Where is the hotel?

this got made in the day

oh yeah.

i am in nyc.

be home tomorrow.

but i made it home alive

tonight i pulled a trick (sort of) that i haven't pulled since i lived in nyc.  first of alll as i was driving kime and i to the hollywood hills for a party i wasn't sure i was going to be that into anyways i thought, "hmmm....if i was in nyc i would just leave and get on the train when i was ready to go home".  there's no responsibility of other people.  but this was a whole different game.  driving someone, it's a lot of pressure to have a good time.  and sometimes you are in the mood for that and sometimes not. and i won't say i wasn't in that mood tonight. but this party, while fun for others no doubt, was no what i was really in the mood for.

so i pulled a classic ds circa the nyc days.  back then if there was something i was sort of obligated to go to but not really in the right state of mind, or maybe it was at a bar i hated...if there was something i was not stoked on for whatever reason i had a patented trick.  i would show up at the venue (unless it was more than a 10 minute train ride away or if it involved a river crossing, in which case i just wouldn't go) of the party.  i would talk to the first couple people i saw that i knew. and then after a few minutes of casual conversation i would say i was going to get a drink.  at that point i would just leave and go home. it was sketchy until you got to the corner. you didn't want to run into any other guests as you were bailing. but once you hit the corner you were in the clear and i would usually walk to st marks book shop and look at books for the next hour or so. 

that's what i miss living here in LA.  it's much harder to pull that move off.   but i kind of did it tonight. although i didm say i was leaving... but then i ended up sticking around for 10 more minutes and then i found myself outside checking out the amazing house and i just thought "well... there's my car" and i left. sorry.

sometimes i am not the best partier.

and when i got home i was looking at this photo and decided that i am going to buy a turntable tomorrow.  because if i could listen to SCRAWL "he's drunk" right now... i would feel great.

 

18 and life to go

after a tedious process of late nights trying to get the showpony finished on time for the new reopening saturday we needed a crazy night out. the one we got wasn't really what we had bargained for.

the other day i got an IM from sam hunt (booking agent / fantasy baseball competitor) saying that he was gonna be in town this weekend. i asked what for and he said "Hugh Hefner's 18 year old kid's birthday party. Two of my bands are playing it." i was stoked! as soon as those words hit my ears i was lounging in the pool at the mansion with playmates. i had a robe. free slippers. two beer party was gonna turn into 24 hour party at least, all courtesy sam. but then when i asked if he could get me in and for directions to the mansion he was like "ah dude. i can't get ANYONE in and it's not at the mansion, it's at the echoplex." okay... so 0 for 2 except that the echoplex is 5 minutes from my house and i know half the people that work there. so i told him i would see him sunday night. and this is what happened when kime, cynthia and i went to hef's 18 year old kids birthday party.

for sure everyone that wasn't actually invited by the birthday boy was disappointed. i should have known something was up as we were approaching. no one was around. i mean i wasn't expecting a red carpet or tons of papparazzi but there wasn't even a hint of excitement. and then when we walked in to the club there was a group of like 25 kids milling around on the couches and a little soft music playing. we headed to the bar and surveyed the scene. i was wondering if the kid was bummed. here was a club that holds close to 1000 people with only like 50 people in it tops. but i heard that on the contrary. he was totally psyched! he had flown his two favorite bands out and they were gonna play for him and his friends.

here's the birthday boy (the tall one in white) and maybe his two best friends from what i could tell.

first was dan deacon. i had just (sorta) seen him in australia. it was packed there. he plays on the floor in front of the stage and it was pretty rad to compare australia (probably about 1200 kids surrounding him and his table of gear) to last night, 25 kids. but it was still the same, just a bunch of people freaking out and dancing.

buzzelli was mingling with the kds. we had about 4 drinks before anything even happened. so by the time dan started we were pretty happy.

it was at about this time that i realized how awesome this was. i think most of us would have expected this party to be something straight out of the OC or gossip girl or something. but instead it wasn't much different than probably many of our own teenage birthday parties. it was just a bunch of kids getting dorky with their friends. and that was the great realization of the evening. this was not paris hilton skankiness. this was pretty wholesome. the kids would come to the bar and not even try to get a drink, all they wanted was red bull that they would trick out with cherries and lemons and whatever other pieces of fruit they could get their hands on when the bartender turned their backs.

this is girl talk.

i had been talking with gregg (girl talk) earlier in the night. we were laughing about what bands we would have had play our 18th birthdays and the likeliness that just two or three years later we would have thought those same bands were totally lame. like at my party i would have had gorilla biscuits or some straight edge band play. and three years later when i was totally into acid and the stone roses i would have been mortified. it'd be funny if you could find these kids in 5 years and see if they cared about girl talk at all anymore.

he normally plays in front of a thousand people or so and always lets a hundred kids on stage. all these kids were just dancing in front until sam told a few they could go up on stage. and then the boys took there shirts off and it was a full on dance party.

and then it was time to go and try to karaoke. we had to drag cynthia away.

anyway... happy birthday kid. if you find this on the internet and want some photos of your birthday party i have a lot.

is this what parenthood (if it ever happens) might be like? standing around getting wasted watching a bunch of teenagers dance? that'd be okay.

nobody likes your fucked up plans

ever have one of those FTW days. today big time. i feel like i am at work even though i am days and days away from being on tour. in fact being at work right now would be preferable. at least when i feel this frustrated with beating my head against a wall i am normally getting paid for it. maybe that revelation will make it easier to go to work now.

i guess today is the day i should have gone to the grand canyon when i woke up.

don't forget. this is happening tonight. pretty much now.

tell me a story where you don't come home

kime and i found this doll today near the coffee shop. since we had already seen bad foot two days in a row on the foot doctor sign we decided against touching it. the last thing we need is ANOTHER harbinger of bad luck.

it did remind me that i neglected to post the creepy photos from the boat ride i never wrote about in mexico. we took some gondolas out into some canals and came across these on a patch of land. the story goes that for 25 years a man was being haunted by the ghost of a little girl that had died in the swamp. he tried to appease her by pulling dolls up out of the canals and adjacent swamp and hung them all over his house and trees. i didn't make it to the house in the swamp, but these were creepy enough until i have time to go back.

smoke weed everday

this has been cracking me up for about 10 days now.

*UPDATE*

i have watched this 23 times today. it actually makes me feel GOOD when arthur starts laughing. i love this.