Memory download mostly complete
Not sure how to start this entry. The past few weeks have been rather strange in nature, I guess.
Brandon and I watched fish orgies along the coast, saw people build an ice structure just to watch it melt and collapse, were amazed by people with torn flesh mosh uncontrollably to an anti-police band only to be faced with riot-geared cops 5 minutes later, smirked at grown men dropping their pants and drunkenly singing together while a wild fire blazed outside, marveled at the head-banging-while-fiercely-playing-cello stylings of Apocalyptica, and to top it all off, I finally got my university acceptance letters.
Before all that, though was Wizard World L.A. Absolutely the most fun I had volunteering for a con, and equally the most exhausting (in a good way). I was assigned to be Marc Silvestri's assistant during his signings, while also running about the convention for Jeph Loeb who desperately needed hand sanitizer (ended up bumming a bottle of Purell off of Top Cow). Ran into my friend Pam from the Jules Verne Film Festival and we went to a few panels together.
WIZARD WORLD L.A. -- March 14-17
This guy does huge colored-pencil drawings of different comics and movies. Last year he did a gigantic Captain America, shortly after his comic demise.
Spidey's ladies
Forbidden Kingdom panel--Above is the movie's writer John Fusco, along with actor Collin Chou who played the Jade Warlord in the movie (as well as Seraph in Matrix Reloaded and Revolutions).
A few shots from the Heroes panel. Milo was a surprise guest, as the program only listed Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale, also seen above.
Yeah, at this point I was mostly just taking pictures for the benefit of my online friends who might have a thing for Milo/Peter. ;)
Since our little volunteer area was also doubling as a changing room for the 501st who were there, occasionally these two would pop in from time to time.
APOCALYPTICA at the Roxy -- April 14
We saw Apocalyptica at the Roxy with Marty and Becky. Amazing show. Absolutely wondrous.
Yeah, I didn't realize cameras weren't going to be turned away, so now here's some crappy cellphone shots.
I have no idea why these pictures are so small as that's the largest my cellphone sent this and the one above.
If you notice how in some shots, the blond guy's head is just really blurred, it's because he was doing some really intense head-banging. Phenomenally enough, he never got his hair caught on anything on the cello.
DAMAGE INC and METAL 101 at Anaheim House of Blues -- April 15
Damage Inc's lead singer/James Hetfield look-alike
When Brandon and I first walked up to the venue, we saw the above guy standing outside and wondered if it was actually James Hetfield, who'd maybe come to watch a local metal show for whatever reason. As it turns out, it was the lead singer of the Metallica-cover band Damage Inc who were performing. He looks and sings EXACTLY like James and even plays with the same guitar, the black Gibson Explorer (which Brandon also plays on).
Immediately after the set, rather than grab a drink or chill in the green room, he was in the back of the room shaking hands with the fans. Great, great guy.
VOIDCRUSH at DiPiazza's -- April 16
And the night after the House of Blues show, Voidcrush played at DiPiazza's. The above shot shows this guy who went from chair-dancing to standing in front of the band flailing his arms and wildly gesticulating his own self-choreographed dance that was part Vanilla Ice, part throwing his fanny pack to his side so he could rock it unhindered.
Near the end of the set, the Italian acoustic pop band following Voidcrush gave him a couple of glow sticks.
Anyway, best picture of Rick:
PENNYWISE at Long Beach Grand Prix -- April 19
End of the week, we saw Pennywise perform outside of the Long Beach Terrace Theater for the Long Beach Grand Prix.
Like the one other Grand Prix concert I'd seen (Bad Religion 2 years ago), it had an absolute insane mosh pit. People were jumping in the fountain or just coming by with torn flesh, bleeding everywhere. Most of these people still headbanging, pumping their fists in the air, and with looks of absolute violence-racked peace. They could beat the shit out of each other and only become more mellow in the process.
After the show, Brandon and I walked around what was the mosh area, noting that several people strolled away, wearing no shoes and with completely cut up toes and soles. The pavement in front of the theater was riddled with crimson footprints.
When we finally headed out the front gate, we were greeted with Ocean Boulevard lined with riot-geared police officers already menacingly holding their clubs and ready to strike at a moment's notice. Several cops already had bean-bag guns out as they sized up our crowd.
I understand they're there to keep the intoxicated, the crazies and the trouble-makers in line, but seriously I've never felt so threatened in my life.
Apparently while the show was going on, though, LBPD had a riot on their hands as 800 ticket holders had to be turned away since capacity had been surpassed already. One man was taser'd, and several others were beaten.
Oh, and Speed Racer's Mach 5 was on display in the exhibit hall. I'm still not sure if I'll see it in theaters or if I'll just wait for it for hit the $2 theater near the end of its run. Christina Ricci just looks weird as Trixie.
Long Beach Aquarium -- April 13
Went to the Long Beach Aquarium of the Pacific's Earth Day festivities. They were offering $10 off to people who brought in pieces of e-waste. We lugged in our old computer tower, a couple burnt-out power supplies, some faulty keyboards, and my cell phone I had for about a week in the late '90s (Kiocera's brick model).
More lorikeets.
Grunion Run -- April 22
We went to Cabrillo Beach a couple weeks ago to watch grunion have one really wild orgy. Some of the marine biologists from the nearby aquarium were out on the beach to broadcast the occurrence to scientists in France.
For those on my f-list, not from California, every spring and summer two or three nights following a new or full moon, these little silvery fish wash themselves up on beaches along Southern California to spawn. Females come up on the shore, bury themselves tail-first in the sand to lay their eggs while the male fish wrap themselves around her, releasing their milt to fertilize them.
There's no love-making, no ceremony to it of any kind, just nitty gritty "I don't care who cums all over me, someone HAS to."
I'd never seen this many grunion spawning at once. It was an absolute carpet of a fish bukkake fest.
Here you can see some of the fish leaping into the air, along with some of the females who are upright while males entwine around them.
April 25
Aztec dancer at Olvera Street.
I spent Friday having a transit day around L.A., originally with the intent of checking out LACMA's Fluids attempt. I ended up hanging around Olvera Street after seeing the Thomas the T-Rex lab at Natural History Museum. The Thomas thing was all right, really not worth spending the money to check out (I was just going while my museum pass is still good).
Later Brandon and I went with Becky to see Devo's cast Dark Refrain at their new Orange County theater. Poor Marty was ill. Damn it's been a while since I just sat and watched the show all the way through.
POXY BOGGARDS' BOGFEST -- April 26
Bogfest fell on that Saturday. As Brandon and I carted ourselves out to Monrovia for the show at the DoubleTree we noticed the nearby mountains that faced the hotel were on fire. Since the show was going on anyway, we shrugged it off and went in.
Snoball leading the crowd in "Wash That Junk (If You Wanna Put It in Her Mouth)."
All the guys dropping trou for "I Wear No Pants."
Darian as Nelly (for "Nelly the Mermaid") when Tappy sang, "They had no lower half, but they still had a mouth."
When all of us came out of the hotel, many people stood aghast, staring at the mountain as the fire had gotten much bigger.
Part of the fire that I was able to take from the car.
Brandon and I, out of curiosity drove as close to it as we could get before we'd be forced to turn back. So along with several other carloads of people who had binoculars ready, we watched the blaze from a bridge over a flood control ditch in a neighborhood near the foot of the mountain. The fire was several miles away, but it was the clearest view that close.
"FLUIDS" -- April 27
El Camino college students working on the ice structure with the Korean Friendship Bell and Pacific Ocean in the background.
The next day we hung out at Angel's Gate Cultural Center in San Pedro, where some artists and students were helping construct their branch of the recreation of Allan Kaprow's 1967 performance piece Fluids.
The piece pretty much involves building a rectangular structure out of ice blocks simply to watch it melt, crack and crash down as the heat changes the ice back to water and eventually to vapor.
While the volunteers continued to toil over the ice structure, we wandered about the cultural center compound, as it was their open house and all of the artists' studios were free for people to peruse. We painted rubber fish and rubbed paper on them in the print-making shop and marveled over all of the art that decorated the walls of buildings that looks like they used to be military barracks.
Later we went back to the ice to watch it come apart.
After one of the walls spectacularly avalanched.
FREE COMIC BOOK DAY & JPL OPEN HOUSE -- May 3 & 4
After a couple days of free/cheap ice cream in the week, this past weekend was spent geeking out.
For Free Comic Book Day, Brandon and I hit up a few of the local comic shops (Amazing, Gotham, Pulp Fiction), even the Cerritos Library (where they gave away one book per person) and got a good chunk of the free books that were put out along with one of the Iron Man Hero Clix each. Amazing Comics also was hosting some Top Cow artists and writers in front of their store who were doing signings and shaking hands.
Sunday, after being reminded of it in Wil Wheaton's blog, Brandon and I headed out to Pasadena for NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory's open house.
One of the full-scale models of the Mars Rover doing a demonstration of its ability to travel over rocky terrain.
What the Mars Rover really looks like.
While wandering the back lots, looking for the space assembly clean room, found one scientist's mid-life crisis vehicle. I'm amused that they didn't cover up why they bought the car.
A picture from inside the Robo-Dome. It's a robot they constructed to simulate what these cameras that NASA's planning on putting in space to if they can find another Earth and how they would be able to compensate for the lack of gravity. The robot glides on air under a simulated starry sky. According to the people in the dome, their elevated platform is the flattest, most perfect floor in the world.
Yeah, we're dorks.
Still not pictured are either of the Arizona trips we did since September. I'll probably pool them all and do one big post for it later.
Also not pictured are the shots from the Star Trek tour at the Queen Mary, but here's a short video of Brandon being beamed anyway: http://youtube.com/watch?v=HnNhdJSddWc