A mystery meat, a President, an architect, a dude who plays with puppets… I do not know him personally (save for the delicious snack of unknown origin), and yet, I love him. He piques my interest, indulges my senses, and entertains my intellect. This is the life of one man- Frank. He’s a diverse fellow, and I’d like to share a few of my favorite versions of Frank.
1) Frank Miller
Eccentric, passionate, and a little bit crazy. The man was a collector and an obsessive, and he built my favorite place …
One single gets airplay on the radio (Locals Only on KROQ- ten pm on Sundays at 106.7 with Kat Corbett) and suddenly, Los Angeles is all abuzz with the sounds of “Sometime Around Midnight.” The addictive single from the Airborne Toxic Event has gotten them signed, sighted, and sold out- I had the pleasure of witnessing their act last week at the always-fun Glasshouse in Pomona.
The radio airplay definitely showed in the crowd that came out that evening- where usually I’d expect to see boys and girls with tight jeans …
Going Green- what’s it all about? A ploy to make money? A hippie’s dreams come true? Don’t feel bad, even the most savvy of us get confused with all this green-washing. I hesitate to use the word since so much confusion and deceit seems associated with it.
Here’s some food for thought though- whether you believe in global warming or not, you can at least acknowledge the filth around you- in the gutters, at the beach, etc etc. It has to come from somewhere, right? And like it or not, …
Living in Southern California can be a drag- the smog, the traffic, the lack of public transportation. I’ve lived in the IE all my life (mainly in Riverside with brief- and crappy- forays into San Berdu, Mo Val, and Redlands), and Lord, do I get sick of it. The people, the weather, etc, etc…
Who needs an excuse to get away? Not me, that’s for sure. Noise Pop just happened upon a gap in my schedule, and quickly became a convenient ruse to run away to the city by the …
Dropkick Murphys
Hollywood Palladium
February 20, 2009
Big burly white dudes, some bagpipes, and a newly “remodeled” Palladium- not much else to note for the Dropkick Murphy’s latest LA gig. I’m all for the so-called “celtic punk,” but for whatever reason, I wasn’t feeling it that night. For one thing, the typical Dropkick crowd is not my scene- loads of blonde guys twice as big as me drinking Guinness or Jack and wearing those floppy hats that my boyfriend wears… wait, come to think of it, maybe it IS my scene- my boyfriend …
Dead in Desemboque
Eddy Robert Arellano
Soft Skull Press
8/10
Spanish class, why do you fail me now? Three years of español and a quarter of français and little result to prove my work- I still can’t read a historieta (a Mexican style of comic book). Eddy Robert Arellano’s Dead in Desemboque is surreal and beautiful- and partially in Spanish.
Despite my language barriers, the story is interesting, strange, and at times comical- Eddy travels across the desert with his horse and his two dogs, amidst womanly trickery, a bounty on his head, and …
ReVamped
J.F. Lewis
Simon and Schuster
3/10
I’m not really sure why, but I love bad sci-fi and fantasy. Movies, books, comics, whatever, give it to me, and I’ll devour it. Wizards, werewolfs, the whole lot of them. I especially dig a good vampire story- from Bram Stoker’s Dracula to turning into a vampire means I MUST sprout a mullet-type fiction (I’m looking at you Keifer). J. F. Lewis is no exception to the rule; as bad as 2008’s Staked was, I still loved it. I read and re-read the thing, reveling the …
Cracker, New York Dolls, and X
December 20, 2008
Club Nokia, Los Angeles, CA
I feel as if I missed out on something big here. I grew up on Billy Idol, Queen, and Top 40 radio stations- basically what my parents’ liked. I didn’t start listening to any music that the radio didn’t feed me first until about three years ago when friends of mine started trying to educate me in the ways of the music biz. I still would never even dare to call myself any kind of musical expert, or …
Neil Gaiman
The Graveyard Book
Harper Collins
9/10
Beautifully illustrated, delightfully creepy, wonderfully written- Neil Gaiman has done it again. His love of the macabre has transcended into yet another novel depicting otherworldly happenings. The Graveyard Book is a tale of a boy, orphaned at a young age, and adopted by a graveyard. Gaiman uses his delectable talent to spin a coming of age tale in an unlikely place.
Nobody Owens doesn’t know where he came from, or why someone is out to get him. His adoptive parents found him in the graveyard as a …
Twilight
4/10
It’s delightful and ridiculous, beautiful and stupid. Set in the town of Forks, Washington (and filmed in Oregon, the cheating bastards), Twilight is a love story both fantastical and utterly false. It’s a trap, made to make young women swoon and young men victims (I can hear the arguments- “Why can’t you be more like Edward Cullen?”). I both hate it and love it, and I find it hard to rate.
The rational side of me has one main problem with this movie- how can someone, a seventeen year …
Third Eye Blind
Red Eye – EP
7/10
Listening to Third Eye Blind is so sweetly nostalgic, like flipping through a yearbook, or watching reruns of Rocko’s Modern Life. There was a year in my life where someone burned me a copy of their self-titled debut (a year or six after it came out) and I was never the same. It never left my CD player. You know, there’s no accounting for my taste, but I can honestly say that I glowed with excitement when I was emailed the link to their new …
The Lucky Guide to Mastering Any Style
Kim France and Andrea Linett
Penguin Group
10/10 Frilly, fancy, and fabulous points
(5/10 serious ones)
I interrupt your regularly scheduled metal and mayhem to bring you something strange and foreign- fashion! Fabulous!
Firstly, I must offer you my apologies and admit something- I wasn’t thinking of our readers when I first saw this gem in Lucky magazine. I was thinking of me me me, and how my most guilty pleasure in life is thumbing through pages of iconic styles and beautiful clothes I feel that I can …
Free Range Chickens
Simon Rich
Random House
7/10
Brief, bizarre, and hysterical- this is the world of Free Range Chickens. Brought to you by one of SNL’s finest writers Simon Rich, Free Range Chickens is a tiny book full of large laughs and one liners that will have you reciting bits until your friends disown you. Though it is only 176 pages long, the book covers all the basics: youth, adolescence, adulthood, and Dracula (“You come to castle.”). A little bit of everything, and a whole lot of nothing. Interesting bits include “I think …
Cherry Bomb: The Ultimate Guide to Becoming a Better Flirt, a Tougher Chick, and a Hotter Girlfriend, and to Living Life Like a Rock Star
Carrie Borzillo-Vrenna
Simon Spotlight Entertainment
3/10
Dear Cherry Bomb,
You insult my intelligence as a woman.
Hoping you are well,
Caitlin Elgin
At first I thought Cherry Bomb was a mildly amusing concept. A self-improvement sort of book for those of us ladies wishing for a bit of dating advice and who need a bit more rock ’n’ roll in our lives. It had such potential! School young ladies on a bit of …
We Are Scientists and Kings of Leon
Nokia Theater, LA
October 15, 2008
Ah, the woes of the lesser bands on the bill. They suffer through the milling crowds of someone else’s fans, watching scores of people chit chat aimlessly, not really interested in what they have to say. Fans are selfish- they come only to see those that they know, anyone else is just background music. Poor Stills, not even I attended their performance. We Are Scientists nearly shared their fate- under appreciated by a theater barely half full of uninterested Kings …
Unwritten Law
House of Blues Anaheim
September 12, 2008
I’ve never claimed to have good taste in music. Well, not much anyway. There was a time in my life when all I listened to was Our Lady Peace, the Ataris, and Unwritten Law. Am I ashamed? Maybe a little, but shame will do me no good when I still listen to some of the aforementioned music. I will gladly defend Our Lady Peace and possibly even abashedly stand by the Ataris until someone brings up “Boys of Summer” and I feel silly. …
