VOTE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

5 More Friends

I Can't Wait

I can't believe we have to wait till July. This looks awesome.

Life is a Fortune Teller

This is so random. This was the cover of Life Magazine in 2004.
Tina Fey and John McCain. What? How ironic!

A Word from the Wise Winehouse

"Nelson Mandela and my husband have a great deal in common -- both of them have spent a great deal of time in prison."

Much like Nelson Mandela, Blake Fielder-Civil is a shady shady character who lets his wife beat him and is in jail for obstructing justice. Some how the young man is not is jail for drugs, which he has been addicted to since he dropped out of school in the 6th grade.

Hollyweird

Over the weekend I hung out with a friend of mine from high school who was in town. We went to Skybar, which is such an awesome place - but I have never actually had fun there. LA is such an odd place. In the middle of bar there was this couch and in front of the couch was a red velvet rope. This was a so called "VIP" area. It was like sitting in your living room and putting a rope in front of yourself between your couch and your coffee table and then saying - "No you can't come in here, it's private." And people were waiting in line for the staff to prepare the area to get in. The couch could fit maybe 4 people. It was so weird and funny.

After deciding it sucked there, we left and on our way out - we met Mr Rawazeva. He said to our friend, Kaz, "Sir I can see you are with two lovely ladies, I do not call ladies B-I-T-C-H's in my songs. I respect ladies. Please take my CD and check out my music. I do not need you to give me anything, just listen to my music. I just want to get my music out. But I do accept donations" So Kaz gives him $1 and Rawazeva says "What? a dollar forget it" and takes the CD back. So clearly it wasn't about getting the music out. In the end we paid him $3 and got 2 CDs. I am listening to it now and surprisingly I think it is OK. Its sounds like any ghetto rap that you hear on top 40 stations. I expected much worse. I have not heard him call ladies b-i-t-c-h's, but he does call lady's "mommies" and "shorties". I think I'd rather be called a bitch. This guy will probably end up blowin up we were doggin on him(rap speak). That will compare to the time when me and my friend Kim were on South St in Philly and one of the Strokes came up and gave us their first EP and I said - "I am never going to listen to this no name band". Now they are one of my favorite bands.

We went to the Stone Rose which was in Brenda's hotel and we had a really good time there except for the 3 inch roaches that hung out with us that I crazily kept checking for.

Then I met this lovely lady in the bathroom.

And I don't really have much to say about that.

I stayed at my friends hotel and we were woken by the LA Aids Walk music, which the hotel was playing right under our window, and the 4 people clapping at the walkers as they passed. While I walked to my car in the opposite direction of the AIDS walkers (in my clothes from the night before) it was fun to see the people get out of their walk and go to Taco Bell for a mid walk 500 calorie snack. A burrito is alot like a powerbar. And it was fun to see the 2 protesters on their megaphones shouting to the walkers, who spent their morning raising money for people with AIDS, that gay people are the reason why there is war, famine, tsunamis and hurricane katrina. My goodness, those gays are awfully powerful people to cause all of that.

But it was really cool, there were soo many people and it ended up raising over 3.1 million dollars. Go Walkers. I wish I wasn't a scrub and participated.

Vintage Madonna

Unreleased Madonna recordings made by her boyfriend at the time when she first moved to New York and got in to music. Her biographer spliced together the early recordings with her acceptance speech when inducted in to the R&R Hall of Fame this year. Also if you have never read a Madonna biography, it is such an interesting read. She moved to NY at 19 with only $35 and a bag full of ballet tights, did not know anyone and supposedly ate out of trash cans.

Phillies Going to the World Series

So I get an email from my friend's husband, Jayson and he tells me that I better be at the Phillies game because tickets are on sale for $15. I go online and sure enough - tickets starting at $13. Clearly the super faithful Dodgers fans could see that their team was going to lose - so they were getting rid of their tickets. The game started at 5:22 pacific time, but I have work till 7. Which was fine I just wanted to see the end when the Phillies won, but my boss let me leave at 6:00 and I hit all this traffic and the lot was super full and it took forever to park, but I finally made it to the game by the 6th inning. Just in time for stupid Manny's home run. I had no time to get any Phillies gear or my camera, but I took pictures with my phone.



When I walked in Dodger fans were already leaving and two guys said "Don't go in there unless you're a Phillies fan" and I said "I'm a Phillies fan" and they booed me. The fans were chanting "Phillies suck" and trying to engage some Phillies fans in some verbal sparring, but nothing really came of it. They booed Shane when he was up and I cheered really loud and I got alot of dirty looks and curses thrown at me. And after I heard about the knife flashing at Phillies fans at other playoff games in LA I decided to simmer down. So in the 9th I went down to lower level where all the Phillies fans were waiting for the win.


All these pictures are pretty blurry, but you get the gist.


And when it happened all the Phillies fans started jumping and running around and we were all slapping each others hands. And all the Dodger fans cursed at us and someone curiously said "Ryan Howard has Aids". Not really sure what that means. Then all the Phillies fans gathered by the visiting dug out and waited for the team to come out and one by one they did. They came in and out of the dugout for the next hour. Along with Harry Kalas. It was so awesome. Also awesome when the Dodger fans threw cups and trash at us from the upper deck.



Shane Victorino is so freaking cute. He came out and ran towards his daughter and just hung out with her during the whole after party thing on the field.


Some random Philly came over and poured champagne all over the fans and So Taguchi jumped into the stands gave his NLCS t-shirt to some girl in the crowd then bowed to everyone and slapped all of our hands. Then the guy from "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia" walked by. Rollins gave beers to the fans which they opened and poured all over themselves. The trophy finally came out and they gave it to Rollins and Burrell. Then we were asked to leave and of course people got belligerent, but I only saw one Phillies fan kicked out, but that was earlier.



It was pretty awesome. Thank you Dodger fans for being so lame that I was able to go the National League playoffs for $13 dollars. Which was actually less than it cost to park. That's disgusting and that would never happen in Philly. Could you imagine Phillies fans selling their tickets day off and leaving in the 5th inning? I feel bad for the Phillies that it didn't happen at home, but it was good for me. Cheers and GO PHILS! But I must say, the Rays scare me a bit. They are annihilating the Red Sox.

My Week at My New Job

So after my first week of work, I really like the job. It is pretty long hours, but I like what I am doing, I am learning a ton, and they are super laid back. It is a mid size talent management company that has been around for awhile and they also run an indie record label too. They don't have any big stars, but they have some recognizable people that you have seen in movies and TV. I think I am going to learn alot and it will be a good building block for the future. Being as they have been in the business forever they know a lot of people and have a ton of celebrity stories, which is awesome. I randomly met Britney's 30 second first husband the other day, which was just strange. So that is that, and GO PHILS!!!!!!

My Week With Rachael Yamagata

Picture from Rachael's residency last year at Johnny Brendas in Philly.


Rachael Yamagata tickets went on sale around August at this really cool venue in Hollywood called the Largo. I tried to buy them when they went on sale, but it was in the middle of my identity theft crisis so I couldn't swing it. So I when I was ready to buy them, they were completely sold out. So day of the concert comes along and I stalk Craigslist all day trying to get tickets that people were selling at the last minute. I end up getting a call from this guy who is like I have an extra ticket and I'm on the list plus one, I will give it to you if you pick me up. I asked him if he was a murderer, he said no, and I started to consider it.

I work around the corner from the venue so I figured I'd do some investigation to see if he really was on the list, he was but without a plus one. I call him he apologizes and we end our negotiations, so since I'm there I stalk for tickets. I end up getting front row tickets from some guy for $20. This random girl sees me buy them from this guy and we start talking and it turns out she is good friends with the opening act - Kevin Devine, who I have seen when the Jealous Girlfriends opened for him in Philly. She ended up being from the east coast and went to Fordham where a couple of my friends went.
She introduced me to Kevin Devine and he was sooo nice and humble and just seemed like a really cool guy. His show was really thought provoking and intimate. Though I didn't love him when I saw him in Philly, I like him a whole lot better now. He also plays for Rachael and he is the red head in the video below.

Anyways, Rachael went on and she had a little cold but the show was awesome. There were rose petals through out the entire theater and she had a whole string section. It was cool. It was the CD release concert and she dressed up for the event in a metallic gold baby doll type dress, it was pretty interesting and flashy looking. She had alot of personal supporters there and she even got a little emotional at one point when she was thanking one of them. It was a great time and I am glad that I was able to go.

So to bring this full circle back to the random Craigslist guy... He emails me on Friday saying that he had tickets for that nights show and if I wanted to go. We ended up emailing and becoming facebook friends so I found out he wasn't a crazy maniac. So I ended up picking him up and taking him to the show. It turns out he used to be a music exec who was one of the first people to discover Rachael and he tried to sign her to his major label, but his boss said no --> Idiot. Now he does community betterment projects and it was all really random, but he was very interesting and I wasn't killed. I did bring a butcher knife with me just in case though and when we parked the car the valet had held my door open and I was really scared the knife would fall out.

The Friday night show was great, I wish I would have gotten there earlier because it was a kickoff for the Hotel Cafe tour and there were a few other artists I'd love to have seen. But here is video of Rachael from that night. She was even sicker this night, but still awesome and still drinking Coronas on stage.



So anyway - Elephants...Teeth Sinking Into Heart, Rachael's double album, came out last week and it took forever. She recorded up in Woodstock before she moved down to Philly and she basically just holed up for a year in the woods writing and composing. After that she had record industry political problems and had to switch labels and it took her 2 years to finally get it out. When she did her residency in Philly last year, she played most of the songs from the new album, but she still had to wait all this time. That sucks. But either way - it is awesome and worth the wait. One disc is slow songs and the other are more rock and roll. Here are a few treasures from the double CD. But check it out, it's a great CD and Ray Lamontagne even makes a special appearance.

Has Anyone Seen This - Genius!!!

Google Goggles. An application that you can add to your gmail and you set it so if you try to email between certain hours that you denote, it won't let you send the email unless you answer math questions in 60 seconds with a difficulty level that you also decide ahead of time. Supposedly some guy invented it after he accidentally wrote an email to his ex girlfriend telling her they should get back together. The thing that sucks though if you are kind of sober you can easily just disable it. Either way - freakin hilarious.

This is Really Cool

Simulation of flight patterns.

PHILLIES in the National League Championship!!!!

I can't wait to wear my Phillies hat around LA and piss off the Dodgers fans!!!!

Grey in LA

Yesterday was the first day it was grey/rainy since May. I told this to Rita, she mentioned a song in Knocked Up, "Grey in LA" by Loudon Wainwright III. I really hate his one song "That's My Daughter" or whatever it is called. But this one is pretty good. So here you go Reet.

FactCheck.org

The best website for non biased informational FACTS about the spin that politicians like to throw around.

http://www.factcheck.org/

It is run by the U of Penn, non partisan. Ch Ch Ch Ch Check it out.