tonight 4/28
the sights, ameoba (free)

friday 4/29
puffy amiyumi + aquabats, wiltern
pete escovedo, the center
gilby clarke + bang tango, malibu inn
tyrannosaurus sex, the smell

saturday 4/30
weezer + wilco + bauhaus + chemical bros + raveonettes + spoon + sage francis + rilo kiley + k-os + secret machines + the kills & others, coachella
willie nelson, greek
steve vai, wiltern
the bangles, vault 350
cher, hollywood bowl
warrant + great white, house of blues
michael penn, mccabes
grant lee phillips, largo

sunday 5/1
nine inch nails + new order + gang of four + arcade fire + dresden dolls + the prodigy + tegan n sara & others, coachella
eating alice, whisky

monday 5/2
bruce springsteen, pantages
crash davis, temple bar

tuesday 5/3
bruce springsteen, pantages
aimee mann, amoeba (free)
agnostic front, el rey
mudvayne, henry fonda

wednesday 5/4
strunz & farah, catalina
cake, royce hall
jill sobule, largo

cinco de mayo 5/5
mere mortals, the mint
cypress hill, vault 350
jedi mind tricks, knitting factory
black label society, house of blues
poncho sanches, conga room
malibu hillbillies, whisky
better than ezra, roxy

ive met a few fellow bloggers in real life and lots of times its nice to finally hang out with someone who ive read, but in the case of raymi and zulieka it was better than i could have ever imagined.

today z recounts the second time that we met, which also happened to be the day that she discovered that she was pregnant. at the time she was living in beverly hills and looking for work in hollywood.

I woke up that day with a headache and ate bananas and tylenol and went to the beach, then met Tony around two o’clock. I popped 6 or 7 tylenols total carried loosely in my pocket, and Tony must have thought I was a drug addict though he didn’t say anything. For lunch he took me to a restaurant named ironically Fred. Fred 62. I knew something was wrong with me when I couldn’t eat the food I had ordered.

Tony wanted give me an idea of L.A.’s grid so I drove around while he directed for the next four hours. I was starting to feel pretty sick by then, and he periodically asked me in which direction the Pacific Ocean lay to help me get my bearings but despite his pedagogical talents I wasn’t a quick learner. (If you ever DO land in Lalaland though, and you’re lucky enough to get his attention, Tony Pierce is THE best tour guide of this city he so unconditionally loves.)

We pulled over in Venice at a bar and I had two martinis and he had–I can’t remember, maybe a couple of rum and cokes–and I took more tylenol. He confessed that he was 116, and I said incredulously “Holy shit, I don’t believe it. You look about 23 to me.”

Then I thought I was hungry again so we went to a Mexican place and took the food back to his apartment. And again, I knew something was really off-kilter because I had this authentic chicken burrito and I couldn’t eat it. I stuck a fork in it and pulled the fork back out and inspected the tines but it didn’t make it to my mouth.

heres what i remember from that afternoon and evening: i had a great time, zulieka looked waaaay better than in our first meeting and now i realize it was probably because of that maternal glow that everyone always talks about, i didnt care that she kept saying outloud that she might be pregnant i just didnt want her to be drinking if she was, and i really didnt care that she didnt eat her burrito because i took care of that for her in the morn.

we’re all lucky that she has kept her blog going during this magical time in her life.

zulieka + porn happy + michèle changes my rules + wildbell

and even though it wasnt freaking her out last week it sure as hells freaking her out this week.

i kept saying its just a number. she kept saying i know i know but its a quarter century. century!

i was all i remember my first quarter century. it hit me like a ton of bricks, but fortunately i had good friends around me and a hot girlfriend who dressed slutty for me, and my old band even got back together on my behalf.

karisas family is coming out next week to party with her so last night she and i grabbed a few cocktails at the rustic on hillhurst one of our favorite bars.

besides the fact that a lot of our friends regularily drink there, its got lots of tvs to keep us up on current events, and a really good jukebox. but the best thing about it is even though its in allegedly hipstery los feliz all i saw in there were very normal people of all walks, including a table of drunken tshirt wearing coeds singing along to the areosmith that they put in the machine.

dream on.

dream until your dreams come true.

afterwards i was super hungry.

despite what you read on this blog, the chick situation isnt what it used to be.

in my glory days i had chicks who would take care of me three times a day. maybe i wrote better back then, who knows.

nowadays im lucky just to get a nibble. perhaps ive hit the wall.

so my body has all this unused energy and lord knows im not running or working out to get that energy out of me, so what my body has been doing im noticing is redirecting all of that locomotion into hunger and i eat man shit do i eat.

had some thai beef ribs the other day and i just tore them from the bone and cleaned it off real good, even dipped rice into the sauce and got every bite.

im eating cereal right out of the box. i’ll eat anything. at any time. right before i go to sleep i make some toast. i put butter on one slice and grape jelly on the other. i fall asleep with toast in my mouth and wake up with grit in my gums. now you know why the ladies flock to me.

so last night after drinking with karisa (one beer for her, two double baileys and a sam adams for me) we were driving through hollywood and i wanted a whole chicken. karisa was all you dont need a whole chicken tony but i wanted a whole chicken and i coulda sworn that zankou was open til 1am but it wasnt.

theres two things i would do if i was mayor of los angeles, and thank you to whoever nominated me for that position last week.

the first thing is i would revitalize westwood to its former glory of the past. theres no way in hell that there should be a friggin ghost town in the middle of all the wealth that surrounds the college town of ucla. here are the neighboring towns of westwood: beverly hills, bel air, brentwood, santa monica, and west la. how you can have a black hole right in the middle of all of it is just plain laziness.

even the cruddiness and piss-stained streets of hollywood blvd have more life in it and tourists handing over monies (some willingly) on it than the pathetic mess called westwood village. which has sunk so far down that it doesnt have a Tower Records any more or even a Gap. how can a village have a booming In-N-Out, a Best Buy, a Jerry’s Famous Deli, a Circuit City, a Bebe, several movie theatres that regularily host movie premieres, a campus next door of 50k students and staff, and not be able to support a Gap?

im not a huge fan of the store, but it’s the canary in the coal mine.

mayor pierce would fix all of that immediately. and it would start with two big time dance clubs like westwood used to have in the 80s.

then i would sprinkle the city with 24 hr chicken places because if we’re seriously going to be the 2nd biggest city in america the beautiful we should act like it and not roll up the sidewalks at 11:30 like a gaggle of pussy ass bitches.

superheroes being bad + nohealani + welch + dougie