the week in rock in la

tonight 6/24
digital underground, house of blues
louis xiv, avalon
unsane + 400 blows, echo
spin doctors, key club
taylor dayne, hollywood park

tomorrow 6/25
the donnas + louis xiv + jurassic 5 + crystal method + others, national orange showgrounds
anita baker, hollywood bowl
tom jones, greek
bone thugs-n-harmony, ventura theatre
heartless bastards, spaceland
whitesnake, house of blues
tommy the clown, key club

sunday 6/26
david byrne + arcade fire, hollywood bowl
journey, verizon wireless theatre
hall & oates, greek
whitesnake, house of blues
preservation hall jazz band, ameoba (free)
dynamite freulein, the scene
shabba ranks, century club

monday 6/27
juvenile + lil jon, house of blues
me’shell ndegeocelio, el rey

tsarday 6/28
BAND GIRLS MONEY on sale today!
wasp + la guns + stephen pearcy, house of blues
slick rick, vault 350

wednesday 6/29
fountains of wayne (acoustic), largo
mike jones, vault 360
ringo starr, el rey
loggins & messina, greek
faith evans, house of blues
matt costa, silverlake lounge
maximo park, troubador
vagenius, viper room

thursday 6/30
fountains of wayne (acoustic), largo
the ditty bops, spaceland
the pope, the knitting factory
the young dubliners, viper room

evil china doll + annika + ryan mcgee + lisa

dear flagrant

pedro just struck out bernie williams and i figured id write you because i totally understand why you dont go outside.

when regular people have to go outside theyre emmersed with the outsideness. its like being forced to go swimming every day as opposed to only going swimming once a year. the regular swimmers dont obsess about the temperature as they know theyll get used to it.

what i want are things to be twenty four hours a day because even though the nice warm air is nice, the people in the daytime arent all that bright so why should i pry myself out of bed at noon so i can get out there and try to get shit done?

the other day on my way to the beach i saw a sign that said 15 minute smog check, which aaa said i needed to get before i could register my new used car. $55 the dude told me and an extra $20 if it needed to be retested. lucked out and no retest was needed and the dude was great. as he did his thing i ate mcdonalds and he tried to get a little conversation going. he asked me about girls. right before he did my car he was doing this super hot chicks car.

why american girls so bitchy? he asked me. i told him they werent bitchy they were unsatisfied. those were just chicks i hadnt gotten to yet.

ha!

but he was serious. he didnt like the way the college girl moved the lawn chair out into the sun and “observed” him during the entire process.

i said bro. my man was a muslim he told me, an armenian muslim, he wanted to know if it was a muslim thing. i said no i said bro a girl like her might have moved here from ohio or some shit, and in ohio she was the hottest fuckin chick in town. maybe the hottest for three towns wide and everywhere she goes people kiss her ass. girl like that comes to LA and shes not even the hottest chick at the starbucks and there are taller girls bustier girls richer girls girls with xbi agent boyfriends girls with lil convertibles and girls with popular web logs. suddenly her ass is not being kissed and not only isnt her california dream coming to fruition but she can swear that people are calling her fat behind her back.

i parked next to a hummer.

so today i took my smog check certificate into my insurance people and the dude goes hey wheres your title and i said the other dude took it from me when i paid my fees last time. he said go get a smog check and come back and we’ll give you your registration. but this new dude was all we cant take your title. are you sure its not in your car?

and flagrant, im on vacation, and even though this car is nice and it runs awesomely, i cannot afford to donate even one brain cell to the piles of paperwork required to make this simple transaction official. so ive been putting everything in this gay little folder.

so i told the dude, no i clearly remember him taking the documents and only giving me this receipt, everything else is in this folder and i showed him that it wasnt in there. he didnt believe me so i went to my car to root around the empty glovebox and the emptier trunk. and yes a trunk with a wooden baseball bat with a nail sticking out of it is an empty trunk, got it?

when i returned the dude apologized and said that the other dude had indeed collected my title but mailed it back to me this morning. so i would have to wait for it to arrive and bring it back in order to get my registration.

but because i knew it was going to be the only human interaction of the day i let it slide and cruised through a burger king drive thru.

nobody was in line. when they finally got to me i ordered the crispy chicken bacon cheddar crazy thing. after about a minute they took my money and a minute after that the woman i swear to you said could you drive up and then drive back here. i didnt know what the hell she meant so i just drove up. she said ok drive back. and when i did she smiled at me. a minute later i had my food.

the other day this girl emailed me and said that she got off on people ignoring her, would i ignore her, so she came over here, got naked and i ignored everything that she did and said and she did and said some fucked up things but i did my thing and right before she left she kissed my cheek real nice and i could feel a happy tear run down.

today is ambrose bierce’s birthday.

he was born on this day in 1842 in ohio.

here are some selections from his famous Devil’s Dictionary. these are from the P’s:

PESSIMISM, n.
A philosophy forced upon the convictions of the observer by the disheartening prevalence of the optimist with his scarecrow hope and his unsightly smile.

PHILANTHROPIST, n.
A rich (and usually bald) old gentleman who has trained himself to grin while his conscience is picking his pocket.

PHILISTINE, n.
One whose mind is the creature of its environment, following the fashion in thought, feeling and sentiment. He is sometimes learned, frequently prosperous, commonly clean and always solemn.

PHILOSOPHY, n.
A route of many roads leading from nowhere to nothing.

PHOENIX, n.
The classical prototype of the modern “small hot bird.”

PHONOGRAPH, n.
An irritating toy that restores life to dead noises.

PHOTOGRAPH, n.
A picture painted by the sun without instruction in art. It is a little better than the work of an Apache, but not quite so good as that of a Cheyenne.

PHRENOLOGY, n.
The science of picking the pocket through the scalp. It consists in locating and exploiting the organ that one is a dupe with.

PIE, n.
An advance agent of the reaper whose name is Indigestion.
Cold pie was highly esteemed by the remains.
Rev. Dr. Mucker
(in a funeral sermon over a British nobleman)

Cold pie is a detestable
American comestible.
That’s why I’m done — or undone —
So far from that dear London.
(from the headstone of a British nobleman in Kalamazoo)

PIGMY, n.
One of a tribe of very small men found by ancient travelers in many parts of the world, but by modern in Central Africa only. The Pigmies are so called to distinguish them from the bulkier Caucasians — who are Hogmies.

PLAN, v.t.
To bother about the best method of accomplishing an accidental result.

PLATONIC, adj.
Pertaining to the philosophy of Socrates. Platonic Love is a fool’s name for the affection between a disability and a frost.

PLOW, n.
An implement that cries aloud for hands accustomed to the pen.

POETRY, n.
A form of expression peculiar to the Land beyond the Magazines.

POKER, n.
A game said to be played with cards for some purpose to this lexicographer unknown.

POLITENESS, n.
The most acceptable hypocrisy.

POLITICS, n.
A strife of interests masquerading as a contest of principles. The conduct of public affairs for private advantage.

POLITICIAN, n.
An eel in the fundamental mud upon which the superstructure of organized society is reared. When we wriggles he mistakes the agitation of his tail for the trembling of the edifice. As compared with the statesman, he suffers the disadvantage of being alive.

POSITIVE, adj.
Mistaken at the top of one’s voice.

PRESIDENCY, n.
The greased pig in the field game of American politics.

PRICE, n.
Value, plus a reasonable sum for the wear and tear of conscience in demanding it.

PRIMATE, n.
The head of a church, especially a State church supported by involuntary contributions. The Primate of England is the Archbishop of Canterbury, an amiable old gentleman, who occupies Lambeth Palace when living and Westminster Abbey when dead. He is commonly dead.

PROOF, n.
Evidence having a shade more of plausibility than of unlikelihood. The testimony of two credible witnesses as opposed to that of only one.

PROOF-READER, n.
A malefactor who atones for making your writing nonsense by permitting the compositor to make it unintelligible.

PROVIDENTIAL, adj.
Unexpectedly and conspicuously beneficial to the person so describing it.

PRUDE, n.
A bawd hiding behind the back of her demeanor.

PUBLISH, n.
In literary affairs, to become the fundamental element in a cone of critics.

from Biercefile:

Ambrose Gwinett Bierce came into this world on June 24, 1842 in Meigs County, Ohio, son of Marcus Aurelius and Laura Sherwood Bierce. He was the youngest of a large brood of children, whom Marcus, for reasons unknown, anointed with names beginning with “A.”

Details on his childhood are sketchy. He left his family in 1857 to live in Indiana, working as a “printer’s devil” for an abolitionist newspaper. He eventually came to live with uncle Lucius Verus in Ohio, then attended the Kentucky Military Institute for a year before dropping out. Bierce wasn’t the first in his family to have interest in the military. His grandfather fought in the American Revolution, and Lucius Verus supplied radical abolitionist John Brown with the weapons for his failed uprising, as well as personally leading a people’s army to “liberate” Canada from the British.

Ambrose worked odd jobs until the outbreak of the U.S. Civil War in 1860, when he enlisted with the 9th Indiana volunteers. The Civil War would prove to be the defining episode of his life. Bierce worked primarily as a topographical engineer, where his excellent and valiant performance allowed him to rise through the ranks. He fought in several key battles in the war, including Shiloh, Chickamauga, Missionary Ridge, and Kennesaw Mountain. During his distinguished career, he was seriously wounded in the head at Kennesaw Mountain and escaped from capture in Gaylesville, Alabama.

What he saw and experienced in the war had the most profound effect on Bierce. In addition to the harsh realities of war, Bierce’s engagement to childhood sweetheart Bernice (“Fatima”) Wright was broken off during the war, adding to his disillusionment. All his experiences in the war are commonly seen as the source of his cynical realism.

Bierce landed in San Francisco in 1867, where he got a job working at the mint. It was then he decided on a career in journalism. Self-taught, he got a regular job as the “Town Crier” in the San Francisco News Letter by the end of the next year. Bierce’s acid wit quickly gained him great local fame and a burgeoning national notoriety. In 1871, he courted and wed Mary Ellen (“Mollie”) Day, a San Franciscan socialite of one of the best families of the city.

A wedding gift took them to England, where Bierce would spend one of the happiest periods of his life. He earned his way working for Tom Hood’s Fun and continuing his “Town Crier” column in Figaro. During his time in England, Mollie gave birth to his first two children, Day (1872) and Leigh (1874), and he wrote his first three books: Nuggets and Dust (1872), The Fiend’s Delight (1873), and Cobwebs from an Empty Skull (1874).

In early 1875, Mollie returned to San Francisco with their young family. Bierce reluctantly followed later that year, just before the birth of the couple’s third child, Helen. In 1877, Bierce became the editor of The Argonaut, gaining notoriety for his “Prattle” column. After a brief period where Bierce pursued a failed venture with the Black Hills Placer Mining Company in South Dakota, Bierce returned to San Francisco and joined the Wasp in 1881, where he picked up his “Prattle” column.

In 1887, Bierce began his famous (and tumultuous) relationship with publishing baron William Randolph Hearst, joining the staff for the San Francisco Examiner. It was at this time that Bierce’s personal life would begin being fraught with tragedies. In 1888, he separated from Mollie when he found “improper” letters to her from a European admirer, and in 1889, Bierce’s pride and joy, Day, was slain in a sordid duel over a woman.

While continuing his newspaper work, Bierce began producing books in America. Between 1891-3, Bierce wrote and published The Monk and the Hangman’s Daughter (with G.A. Danziger, 1892), Tales of Soldiers and Civilians (1892), Black Beetles In Amber (1892), and Can Such Things Be? (1893).

A lifelong opponent of the railroad interests that literally owned the California politics of his day, Bierce was one of the few journalists brave enough to oppose them. In 1896, Bierce won his greatest victory against Collis P. Huntington, one the biggest “railrogues” in the state. Huntington was in the process of quietly slipping through legislation that would effectively excuse him from repaying his debt to the federal government until after his death. With Hearst’s backing and space in the Examiner and New York Journal, Bierce single-handedly brought such public opinion and scrutiny against the bill that it was struck down, the first major defeat to the railroad interests. Most people mark this the first crack in the railroad industry’s dam of political power which eventually led to its downfall.

Perhaps the most intriguing aspect of Ambrose Bierce’s life was its end. After a tour of the Civil War battlefields of his youth, the septuagenarian Bierce crossed the border into revolutionary Mexico and was never heard from again. Although there should technically be a question mark at the end of the title to this section, we can safely assume Bierce’s death since he would be over 150 years old if he were alive. (Although, as you’ll see below, there are some theories that overcome even this.) Ambrose Bierce’s date of death is usually placed in 1914.

The facts of the matter are this. The build-up to Bierce’s disappearance began in letters that expressed an interest in going to war-torn Mexico to cheat a lingering old age, perhaps even hooking up with rebel leader Pancho Villa. Before a long visit to Civil War battlefields, Bierce made a series of arrangements for the control of his various interests that can be seen as either preparation for a lengthy trip or an ordering of someone’s final affairs. After the battlefield visits, Bierce crossed into Mexico, sent out a final letter, and vanished. Bierce’s daughter Helen, alarmed by the disappearance, petitioned the United States government to help find her father. An official inquiry by the government failed to turn up anything.

The “traditional,” or at the least the most widely believed theory, holds that he did go to Mexico. Although the specific details of the death vary, the most common story is that after crossing into Mexico, Bierce was killed during the fighting of the war. In different tellings, he was executed by rebels, federal troops, or Villa himself — or died in a battle before or after joining up with Villa’s forces. One story even tells of an old gringo advisor in Villa’s camp who constantly mocked the rebel leader. Although various people claimed to see Bierce or his grave after December 26, there is no definitive contact with Bierce after that last letter.

Perhaps the most convincing of the Mexico stories is that of soldier-of-fortune Edward “Tex” O’Reilly in his Born To Raise Hell. He claims to have been contacted by Bierce in El Passo and then in Chihauhua City — but never met with him. O’Reilly says that several months later, he heard that an American had been killed in a nearby mining camp of Sierra Mojada. He investigated and heard how an old American, speaking broken Spanish, was executed by Federal Troops when they found out he was searching for Villa’s troops. The locals told how he kept laughing, even after the first volley of his execution.

coop + im reading jamies book + oak park mastermind + spastic lethargy

if you dont burn down your town after you win a world championship

then you dont deserve it. fuckin i set fire to my dumpster at ucsb if we won a coin flip.

once me and solomon were covering the near riot in iv after we beat the #2 rebels of unlv and people started a couch on fire and people started throwing shit onto the couch to get the fire taller and some blond shirtless surfer dude started dancing around it and then someone gave him a beer and he shotgunned it and jumped over the flaming couch and everyone cheered.

then someasshole with a full beer whipped it at the couch but it soared over it and nearly hit solomon in the head and i grabbed it as it spun behind us and whipped it back fuckers. yeah we were the press but we were also seniors. we had to set the tone.

solomon is getting married next month and the other day he asked me very politely if i could dj the reception. typically the dj is dougie gyro who will be in california next month but is headed back to the czech republic three days before the ceremony.

jeff was so happy that i was saying yes that he offered to pay for my airfare or some shit but i was all, are you crazy, not only do i know exactly what i will play, but youve fixed my computers for free over the years, i would do anything for you.

except play coldplay.

do that shit on my break.

at my disposal will be two ipods a cd player and a mixer. one of the ipods will be mine which will include so many incredible dance songs that we may dance till october.

its three thirty three am and i have two things to do tomorrow and im done. i have to move my fucking car before noon and i have to go to the post office to mail peter from palm springs his copy of how to blog. if i really want to go for it i can go over to the aaa and show them that i got my smog certificate which means that now i truly have registered the car to me.

its a very good car. theres a lot of corrosion on the battery wire. the smog check guy said just a little water and baking soda. but i dont know. how can baking soda be my saving grace in the spring when i got a bee sting and now with this car battery?

i will probably not be unemployed for very long at all, so i am savoring each day that i dont have to wake up or think about anything.

as you can see it hasnt made me terribly productive or insighful, if anything its made me testy and ownery if thats how you spell it.

when i started at the xbi they had us get used to drugs so they fed me all these things id never heard of and id wig out and then theyd write down what i told them happened and at the same time my roommate just had to smoke weed every day.

totally not fair.

he, however wanted to do all the wild shit and was bored, but one thing i noticed was for the first six months he sneezed alot. the smoke was irritating his nose. but then he got used to it.

being in unemployment limbo is a lot like my roommates experience, i imagine. it looks fun but its boring and it never produces the inspiration that you think it will. you just get fat and grow a beard.

and now being close to having a job has inspired me less. when i thought i was going to starve if i didnt do something inventive, i thought of the idea of putting together Stiff and selling it online, a painless process that would get me a few grand probably. but now that i know that theres light at the end of the tunnel, i dont want that thing out there.

but i do work on it every night. pretty much.

and it is good.

and about an hour ago this crazy guy who screams about his great audio video deals showed a 42″ plasma tv for $2,000.

and i thought, it wouldnt suck to have a tv in the bedroom for once. or a laptop. or both. or a damn trip to europe when nobodys lookin. or canada before it gets cold as shit. matt good says that it isnt all that cold but maybe thats cuz hes got a heater. i dont have a heater. i do but i dont use it.

my car is a good car i just need a knob for the volume. when i worked at federated group home of fred rated i sold car stereos and i never knew why sometimes random knobs would be missing… until now.

the deputy outs me as straightedge + dick shagwell + karen got the tsar record early