Thursday, September 28, 2006

Flash forward

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Here I am again, it's like there's no way to not make me look good. Anyway, I digress.
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Here are the eggs that were left for me. I think Alison's parents have a friend with chickens so some of the eggs are green, I ate all the green ones first.
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I've been making toads in the whole because, there are no tortillas for egg tacos.
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I burned some of the hair off my arm taking the kettle of the stove.
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Later that day I did it again.
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And a close up for posterity's sake.

Everybody loves the fair

I keep forgetting to take my camera with me so this post may be a little spotty.Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting
Here I am in the car looking handsome, as usual.
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This looks a lot like a gas station, I did go to Magic Gas the other day, I had remembered it being cheaper back in the day. They're probably just trying to pay for the new paint job.
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I'm kind of confused, this appears to be the side of a hill. Maybe there is a goat on the hill or maybe there are people or a funny sign on the back of that truck.
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I don't even know what street this is. Think of it like a puzzle where you have to make up a story to go along with the picture. Maybe it's from the day that the GPS in this car kept trying to drive me off cliffs and down dead-end-one-way streets. Really it's anybodies guess.
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I finished building the case for my synthesizer. I think I did a pretty good job.
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It's the right amount crappy or abject or gheetro, whatever.
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I went and got a blackened chicken sandwich at Netty's I'm glad that it's the exact same menu it was 10 years ago.
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It was the same woman working there as well. She noticed the camera so I took her picture.
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Ok, I've been working on the case for this synthesizer since Thursday or maybe Wednesday. Anyway I've been very patient and trying not to mess things up or do a crappy job. So I ate my lunch and was now ready to rock out with my new instrument. I plug it in and it doesn't work. None of the lights go on, no sounds come out. So, I look through what few and cryptic instructions I've been given, and it appears to me that they gave me the wrong power supply. So I call there and I'm telling the guy on the other end and he's like "maybe you hooked it up wrong" like it's my fault. Finally he's like you can bring it in and we can take a look at it, so I asked when they close, he says 6:00, it's 4:30, I tell him I going to try and get there before they close, he's like ok, whatever, see you Monday. So I get on the freeway toward Pomona about 10 minutes in to my drive the traffic is bumper-to-bumper, WTF it's F***ing Saturday, Maybe there all going to the fair, which is actually in Pomona as well. So, I'm looking at the GPS keep recalculating how long it's going to take to get 23 miles at speeds between 0 and 30. Anyway, I get to the store at 5:58. The manager, also know as "that guy who helped me the other day who needed help with his customer service skills" let me in and I told him it wasn't turning on blah, blah, blah. I got a new power supply and got a coffee at Starbucks. Anyway, I'm sorry to ramble on about nothing for so long (actually I'm not), but I figured if the ride home was going to be so long and filled with traffic I should at least have some scenery, so I took surface streets back it took like 2 hours, but what, I'm in a hurry to get somewhere. Anyway, the point is...
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That wasn't supposed to be a picture of the computer, it was supposed to be me "rocking out".

Wednesday, September 27, 2006

Driving music

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I am currently cat sitting at Alison's parents house. They have less power tools here, but I'll manage.
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While looking in the garage for power tools and spare parts, I found a Melodica.
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So now I can be a Synthesizer/Melodica/Electroencephalogram one-man-band. Sorry Stefan & Cesar.
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This is a picture of the work area I have set up on the breakfast table.
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I am still building the case for my synthesizer.
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Building with great fury.
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This used to be the place where the kids from my Jr high school would go to get french fries after school. They would always dump a bunch of ketchup into the bag so if you hand any your hands would totally end up covered in ketchup.
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Although not shown in this picture, a giant mall housing Target/BestBuy etc has been erected on the corner of Santa Monica & La Brea...WTF.
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I went to Pinks for a hot dog. This was probably supposed to be a picture of someone doing something gross.
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The cashier and the guy making my lunch asked about my camera so I took their picture.
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I was going to get a hot dog that came with sour cream on top.
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At the last minute I chickened out and got the chicago style hot dog, fries & a Bubble Up.
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It was a giant sausage with everything on it, I'm usually a pretty good eater and will clean my plate, I was a little embarrassed when I left and hung my head in shame. A couple a the next table asked what I was having, they told me what they were having, and how she had gone to a baseball game and she got a Doger Dog and was very disappointed.
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Anyway.
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This used car lot has paintings of Arnold Schwartzenegger as the Terminator and Clint Eastwood from maybe The Good, The Bad & The Ugly, with talk bubbles threatening one to buy a car.
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This is probably my Jr high school.
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This is the interior of the car I am driving, a Toyota Prius, I think maybe this car is not appropriate to my style of driving or something. People keep cutting me off, turning and swerving in front of me, I honk but nobody seems to notice. Maybe I should paint flames or teeth or something on it.
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Who knows, something awesome...obviously.
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A wall painting of an important figure in Hispanic history (I'm pretty sure it's Hispanic history month). There was another painting of Freda Kahlo next to this one.

La Jetée

Alison' parents picked me up at 7:00 to go to the airport, I was tired and the trip was uneventful.
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This is their plane taking off.
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Got coffee & a guava and cheese pastry on my way back. I am now the driver of a sporty and ecological Toyota Prius.
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Went back to Pomona to the synthesizer store and got 3 modules. In favor of not boring my "audience" I will not go into detail.
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Except to say that the whole transaction took longer than it should have, and I think that guy who works there is a little smug.
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stopped at Goodwill that seems to have been converted to a thrift-by-the-pound.
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Started building a case for my new synthesizer.
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Headed to the Cherry & something gallery in Santa Monica to see Pan sonic play.
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Got a delicious "Amp" energy drink and batteries for this fine camera at a drug store that looked as if it had been struck by looters, the guy at the register assured me they had not.
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I should have known better than to get to a show on time.
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Stood around for a while. It seems like this particular gallery I specializes in figurative painting and electronic music, well isn't that something...
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Waited around some more, luckily there was free (with price of admission) beer. Tecate appears to be the beer of choice for all Los Angeles openings.
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Eventually the show started, in the backyard of this gallery, there was a sheet in between the audience and the alley behind the gallery.
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The first act was these two guys, who looked oddly familiar. I'm not sure I completely got it, they were quite stoic and did a set that consisted of I guess you would call them songs. These songs were, almost, dancy...almost, and had very simple keyboard "riffs" that sometimes made sense and sometimes didn't. I wondered if we were supposed to dance or sway or something. I will also note that the name of this duo was never mentioned or printed in anything I read or heard.
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during the break these two guys behind me were talking about the Los Angeles art scene and also possibly their DJ stylings. At one point they were talking about how location dictated what art would be shown, so I turned around and asked where the Culver City galleries fit into all this, they answered me but, I think I might have creeped them out a little bit.
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Eventually Pan Sonic came out from behind the curtain from a van that was parked in the alley.
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It was a pretty good show from what you might gather in these action shots.

Gabriel Burian-Mohr