ich bin ein auslander

Well, it’s 3pm on the wednesday before thanksgiving, which means everyone has buggered out of their offices early and the break has begun. Have a few last minute work situations to deal with but overall i’m looking forward to a little break myself.

Eddie Izzard did a signing at the Virgin Megastore last night for the release of his Dress To Kill DVD… went down to check out the proceedings. Who would have thought he was that popular here? Line was way, way, way too long… I’ll just have to trust that we’ll eventually meet him so other way. Besides, signings are always a bit lame. Uhm.. hi. Sign this? Ok. Bye!

What else? Nothing really, I guess.

Thus begins week two. Doing alright, although particularly worried about upcoming Thanksgiving. Forced exposure to the entire family is usually not good for my nerves. Will deaded the pain with copious amounts of alcohol.

Weekend was pretty low-key… Friday, just a brief stop at Finn’s for a drink or two and some fries… Saturday, off to Hollywood for an art opening and anothe quick stop at Trader Vic’s for expensive cocktails. Got to keep the little plaster coconut cup, though. Rockin’. Sunday, finishing up a work project and watching the Sopranos.

Music studio is finally working, relatively kink-free. Still need to create my Logic environment, get all my outboard synths configured and whatnot, but functionally, everything is going in and coming back out again… got two songs to work on for Simon’s project, so that’s first on the list.

On the more depressing side of things, work continues to go down the toilet. The slow economy is finally hitting us, as potential new projects continue to be stalled and/or dropped, and existing ones keep getting budgets cut or knocked back in scale. There are some definite opportunities out there for us, but it’s all a bit of a gamble at the moment. Change is good, change is good, change is good goes the mantra around Fungus Central at the moment.

Keeping on keeping on… not thinking about it quite so much as the past few days. Weekend plans were initially ambitious but for a number of reasons have been scaled back… not the least of which is I’m not sure I’m up for a weekend of concerts, drinking and… not smoking around a bunch of people that are.

We were going to catch Thievery Corp at the Wiltern tonight, but I spent last evening giving the album a really critical listen. I can’t justify spending $30 on a show for a band I only kind of like. Frankly, there’s only about 3 really good tracks on the album, and I’m still maverick enough to not like something simply because I’m supposed to like it. Fuck the industry alternative darlings, I say…
So instead we’re catching a friend of ours in a play and then off to Finns for the normal thing.

Saturday evening was somewhat more of a tempting proposition - FC Kahuna and Ladytron! Just one catch - they’re both doing DJ sets, not playing live. Fuck that. Why do I want to watch them spin other people’s records? I want to see them doing their own damn music. More people need to stand up to this DJ bullshit. Boycott damn it, otherwise they’ll all just keep doing this because it’s cheaper and easier than doing a real live performance. I’ve already totally given up hope on ever seeing Aphex Twin perform live. We’re stuck with him playing records (poorly) and oversized bunny rabbits dancing about while he does so. I just don’t do enough drugs to make that interesting.

Saturday’s up in the air, then. Probably nothing.

Enough rambling. Last note - watched “My First Mister” last night. Not too shabby if you can get past all the crap goth cliches. Wendy had a good point, though - I may not have acted like that, but damn near all my friends did.

By the way, if you’re a goth, living in Los Angeles, and even manage to score a job working at Retail Slut, how in god’s name can you run around and pretend that no one understands you? You’re surrounded by people that have the same damn outlook and write the same damn suicide notes and not really mean it!

If I made it through last night, I can make it through anything. Long work day, and then off to see a new band a friend is managing play at the Troubadour. They’re called Tahiti 80, pretty good stuff. At times shoegazer, at times electronic (those are the two times I like them), and then pretty straightforward rock / singer / songwriter type stuff.

Anyway, hung out, had a few drinks, went backstage after the show and somehow survived a tiny, smoky room where nearly everyone lit up except for me. But I did it, damn it.

I’m really, really liking FC Kahuna’s Machine Says Yes. It’s comparable to hearing the Chemical Brother’s Exit Planet Dust for the first time. Yes, it’s that good.