My New Handle Will Be Squirrel Cage
Home from LA. Had such an excellent time this weekend. I love living in SD and I've got the best friends around down here but getting up North to hang with the LA boys is such a treat.
Headed North Friday evening from work and got to Andy's place around 9pm or so. Made decent time despite there having been no less than 5 accidents on the freeway and two of them major pile ups. I cheated a bit and used the carpool lane to get around the stickier spots but I'm sure the car karma fairy will forgive me.
Andy and I headed over to The Eagle shortly after I arrived for the Oink event. The bar was done up for the Chinese year of the Pig - festive Chinese lanterns and anal sex anyone? The party room had a peep show with dudes fooling around on a bed of cooked white rice. They had a "fist the pig" board where you could win a prize by opening a fortune cookie (one prize I saw was getting to grope Mr. Slave's ass - wee). They also had wantons! Oh yeah, and two dudes jerking each other off followed by casual anal sex (this was not part of the official show but hey, it's the Eagle and shit happens). And don't get me wrong, I love this kind of stuff. SD is sooo not able to do things like this and the voyeur in me is way into being surrounded by extremes. Speaking of, Xtreme Aaron came out along with the fab-o Gary Cotti which was mighty nice. Brad was there as well and I ran into a few more familiar faces (like Hot Scott and mr Dave White). As always, was just good fun to hang with Andy, drink lots of beers and stumble home. Bad things sometimes happen to Good People points to reddish68 whose car was towed that night.
We slept in a bit on Saturday before heading up near the Greek Theater for a short hike to get a view of the city - it was beautiful out. Well actually, we had a bite to eat at Fred 62's before that (waffles!). You can see a shot of us here from the hike. After that we headed over to Best Buy to get Andy a new monitor. He was using a 13 inch CRT that was dim even at full brightness and needed to be released from it's mechanical coil. So we got him a 19 inch NEC super-bright display and it's quite nice. I picked up the 4th and 5th seasons of South Park too. Oh yeah, after breakfast and before Best Buy we stopped in at a t-shirt shop and I got some new Ts. They are super nifty and they make me happy.
After hanging around the house a bit and basking in the warm money well spent glow of his new screen we headed over the house of ADA (Alonso, Dave, and Aaron) for a lovely dinner of "almost" rissoto with Gary, and Chris G. in house as well. The food was damn good the company snazzy, and the times memorable. Here's a pic of me wearing moroccomole 's glasses because I was trying to look well-read, fabulous, and interesting like mr mole:
Yeah, I know what yer gonna say so there's no need to say it...
Would have loved to have stayed longer but I needed to get over to the Wiltern to see The Dandy Warhols. I got there just as they were beginning their set. Gotta say, having seen them once before doing a less than impressive set (very uninspired), I was pleased to find them full of energy and pumping out some great tunes (godless, boys better, get off, I am sound, junkie, among others). Fun spot in the show - they're playing flag ship single "Bohemian Like You" and as they get to the end where there's this nice little off kilter "I'm getting wise and I feel so bohemian like you... cuz it's you that want so... etc etc" Courtney screws up and misses the in on the line (which is my fav part of the song). So I think - damn, he f'd up my fav part of the song. Song ends. Courtney goes "fuck, I totally fucked up the best part of the song - wow, I'm totally sorry... You know what, we'll play it again at the end and we'll do it awesome". And they did - show was a little short but totally enjoyable. Afterwards I met up with Andy over at the Eagle for more beers. Damn, we closed that place two nights in a row!
I got my eight hours o' sleep and woke up a little bleary. fakeplasticbear and I called up rrumm and met him at a nice spot for brunch. Rob has a hard time taking to heart warnings in menus about hot things and as a result he burnt his pinky real bad on a little skillet. This was offset slighty by the bacon infused caramel sauce he had ordered and poured on many of the items on the plates in front of him. From there we stopped off at the Bone's to watch the rest of the Pam Anderson Roast that was on Comedy Central about a year ago - damn, that was funny!
Rob and I had made plans to see "Zodiac" with a bunch of the boys (let's see - roll call would be rrumm , mattycub , e_ticket , zombietruckstop , reddish68 , fidgetcub , moroccomole , garycotti , bobaloo , knepbear , as well as friends Terry (who I met for the first time) and Terry's friend Scott (who I had met once before). Funny little story there, Terry mentioned his friend Scott as having had a life long friend named Brian Hill. So I joked about meeting my life long friend Scott. Turns out this particular Scott is also Scott Thompson of Kids in the Hall fame--one of my all time favorite shows. I met Scott a few years back at an after party at a charity thing called "Clash of the Titans" which KITH, Mr Show, Janeane Garafalo and Triumph the Insult Comic Dog all performed at. Anyhow, he didn't recall our meeting (and no, I totally didn't expect him too even with my freakish size) but it was still pretty neat to meet him again and hang out in a casual way. Nice guy.
Zodiac was VERY good. A long movie at 2hr40min but wow, it just sucks you in. I'm a big fan of David Fincher's and he really took a step back here and captured the look and feel of the eras involved. The brutal aspects are what you would expect from Fincher - real and raw but very powerful. Big ensemble cast here giving strong performances. I would highly recommend this one folks.
After the flick we all headed to dinner and before I knew it, it was time to head back to SD. A fine weekend for sure. Thanks again to my home away from home friends in LA. You guys always make me feel so welcome and I look forward to being up there again before too long.
Here's a few more pics from the weekend - you can see more on my Flickr Page too.
Me in the "Cub" section at Amoeba (we dropped in after the show to say Hi to aairplane). Me at dinner (fidget took a pic of me on the sly with my phone). A shot of the DW's at the Wiltern.
Ok - All caught up... Now I just need to read and see what y'all have been up to this weekend!
Oh yeah - My LA Star Sighting for the Weekend --> Director Kevin Smith in line for snacks at the Arclight....
Headed North Friday evening from work and got to Andy's place around 9pm or so. Made decent time despite there having been no less than 5 accidents on the freeway and two of them major pile ups. I cheated a bit and used the carpool lane to get around the stickier spots but I'm sure the car karma fairy will forgive me.
Andy and I headed over to The Eagle shortly after I arrived for the Oink event. The bar was done up for the Chinese year of the Pig - festive Chinese lanterns and anal sex anyone? The party room had a peep show with dudes fooling around on a bed of cooked white rice. They had a "fist the pig" board where you could win a prize by opening a fortune cookie (one prize I saw was getting to grope Mr. Slave's ass - wee). They also had wantons! Oh yeah, and two dudes jerking each other off followed by casual anal sex (this was not part of the official show but hey, it's the Eagle and shit happens). And don't get me wrong, I love this kind of stuff. SD is sooo not able to do things like this and the voyeur in me is way into being surrounded by extremes. Speaking of, Xtreme Aaron came out along with the fab-o Gary Cotti which was mighty nice. Brad was there as well and I ran into a few more familiar faces (like Hot Scott and mr Dave White). As always, was just good fun to hang with Andy, drink lots of beers and stumble home. Bad things sometimes happen to Good People points to reddish68 whose car was towed that night.
We slept in a bit on Saturday before heading up near the Greek Theater for a short hike to get a view of the city - it was beautiful out. Well actually, we had a bite to eat at Fred 62's before that (waffles!). You can see a shot of us here from the hike. After that we headed over to Best Buy to get Andy a new monitor. He was using a 13 inch CRT that was dim even at full brightness and needed to be released from it's mechanical coil. So we got him a 19 inch NEC super-bright display and it's quite nice. I picked up the 4th and 5th seasons of South Park too. Oh yeah, after breakfast and before Best Buy we stopped in at a t-shirt shop and I got some new Ts. They are super nifty and they make me happy.
After hanging around the house a bit and basking in the warm money well spent glow of his new screen we headed over the house of ADA (Alonso, Dave, and Aaron) for a lovely dinner of "almost" rissoto with Gary, and Chris G. in house as well. The food was damn good the company snazzy, and the times memorable. Here's a pic of me wearing moroccomole 's glasses because I was trying to look well-read, fabulous, and interesting like mr mole:
Yeah, I know what yer gonna say so there's no need to say it...
Would have loved to have stayed longer but I needed to get over to the Wiltern to see The Dandy Warhols. I got there just as they were beginning their set. Gotta say, having seen them once before doing a less than impressive set (very uninspired), I was pleased to find them full of energy and pumping out some great tunes (godless, boys better, get off, I am sound, junkie, among others). Fun spot in the show - they're playing flag ship single "Bohemian Like You" and as they get to the end where there's this nice little off kilter "I'm getting wise and I feel so bohemian like you... cuz it's you that want so... etc etc" Courtney screws up and misses the in on the line (which is my fav part of the song). So I think - damn, he f'd up my fav part of the song. Song ends. Courtney goes "fuck, I totally fucked up the best part of the song - wow, I'm totally sorry... You know what, we'll play it again at the end and we'll do it awesome". And they did - show was a little short but totally enjoyable. Afterwards I met up with Andy over at the Eagle for more beers. Damn, we closed that place two nights in a row!
I got my eight hours o' sleep and woke up a little bleary. fakeplasticbear and I called up rrumm and met him at a nice spot for brunch. Rob has a hard time taking to heart warnings in menus about hot things and as a result he burnt his pinky real bad on a little skillet. This was offset slighty by the bacon infused caramel sauce he had ordered and poured on many of the items on the plates in front of him. From there we stopped off at the Bone's to watch the rest of the Pam Anderson Roast that was on Comedy Central about a year ago - damn, that was funny!
Rob and I had made plans to see "Zodiac" with a bunch of the boys (let's see - roll call would be rrumm , mattycub , e_ticket , zombietruckstop , reddish68 , fidgetcub , moroccomole , garycotti , bobaloo , knepbear , as well as friends Terry (who I met for the first time) and Terry's friend Scott (who I had met once before). Funny little story there, Terry mentioned his friend Scott as having had a life long friend named Brian Hill. So I joked about meeting my life long friend Scott. Turns out this particular Scott is also Scott Thompson of Kids in the Hall fame--one of my all time favorite shows. I met Scott a few years back at an after party at a charity thing called "Clash of the Titans" which KITH, Mr Show, Janeane Garafalo and Triumph the Insult Comic Dog all performed at. Anyhow, he didn't recall our meeting (and no, I totally didn't expect him too even with my freakish size) but it was still pretty neat to meet him again and hang out in a casual way. Nice guy.
Zodiac was VERY good. A long movie at 2hr40min but wow, it just sucks you in. I'm a big fan of David Fincher's and he really took a step back here and captured the look and feel of the eras involved. The brutal aspects are what you would expect from Fincher - real and raw but very powerful. Big ensemble cast here giving strong performances. I would highly recommend this one folks.
After the flick we all headed to dinner and before I knew it, it was time to head back to SD. A fine weekend for sure. Thanks again to my home away from home friends in LA. You guys always make me feel so welcome and I look forward to being up there again before too long.
Here's a few more pics from the weekend - you can see more on my Flickr Page too.
Me in the "Cub" section at Amoeba (we dropped in after the show to say Hi to aairplane). Me at dinner (fidget took a pic of me on the sly with my phone). A shot of the DW's at the Wiltern.
Ok - All caught up... Now I just need to read and see what y'all have been up to this weekend!
Oh yeah - My LA Star Sighting for the Weekend --> Director Kevin Smith in line for snacks at the Arclight....