts. PICS HERE 10/20/07 off to Vienna/Bratislava for a couple days today. woo gonna see wht it's like over there... 10/12/07 Enjoying my first post-MKP week but it's hard not to feel on-edge not having other work lined up! But because of 2 trips coming up, it's hard to get freelance work for the in-betweeny days that I'm here. Thought i'd be at my last job through this time but it ended earlier than expected! ah well, trying to save that tube fee and walk everywhere and discover more lOndon too. On sunday, i walked from my house to Primrose Hill then to Regent Park then to Hyde Park then to the Serpentine Gallery to check out the Matthew Barney show. it was little but had cool videos of him doing his on-site art in different galleries including the SF Moma. Saw Control on Saturday and checking out Superbad today! Catching up on movies is fun. Off to Vienna/Bratislava with John and Lis on Fri. yay, new parts of the world! 10/8/07 ahh catching up on Deadwood episodes on a lazy Sunday morning. it's great, especially after running around London yesterday with the film festival kids. We eventually got to see Doug's film after some film festival time screwups and in between we went to Notting Hill & Portobello and then back to Picadilly/Soho for drinks. Lots of the most crowded parts of London on a crowded Saturday. but really fun. Friday night I showed the NY kids the Barbican center which is always cool and then we went to old co-worker John's leaving party at Zig Zag which was fun!! 10/8/07 it turned into winter in like two days! i kinda like it tho. Pics from France here 9/28/07 Wow time goes fast! Summer's about over, my time at Mykindaplace is up soon. Just got back from Paris for Alex & JB's wedding. it was great, we stayed with JB's brother in a really cool house outside paris. the wedding was at a castle/chateau that the family owned that looks like a mini Versaille. it couldn'tve been more picturesque. Just great. i got to speak French alot too! it's not good but it felt neat having actual elementary conversations in French! Off to NY for a little visit in a couple weeks. 9/24/07 i just got back from my first real music festival. It was Latitude in Suffolk county and is billed as more than a regular festival cause there are comedy, literery, film, cabaret and poetry tents, aside from tons of great music. That really brought in the hip families with little kids so it felt like a really safe and easy festival, which i liked. i camped for 2 nights and met my friend jo and some other people down there. i saw wilco, two gallants, cold war kids, arcade fire, elvis perkins, clap your hands say yeah, and alot more. The real unexpected, standout performances were Jarvis Cocker and Patrick Wolf. both fantastic showman. i'm back in london with day off and really glad i went to it! the weather was mostly great and it's a really pretty setting. everyone said it was a great festival, compared to others here. a good one to be my first, for sure. 7/16/07 it's raining alot here everyday, way different than last summer where it was scorching and humid everyday. i actually prefer this i think. I tried the eyebrow threading thing last weekend, it really hurts but the results are totally worth it. whatever you think you can do yourself, it's way better with threading. i'm converted! also i got a watch! i haven't had one in a while, i just like having a watch. 7/3/07 This week was fun--I saw old coworkers on friday then met my friend at the Camden Arts Centre on Sat. then nick and i saw David Cross and friends perform on Saturday at the last of his 8 nights of shows here at the 100 Club. He was pretty funny but his friends Eugene Mirman and Todd Barry were super funny. Then on Sunday i was on Brick Lane and happened upon the store that one of my favorite cats, Toby, lives in but who hadn't been there for ages. But he was back! it was so good to see him, he really is one of the sweetest, friendliest cats evar. 7/2/07 A fun week its been here! Still freelancing at My Kinda Place which is kinda my kinda place...at least for now. This week I tried a trampoline class at the YMCA after reading about it in Time Out. As one would think, it's super bouncy and fun and actually really excercisey. I get to take a free class next week cause of delays and a sick teacher this week. can't wait! i got pretty good by the end of it! Also saw New Pornographers, also bouncy and fun. Pretty psyched for a free Beirut show on Monday that hopefully won't be ridiculously crowded as free shows usually are. I'm hoping the target demographic is still strung out from Glastonbury and opts out. 6/12/07 June! it's June! time goes by faster and faster. we went to Spitalfields farm today and visited my adopted bunny Nadia and yesterday i took pictures of this guy Daveid Allen who was a pioneer in space jazz i think. He did stuff with William Burroughs and other important people and i got to listen to his life story while he told it to the writer. good stuff. Time feels skewed here cause it's light out til about 10pm so it always feels earlier than it is. It's like finland..or iceland or whatever. 6/3/07 Just at the end of a nice long weekend. Nick & i saw the Joe strummer documentary which is really thorough and good. Hung out w/old work friends last night and one of them had a cat and it was fun hanging out with a cute kitty again! I also saw Apples in Stereo on friday which was really good and like the old days when i used to see them in the 90's. Also made a load of record bowls. So a really productive and fun weekend. It's been nonstop rain here for days but i still love being back. My little studio is super cute and is coming together well. 5/28/07 woo finally have internet at the new place. I got a suepr cute studio in fancy belsize park. it's a really pretty area, not too far from Camden and i have alittle studio behind a nice house owned by nice people. Been freelancing here and just kinda settling in. Things are good and i might get out and do some londony stuff this weekend cause i havent done much of that since i got back (only two weeks ago). pictures of the new place to come too! Saw Two Gallants and Cold War Kids since i got back and Apples in Stereo is Fri. and Gogol Bordello next week. So nice to be back in the land of free passes and concert photography, ampong other things! 5/23/07 yay back in london! i'm at nick's in Whitechapel, like i never left! tomorrow i begin job and house search after a great night's sleep! 5/7/07 soo i got my passport back today and i get to back to the UK! i'll be leaving sunday and resuming life there asap! i have my first printed concert photos in a magazine this year in West Coast Performer! it's of clinic and earlimart at Noise pop this year. go here! 5/3/07 wow another long break and no update here. well i'm soon on my way back to the UK. that's right i got my main visa but i'm waiting for an entry clearance thingy still. so if all goes well, i should be back by early-to mind may. yay!! it's been way too long in limbo. Also i did at least one productive thing here which was to give my portoflio site a much-needed overhaul. check it out please! 4/24/07 wow over a month since i've last written here and not much has changed! Nick visited and we went to LA which was fun and i'm seeing lotsa friends here and going to lots of yoga and making stuff. Its nice being here but i'm feeling anxious and useless as i want to get my life back on track but the Home Office doesn't seem to feel any rush in telling me the verdict of my application. So it goes, hopefully i'll have good news soon! 3/19/07 dying a bit in Sf as i seemed to have picked up some food poisoning or flu thing. Went snobboarding sunday w/tory and crew which was great and really hard. It was all warm too which was weird. Then yesterday i started feeling nauseus and threw up some and now i'm still dying a bit of nauseous. It's annoying but i guess i'll get better soon! 2/6/07 wow saw the FIrst of 5 Arcade Fire shows at St. John's church here, last night. So good! but it kinda sucked to be stuck standing by our seats so if you were in abad spot, you couldn't really change it. but they were great and marched out at the end and did one of their songs all unplugged outside in front of the church! so cool. and i accidentally wandered in during their soundcheck and that was quite cool to see. A good thing to leave the UK on...temporarily... 1/29/07 oh dear, wrapping things up here for the time being. i know i'll be back in a month or two so i'm leaving lotsa stuff at Nick's and taking clothes stuff home with me for the time i'm there. Did a really good shoot with The Mighty Roars yesterday. used lighting and stuff. i'm really pleased with the results and they seem to be too. Can't wait to do another job like this! Today we went to the zoo and then Camden and finally ate at Wagamama. was pretty yummy. Had my last day of work which was sad cause i really like the place but i could go back to work there when i'm back. I'd like to at least do part time there. The people are top notch and we were starting to do some really cool work too. So i'm leaving here wednesday and i'm ready to move out of my flat so that's not a problem. And i'm excited to visit home but i just want to know i'll be coming back here! i'm at the mercy of the Home office and i can't tell if they like me! oh yeah also finally watched Happy Endings. Soooo good. just loved it. 1/28/07 ew so life is weird now. with my work permit rejection, i'm now applying for this HSMP (highly skilled migrant thing) which is actualyl better than the work permit cause i can work anywhere instead of being tied to the one job i'm sponsored at. but i wont have all the documentation in time for when my visa expires (1/31) so i gotta leave the country while it's all getting sorted. kinda ugh and crazy. gotta move out which is ok and leave my job which may or may not still be there whenever i come back. It's all a bit crazy which is ok as long as i get my visa! so i'm trying to do londony things in my last 10 days here. So today i walked over to Broadway market which only happens on sat. but that area is cute so it's ok. then walked along Regents canal (JUST made the connection to the 'regents canal' in the Fiery Furnaces song) then went to this light/sound thing at the V & A i wanted to check out. It was neato looking there. been watching lotsa movies but the only thing i super liked was Last king of scotland. Also saw Art School Confidential, The Break Up, and the Yes Men. 1/21/07 so far so good in 2007. watched Unnited 93 yesterday which is everything you'd expect. tragic and heartwrenching and really well done. Last night we went to the Bethnal Green Working Men's club which does different kinda party nights and last night was really fun and less kitschy, retro-y than usual. Still good music and dancing though! Work is good and busy and I want to do some more crafty stuff. I need ideas of new kinds of stuff to make. 1/7/07 wow 2007!! WEIRD! last night was super fun. Hung out w/Nick, Jason, Allison and their friend Peggy. we mistly hung out at my house til just after midenight then went in search of this one party and crashed another then got kicked out then came home and hung out more. I was starting to feel sick again so i didn't want anything too crazy so it was just right! Along the way tho, Nick kicked an old tv on the street to be all rocknroll and he was like 'owww that hurt' all night and today his toes were all purple and swollen so went to the hospital and he broke the big toe! not much you can do though, just limp around til it heals. aww. anyway back to work tomorrow. that is weird. it seems like it's been so long off work but i have done alot in that time so i guess it's ok. 1/1/07 woo back in london after a lovely few days in the country at Nick's parents' for xmas. They live in Melksham and we also went to Bath and many other little downs. it's all very cute and englishy. did the proper xmas dinner thing and watched lotsa tv and movies. got a cold somehow and our internet at at home is screwed ugh ugh so gotta go to cafes w/the laptop which always feels sketchy. Jason Allison are here yay! so we hang out tomorrow. 12/27/06 it got cold here! like winter in England cold. got the ok from the bosses to start the work permit process. yay! this is really really good news. now i just gotta do it all in time. i bit scary and down to the wire but oh well! Did a bit more shopping after work last night. Got an awesome gift for Cristina and Christian, only 3 months after their wedding. Met up w/Jane from NY. it was cool to see her here. It's so funny to see people from the states here cause it's like there but in another country and it's not really different at all but it's a whole different place and it seems like it should be different. yeah ... Going to experience UK dental as i go for my first teeth cleaning here. eek! 12/19/06 ah winter is upon us. it's nice and cozy and glovey. Saw The Prestige w/Jo last night. it's good and twisty. overall pretty good. did a load of xmas shopping yesterday, never going near Oxford St. again. it's insane which is to be expected i guess. Today i met up w/this band I'm going to shoot next week. They're super nice and i think the shoot'll be really fun! Also my Jason Pierce pic in the Dec. Artforum came out. i'm pretty psyched! AND last week there was a screening of the Pete Burns doc that World of Wonder did that i did some fake newspaper graphics for. The show is super fun and a bit train wreck-y, in a good way. 12/10/06 wow hi december! had a nice weekend--got a much-needed haircut which i like alot. saw Tom Brosseau again at the Spitz. he was great--did a cool cover of 'Where is my Mind'. yesterday went to the Imperial War Museum which is super cool. gotta go back to spend more time there. Saw Jo's film which is sooo good. she did an amazing job. it was so cool to see it there. Last night shot out Jefferey Lewis for Beard mag. never heard of him before, like him alot. didnt stay for Danielson Family cause i was all tired. 12/4/06 hi just got back from Barcelona! kevin was here for a few days then we cruiesed over there for a few days. Barcelona is super super fun. There's great signs everywhere too, i wanna make a book of it. We danced to good garage rock one night and i tried Cava, the Spanish wine but its just like champaign. Saw lots of Gaudi and other Spainy stuff. it was great. now i gotta get thru this week and my sister visits tomorrow and soon i find out by job fate! ugh! 11/22/06 UPDATE!! so i went to my first bonfire night fireworks at Victoria Park w/some work friends and while i was waiting for them, with hundreds or thousands of ppl milling about, who do i see again but J. Spaceman! omg!! so i had to go say hi altho i felt a bit stalkery by this point. he was all nice and said he did put me on the list for that show a couple weeks ago. aww! so bummed! but he said to get that photo to Artforum of him for their year end article thing coming out soon. So it was cool he remembered that. anyway, yay! 11/5/06 ackk November! lots to do this month and work's been extended by another month too! yay! might go to fireworks for Guy Fawkes day tonight. haven't seen English fireworks yet. Fiinally watched The Squid & The Whale, it was alright, maybe not as good as i expected. Also saw Gogol Bordello again last night. It was weird seeing them at such a big place (Brixton Academy), it was fun shooting super close up at a big venue but i wasn't as into the music... 11/5/06 had a great 2nd birthday in london making me the ripe, old age of 32. omg weird!! went bowling at a chav-tastic place in Elephant & Castle. super fun. today we did Brick Lane bagels mmm and saw Marie Antoinette. It's definitely style over substance, and very little substance at that, but i still kinda liked it. it's a bit boring but always pretty visually interesting. Now some busy weeks are upon me as I start shooting for the Lubavitch Jews' film as well as work as well as visitors like Kevin and my sister in the next couple weeks. eeek! 10/29/06 wow what a cool weekend! we went in the rain today to another local city farm but it was pouring and i was cranky and not dressed for it. there were some adorable animals though of course. Watched Team America, 9 Songs and Omen 2 which is super scary and 70s. Also yesterday Juliet came to my hood and we were walking around Brick Lane and i totally saw Jason Pierce (Spiritualized) and like every music person i like alotm i had to approach and he was super nice and is gonna try and help me get the list for his show in London tomorrow. Then laster we saw Bob Geldof, twice! oh man Season 1 of Entourage just ended. gonna have to start renting it to see more! 10/22/06 wow i'm officially old-ish cause after weeks of headaches i went to the optician for an eye test and they confirmed that i'm very slightly far-sighted and i need to wear glasses when concentrating like doing computer stuff or watching a movie. I'm pretty psyched. i got these 2 frames for the price of 1 and i can't wait to wear glasses! it's fun! i just hope it makes the headaches go away. also Juliet, Noel and Josie are here so we hung out all day yesterday which was RAD. it's so fun seeing them in London! esp. after just doing the countryside Fiddletown thing in CA not long ago. Juliet and I cruised around the Islington shops and she got some stuff and then we met up with nick at dinner and Noel back at Mat's house and chilled there for the night. good times! Work is goin great aside from always being tired cause i can never sleep well the night before I have to get up early but work itself and the place and the people are super! I need new music though cause they are pretty sick of all my indie crap i think hehe (but who cares, right?). 10/15/06 my hair is about to enter new and unchartered territory. i'm kinda trying to grow it in the hopes it'll ay flat when it grows out a bit but of course it needs some layers and texturizing so i went to get a trim cause the back is getting way puffy but the rest is getting longer and i like it. but i had like a half hour convo w/the hair guy and he was convinced the whole top and back is too short to thin out or trim and it'll jjust make it puffier. so basically i need to deal with the puffiness for another month til it grows a bit and they can thin it. at this point, it'll just make it worse. that was just one guy's opinion but i believe him and it was nice not to spend the money. so ok, gonna have to wear it up alot but it's all part of the experiment! We watched Lost in La Mancha last night which was alright but not really as catastrophic as i expected. Disclosure was on tv after which was riviting! i got really into it! 10/9/06 my hair is about to enter new and unchartered territory. i'm kinda trying to grow it in the hopes it'll ay flat when it grows out a bit but of course it needs some layers and texturizing so i went to get a trim cause the back is getting way puffy but the rest is getting longer and i like it. but i had like a half hour convo w/the hair guy and he was convinced the whole top and back is too short to thin out or trim and it'll jjust make it puffier. so basically i need to deal with the puffiness for another month til it grows a bit and they can thin it. at this point, it'll just make it worse. that was just one guy's opinion but i believe him and it was nice not to spend the money. so ok, gonna have to wear it up alot but it's all part of the experiment! We watched Lost in La Mancha last night which was alright but not really as catastrophic as i expected. Disclosure was on tv after which was riviting! i got really into it! 10/9/06 OK right, didn't win the ITV pitch BUT i got a job!! and a job i really really wanted! at this place Zig Zag--i'll be training as an assistant helping on their title graphics. Considering i don't know After Effects AT ALL, this is quite a feat. But they seemed to think i had the background and skills to pick it up alright and be useful. The place is cool and the people really nice, AND it's a 20min. walk from here which, in London, is amazing. So i've been hanging out with these Lubavitchers (Hasidic Jewz) because i made a short film for school on the dad and now the mom wants a short video on her woman's group. They're really sweet and it's interesting hanging out with Jews who are sooo different. I went to their house last night for Sukkot and some of their kids were there too, i think they have 7 or something. I don't understand some of their customs, and i want to ask but i feel like it's dumb. Maybe if i was just with one of them but in front of all of them, no way. It's funny cause the sons have all studied in NY and they know Brooklyn better than i do. Then i met up with Dan and his friend Victoria in Queensway cause he's off to Belgium and Amsterdam today and I won't be here for his last show in London in a couple weeks. We did a silly photoshoot around the hotel cause there's gonna be a story in Rolling Stone and they wanted 'exclusive' new photos. Who knows if they'll use em tho? I left around 1:30 and they had to leave at 7 and play a show tonight and the other guys weren't even back yet. omg i could never be in a band!! 10/7/06 it's October!! can't believe it!! argghh....put up lotsa new pics of Dan Sartain from his show last Thurs and his instore at Rough Trade on Sat. I'm starting to likek the new Digital SLR more now cause i'm getting the shots i want. i miss film a bit but i don't miss the crap shoot that it is somtimes, when i get a whole roll back and it's all too dark or whatever. Had a pitch at ITV yesterday to do the title sequence for a new comedy show starting next month. I have no idea how it went and i got lost and had to take a taxi to make it on time then i left my new razr phone in the car so i was a bit frazzled when i got there. The phone is a goner but since i just got under contract i have 3 free months insurance so a new one was cheap. yay! but yeah the pitch went alright i thought but even if it goes nowhere after this, i'll have it here that it happened!! 10/3/06 ahh it's all nice and dark and grey and stormy today. such cozy hot chocolate weather i love it!! Did alot this weekend since i didnt have to work on anything though i need to be putting down ideas for a new freelance thing. Went to the V & A for the 60's fashion exhibit which was alright. Went to the Spitalfields City Farm yesterday and saw tons of cute animals. i love city farms. Also watched Capote, Pierrepoint and most of Pacific Heights which is still super scary! 9/25/06 so i've realized i've been here a year now. yay! i love it and don't wanna live anywhere else just yet! 9/20/06 so my first post-school activity was to finally see Little Miss Sunshine last night. I'm so glad we saw it after the initial hype died down cause i've heard that it's not as funny or as great as the first reviews said, i think cause people expected it to be AMAZING but a couple months after it came out, i've heard lotsa good things and bad things. So i was going in feeling neutral. It's definitely not a full-on comedy tho there's funny stuff. alot of it felt really sad and melancholy to me. I really liked the characters and the dynamics of the family. I left feeling kind of weird and sad and overall, I really liked it. 9/19/06 wow i can't believe it but after a disasterous failed external hard drive with all my data on it, my film is finished! i was at Jo's work for 12 hours yesterday where her co-worker was amazing and helped me re-digitize and color grade everything so it's all sorted. i definitely couldnt've done it without them and probably would've had a few breakdowns by now. I'm pretty bummed that i can't recover my HD and it might cost a ton to take it somewhere so i'm not sure what to do there. but in the meantime, I"M DONE!! littlepants has a Masters Degree!!! who'd have thought they'd see THAT day! not me. this week is all movies and sushi woohooo!! 9/18/06 avocados are like the best thing ever. How i only just realized this, i do not know but i'm going to use the rest of my life to make up for all the years I didn't eat my quote of avocados!! 9/18/06 yuck i'm not used to gross british tap water yet--i got all spoiiled when i was home cause SF has really tasty tap water and in comparison, the stuff here tastes dirty and mineraly, but i must've gotten used to it cause i stopped noticing it after a while but now it's really noticable again. too bad. 9/7/06 So in the past week, i've had the chance to catch Viking Moses and Tom Brosseau twice. Both are amazing live performers and anyone who can, should go see them! Tom Brosseau is playing SF soon so y'all should do yourself a favor and go! JUST Trust me on this! also finally got Season 3 arrested development. sooo excited. i've never so eagerly awaited a dvd. i almost dont wanna watch it cause then i'll have watched it and that's so sad. it's sooo hot and humid here again ew. where's winter darnit!? 9/6/06 Wow, back from SF and it went sooo fast even though i was there for 2 weeks! just crazy. Saw college buddies and Theresa's wedding, yay! and the regulars like jasonallison, jen, tory, juliet, noel, josey etc. Ate lotsa burrits and stocked up on things i needed. Nick came over too so we got to do touristy stuff like Alcaztraz, bridge, cable car. it was all neato. Of course the highlight was Cowboy Campfire in Fiddletown where tory's parents have a house. it was fantastic. Also we caught some of the Drawing Restraint movie that goes with matthew Barney's new show at MOMA. i think i liked it more than Cremaster. Now i've just got in even tho it's morning time which is a weird time to get in . i think i can crash for a bit and still sleep tonight! i'm kinda sick too ugh ugh. some pics from the trip are up on Flickr but they're all here too 8/29/06 woo i'm at the airport. the car i took said i should get picked up at 5:30 so now it's about 8 and i've been here for ages cause nothing took very long. still an hour and a half to board. very bored, tired. they gave us free water and i wish i brought a bigger bag cause actually the bags they're allowing on board are pretty big and i just brought this little tote bag and it's real heavy. ok later! 8/16/06 ok outta here tomorrow, United site says u can bring a small bag so yay! i'm equippeed w/reading material and sleeping pills since i have to wake up at 4:45 tomorrow, i might as well sleep on the plane if possible! I bought The Jungle today which i've been meaning to read for ages and also Grazia cause you cant get enough of Jennifer Aniston's plight these days. In SF i plan to: make shirts, work on film, see lotsa friends, show Nick around and do touristy stuff, go away w/tory, hang out w/parents, and eat and shop. that'll keep me bussyyy! 8/15/06 ok now i'm a teeeny bit worried to fly home next week. i hate this! boats are the new planes! but really, when you can't read Spin and In Style on an 11 hour flight, the terrorists really have won. 8/11/06 woo last night was 3rd or so music pub quiz at local Jack The Ripper pub, The Ten Bells and we won! With a winning combo of nick, shay, stewart and gareth we each went away with 9 pounds! And this was a super hard one. Music pub quizzes rule--America needs to wake up to this! 8/7/06 There was fun stuff this weekend that includes seeing Friends With Money (really good, i love this director's dialogue and characters, ever since Walking & Talking tho Jennifer Aniston's dude at the end is basically an update of the Kevin Corrigan character. Last night Tom had a big huge party that was fun. I left Gareth there and he met some people and stayed up til this afternoon with them at his house. ick! i bet they're feelin' great now! Today i FINALLY made it to the new Museum of Packaging and Advertising and it's......amazing! there's over 10k items and signs and various things from different areas. there's just too much to look at. it's extremely extensive and with really great stuff. my fave sections, of course, were the 60's -80's. It's just incredible. i think any of my friends who visit would enjoy it to cause it appeals to everyone cause there's so much there and it's super fun stuff. So i'm gonna take everyone there who visits from now on! 8/6/06 BEST THING I"VE SEEN IN A WHILE, indietastic i'd say! (the ending is dumb tho FYI) 7/31/06 ahh a respite from the heat finally. I actually closed my window today and even wore jeans! it was great! Yesterday went to the 2nd annual Ben & Jerry's Sundae, where for 5quid we got all the ice cream we could eat...and bands too! There were bands all day but it was only worth going from 5:00 on to see Echo & The Bunnymen and Badly Drawn Boy. I like BDB but i wasn't loving his set, tho we only stayed for part of it..he was funny though, as i remember him being when i saw him at Bimbo's years ago and got drunker and drunker as the show went on and he played for like 3 hours and threw a guy out and talked alot, and you felt like you knew him by the end of the night. But i digress! Echo & The Bunnymen was a band i loved in middle school and kinda forgot about tho certain songs (Killing Moon, Lips Like Sugar, People are Strange (i know, a cover) you can't get away from)...anyway i thought this would fulfill a longstanding desire to see them live but it was so much more! They played for an hour and were really really really good! Ian McCullough is funny cause he seems really grumpy and kinda mean--constantly gesturing to the roadies to refill his brandy drink (of which he went through like 5 during the set along with a thousand cigarettes) and gestured alot about the volume of his vocals and the bass amp and weird things. You wouldn't want him as your dad, seems potentially volatile and scary! Despite all this, he still sounds great! And their songs actually sound pretty current, there's also so many more songs i forgot about that they played. And they played Villier's Terrace and <Back of Love which i was sooo happy about! and they did a weird medley of covers starting with the chorus from Ring of Fire even tho he couldnt remember all the words (!?!) and said he always 'thought that cat was overrated'. Good stuff! And i think i tired 5 kinds of Ben & Jerry's ice cream like Mudslide, Apple Pie, Cookie Dough, Glastonberry, and Cherry Garcia. mmmmm- ANYWAY PIX HERE 7/31/06 my new Archos Gmini player is sooo cute! it's way smaller and lighter than ipod and obv less conspicuous too. love it. 7/18/06 you just cant believe how hot and humid it is here! in the 90s and no AC anywhere! and of course everyone's like 'it never stays this hot for this long' (it's been super hot for weeks now) so everywhere is hot and sticky and there's no respite aside from going away i guess. Today i'm going out to school which is sorta in the countryside so i'm hoping it's cooler there. 7/18/06 London Observation No. 23 I've definitely noticed across all types of people in all types of situations, when someone says 'How's it going,' people here go 'not too bad'... the inherent pessimism being obvious...just something i find interesting that people say here. maybe it's just a phrase that no one thinks about but it's funny people say basically 'could be worse' instead of 'yeah alright!' also super annoyed i dropped and broke another ipod. this time i even had a case on it! i'm starting to really hate these things and i'll gladly switch to a non-ipod mp3 player which i'm looking into now. I'd actually love to NOT have an ipod, i hate them now, they are expensive and break too easily and i hate being an ipod drone. 7/15/06 busy busy and it's hot in the city still! Working at Saatchi and also doing some Hitler animations for a show on Hitler in pop culture for WoW. it's pretty neat. Shot the openinf band for Scritti Politti last night and stayed a bit for SP...had no idea what to expect, some of it was kinda cheesy and some really jangly, kinda 60's. I liked some of it! also, it stays light really late here! At 10:05 pm last night, it was still only medium dark out! crazy! i guess this being norther thing really makes a difference. 7/12/06 so there was lotsa rock to be had this weekend. Of course, Gogol Bordello on Thurs was a new level of insane/ridiculous/awesone, then Clap Your Hands... on Friday was actually alot better than I expected, and Sat. was the big free anti-racism concert with The Buzzcocks and Graham Coxon, among others. That was in Finsbury Park and was extremely crowded but fun. 7/10/06 wow Gogol Bordello (pirate punk, as coined by Jason) killed it once again. the most crazy insane band anyone'll ever see. They actually turned it up a notch last night, if that's possible. it was the height of sweatiness too and my the end everyone had everyone's sweat and dripping beer and water from god knows what above me. So yeah, it was good times for sure. 7/7/06 man, when will the heat end. It's insanely hot and humid here, upper-80's and about 10 degrees more on busses and tubes cause they don't have A/C and sometimes even have the heat on! yay! Work is cool this week but also no A/C, it's reallly hot in the office. Anyway, i miss wearing jeans and my feet can't take anymore sockless days... oh yeah, happy 4th USA!! 7/4/06 watched The Road to Guantanamo last night, really well done and effective. I haven't been aware of the state of things until the 3 suicides last moonth. So this is a really well done doc about 3 guys who were visiting Pakistan from England and got caught up in things in Afghanistan (they went to give humanitarian or aid or for one of them to get married not sure) and it led to the US Army thinking they were Taliban fighters and sending them to Cuba and torturing them for a couple years before finally releasing them. Very timely and it is a brutal film to watch but useful too, to see what's going on, and why it should be shut down. i'm definitely glad i saw this. 7/2/06 JULY 1?!! seriously, WHERE does the time go. this has to be the fastest year ever. just yesterday i was watching a glazed, drunken Pete Doherty on new years eve. That seems like just a couple weeks ago....... Cabaret outside the other day was so fun! Definitely the best outdoor movie of the 3 i saw here. Total group fun, lotsa ppl singing, of course it's a bit much and camp, but the singing/dancing numbers are so cool. It really shows the Liza was once cool and not that kinda sad joke she is now. It's sad... Now it's as hot as NY but without the benefit of rooftop shows and stuff like that..oh and like no A/C anywhere. yuck yuck. For a couple days next week I'm working at Saatchi & Saatchi Interactive. I'm pretty stoked, their site is very cute and it seems like a good match! 7/1/06 I kinda wanna go to a Madonna show at MSG! how fun. i wonder how much musicians get paid for concerts? It's not something i've heard about, not someone on madonna's scale even but like, the White Stripes, i wonder how much they make for a concert in Ohio or whatever. We never hear about these things. Tonight we're gonna go extra early to the free movie spot for Cabaret! haven't seen the film but saw the musical years ago with Arne & Rudha in SF. it was alotta fun. 6/25/06 yesterday me, nick and Camalo went to the Tufnell Park cat shelter and visited the super cute adorable cats. They have a good life there and actually don't stay too long before getting adopted but still they like to have people come and pet cats so the cats don't get depressed. Albion has Feline AIDS and big head--he was my fave. Then we walked super far from there, to Holloway, to Highbury Islington then the bus then London Fields and hackent. Then we watched Pulp Fiction on tv which i haven't seen since college. It's soo good and i feel like i saw it with new eyes. So much super fun. Today, me and Jo from school watched the Enbland game at a bar on Brick Lane. it's the first one i've watched at a bar and it's super fun. I wanna do the next one at a bar. Everyone's loud and crazy but it's so fun. 6/25/06 today included alot of walking after going to visit the cats at the shelter in Tufnell Park. It's a great shelter with the cats getting lotsa space and it sounds like, not having to stay longer than a couple weeks before getting adopted. Good deal for them but still they look so sad and jailed behind bars. It's good to go and give them some love. Thursday I went to seeAlien outdoor for free near Tower Brudge right by the Thames. it was a great setting and I love my free outdoor films. It's no Bryant Park, but you also don't have to get there 8 hours early to get a spot and the weather's not drippingly humid. So i prefer it i think, even tho the screen's smaller than Bryant Park. next week is Cabaret & Dr. Strangelove! never seen either! 6/24/06 woo, for now i have a photo up at Artrocker 6/23/06 So we scored some free tix to the Wireless Festival yesterday, it was kinda my first festival even tho it's pretty mild by Glastonbury standards or whatever. Basically everone's like 12 and constantly barreling thru you while you're watching a band and the sound is total crap and the bands seem awkward playing on such a big stage. I probably wouldnt seek out festivals i think. The one advantage is that there's no opening bands and the bands come on right after eachother with like 15 minutes in between. That was great. But the audience is annoying and you can't really hear the music cause it's being blown away by the wind as soon as it comes out of the speakers... So here's my in-depth analyis: Gogol Bordello: Always good, maybe not appropriate for 4:40 in the afternoonmn but they were great, all things considered. Eugene was manic and so energetic. He rules. They are really fun and gonna turn the world in to fans of Eastern European music. Dirty Pretty Things: kinda eh, sorry no pics The Raconteurs: Maybe the best one we saw. Maybe cause they are new and maybe cause it's Jack White who had more presence and energy than anyone that day. Bummed they didnt do the Bowie or Love covers they've been doing. Glad to see they have Brendon's hottay keyboardist on board for the tour. Belle & Sebastian: Awww, this is one of my favorite bands but their music just so doesn't fit in a festival setting. Plus they seemed really uninspired and not into it, kinda felt forced. Stuart had a little bit of funny banter (after "Stars of Track & Field, he said he hoped it would be the song of the 2012 Olympics) but alotta the songs were just too soft to work in this environment where only hard, loud stuff reaches people. I felt kinda bad for them. The last song really rocked though and they finally seemed to get into it. The Strokes: I think it's safe to say most people were there to see The Strokes. It's weird, they're alright to me but nothing special. And seeing them live confirmed that...i just don't get the mania. Live they're really nothing special..alotta the songs sound the same, they're not crazy energy or anything, just kinda matter of fact. hmmm don't get it. They did Lou Reed's "Walk on The Wild Side" which was interesting. 6/22/06 so i went for my usual 7pound 50 model haircut at Harringtons. The kid who cut my hair was like 18 but he was really good. His teacher suggested he cut my bangs straight instead of in the rounded way i've only had it this time around, i was unsure but by the time we got to the bangs, i was like 'yeah go for it' and i do like it but i fear it makes me look older..or like Anna Wintour. not sure which is worse...anyway i do like it, pics sometime soon. After that was taco night then Twin Peaks night at this girl's house that i met at a show last month. Her bf's place reminded me of loft living in Brooklyn. Anyway, it was cool watching Twin Peaks (there were 3 homemade cherry pies!) since I havent seen any since high school and it's alot better than i recall it--which is weird and confusing. I guess it is that still but i have more patience for it. 6/17/06 today i'm photo'd out after going to the National Portrait Gallery for a talk on portraiture in which Nick's roomate, JB gave a peformance (John Hurt was there!) and other people spoke. There was a plastic surgeon talking about facial reconstruction as potraiture and he showed really gnarly photos of weird versions of plastic surgery 80 or so years ago. It was pretty gruesome and sad. Later I looked at all the art stuff at the gallery then hopped over to the Nat'l Gallery but it's all oldie stuff. Then hit up the Photographers Gallery on the way home THEN a couple of the year-end student shows on Brick Lane. Tonight watched last year's Atom Egoyan film Where The Truth Lies. pretty good. 6/15/06 i finally did a Celsius to Fahrenheit convertor thing and it's 82 degrees F! And it's been this for the last couple days. How come no one ever talks about how it gets like this in London? I'm such a heat weakling. 6/12/06 played tennis w/Shay, Nick's roomate today. It was sooo hot, it was hard to move after a while but it was really fun to play a bit and the park is open til 9:30pm so hopefully we can play after work steez! 6/11/06 umm so maybe NY in the summer isn't so bad...aka London is hot too! maybe not quite as humid but it's damn hot here and no A/C, thank god i don't have to ride public transportation much right now cause the heaters are still on on the buses, seriously. Just discovered this guy Jim Noir's music. Liking it alot. Kinda poppy/psychadelic-ish. Also, what a dilemma, Prairie Home Companion looks ok and I love Altman but oh yeah, i hate the radio show Prairie Home Companion and i reallly can't stand Garrison Keihler. What to do?! 6/10/06 ugh tonight I went to go see my friend's band from SF open for this hipster noise guy Ariel Pink. Her band was alright but by the time Ariel went on, it wasn't looking good for him though the crowd loved him. His band just came off as a noisy, annoying buncha hipsters. ew maybe I'm just getting old that I don't have any tolerance for these antics. I just kept thinking "this is probably what people thought of the Velvet Undergroun initially." 6/8/06 today was last day of freelance job (for now) and all day i turned banners into other languages (Hungarian, Slovakian, Turkish) it was kinda frustrating lotsa accent marks and stuff. But now i can do school stuff again like I should be! yay school! 6/6/06 June?! how is it June? I've totally been here almost a year. too weird. it's all gone too fast! ew. This weekend has been aight--started w/a little show i won tix to at Whitechapel gallery w/Vincent Vincent of Vincent Vincent & The Villains (cute site, btw), then Saturday morning we lost the use of our boiler or something and basically it means limited hot water til we get a new one. We can use this really expensive thing that electrically heats our water for the time being but i think it has limited water or something? anyway, it's all sketch until we get a new one and it's in the hands of landlords who are gonna lag ugh (according to roomate Tim). Last night went to this women's comedy night thing that my friend from school had tickets too. It was ok too and today we ventured to Croyden to see this friend of Nick's play a show in a helmet. It was neat but Croyden is kinda generic and depressing. Today i was buying fruit at the Brick Lane market thing and when people would go "I want 2 pounds of cherries" and the guy goes "weight or price" again and again and again and i got a kick out of it cause it's so British i guess. 6/5/06 movie week continued last nite when we saw Brick--hard to say if it was good cause i'm still trying to piece together the story--it's not that it's that complicated (tho it is dense) but the style of speech in the movie is this rapid-fire, 40's detectivey-noir manner that makes it really hard to know what they are saying. confusing yes. Tonight is rock n' roll as i finally get to see David Dondero play. and also a first trip to Brixton! yay! 5/28/06 so i got Skype so get on those laptizzles and skype me at littlepants666 thanks y'all! so far people can hear me but i can't hear them but it's fun cause i can talk and they type back, it feels like reverse Charlie's Angels or something. also i freelanced at this place today and next week and it's a super throwback to the dot com days--bean bags and foosball and table tennis! love it!! so last we saw The Devil & Daniel Johnston and it's really good even if you don't know/don't like his music. it's more about a troubled guy who's had a pretty trippy life, from mental hospitals to MTV. Tonight i watched Rumble Fish--i had no idea how stylized and arty it would be and EVERYONE's in it- nicholas cage, matt dillon, mickey rourke, tom waits, dennis hopper, laurence fishburne, chris penn. everyone. they seem to live in town with a perpetual time-lapse sky. pretty cool 5/26/06 finally added some more signage from here and NY HERE 5/22/06 Milan part 2 was in town again this weekend and he joined us for Eurovision and veggie hot dogs at Nick's. It was good to see M-dawg again and Eurovision was a treat and a half! Next year, same time, same place!! 5/21/06 back from Rome! it was a really great trip with Nick's nice family. We got to fly business class which was amazing! the Business class lounge is something else--you get lattes, internet comps, food, magazines. it's swanky. We saw Fatboy Slim there. heh. anyway, in Rome we walked tons, it wasn't too hot but kinda hot, saw all the big old things like Coliseum, Trevi Fountian, Circus Maximus etc etc and the best was these old ruins that cats get to hang out in. They're super cute cats and they're taken care of. Some pics are up at flickr and they're all HERE too. Ciao! 5/19/06 off to Rome! back in a couple days. 5/14/06 watched Oldboy last night and true to popular belief, it is gnarly and topsy turvy. a good watch indeed! woo i have a Fiery Furnaces pic in The Independent print edition today. It was all kinda last minute and weird (ok i didn't know til i bought one that it was gonna be in there). 5/12/06 new Fiery Furnaces pix! Another great show by my fave NY'ers. 5/10/06 wow it's gorgeous here today. i'm not really into hot weather but with no threat of it getting stifingly humid like in NY, i can actually enjoy it! i'm also gathering that the Muslem women here are the equiv of hassid dudes in NY, ie it can get super hot but their heavily-robed gear stays the same. ughh can't imagine! 5/4/06 Finally scanned magazine stuff i've done here. view that shizz here some stuff i made in SF updated in industries 5/2/06 wooo back from another great trip to the homeland. Got to spend lotsa quality time with Jen, Tory, Cristina, Theresa, JasonAllison, & Juliet among many others and also the family too for my dad's retirement party. Made lotsa stuff on the sewing machine and spent alotta time at the Lipsitz compound. It's good to be back too after sleeping about 16 hrs last night and finishing up Control Room today, I'm back in action here in London! PICS HERE 5/1/06 well i'm off tomorrow to SF for a week and a few days. can't wait, it'll be good to see everyone and have normal prices again!. again though, the weather couldnt be more perfect here so i'm pretty bummed to go home to the land of eternal rain these days. total bummer! 4/18/05 ahh it's such perfect weather here, blue skies, not hot or cold, just perfect. i'm scared that SF is gonna be all rain for days and days. my hair can't take it. 4/17/06 sooo, i can officially die now cause i got to shoot Jason Pierce (Spiritualized) all upclose at soundcheck for the Daniel Johnston 'trubute' show at Barbican today. Teenage Fanclub, Vic Chestnutt and some others played too and Daniel of course played. Anyway it's amazing hearing Spiritualized stuff live and kinda toned down (it's a really adult venue) then the real show was even better. Jason looks great and healthy, i think he was deathly ill last time this year. weird. Funny cause everyone played some DJ songs mixed with their own and like, you couldnt get more opposite from DJ's lo-fi style than Spiritualized's stuff so i couldnt even tell when he played a Daniel Johnston song cause it had the Spiritualized treatment. Anyway, great night all around! 4/13/06 the movie was alright and there were no stars! free ben & jerry's tho mmm. glastonberry flavor. so roomate Hiro is teaching me a japanese word a day--i wish i'd started this earlier, i'd be fluent by now! so far we have ko i nu = puppy, neko = cat, usagi = bunny, hotakake (spelling might be off) = pancake 4/12/06 PART 1. did a quick n dirty update of the industries page on my site PART 2. well Kate is off back to LA. we did lotsa fun stuff and it was surprisingly easy having someone here for 2 weeks. i love having friends here. Nick won passes to the premiere tonight of the new Glastonbury doc by Julian Temple. It's going to be star-studded with the likes of Jarvis and Maximo Park and others plus a surprise band playing! Belle & Sebastian are playing at the premiere in Scotland so the caliber of bands potentially playing is high. Maybe it's Radiohead!! 4/11/06 lotsa fun stuff lately cause college friend Kate has been in town...We walked all over the touristy parts of london on saturday then saw an art show at ICA then saw some crazy eastern european music there and crazy danced for a while. i predict with the success of Gogol Bordello and similar bands/dj's, that eastern europe is the new Radiohead or something. Sunday went to some fun weird tiki bar in south london. Yesterday went to the library but was meeting Kate at Virgin after and there just happened to be a free Belle & Sebastian show there at that time. not bad. it was super fun and they're really funny. love it. Last night we all went to a pub music quiz nearby. i love those. i'm gonna go to all of them. so fun. you totally meet people and it's inclusiv and you learn stuff. very fun indeed! 4/4/06 Uploaded the short film on the Lubavitch Jews, can view here, lemme know what you think! this weekend we saw Tristram Shandy, visited animals at the Hackney Farm, went a neat bar/club where i danced to alotta 50's/60's stuff. and i made a buncha Barnabies for Narional Product. 3/27/06 notice the lack of show pix lately as my trusty Pentax K1000 failed me last year and my 2 backups aren't doing much better. So it's time to get another K1000 since that's the only one i could really rely on, or go DSLR which is scary cause my pics'll just look like everyone elses and i always prided myself on having film pix that stand out from others'. so yeah, we'll see. Got a few ok ones from Heavy Trash (Jon Spencer) the other night but not enough, given how many i shot. Jon Spencer, by the way, is still rad and cooler than anyone should be at 40. 3/21/06 nice mellow weekend thus far. Work and walks around Brick Lane and the Thames. Need to find new neighborhoods to explore too. Trying to shop but can't justify spending money unless i really love something and i haven't loved any clothes for a while. that's cool though. Gonna see Heavy Trash tonight, a new Jon Spencer project. he's always fun live. Started a volunteer thing at Crisis, the place i volunteered over xmas. i just hangout in the art room while homeless/semi-homeless people make things. I just hang out and talk and listen. it's really cool. and, amazingly, the record bowls i put in this cute shop here are selling! i brought them more yesterday, we'll see if more sell or if it was just a one-time fluke! 3/19/06 fun FUN weekend, in these parts. Tory got in on Friday and i did the last of my filming for this little film thing. i'm turning it tomorrow and finishing in the morning, verrry last minute. Friday night, hung out with dan S. and his drummer and last night Dan and Raj again for taco dinner then off to late night Two Gallants show at this dance club thing. THEN after party backstage (haha) with abuncha weirdos and us. it was really fun and a ultra late night but good times and it's great having tory here. aw. 3/13/06 i didn't see the oscars for obvious reasons but jason showed me this awesome Ben Stiller part on it. too funny. 3/6/05 i've been procrastinating alot and making stuff to fill the time instead of what i should be doing (school stuff) and making record bowls and notebooks from the covers are here. i found a cute store here that took some stuff so we'll see if anyone actually wants to buy anything. Now, if only i could just make a film! 3/4/06 woo, it's snowing! well flurrying, but it's something! Saw Dan again the other night. Super good and it was pretty stoked on having the back of his head be on tv via the NME Awards. awww. He said he was at a table w/Bloc Party and they weren't very nice and he tried to say hi to the Strokes and they were kinda whatevs. he's here for a while recording the new album so hopefully we'll all hang out again! doing more stuff for World of Winder this week including some intertitles for a show on or about Jake Chapman (artist dude). it's unbelievably easy but since it's about arty stuff, they thought they should hire out for it. Works for me! 3/2/06 going to see Television Personalities tonight. dunno much about them but it's kinda for Beard so at least it's free and possibly good! Hung out with Doug & Ahmed on Thursday on their way to Egypt. It was great to see them even tho it was gross and soggy and typically English weather which it usually isn't actually. It's fun living somewhere where friends are always travelling through--not as much as in NY but enough to see a few people. Soon---Tory!!! yayyyyyy!! 2/26/06 saw the Gallants again last night. They're doing so well now thanks to lotsa good press in the NME and other places. it was packed. their new stuff is sooo good and they're still soo nice. Can't wait to see em again in a couple weeks. And tory'll be here. She'll be sooo stoked! 2/23/06 wow neato my photo of 10 things made it up here 2/20/06 yesterday saw a Sparks instore, it was my first instore show in the UK and it's like a way bigger deal here than in the states. Like there's a whole barricaded section where civilians can't get into reserved for industry ppl and photographers. Maybe it's just cause it was Sparks who are kinda legendary. Anyway they were realllly good and maybe me want to go see them tonight but it's like $50. ew. 2/17/05 yay check it out, my alter ego made it into Vice 2/15/05 back from paris now and it was great to see Michelle and hang out for a few days but i'm not all impressed with paris. it's old and beautiful but i don't feel very connected to anything and people aren't very nice! i know that's a bad generalization, we just had so many annoying experiences with people there combined with a harrowing adventure on some wrong trains that I was more than ready to leave! Definitely will go exploring in some other countries next. Tho stuff outside Paris is really cute and pretty so i do like the rest of France i think. 2/14/06 woohoo off to paris tomorrow for a couple days to see an old friend from high school, Michelle. We haven't hung out in 11 years! it'll be a trip, to say the latest. I'm very excited to travel and stay w/some locals (her uncle and his wife) outside Paris. 2/10/06 had a nice, mellow weekend with Milan (first houseguest! next is Tory!) in town. We all went to this photo show of Warhol photos of celebs in the 80s. it was fun and there were tv clips from his tv show i didn't know he had that was great too. Remember Hipsway? i didn't til i saw this! Now i can't believe i ever forgot!! 2/7/06 woohoo stuff i did for C4 is finally up, checkitout here and click on the guy with his hands up. Although i hear it isn't watchable in the US which is weird! 2/2/06 check out my very red CYHSY photo here 2/1/06 many movies have been watched--Match Point, Brokeback, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, Corpse Bride, Walk the Line...sheesh that's alot. Now i just wanna see Tristram Shandy-A Cock and Bull Story and i'm done for a while. That's cool though as pre-production (hah) is beginning on my next short filmy thing and I'm visitng an old friend in Paris for a couple days and i think Tory is visiting and Milan is visiting this weekend! woo lots going on. Can't wait til good bands start playing again too! 1/31/05 first blood donation here was good, alot more people seem to donate than in the states. It was packed, no blood place in SF or NY was ever packed, except on 9/11. Yay, tomorrow if i can cut out of school early, we get to see an early screening of Walk the Line. Been waiting months for that! 1/24/06 gonna try and give blood today for the first time in england. So tired tho after alot of not being able to sleep days. Ugh, so sick of it! 1/23/06 aww that penguin movie is soo cute. I died alot at how cute it was. Everyone should see it! 1/18/06 hello! another day, another Billy Childish show (i've said that before i think). Anyway this might've been the best one yet, according to Nick and i'm inclined to agree. They were alot more into it even tho the place was small and stuffy but that made for a better show probs. And he played 2 songs I don't think i've heard live "You Make Me Die Now" & "Girl From '62". 1/17/6 oh man, watched Outfoxed last night and it's pretty sickening how Fox news spins the news to meet their right-wing agenda. They basically tell lies and lotsa people watch it and think this is what's really going on. No one normal watches them but alot of people do. Very interesting and insightful film. Also watched 2 documentaries about Pete Doherty (thanks aaryn!). The stalkery one was a trip, but they both pretty much portrayed the Pete we all know. Today me and Nick are 'modeling' for Vice via American Apparel, or the other way around. it'll be weird and interesting too! 1/15/06 busy week! 2 different freelance jobs including a 10 hr day on-site today! wowser! back in school and it's really dense too, thought it was gonna mellow out this semester but it doesn't seem so. oh well things are good, this weekend holds exciting things too! hopefully lotsa rest though. sooo tired. 1/12/06 had some good times this week with visiting friend aaryn and visiting SF family friends and seeing the animals at Hackney Farm and hanging out w/my Nick in between writing my paper and procrastinating writing my paper and trying to come up with my next film for school ideas and trying to find jobs. eek eek. miss taking photos, need to get back into that. The Corporation is really good. 1/8/06 weird NYE at Pete Doherty's house! somehow me, Nick and visiting friend Aaryn wound up at this little show at Pete's house, it was surreal with blood on the walls and Pete stuff everywhere and he was pretty strung out but managed to get a few songs out before retiring to his room to presumably take more drugs and ppl could go in and have him sing him a song. It was fun and weird overall. Now I have to write a paper. 1/2/06 oh man what a great weekend aside from the movies. I volunteered for Crisis.org.uk which puts on this big homeless shelter at London Arena and for a week ppl can stay there and they have tents all over for different activities for them like hairdo's, massages, reflexology, arts n crafts, movies, internet, books, natural healing, games and of course meals. It was really fun to work on different activities and hang out with people i don't normally talk to. Very fun and humbling too. 12/27/05 ah loving xmas weekend, the roomates are gone, but i miss Nick but i saw Thumbsucker yesterday (fantastic) and watched Tape last night, also really good. And then i made sanwhiches/food parcek for this homeless guy i saw outside Old St. tube and he was really nice and I'm glad i could help. Gonna go running now, doing lots, just need to do school stuff too heh. 12/25/05 Heh just started movie marathon weekend here and watched 40 Year Old Virgin, it's pretty funny overall but a little long. but Paul Rudd & that guy from Freaks & Geeks are soo funny. Last night we saw Babyshambles and it was rad! thx Nick! I wouldn'tve thought he was that good but he was really good and managed to show up and play and I had a good spot, just wish i brought more film cause by the time i got the good spot, i'd used up alot of the film in my crappy spot. ugh ugh woe is me. 12/23/05 busy b usy busy these days, school's out for 3 weeks but have a paper due the first week back so it's not really a vacation. Also been doing more Channel 4 work and chilling with Nick. Things are good and fun here and looking forward to spending a couple days of watching nonstop movies. Also been watching Season 2 of Arrested Development. thanks Cathy & Joe! 12/19/05 also, lost my ipod. ugh ugh. got an old one i can buy? :)))) 12/6/05 also if anyone cares, Plan B is a good magazine and i have a fauxto in the new one (w/Cat Power on the cover) of Baby Blue on p. 53, holler! 12/5/05 oops, i've been neglecting this page again, well procrastinating writing my paper is as good a time as any to start this up again. what a great weekend! Friday Nick & I interviewed and bro'd out w/Two Gallants, the nicest guys ever. It was so weird to hang out w/4 others (their friends too) all from SF, they dropped so many SF references i haven't heard in ages. it was really really trippy. Hopefully we'll be seeing 1 Gallant + friend when they come back thru here after Ireland. Then yesterday was all Gogol Bordello/Eugene Hutz...first i interviewed him and did photos then there was a screening of Everything Is Illuminated then a q & A after w/Eugene then Gogol Bordello played and man oh man i haven't seen anything like it ever. the craziest energy and frenzy show. it was truly something else. i'm really regretting not seeing them more when i was in NY... then this morning Nick busted out an awesome brunch for me and his roomate and we're gonna try and take turns on Sundays so maybe next week i'll bust out something american like French Toast (?) and pancakes. yummmm! ew now i gotta work ew. oh yah also about to wrap up some work for Channel 4. did some fun logos and titles for this new vlog they are doing (video blog). it was really fun to do! 12/4/05 well this was a pretty productive weekend for school and some poss work stuff. but it's going sooo slow cause i'm not going out right now. i need it to be next saturday now now now!! i got a fun haircut today tho, tho i'm not sure enough length was taken off the bottom. i'll know more once i wash it. 11/20/05 wow it's been ages since i wrote anything here! and there's so much happening and everything is so good! oh but i went to 3 shows this weekend, luckily all free except one that was 3quid for charity and i'm just not into anything. i'm into lotsa stuff but i'm taking chances on stuff i don't really know and i'm just not connecting w/anything. the guy in Architecture in Helsinki super reminded me of Seth. Hi Seth! oh well, there's lotsa good stuff coming up like Two Gallants and Gogol Bordello (maybe, if i can get in.) finished Billy Childish interview thing for school. he's just great and it was alotta fun to do. i wish i could do him justice tho and make it superrad. You can see it here CLICK i've been doing fun, weird jobs like catering once and i was a fake nurse at Nick's work one day. that was funny. also a photo shoot for Plan B and hopefully more of that stuff coming up. oh oh and the really cool thing i've discovered is this: Podcasting! i knew about it forever esp since we had it at Sirius but i didn't understand how useful it is til now. cause i walk like 2 miles a day on school days and lots on other days too. so walking around w/NPR movie reviews and KEXP bands in studio and stuff like that is just super. i've listened to so much already and i want more more MORE. 11/14/05 whoah, officially in my 30's now as of saturday. weird! had a great, low-key birthday. hung out w/Nick and went to the taping of this pilot for a new game show. it was pretty cheesy and bad but a fun, weird experience. A great bday though and esp. for a bday in london, can't beat it! Now i just need to work on school stuff eek!! 10/30/05 what else what else...Fiery FUrnaces the other night was super. i realized it's my SIXTH time seeing them! wowzer. they were great tho the end was weird cause the venue turned the lights on and there was alot of confusion about if they could keep playing and they seemed really annoyed w/everything. it was a bummer. got some PIX tho also Spinto Band the other night was cute and fun but full of really annoying drunk little kids. 10/25/05 this was a good weekend, chilled on Friday night after drinks w/classmates and started my first paper for school. Worked on it some more yesterday and last night met Jonnie for Spinto Band at the Metro. It was packed beyond belief cause all the label ppl want to sign them. Luckily he had a +1 for me and i took alotta pix but i'm not sure they will come out. We'll see. Checked out his mega-corp Clear Channel office after. that was kinda funny. We played pool in the 'hangout area'. Today met Gareth at Regents Park for the Frieze Art fair sculpture show. was aight, no big. Then went to Spitalfields and Brick Lane to find him an 1890's suit (?) but to no avail. No one's more surprised than me that an Oasis song is not only good but really really good and the video is mesmerizing. Can't stop watching it. SEE IT HERE!! 10/23/05 wow last night went sooo--well it almost couldn'tve gone any better. i went to see The Buff Medways in Tufnell Park to shoot Billy Childish for an interview assignment for class. We had kinda worked it out thru his wife that i would do it, but it was a little up in the air. I was very nervous about doing the interview and getting all the tech stuff right. But i was forced to just jump in which is the best way to go. I waited out front cause doors weren't open yet and there were some other nice ppl out there i was talking to. Then i was the first one in and immediately saw Julie, his wife, who was supernice and apologized for not writing back to solidify the interview. She asked if i could set up now and just do it right now before the show. So she took me to this room that was the 'backstage' where Billy was getting ready. I started frantically setting up, trying to remember all the things i've been learning the last few weeks about sound, lighting, framingm, composition, interviewing etc. Luckily these weird guys who had some weird shpiel for Billy took up a good 10minutes so i was able to get ready and i recorded a bit of it too cause they had some weird proposition for him and it turned into him going off to them about how he feels about art and being a symbol for a product and how tat's not him etc. it was really great stuff and i got some of it on film. Then right after, we started the interview. I didn't take long enough to setup when he actually sat down so his head is a little cut off in the frame. But if that's the worst thing, it's not that bad. More important that it sounds ok and it's in focus. So we talked for like 20 minutes, he andwered my questions, said really great stuff. Was really sweet and funny. Really, the perfect interview subject. I can't wait to look at the footage and start editing. Oh and of course the show that followed was wild and super fun. The place was pretty packed and people were getting soo into it and dancing and being really fun. What a great night! 10/15/05 after a great night in Brighton on Friday, i took Sat off, and read and watched movies. Night of the Hunter again! Yesterday was my first London brunch! while it's no Kevin and Erin and THomas, it was alotta fun and very leirsurely. great people watching too as the Tatoo convention was going on nearby and there were so many cute greaser types around aww. Here's someone's pix ONE TWO THREE EWW london brunch then me and Ben went to the Barbican to take pix of the great fake Star Wars set that is that building. we got kicked out but i got some stuff first! that's what today's hokmepage pic is from. more at flickrrr 10/10/05 my 4thish Spoon show this year and just gets better. snuck up front some aight pix!! here 10/2/05 last night was a great, great show. Film School from SF and Okkervil River. England LOVES Okkervil--it was really cute. pix here 9/29/05 my 'photo essay' of my london digs for anyone who wants to see... 9/27/05 aw my new neighborhood is the best--i wandered over to Brick Lane, this sorta hipster/arty area with boutiques and cafes and i guess on Sundays everyone comes out. there's all these markets (markets seem to be really big in London, they're everywhere) and lotsa people hanging out and this month is London Design something or other, some huge design festival with galleris all over the place showing stuff so i wandered into some design spaces to see art before settling into a very s moky cafe w/my laptop to do some work. my poor computer is now a victinm of second-hand smoke. School starts tomorrow! This week is great for shows--Okkervil River + Film Schol on Wed. and Spoon on FrI--I'm anticipating being the only person at Spoon cause no one here seems to have heard of them which is great for me and photo-taking. 9/25/05 london's great! updates and emails are quick and short cause no internet at home yet. sux. hopefully soon. everything's great tho and i'm loving it here! 9/22/05 wwoooo off to londonon in like 7 hrs. at the blood bank now cause i figure i won't be able to donate for a while there, being a foreigner and all. and it seems they have wireless. the people giving platelets are watching Traffic but i wouldn't want to give platelets. ok gotta prepare for bloodletting now. 9/14/05 T minus 2 days here in SF before London. Back into cat freakout mode as i still don't really have a real home for Beethoven after a series of insterested people haven't worked out last minute. this really sux and i don't know how things are going to work out but i'm asking everyone and hoping someone comes thru soon. Doesn't someone want a little playbuddy for their cat in NY? aww besides that, just seeing TONS of friends here and definitely making the most of my time here. Pretty much busy every single second. It's great but i'll be happy to settle in too and start school and work again. 9/12/05 the FIDDLETOWN pix are here and olivia tremor control. great great show. 9/9/05 home, home is good but last minute freakout plans for cat has me really worried. POSTING HERE IF YOU KNOW ANYONE WHO CAN HELP FOR A BIT. went to tory's house in the country (Fiddletown) for a couple days. it was great to get out and forget about city life tho i do miss city life when i'm away from it. Olivia Tremor Control again tonight wooo! 9/7/05 wow, fly home to SF today. been having many goodbyes with friends and even one for work and it's really great. Who knows if i'll be back here, can't rule it out. Totally stoked to be moving on too, to something else that i've always wanted! i just know i'm gonna miss having friends so close! 8/31/05 amazing Sufjan show on friday. going again tonight! Fri was 'backwards shirt night' tonight is fake tattoo night. kinda lame theme. wonder what he'll do for it though. here's pix 8/22/05 wow made it through probably the humidist weekend ever that i've lived in NYC. Saw Murderball w/the SF posse on Sat, really really good. Cloud Room pix frmo Friday are up!. just noticed the pic to the left on this page is a bt out of date. maybe i should just keep it up til next winter. 8/15/05 pretty fun free Clap Your Hands Say Yeah show at Southstreet Seaportyesterday. they are definitely growing on me. but seeing old friend from college Eric for the first time in 4 years meant we talked the whole time. but that's ok. Devotchka was great too! 8/11/05 ooh here's Montreal pix! and cool Olivia Tremor Control/Tall Dwarfs pix also Eugene Hutz, my fave Bulgarian/gypsy-punk speaks out and he's funny! 8/10/05 ahh what a fantastic trip! everything went soo smoothly, esp for a group of 6 ppl doing everything together for 3 days. what a good mellow group we had. and we managed to do soo much--the biodome, the architecture museum, Mont Royal, tons of great meals, a dance party, an Arcade Fire side project (ie. also seeing the montreal scene), and then a great drive thru Vermont on the way back. C'est magnifique. Montreal is great! props to Rob for all the driving and getting the car and navigating so well. pix coming soon! 8/8/05 omg omg, Olivia Tremor Control was soooo good last night. Jeff Mangum came out and did the chorus of 'I have been floated'! it was amazing, i was dying. definitely gonna see them in SF when i'm there. now i gotta work. Off to Montreal in a bit! 8/5/05 CELEBRITY SIGHTING ALERT: last night for class, we were at daniel lanois at this high school in tribeca, in the lobby i saw little PJ Harvey hangin' out w/her friend. i was stoked, she looked just like how you'd expect--she looked like PJ Harvey. wearing a mini and red tights or fishnets. 7/28/05 another fun weekend, went out friday too late and was wrecked Saturday which meant missing lightning bolt AND the Coachwhips last show. i'm so lame! this looks so fun! o well at leat i've seen them many many times. Got Beethoven his first UK shots includinga microchip! he's now scannable! so weird. also: RKO 281 is great, Liev Schreiber great and surprisingly, Malibu's Most Wanted is pretty good too! 7/25/05 ooh fun weekend of shows. First was The Ponys on Friday then Siren on Saturday. Only went for Spoon & Brendan Benson and by then it was overcasst and foggy which helped ALOT when standing mushed up against thousands of ppl in the humidity. Totally good show. Pix here Yesterday i bought my first bootleg. Here's Kevin and Rudha w/the proof. 7/18/05 you are about to realize you've NEVER seen neutral milk hotel perform. 7/15/05 things are good! the new sublet means i'm getting regular sleep for the first time in a year-ish. i got new short bangs that i need to figure out how to take care of on my own. I'm seeing The Ponys on Fri for $5. Siren is on Sat. Roadtrip to Montreal in a couple weeks. I just need to be taking more pix. Should be getting some back soon and some ok new polaroids in the polaroids section. 7/12/05 wowzer just came from the British Consulat and a certain someone's visa will be issued this afternoon! holy crap I can't believe i've gotten this far with this. i'm truly amazed and excited!! 7/6/05 aw fun weekend of moving + visiting Tory. living w/out 8 roomates-- i see why most people do it. i'm in love w/living with one person in a cute apartment. it's an ok apartment but i feel kinda re-born. didn't realize how bad it was til i'm gone now from the loft. anyway lotsa NY stuff was done this weekend--Coney Island, the Met, galleries, lotsa dinners out, lotsa hang out time. another great 4th of July here where you can see fireworks cause there's no fog. the weather is cool. really can't complain too much! 7/5/05 somehow made it through the 2 crazy ragers at the loft this weekend, now i get to move out and hopefully sleep again! Two great shows this weekend--Comets on Fire & New Pornographers. But the best thing was finally seeing The Machinist-wowowow, this movie is creepy and disturbing and really stuck with me. Kinda surprised all we ever heard about it was CB's huge weight loss, the movie itself is great! 6/27/05 just wanna say i LOVE the new White Stripes, i wasn't even that interested in it one way or the other til i heard a couple songs, and now the whole thing. and wow. it's just great. 6/23/05 saw this guy at Virgin yesterday, 2nd time since i've lived here that i've seen him! 6/15/05 more and more shows this weekend (The Raveonettes / Maxi Geil) and oppressive heat seems to be here for good. Posted some Spoon pix. 6/13/05 last night capped off an unprecedented 4 consecutive nights for moi (ending last night with such a fantastic Spoon show) to be followed by an even rarer occasion tomorrow when I will attend 2 shows in one night. Only time will tell how such a feat will be achieved. Futureheads pix Spoon at my work yesterday 6/10/05 last night i saw The Futureheads (missed out on the free, acoustic Futureheads show cause it was too crowded) and they are really really fun live! they are cute and super tight and sometimes did some a capella stuff. despite being way older than everyone, i still had lotsa fun and i'm really glad i went. big futureheads fan now! 6/7/05 ughh kinda tired today but i'm seeing 2 shows later! well 2 versions of the same show, the Futureheads and an extra free Futureheads acoustic show before it. lotsa shows this week actually. Watched Lords of Dogtown and Primer this weekend. Guess which one was about skating and which one made me feel stupid and confused. both were great tho! it's a little hot in NY these days, yesterday was the last time I attempt to play tennis on a weekend in this heat. Waiting to get a court in 85 degree weather sounds like a dream come true (yah right) but it's not all it's cracked up to be. FYI. 6/6/05 wow i never write much here anymore. had a prettygood ok weekend. didn't sleep enough but for no real reason except roomate noise one night then i dunno what the rest of the weekend. Finall watched Bad Education and really liked it. weirder than i expected. A weird last minute party for Mihal was thrown at our place on sunday, i was grumpy about it at first but ended up being really fun and Beethoven survived ok too. such a trooper. oh and i found a great sublet for the summer. woo lookin' foward to summer actually, just hope it's not too hot. ew! 5/31/05 yay, the eagerly awaited Andrew Bird show is finally upon us! too bad it's at Knitting Factory, i never have a good show experience there but hopefully this'll still be ok. Yesterday was an amaaazing instudio at work...got treated to a private performance by Gang of Four. Their 6 song set was pretty cool and amazing, as tight and precise as you'd expect. Totally worth the 5 or so trips up to the studio til they actually arrived (a couple hours late heh). 5/20/05 went to Kasabian last night w/rudha and rob, it was pretty fun but i was too caught up in trying to take some decent pix w/my new camera. overall it was pretty fun tho. SO excited for Andrew Bird on Friday, and an early show at Knitting Factory. amazing! and so many more good shows coming up. watched this super weird horror/noir over the weekend, Eyes Without a Face. i want a poster of this! 5/17/05 woww, last night, for parent week we went to see The Pillowman which has gotta be the darkest, most twisted play I've seen but still really funny, even if the humor is totally strange and inappropriate. Billy Crudup & Jeff Goldblum are super, I really don't know how it's porssible to do that kind of intense performance night after night. wowwww before the play was neat too, we were at the Stage deli, ultra-NY deli kinda place, and halfway thru, James Brown and his crew came in and sat right behind us. it was such a trip! he seemed very sweet and gracious and loved getting attn from all the fans walking by who noticed him. 5/13/05 this weekend started with an unexpectedly fantastic Earlimart/Okervil River show at Bowery. both bands had great stage presences and Earlimart's music was even better live, cause on record, they are kinda mellow but they really come to life in interesting ways live. Saturday was Joel's Derby Party. never watched the KY Derby before. it's kinda neat but the horses look like they are running in slow motion after a few seconds. kinda weird. Now it's parent week. yay! shopping + plays + dinners yay! 5/9/05 1) rad '70's rock'nroll photos 2) rock stars in concert shoes photos (totally better than it sounds 4/28/05 irony of ironies was seeing Don Letts' new documentary Punk Attitude at the Prada store in Soho last night (Prada does stuff w/the Tribeca Film Fest apparently) with fancy doods serving sparkling water and white wine. hah. but whatevs, the movie is great, a great overview of USA to UK punk to hardcore to grunge. Henry Rollins and Jim Jarmusch and Thurston Moore, among others give great insight into punk and NY scenes. really good, highly recommended! 4/28/05 ugh tiiiired, thinking about Chicago Lollapalooza, so many good bands but alot of mediocre ones too. but o well at least you can get a hotel room more easily i'm guessing (than Coachella) tho 90 degrees humidity heat is probly comparable to 101 degree dry heat (Coachella). Last night's last minute Passover seder at the loft ruled and totally worked out great and introduced non Jewish friends to Passover. totally fun! 4/25/05 grrrr, i missed erasure due to weird circumstances but i did see Ryan Adams and it kinda changed my opinion of him cause he was kinda good even tho he was complainy about everything in the studio. but he was funny and maybe drunk or high and rambling weird stuff in between songs. but i liked his music kinda. also, more afterwork tennis in the pre-humid spring days rules! 4/21/05 yay Erasure is performing at work today! i haven't seen them play since 1988...sooo stoked! 4/20/05 it's like 1997 all over again! i added a guestbook! finalyl some kinda decent concert pix! Devotchka! 4/15/05 ew taxes are sooo much this year ugh ugh..i have to do that kinda taxes where you get money back? How do people do that? also it's warming up but not so much like it's in the 50's still and i'm wearing my heavyish coat in an attempt to psych out the weather but it just makes me overheated in my clothes added some pix from Fiery Furnaces on Saturday 4/13/05 haha what the??... why's it such a big deal that it's springtime and warm out? Am i the only one who actually prefers it cooler and darker out. First daylight savings gives us longer days and now we have hot weather too! ew! i definitely didn't care til i moved to NY, but warm springy days only means we're inching closer towards unbearable, humid summer. yuck yuck This weekend's funness started with Max Fish with Erin & THomas and visiting ppl on Friday, then ending up at loft party craziness at my place. Finally a good party at my house that doesn't involve burning man or ravers. Saturday was Fiery Furnaces and yesterday was The Ponys, who were cool but not as exciting live as I thought they'd be. o well! I also re-saw the Larry Clark show at ICP and the David LaChapelle show at Dietch-both are highly recommended by moi. 4/11/05 aw what a great FANTASTIC weekend (pix coming soon) with my fave visiting friends (chris, nannette, jay, jason, allison, and seth) in honor of Allison't bday. so much hanging out and being fun and dancing and doing rad stuff. One of the highlights was seeing the really cool David LaChapelle show at Deitch and then DLC himself was there prepping for a photo shoot later w/muses Pamela Anderson and Courtney Love. It woulda been so cool to see how someone like him works but they wouldn't let us stay. Too much money spent on too many meals out but so worth it. Now I don't have any visiting friends to look forward to for a while :( also finished the 2nd dvd of the first season of Arrested Development-stoked i have 6 more episodes to see. wooo! 4/4/05 good stuff this weekend! LIKE for intstance, the return of tennis! i played for like an hour and a half yesterday for the first time in almost a year and omg i'm feeling it today. it feels great tho. gonna try and get some more in before it gets hot and crowded on the courts! also watched this movie i'd been hearing about Grand Theft Parsons, i think it went straight to video which is a bummer cause it's pretty good! it's about the theft of Gram Parsons' body and stars Johnny Knoxville, who'd really good in it! Also made a new style tshirt And lotsa dancing on Friday at fun local places w/Juliet roomate was rad... and i can't stop listening to Sparks and today I'm back to Andrew Bird! 3/27/05 i need to start coming into work later, seriously no one knows when i get here and i'm just tired and don't work til 10 anyway so i might as well sleep an extra 45minutes. i'd be way better off and have a way better day. Proceed with this plan next week... 3/18/05 i just went to this at lunch. it was rad. need to go back. I like Larry Clark so much more now. 3/16/05 updated the signage page to include some NY stuff tho i don't think it's on par w/the SF ones. gotta find the good ones here still... 3/14/05 i'm gonna be indulgent and post links to all this cause i love it so much (these are all the same song) FIRST CLIP SECOND CLIP THIRD CLIP 3/8/05 ooh last night i shot roomate David and old roomate Julia's band, Edison Woods, not sure how that's gonna come out BUT i'm sooo happy with the latest Maxi Geil footage. It looks great, mif a little shaky, but they look and sound super. This is so fun! i'm gonna be indulgent and post links to all this cause i love it so much (these are all the same song) FIRST CLIP SECOND CLIP THIRD CLIP 3/8/05 ooh i updated the music photos section with some decent but grainy pix of the awesome 22-20's show i took pix at for class. i'd never heard of them but they were so fun and cute and then it turned out they're kinda big and lots of people know them actually. i love free shows, saw Robert Schneider of Apples in Stereo and Barbles and Ulysses on Saturday at The Fix coffee shop near my house. he was really good and endearing but i don't really like his non-Apples stuff as much, i realized. mm, got my bi-annual facial yesterday. feels great and totally worth it! 3/7/05 zzzzz...sleepy monday after only getting a few hours sleep lasst night for no real reason at all which is so much worse than not getting sleep cause i was actually doing something fun...total bummer! managed to see Greg Weeks last night and some Oscars. I really liked the band that opened for him, Viking Moses or Moses VIking i forget but they were really good. also, i think i've bought about 10 cd's since last monday. I haven't bought music in so long so it's totally ok. i love lots of what i got--Rufus Wainwright, Singapore Sling, Devotchka and Fiery Furnaces EP but i'm really really into the Andrew Bird Album and kinda want to get more now. I still need Graham Coxon and Two Gallants... 2/28/05 aw it's been such a fun last week! having visiting from SF friend Seth here was great and got me out which i realized makes a huge difference on my attitude and outlook and it was so fun going to dinners and dancing and all that. fun fun. and then i saw The Gates which are actually super cool. and i love my new camera. and i'm starting a weird new tshirt about squirrels. and ummm work won't be as crazy this week...oh and i'm growing into my weird haircut i didnt like at first but now i like it... i miss watching movies, i've been watching tooons of Arrested Development tho (thanks roo love it!) 2/22/05 ooh yay my super cute new camera got here! i gotta learn it and learn how to download pics and i'll show new pictures! maybe i'll take some of me and seth's adventures while he's in town...or at least maybe us at The Gates. 2/17/05 amazing thing, i updated the polaroids section with some weird, weather-influenced photos... 1/31/05 heh, funny 1/28/05 ooooh what a fun, insanely cold and snowy weekend! weird it's mid-january and the only snowstorm we've had. it was so fun but so cold! the only social thing i did was an extended brunch with erin and kevin. that was fun too! Watched We Don't Live Here Anymore and Kill Bill 2 and even worked a little. yay! 1/24/05 in an effort to super procrastinate my work and choose a class to take, i've made a weirdlittle webgallery of SF pix 1/18/05 hi i'm back!! i feel tired and rejuvinated from my trip home. i hung out w/like 200 ppl and 10 of my favorites. Saw Arcade Fire and Kaiser Chiefs and went dancing and walked around. It was so great. I hope work still remembers me cause i had food poisoning death disease the day before my trip so i havent been to work in forever. Fun people friend pix coming soon.... 1/17/05 oooh 05! had a typically uneventful New Year's which is fine, been hanging out with visiting Una, saw Closer last night, it's brutal! pretty good tho. yay going home in a little over a week!! 1/3/05 ooh what a good holiday weekend. it felt like a week instead of 4 days. I saw The Aviator and The Life Aquatic, did some shopping, made major progress on this freelance site thing, and started organizing my movie footage a little bit better...wooo..right now, things are good. ooh i even finished a book too! 12/28/04 grrr it's 12 degrees and the trains are all messed up. i hate late trains, esp when i'm early for once but they still make me late ew! Watched the 2hr post finale The Office, didn't think it could get any funnier but it almost did. Otherwise, just being productive and not too social cause i can't these days 12/20/04 wowwow it's mid-december and i have sooo much to do! and work is super busy too! ew ew... finally watched The Buddy Holly Story last night. i never thought i'd say this but Gary Busey is totally impressive and sings all the songs and is a really sweet and likable Buddy Holly. who knew? With the assistance of Thomas, i filmed my new fave band, Maxi Geil! and Playcolt at the fancy, new MoMA theater, which they sold out. it was so fun! here's some stills, now i have to edit the footage into something rad! STILL 1 STILL 2 STILL 3 STILL 4 omg what about Life Aquatic? guess it'll be seen by me next weekened... 12/13/04 aw what a lovely first away-from-family Thanksgiving with Erin and her neighbors and my roomate. Super fun and yummy and hours of '90s Trivial Pursuit. This weekend i watched: Triplets of Bellville (rad) Pieces of April (crap--but good Magnetic Fields music) The Incredibles (very well done and funny but i got a little bored with the story) and i'm proud to say, I did absolutely no shopping this weekend! 11/29/04 I went to this fun art show w/Erin & Thomas last night. For like the first time ever, i really wanted to buy art..i need to get the artists' name so i can maybe buy his art sometime...yayy eat eat eat tomorrow! 11/24/04 nothing good lately, things are mellow, i made a documentary on Beethoven to try out my roomate's camera and to remember how to edit and stuff...he was a great subject...very insightful... 11/22/04 ooh what a nice mellow weekend, just yoga and sleeping and trying to start writing these essays. omg it's hard to write for reals. i forgot. The weird thing last night was hearing Cristina and Christian get in a car accident while we were on the phone (she wasn't driving so it wasn't a cell phone thing). sooo scary. they're fine tho but the car is a mess. but insurance is there so all is good.... 11/15/04 aww i miss london and UK stuff. wish it was easier for me to stay and work and stuff there but it's impossible without visa stuff...sooo it's time to start the grad school apps for over there! eek scary. have to remember how to write like an adult again and capitalize letters and write full sentences and stuff....eeek! 11/12/04 woohoo off to londonium after work tonight. i feel good and rested and excited! and i didnt even pack too much. i really like what i brought...wooo! seeya in a week! oh yah and what's up with this election. stupid people are still voting for Bush?? geeez? c'mon... 11/3/04 aw such a fun birthday/halloween weekend! old friends were here for the bday, and one just moved here that day from SF, one was here from Prague. plus all the regulars i never see! sooo fun! and last night's Morrissey party by epicly laterd. all the morrisseys were adorable! 11/1/04 1) glad i'm having a party on Friday--just got word we probably have one month left in ye olde williamsburg loft. total sux. i love my room, beethoven loves the space to run around. and i'm going away next week to like the most expensive city in the world when i really just need to save $$ and look for a new place. ugh ugh 2) um i had a #2, which now i can't remember now, probably as a result of almost turning 30 on friday = no more memory 10/27/04 later that morning... omg i still don't get Interpol??! but i'm starting to come around on Arcade Fire and FIlm School woo, CMJ is over and i saw some cool stuff! hanging out w/music industry people made me want to be in the music industry. not really, but it sure seems fun. but i know it's crazy and you have to talk alot and I might not like that after a while. birthday dilemmas have been solved--gonna have some sorta bday thing and the loft. it's perfect actually, dunno why i didnt think of it sooner! we could evne have a dance party omg! i just wanna point out that every time you think Old Navy commercials cant get more inane and stupid, they totally out-do themselves--if i see that one about the girl who loves air one more time, i'm shooting everybody... 10/18/04 ugh i totally missed the boat on The Decemberists! they just did an instudio thing on KEXP and it totally made me like them alot. and they are playing tonight but it's sold out. maybe i'll go on Friday but that's in Jersey? how do you get to Jersey? ew? 10/13/04 ew i hate not bring able to sleep, then i'm tired and wonky and for no reason at all, i dunno how people are ok with less than 6 hours sleep. I'm not even sure how i got to work today, it was all hazy ew! Also maybe see Dig!, a great music documentary (with a really bad title) about the lead singers of the Dandy Warhols and the Brian Jonestown Massacre, over 7 years...it has all your classic rock stuff--drugs, success, rivalry, etc. it's really good 10/11/04 ohmigod CMJ are you kidding me?? i dont remember it being this overwhelming last year! I looked at just the Wednesday shows and thought I'd looked at the whole festival's shows. ack ack. too much overload... 10/7/04 ooh i used my space heater for the first time today. i love the smell! it reminds me of winter. yay! 10/6/04 holy crap, if you lose your metrocard but bought it with a credit card, you actually do get the lost days credited back to your card. the last time i lost it, the metrocard ppl never called me back. but this time they did and now i'm $16 richer. sort of. it's all going back into a new metrocard... what's the deal with Arcade Fire, they are like Modest Mouse-y sounding. ew. ew. all these people i trust like them, i dont get it... 10/4/04 oh yeah, at the end of this month, i turn 30. ew ew. i finally bought one of those fancy silver macs everyone has. it's pretty rad awesome. now someone needs to give me the 3 thousand dollars. and now i have no excuse for doing awesome work in the future. i need to get my butt in gear and finish alot of stuff... 10/1/04 arghhh! this is one of those 'NY makes me really grumpy' days. the L was not running and there was like 2000 ppl on the platform so with no hope of getting on a train i shared a car into the city w/some ppl and the driver kind of tried to rip us off and i hit my head on the car door and have a huge bump on my forehead now and i was still an hour late too work from all this. and worst of all, i didnt have time to get my beloved toffee nut latte so i'm realllly grumpy.. oh and now even grumpier cause the Fiery Furnaces pix i took the other night, on my normal work computer monitor, the colors are all jacked. my home laptop screen always shows stuff weird so i couldnt tell. cant wait to get a new laptop asap. in other shocking news, i braved Chabad House once again, for Yom Kippur services (friday night only though, sorry mom) and not only am I kinda being Jewish again, but those Hassidic doods totally dont creep me out anymore. they are pretty cool, esp. the ones on the street on Saturday that tried to get me to go back for the "break the fast" dinner and told me 'we'll eat, we'll party' awww...and then there were the doods, who, on Rosh Hashanah insisted i had to hear the shofar being blown then busted out theirs right on the street corner and gave me my very own shofar performance. 9/27/04 me and the college friends had a super good star-sighting at Theresa's hotel bar on Friday--Sam Rockwell was hanging out right by us. he seemed nice and not starr-y, i was actaully surprised he was at the cheesy/trendy bar we were at, at all...FYI, that hotel--the Maritime Hotel is soooo damn cool. at $265 a night, it better be...but it's more than just fancy, it's got a rad style--all 50's love boat style..super rad...ugh i'mm still figuring out my life...work? school maybe? london maybe? how does one decide these things... 9/21/04 ok it's taken years but i think i'm finally get swept up in the Ted Leo frenzy and i might buy tix to see him here soon. I mean how can you not love fun songs like this and file under 'totally NY experiences' -- last night i wwent to a Rosh Hashanah service at Chabad House (a version of Hassidism, as i understand it) at first it was weird and awkward but then the non-hassidic like me outnumbered the Hassidic and by the time we sat down to dinner, we were grilling them on all aspects of their lifestyle--clothes, grooming, dating, etc. it was really interesting and eye-opening! i might even go back for Yom Kippur. now i'm feeling guilty for being at work today. How appropriate! 9/16/04 i think fall is here! omg i cant wait to wear a jacket, it's been like 4 months, seriously! I think i just discovered The Misfits, i'm only, what, like 17 25 years late on that? i always knew them (or the skull t-shirts, at least) but Chris put them on my ipod ages ago and i'm finally getting around to listening to them and i love it! nice work misfits! 9/14/04 omg is it really sept? holy crap where does time go? and what have i done in that time? ughh... i saw the director's cut of donnie darko last night, i really think that was the only 'director's cut' i've ever seen, i kept getting caught up in remembering if scenes were in the original or what was added, besides the really obvious stuff. it tells you the same kinda stuff the extras on the dvd tell you, but in a different way cause there's scenes now that tell you some new stuff but it's still totally confusing and hard to grasp. but so good! oh and the new Sunshine Fix cd is SO good! 9/4/04 OMG! are you kidding me with this weather? I was almost in tears today after work on the walk from 6th ave to the train on Lex...it's like 4 of those long blocks which = like 20 minutes which = like 2hrsa in this humidity. i swear, the cold shower i just took was humid. ew. ew ew and oy vey my first day of work was like more work than i did my whole year at IFC! omg... 8/30/04 ugh just when you think it cant get any grosser or humider, there's weekends like this one. so gross! i drew a Morrissey cat, he only looks like morrissey a little... went to PS1 today for the Ryan McGinley show which was pretty cool and there was some other good artstuff there and PS1 is soo close on the G...i always forget that. it's like 3 stops or something... umm i wish i had cable, i love watching the MTV awards :( apparantly there's something going on in NYC this week..i'm getting the feeling it's a big deal? weird! 8/29/04 wow new life is neat! went in for training at new job today..just a bit overwhelming and dauntng cause i'll be the only web person so if i dunno how to do something i cant really ask anyone there. totally eekk. but i get to work on a fancy new G5 and cinema display. nerdrawk! saw The Polyphonic Spree the other night and it was one of those amazing fantasticon, life/music-affirming shows that blows any other show out of the water..soo good... i think i'm give blood today and go back to Urban Outfitters and get this cute rug that's half-off. yippee! 8/27/04 totally loving old co-worker Bill's collages. sooo rad 8/17/04 ew Friday the 13th. it's sooo deceptively humid (cause it's overcast and looks lovely but it's so not). last night saw AC Newman (of New Pornographers) and it was sooo much fun! 8/13/04 ew i got laid off! and looking back on my last post, it all makes sense. it was weird but i think it's for the best. i'm totally excited/scared for new stuff! yay! 8/4/04 hella frustrating work days that make you want to cry totally suck... 7/29/04 wow soo at Siren on saturday, we saw David Cross on the boardwalk and i got to go up to him and say the 'it coulda me not me' thing to him and he had no idea what i was talking about but it was awesome to tell someone you love you think they are great. he didnt care. but i'm glad we did it. Siren was fun but Burning Man allnight party when i got home wasnt :( 7/19/04 loving this spiritualized instudio thing on KEXP. soo pretty..the interview part gets sooo uncomfortable tho. i hate bad dj interviews... 7/15/04 wow! in the time since i last wrote here, i saw 2 B'way shows (I am My Own Wife & Assassins) hung out w/mom & dad a bunch went to cousin's wedding did aLOT w/juliet in town (shopping, fancy brunch, etc) saw the New Year (aww!) and hella 60's danced at our weird house party ooo and watched Quadrophenia again oooo and started and shot for new photo class on Wednesdays omg... OMG today today new Fiery Furnaces comes out yippee! and also Polyphonic Spree, kinda yippee!.... 7/13/04 Oooh, i went to this free show (Earlimart) on a boat (The Frying Pan) and it was soo cool. the boat is all corroded and rusty and weird, but preserved to be that way. You havent been to a show till the whole room is rocking, literally...HAH! 7/7/04 ok if there was any uncertainty at all (there wasn't), it really gets too humid and gross in NY as evidenced by yesterday's sweatstorm. So over it... that being said, NY is pretty rad in the summer too---like watching amazing fireworks in front of the NYC skyline from a rooftop in Greenpoint. that's not bad... 7/6/04 so tired today, it's gonna be a busy couple weeks with freelance, tshirts to make and parents and juliet visiting and a photo class starting next week. and work is actually super busy too. ewwww. i got a cute haircut tho yippee! 6/29/04 woo i did the quad-monthly trip to DC to see my sister, we get along ok now i guess. we split up for a bit tho and i saw Napoleon Dynamite which is cute but now that i think about it, i dont remember much from it. Pix of DC's super spaceage metro stations coming soon... oh p.s. i read like most of the new David Sedaris book on the bus ride and, as usual, it rules and i love it. 6/28/04 TOTALLY AMAZING!! 6/18/04 ooh this weekend was all music music music.. the long awaited confusingly planned Franz Ferdinand show at Volume. was rad. Sons & daughters opened and they were neat too. the audience was dorky and normal and dorkdanced around me. Saturday was the Wrens show i won tix too. it was inda dorky, we werent feelin' it. so on to Tommy's Tavern to see Breaker Breaker who were neat and then Thanksgiving who i've been reading about and was really neato. good times. yeah. 6/21/04 TOTALLY AMAZING!! 6/18/04 for the first time in a year and a half i have only 1 color hair and it's kinda normal, dark brown. yippee, goodbye blue, didnt look good in the summer... 6/17/04 aw i miss Erin, it's so sad when visiting friends leave. i like my home friends so much. we had so much fun and did so much. aww. but yay for Franz Ferdinand on friday! 6/14/04 ew it's entirely too hot and muggy. i'm ready for winter again. it seems so long ago :( 6/10/04 do cats need air conditioning? poor Oven has gotten so skinny since Stampy moved in. i'm giving him his own food in my room now cause stampy just bullies him and it's it all. OMG stampys dad is having a burning man fundraiser party at the loft on saturday. we're all like 'WOT!?' 6/9/04 ughh sleeepeeee went to Queens Moma and PS1 yesterday w/visiting Mike & David. there was really good stuff there. listen to this neato song and this song too by The Congress which was Mountain Goats dood's band in the 80's. i think its so much better than MG. kitty update--Stampy and Oven seem to be getting on better, they walk up to eachother and lick noses. but they also kinda hate eachother and fight over food. basically Stampy is a pig and keeps eating Oven's food. 6/7/04 our new roomate Stampy is sooo funny 6/2/04 doods u can view my super fun trip home here. beware the moustaches 6/2/04 aw SF was so fun, BBQ and moustache party were great. so good to everyone. pix coming soon. ew it's June. weird. it's nice and cool too, like SF. oh yeah also the internet is totally faster on the west coast (except for at my parents' house, the last place to have dialup), think it's closer to the core maybe 6/1/04 ohhh man, so bummed to be flying home on such a nice, cool SF weather day here. the injustice of having bearable weather when i'm leaving! 5/26/04 oo we love Magnetic Fields, saw them Friday in a opera house kinda place. it was an amazing show and i love the new album more than ever. check out my pretty BBQ when i'm home evite 5/24/04 o man they really did a job on my arms when i gave blood yesterday. the first arm wasnt working but they had the needle in but it was swelling so they took it out and now i have weird purple heroin arm there. then they got blood out of the other arm but it hurts alot, they couldnt deal with weird veins like mine in the blood truck, unlike at the center where they have smaller needles i think. omg i'm on day 2 of totally enjoying the new David Cross cd (thanks chris)! i truly never knew how rad he is til this. sooo funny. 5/21/04 totally into new Fiery Furnaces trax and more than just alittle annoyed that they are playing the Fillmore w/the Shins the day after i leave SF. so uncool! 5/19/04 ooh the Office is 1 funny show but i'm probably the last to know this. the best part about Coffee & Cigarettes is Alfred Molina & Steve Coogan. omg i wanna watch just that one again. 5/17/04 ooh i'm re-in love with jeff mangum. omg also i acutally did something on my portfolio site. i made a new error page so go to to something like fuzzyrobot.com/memememememe and see what happens 5/14/04 too humid, totally not gonna make it. ew ew 5/13/04 aw man, last night's stupid hot weather with no AC in yet and mosquitos biting me meant about 3hrs sleep. now i'm a wreck and crankypants. but yoga was really good last night before all this.. 5/12/04 last night's light show otherwise known as a lightning storm was 1 of those rare times where crazy NY weather beats CA's bigtime. but today it's like 80-something degrees, in case we were take the weather for granted, or something like that. 5/11/04 eww it's getting hot. I watched The Pornographers & half of 1 Decalogue tape this weekend. That one's not so uplifting. How cool is the NYC library--they have The Royal Tenenbaums and John Waters movies. too cool I saw the Whitney Biennial, it was really cool--the coolest thing was seeing the cellist from Magnetic Fields right by the artists's piece who did the art for the new Magnetic Fields album. synergy!! 5/10/04 aww Raveonettes show last night was so-so, just sounded like straight off the album, no more, no less. bummer too cause it was $15! eww. 5/7/04 aww one of elliott smith's last shows has some of the new stuff too in other news, happy bday dad!! also uploaded 1 of my fave new songs on the new Magnetic Fields, I, album Thought you were my boyfriend --5/6/04 last night i went to a movie called Kill Your Idols in the tribeca feilm festival thing. it was neat and Eugene Hutz (this guy) came off as the most intelligent of everyone. Lydia Lunch seemed bitter. it was funny to see old roomate Aaron in it. I guess he's kinda famous. --5/5/04 ooh tennis is so fun! yay for reprezentin' old skool tennis days. heh Also rad is the giant Public Library where they have, essentially, a video store. I rented The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, Melvin & Howard and I'm Dancing As Fast as i Can and i watched 2 out of 3 so far. I also checked out a book. --5/3/04 doods here's kinda cool sebadoh pixx --4/30/04 ohhh man Sebadoh was soooo good. Just Lou (playing acoustic) & Jason & a drum machine. They played stuff throughout the years, slightly different than the recorded versions and so good and pretty. They were so into it and happy too. aww love love love --4/29/04 new Young People pixx here yay Apples in Stereo tonight. i love them so much! --4/27/04 i could really just die ew my desk at work keeps ripping my tights cause there's some secret sharpness on the other side. i finally learned to put some tape on that lameness. doods, ukranian and eastern european dancing is kinda fun--this dood Eugene spins rockin' beats from over there and it's really fun today! but maybe no more accordians for a while for me also went to the daschund parade at wash/ square park--not so much a parade as lotsa doggies gathered and looking cute. wish it was scotties tho--PIX here --4/26/04 i'm really scared i'm gonna forget to go to my 2 shows next week--i bought the tix for Apples in Stereo & Sebadoh (who coincidentally, just came on the radio!? weird?!) like 3 months ago and now i keep forgetting i hope i dont forget next week. ew --4/22/04 lookit it this, writing here is getting kinda daily, who knew i had so many important thoughts!! saw Hairspray the musical last night, it's super cute and fun but i wish the music was more 60's but the sets were great! probably the best part--and Harvey Fierstein. thanks aunt bette!! --4/21/04 when u have a room that the sun shines directly into, maybe dont paint the floors, walls and ceiling various shades of yellow cause you feel like yr waking up in a big yellow fish bowl every day and it's way too sunshiney happy. next time around::: brown + light blue ew its 4.20 braaaa --4/20/04 ew NY show venues pretty much suck. me and kevin and others tried to see Hospital, the 4th band at Boogaloo on friday and by 1:30, the 2nd band hadn't even started. ew what's up with that? why cant they be normal. this page is becoming bandy blog i think. i dont like that. --4/19/04 ew the Knitting Factory is so weird! they messed up my Unicorns show i bought tix to ages ago but adding a second show on the same night and mpushing mine back to 12:30 on a monday. ew so uncool. and they wouldnt let me trade back for the earlier show i just sold back my ticket. crazies. and i coulda gone to brendan benson last night. everything got ruined. omg IKEA is such a weirdo place. but i love it. thanks IKEA, rudha and rob --4/13/04 nice weather! definitely not used to 30degree weather in april. it's funny though. no fun to end a really mellow weekend with a really crap night of sleep so it seems like you had a crazy party weekend even though you didnt at all. ew, weird. got those Magnetic Fields tickets. yay! but NYU is being lame about id's so had to get the expensive real show tickets with real people which probably means sold out. ew weird. --4/6/04 aww fiery furnaces a