: prince, elton and billy, the grates

the tonight in rock list over at LAist is sooooo long

heres just an excerpt

Prince @ Conga Room (Sold-Out; Show at 9:30 PM)
Prince @ Nokia Theatre (Sold-Out; Show at 7 PM)
Prince @ Club Nokia (Sold-Out; Show at 12 AM)
Tom Morello Justice Tour w/ The Nightwatchman, Slash, Shooter Jennings, Serj Tankian, Wayne Kramer, Boots Riley, Corey Taylor @ Henry Fonda Music Box
Suicidal Tendencies, Biohazard, The Prodigal Son @ Hollywood Palladium
J.J. Cale, Pieta Brown @ McCabe’s Guitar Shop (Sold-Out)
Z Berg (of the Like), Michael Runion, Blake Mills @ Home Restaurant (Free! At the new Home on Riverside)
The Grates, The Gibbs, Top Critter @ Silver Lake Lounge
The One AM Radio, Amateurs @ Space 15 Twenty
AIDS Wolf, White Mice, Bipolar Bear, Okie Dokie @ The Smell
The Underground Rairload to Candyland, Bobot Adrenaline, Holding on to Sound, Vlad and the Impalers @ Juanita’s Restaurant & Bar
Ninja Academy @ Old Towne Pub
New Found Glory, Bayside, Set Your Goals @ Avalon
Shwayze @ The Roxy
Elton John, Billy Joel @ Honda Center
Psycroptic, Decrepit Birth, Suffocation, Veil of Maya, Whitechapel, Carcass, Samael @ The Grove of Anaheim

read the whole list here

just turn off yr lights for an hour

sounds lame, i know, but if the aussies are doing it, then its ok with me

speaking of aussies, the grates play tonight at 8pm at the silverlake lounge (will they turn off the lights at 8:30?) and monday night at 10pm at spaceland

and i wrote about them on Pop n Hiss.

but back to earth hour. its already happening around the world

weird to hear people gasp over flickign a switch, but there you have it

its friday so ask tony

i promise not to be creepy like smokey was with joss last nite on idol

so i watched the jimmy fallon show because they had yr girl anna kournikova on in a tiny dress

then i watched the jay leno show because prince was on, and he was funky y’all

is a good way to “grow the economy”

president hope n change just crushed millions of stoners around the nation today. the white house had its online town hall meeting and lots of people wanted to know from the commander n chief if during this period of economic downturn if ending the war on a drug that is getting lots of people high might be one way to improve our economy.

some lawmakers here in california seem to think that it could mean that the $14 billion cash crop could generate over $1 billion annually to the state’s coffers, if not more when you consider how much we pay to prosecute and jail growers sellers and users of the versatile plant.

while every other question mr obama took he greeted in a serious manner, the matter of legalizing marijuana was brushed past so quickly and with such little explanation that the kids on digg cried (coughed?) foul.

-laughing tears: “What’s he been smoking?”

– diggitydingdongdiggitydingdong: “C’mon, the man inhaled.”

– mr fuzz: “could the money for enforcement be used for something more productive ?”

– rancemo: “FTA: ‘I don’t know what this says about the online audience’

“Obviously this is his way of discrediting the internet, as if we’re all a bunch of idiots.

“Abolish the whole federal government! Really, what do they do that can’t be done without them? They’re just a bunch of violent thieving thugs — organized crime at it’s worst!”

and this is just a small sample from those who have commented in the last few hours. the post is on the precipice of going popular on Digg and then the Digg crowd will pile on like mad. just watch.

and pop the popcorn because of this: Digg users have shown that they absolutely support Obama just as much as they support the end of the war on drugs. here we have an issue that they are passionate about thats in direct opposition with their favorite politician in an instance where they see some hypocrisy because it was just five years ago that Obama said, “We need to rethink and decriminalize our marijuana laws.” The president said nothing close to that today.

i know the kids dont read shakespeare as much as we did back in the dark ages before the interwebs, but the bard’s words are more than just poetry, they’re good advice.

i say this in regards to the latest post from my dear friend, and fellow long suffering cub fan, andy sternberg, who winces at the name of one of our new products, Brand X, which launches early next month.

the LAist news editor said on his personal blog that the new print product and blog is “so -horribly-named-it-makes-me -quiver.”

in the time ive been blog editor at the times, i have been in countless meetings in regards to launching new blogs. in each of those meetings the question of name comes up. because i have seen “good” names and “bad” names make absolutely no difference, i have now reached the point where i advise those involved “i dont care what you name it, just name it and move on to far more important things like content.”

unfortunately i was not in the meetings when Brand X was named but if i were i would have said the same thing.

far too many times have we seen “horrible” names like Google, Yahoo, and BoingBoing fare quite reasonably in these modern times because nowadays people are far too savvy to get caught up in what the thing is called – all they care about is what it does and how it will make their lives better.

for example, here we have a photo of san diego glamour girl Danielle K. lets say you get set up on a blind date with her and as you’re about to lean in to kiss her goodnight she reveals that her real name is actually Armageddon Zoom… do you not kiss her? What if she says that her parents are from new jersey and really wanted a boy, but when they got a girl named her Bruce Eugene Springsteen anyway… do you not attempt to make beautiful music together?

the truth of the matter is once you actually got to know Danielle Armageddon Springsteen her name means zero, it’s all about what makes up her character, or for you more base folks, how she looks in a summer dress while driving her Benz.

same goes for web sites, and blogs, and newspapers. you can name them anything you want but if they dont tell you anything interesting, if they dont enlighten you, if they dont make your life easier or better or more entertained then theyre useless.

i was and am a huge fan of metromix. almost every day id go up to their small offices and stand in awe as to how much content they created out of such a small group of people. i learned something new with each issue and i was in love with their beautiful design. their merge with The Guide which will be this new thing called Brand X will be great because of the people and their skills, not because of its name – which by the way i also like.

the things that make me wince are when people get distracted by things that mean zero to the heart of the products that we use.

as you read the world famous busblog just like millions of people have done over the years think to yourself, “when was the last time that fool wrote about riding a bus?”

people read this thing because of me, not because of a dumb name. likewise people will read Brand X because of the people who create it and the stories that they have to tell.

some may use the ridiculously named Google or Yahoo to find it and sites like BoingBoing and probably even NetZoo will link to it. just like always.

meanwhile, im sure the good people behind the site at icanhascheezeburger.com are more than comfortable with their name and the fact that their content gets them millions of visitors a week. in fact, i bet they’re LOLing all the way to the bank.

and with this cold

its called who’s the boss.

what happens is i take medicine, drink some water, eat some soup and try to lay down.

then the cold gets strong and starts making me sneeze then sniffle then it makes my nose run. then when the food gets to a certain spot the cold says oh hell no and sends it right back up.

i run to the bathroom and expunge and flush and my toilet runs so i lift the top and fiddle with the handle and then its time for me to hurl again so i do that and everythings gone. so i brush my teeth and go back to bed.

but im starving, so i drink some water, make some more soup, take some more medicine and eat the soup and try to lay down. i futz around on the computer waiting to see if the food will be allowed into the large intestine and the coughing starts and then the spitting and there i am back at the porcelain throne.

people call. i respond to emails. work is busy. my voice is dying. i feel like im dying. then i think if i die thats ok, ive done pretty much everything ive wanted to do. but im starving, so i make more soup. there are triscuits taunting me but the thought of those coming back up make me shiver.

this time i dont take any medicine. i drink water. ding the soup is microwaved. and minutes later there i am in the bathroom again.

i weigh myself. this is a great diet. i go outside. im freezing. its 75 degrees. i have a hat on, a flannel, a jacket. i move my car, its street cleaning. everyone has shorts and tshirts on. im dressed like its novembrrrr. if i die, i think, at least i lived in warm weather a lot.

get back in bed. answer more emails. unlike most other jobs a lot of the questions only get sent to me, no one is cc’ed. sometimes lindsay gets cc’ed and she knows i am never sick so she helps all she can, god bless her. i eat a hersheys kiss. it makes my teeth sting. i am the most sensitive poet alive. no wonder im dying.

my mom calls. my sister got accepted to law school. life is so weird. she was always better at school than me. i always wanted to be a lawyer. so good for her for beating me once again. it was a fair fight. starving so i make another bowl of soup. im running out of bowls so i get one of those healthy choice soups that have the lid on it. you snap off the top, put the lid back on, and nuke it for 2 minutes.

i drink some water and wait. i tell the cold i can do this all day and all night. i tell it that im gonna die one day and if this is how its gonna go then at least i had some nice italian wedding soup – twice.

so here it is 9pm. the soup went down and stayed down. and i have a sneaking suspicion that i barfed out the cold.

which is great cuz i really wanted to go to work tomorrow

= so much joy

update: Patrick Goldstein also loves the trailer:

Jonze’s film may still turn out to be a failed experiment — perhaps it was a bad idea to put a beloved children’s book classic in the hands of an amazingly gifted but oddball auteur. But for now, judging from the world’s largest focus group — the sprawling collection of people who watch video on the Web — the troubled project has turned a corner, with the new trailer largely earning raves on every website I’ve visited in the past hour. The primary reason? Instead of trying to tell a story, the trailer simply offers up a healthy dose of magical realism, marrying a host of fairy-tale style images of a young boy and various big, furry creatures to the lovely, evocative purr of Arcade Fire’s “Wake Up.”

stereogum is reporting that the trio are coming out with a new record on 6/23. it will be called Farm and it will be supported with a tour.

much as i love stereogum theyre wrong about the video they’re playing. yes thats kevin drew of broken social scene and yes he joined the group at the cedar street courtyard around 1am. but he also jumped in and sang The Wagon with them on red river, which is the street you can see people walking on behind them there at the mohawk. cedar street courtyard has no awning over the stage, and no street to the side of the stage, etc.

anyways listening to j shred is making me feel better. the barfing is helping too.