"I'm on the Hunt, I'm After You"

as many already know, one of my long-standing music obsessions is Duran Duran. my older sister introduced me to them when i was 6 years old, which means i overhead the albums she played on endless repeat so often that i couldn’t help but become a fan myself. in grade school, i stuffed my papers in a Pee Chee-like folder whose cover was the cover of D2’s first album. it showed the five band members, most of them still teenagers, sporting big, floppy hair and wearing makeup and ladies’ blouses. my dad told me they looked gay. i wasn’t sure what that word meant, so i kept liking them anyway.

as a teenager, i spent most of the money i earned from my first job — at Little Caesar’s Pizza Pizza, when minimum wage was just $4.25 an hour, thank you very much — on tickets to see Duran Duran in concert. by then, the band had broken up and reunited, gone through their splinter band phases that included Arcadia and The Power Station, whose albums i also bought and memorized. i must have seen them live half a dozen times by the time i graduated high school, each time screaming my head off like the teenage girl i was.

my obsession continued into college, and when i found myself in London the summer after my freshman year, hanging off a random bar stool (of course) and mentioning my love of all things British, including Duran Duran, to the random patrons sitting beside me to prove that i somehow belonged there, i was informed by the bartender that my beloved John Taylor, band bassist and my personal favorite, lived right up the street. i was even provided with the address. so like any self-respecting Diehard Duranie, i waited outside his house for hours with camera in hand until he emerged and snapped the following pic:



this was taken in 1995 when i was 19 years old. a few years later, i stalked John Taylor at an event at Pitzer College, where my best friend went to school. every spring, the college held a gigantic party called Kohoutek where everyone got plastered via a variety of substances, myself included. JT sat on a panel presented to the students before the party began, discussing his struggle with drug addiction and alcoholism (nice try, college administrators).

i approached him after the panel with photo in hand and asked him to sign it, which he kindly did, while marveling aloud at how “fucked up” he looked in the photo. i don’t think his comment was an extension of the panel; he seemed genuinely disturbed by his appearance and even showed the photo to the friend he was with, saying he must have been coming off a bender then. (and now i’m posting the photo on the interwebs. sorry, JT! you always look amazing to me.)

fast forward to 2012. i’m still a Duranie, though not as diehard as before. i will confess to not owning all of their new albums, though i’ll always make an attempt to see them when they come into town, which i did just a few months ago. unlike Madonna, who disappointed me when i saw her perform, Duran Duran knows to play their hits, which they do with great enthusiasm. they know their place in popular music history as the premier ’80s “New Romantic” band, and they know how to put on a killer live show, one that still manages to reduce to me to a screaming girl belting out their songs at the top of my lungs, now 20 years later.

rewind to last saturday when i hung out with my friend and neighbor, Anne, who runs the popular food blog TunaToast. she recently returned from Italy just as i have (more on that in a future post), so we cooked pasta carbonara while drinking several glasses of wine and commiserating over the very first-world problem of not being in Italy any longer.

then she invited me to tag along with her and her musician husband, bassist of The Mars Volta, to the annual Bass Player Live convention in Hollywood the next day because she knew of my love for Duran Duran and John Taylor, who was scheduled to appear for an exclusive Q & A and to sign his new memoir (which discusses his drug problems at length). so did i want to come? HELL FUCKING YES!



i wish i remembered more about this moment, but my head was a jumble of nerves and excitement and the ushers pushed people through very quickly. but i do vividly recall locking eyes with John Taylor as he handed me my signed copy of his memoir and said, “here you go, sweetie.” swoon! that smile lasted for a good three days.  

Stuff and Things

the past few weeks have been stressful and a half for a multitude of reasons that i won’t get into right now. of course the house is the biggest stressor and no, it’s not done yet. quit asking me. i also thought it would be done by now given that construction has lasted well over 100 days, but no cigar or finished house. currently the deck is holding things up with its design, which has become tricky for other reasons that i won’t get into right now.

so yes, i’m grumpy and i don’t want to talk about. go me! in other news, life has been keeping me busy with many other things, some of them equally grumpy-making and others delightfully stress-relieving. the good stuff includes:

i bought a bike: more importantly, i’ve actually been using it. this was inspired by my many friends who attended LA’s CicLAvia this year. so i went to Walmart (don’t judge me, i’m broke) and bought the cutest cruiser in the world. then came the interesting part: riding it. it’s no exaggeration to say i hadn’t been on a bike in 25 years, but apparently riding a bike is just like they say it is. after a few shaky starts, i was off. several weeks later, i own a bike rack and ride (semi) regularly at the rose bowl and along the LA river.


7-speed schwinn beach point cruiser

i went on a trip: half business and half pleasure, starting in washington, DC, for a work conference and ending in baltimore, maryland, with my dad’s side of the family for a weekend of overeating and drinking vodka. the best part of the trip was the snow, which came early this year and landed on top of some stunning fall foliage. that doubled my pleasure and fun, though i admit to getting restless at the end of the trip to get home and see what i missed with the house.


confetti with frosting

i went to a concert: my obsession with Childish Gambino (aka Donald Glover) cannot seem to be satiated. i saw him live for the second time this year and have been playing his new album on endless loop since it came out. i think i may need rehab.


my Childish Gambino hoodie

i got a new roommate: this new roommate looks a lot like an old roommate i once had. in fact, they are the same person: my buddy Dan whom i lived with briefly in San Francisco. so far it’s proved to be a perfect pairing, as Dan moved in at the start of november, gave me a check, spent two nights in his new room, and then left for a 6-week work project in San Francisco. no complaints here, and there won’t be when he returns either because he’s a super cool guy and we get along famously.

beyond that, i really hope the rest of the year brings me stress-free days and plentiful sleep. and maybe a big bottle of vodka.

Product Placement

this will likely be the first of many posts in which i will shill products, places and things that i’m into. or maybe this will be the only post of its kind and i’ll never do it again. i will rely on you, sexy reader, to tell me if this is helpful or a total waste of time (like all my other posts), so please speak up, sexxxy.

but before i begin, i should disclose that i’m getting no compensation whatsoever from the manufacturers and proprietors for promoting their stuff here. ZERO. this is a damn shame, too, because i’m a total whore for hire who has no problem with kickbacks and schwag, but since i’m not known around the internets for having a lot of readers or being a Blogger People Trust, i don’t normally get those kinds of offers.

this means that my promotion of these things is coming from the kindness of my cold, black heart, which believes that these things may make your life infinitely better in the same way that they’ve made mine. and if not, tough titties. not like those suckers paid me to be their spokesperson anyway.

• speaking of titties: if you are a busty gal like me, head over to Jenette’s Bras in Hollywood, my bra purveyor of choice. the bras there are designed for “the overdeveloped and underserved,” specializing in sizes D through K. (yes, K!) their bras are all well-crafted, with straps that never slip and bands that don’t cut into your skin. i have found some killer bras that make my girls look positively perfect at Jenette’s. and no, i won’t post photos.
  
  
• when nair’s not enough: laser hair removal to the rescue! i found a great place in Pasadena, run by twin armenian sisters, where i’ve gone for several treatments of various body parts (won’t post photos of that either), but trust that the change has been life-altering. getting lasered doesn’t hurt that much, so quit being a big baby about the pain, which is akin to snapping a rubberband on your skin repeatedly. just know that it’s ineffective for people with fine hair, so don’t bother going there if you’re blond as this treatment is only for people with dark, coarse, stubborn hair — probably the one time that having it has ever worked to my advantage.
  
  
• my future ex-husband: i mean, my latest music obsession is a rapper known as Childish Gambino, who is also known as Donald Glover, the actor on Community. beyond being ridiculously hot and stylish, he is a talented actor, writer, musician and standup comedian. i have been obsessed with all his work for the past year and had the chance to see his show at the Music Box in Hollywood a few weeks ago, where he blew me away. i’m sure mega fame and fortune will find him shortly, so i wanted to score cool points by saying that i was listening to his music way before he got as big as Kanye. (and if you’re reading this, Donald, call me!)
  
  
• mmm... barbecue: i recently attended a media event at Wildwood Ovens, a local spot that sells wood-fired ovens and brazilian bbqs to the public in addition to offering cooking classes and hosting private events. i was invited by the lovely food blogger Tuna Toast, a fellow NELA resident who was serving up drool-worthy churrasco and homemade pizza (in addition to wine). considering that the food and booze were free, this may be the only endorsement i have been “paid” to write, but the truth is that i really loved this place and am even thinking of hosting my annual birthday here. you should check it out.
  
  
• self-promotion: i just added a followers widget to the sidebar at the right. please push the button to add me to your blogger feed and validate my existence. and if you need any freelance work that involves the writing, editing or proofreading of words, i’m still hustling like a whore in church (or, alternatively, like a girl who has impending home repairs), so send some my way, pretty please with a churrasco on top. thanks for playing!

Everything Else

when i haven’t been busy loving on the house, working on the house or living in the house, i’ve been doing other stuff. not much other stuff, though, as the house remains the centerpiece of most waking moments. but when it’s not, i’ve been spending time doing much exploring of my new neighborhood, which i’ll get to at a later post and which entails the eating of much mexican food. it also entails getting lost constantly and following streets until they dead-end into hillsides — a common feature in highland park. then there’s the trips to ikea, home depot, lowes, Micky Mouse Hardware, and there i go talking about the house again. let me try to stay focused with some bullet points:

• i saw Duran Duran in concert a few weeks ago, which made me very, very happy since i loves me some Hungry Like the Wolf. i’ve seen them before, numerous times in fact and, as always, their performance was beyond superb and made me scream like the 14-year-old girl i truly am inside. but unlike the 14-year-old girl i used to be, who would spend hours by the backstage door hoping to catch a glimpse of my soul mate, bassist john taylor, i went home right after the sunday-night show, humming New Moon on Monday during the drive home.
  


• i took the Gold Line to work the other week — and was probably a little too excited by it. it was an exhilarating experience, one i never thought i’d have in this fair city of mine, where car culture is the only culture outside of the yogurt. but there i was making the 10-minute drive to the train station, where i parked my car and hopped aboard the choo-choo — dumb smile on my face, my love for los angeles overflowing — and sat among the other commuters navigating their way into downtown LA for the workday. one trip did the trick, so starting in july i’ll be going metro to work three out of five days. this means a company-paid metro card, the $50/month parking fee my work charges waived, and savings galore on gas.
  


• speaking of work, i’m starting a new job at my company in july. i’m not sure what i can say about it here other than it’s different from the work i’ve been doing as a financial editor, though not entirely different. i’ll still be making edits to copy, but whereas before when i would review copy and then send it to my company’s Compliance department for rubber-stamping, i’ll now be on the Compliance side doing the rubber-stamping. the job is rooted in the legal department and will have me interpreting all sorts of sexy FINRA guidelines, like how regulatory disclosures should be presented in sales materials. HOT!
  


• i spent a few days in beautiful El Segundo taking a course on Cascading Style Sheets (CSS), which are complicated as a mother fucker to learn. the course was the complement to the HTML course i took last year in Costa Mesa, which was also complicated. i’m sure it could all make sense with a little practice, maybe a lot of practice, but three days of having the nuances of a programming language thrown at me overwhelmed me enough to conclude that i am just too stupid to learn this stuff.
  


• i saw the SATC movie, which i enjoyed immensely as it felt like a long, new episode of the show and was made better by the fact that i caught one of the SATC T-shirts the ushers threw into the crowd before the film started. i got some serious mad-dog glares from the girls surrounding me when i nabbed it and worried that those bitches would jump me in the parking lot after the show, but they kept their distance after i told them that i knew kung fu. (i don’t know kung fu.) the shirt reads “I ♥ New York,” which is funny because i don’t ♥ New York all that much. i ♥ LA infinitely more, especially after that train ride.

In the Streets, On the Stage

given that i take the same route to work at roughly the same time each morning, i tend to see the same people and cars lumbering through their own commute into downtown LA. it’s your standard blend of rat-racers – land rover girl who puts on her makeup while speeding, prius guy who reviews documents at every red light and, of course, the half-asleep but happy me in my cute jetta (new car excitement still hasn’t worn off). it can be a defensive commute: freeway-free, with constant stops and gos and buses trying to merge into your lane. the eight-mile journey each way should only take about 15 minutes, but averages 40.

i don’t mind it so much – unless i see him: the horrible, nutty him my bad luck often forces me to drive behind for several miles. he’s like a bible thumper on steroids, the christ crusader in the godvan. he always has the most agonizing christian music blasting from his car, poisoning the ears of the nice people waiting for the bus, some of whom roll their eyes when they see him passing.

his car, a minivan, is plastered with bumper stickers that love on jesus – tons of stickers, half in spanish, that cover not just the rear of his car, but also the sides and front where you can’t really tell what the original color of the car is (though i think it’s painted Resurrection White). stickers are your basic “jesus is king,” “lea la biblia,” doomsday doomsday crap, and a few attempts at, maybe wit, like, “In case of rapture, this car will be unmanned!!!!”

it gets worse. he has this sizable wooden cross at the ready. it usually emerges when everyone is stopped at a red light where his is the first car in the line. his holy little paw will come out the driver’s side window, cross in hand. then he’ll up the volume on the bad christian rock, and begin jumping around in his seat, causing his car to rock, as if he’s being possessed or exorcized, head shaking from side to side with arm still outstretched. he’ll drive like that for several minutes, sometimes swerving.

it’s totally creepy. i hate driving behind and alongside him for fear that the cross will slip at a high speed and smash into my windshield. i also try to avoid eye contact, lest he reduce me to a pile of dust. sometimes i think of calling the cops on him. he must be breaking some law. at the very least i’d like to encourage him to commit suicide. people like that seem so excited about dying. i know i’m excited about his dying.

*****

i saw my beloved Brazilian Girls perform for the third time in about a year and a half ’cus they are the shit live. it was the night of halloween and i felt pretty beat, having seen The Roots perform the night before at the Avalon. i was dragging ass the whole night, but the show was good, though not the best i’ve seen them have. and then the most awesome thing i’ve ever seen happen at a show happened.

the band headed into their closer: their hit song “Pussy” with its chorus of “pussy, pussy, pussy, marijuana.” for added realism, they lit a joint on stage and smoked it amongst themselves before passing the roach into the crowd. well, that must have been some bomb chronic because they got mighty sloppy afterwards. the music became noticeably out of sync, with my lesbian fantasy girl Sabina, the stunning lead singer whose first language is not english, butchering the bit where she urges the crowd to sing along, mistakenly saying, “boys, repeat after me: i got a pussy and you want it!”

she tried to recover, saying something about “boys being pussies,” but with the rest of the band also high, the comedy of missteps kept compiling and killing the performance. the band seemed good natured enough about it, finally ending the spectacle with the bassist jumping into the drum set. rock ’n’ roll at its finest.

I Made It Through the Wilderness

and at the other end was beautiful inglewood, california, where i saw Madonna perform the other week. madonna. madge, madge. fucking madonna. the one, the only madonna. in inglewood, at the Great Western Forum, where the Lakers used to play before the Staples Center, named after a bank that no longer exists.

i was stoked on getting the tickets, figuring i would never again have the opportunity to see my childhood idol shake her 47-year-old moneymaker. i paid a fortune for the seats, which were among the crappiest in the house, just five rows away from being the row farthest from the stage. greedy bitch charged about 350 smackers for the floor seats closest to the stage, meaning the crowd consisted of professionals who could pay that ticket. not a kid in sight. plenty of fags in sight, however, many with their fag hags. my extra ticket went to my bi friend Dee, the hetero hag i’ve known since college. we arrived late, of course, reaching our nosebleed seats about 10 minutes into the show when “Like a Virgin” was ending.

Like a Virgin. that song is THE madonna song for me. i remember singing it around the house, completely oblivious to what it meant, gyrating my pre-puberty hips, arms overhead, determined to become the virgin Madonna made sound so fantastic. it became my grade-school quest. i think i even asked my mom once, “how can i be like a virgin?” i must have been 8 years old.

the thing about Madonna is that everything she touched she legitimized, from sex and blond hair to marriage and motherhood. she owned it. androgyny, disco, fashion, religion, gayness, england. she embodied it. she made being a slut respectable and never apologized for a damn thing. Madonna was the secret alter ego every girl wanted to have. and as this was a time before Angelina Jolie, Madonna was also every girl’s secret lesbian fantasy.

sadly, i had long thrown out my black spandex bicycle shorts and the ruffled skirt i would wear over them. i also couldn’t find a lace bow to put in my hair for the show, but i had some bangles -- though none rubber -- which i piled onto my wrist. i almost shed a tear when i realized i missed the song, my song, coming into the packed Forum as the chorus of “whoa-whoa-whoa-oh” was ending. fucking traffic.

but she made it up to me... kinda. on the whole, the show was great, the performances energetic and the dancers very sexy, but the music just blew. she performed too much new stuff, much of it from her last few albums, none of which i was interested in. i kept waiting and waiting for the hits -- and she threw me a few bones a la “La Isla Bonita” and “Live to Tell” but i still left feeling cheated.

come on, Madge. i know you want to stay relevant and be the artist of today, but admit that your best work is behind you, far behind, like in the ’80s. don’t fret, because the world is still interested in everything you do, but as a musician you’ve peaked already. it’s not a secret and it’s ok to play the old stuff. you are the artist of my youth, the powerhouse who taught me to Express Myself and to Justify my Love. i haven’t bought a new album of yours in ten years and i don’t plan to. i wanted to see you Vogue and wear that pink Material Girl dress and you insisted on closing with Hung Up.

also, Madge, and don’t take this wrong, but your live show could use some work. something about it was strangely out of touch, especially that bit about gang violence. and we’ve all seen you playing with crucifixes and crowns of thorns before; it’s not shocking the millionth time. i did appreciate all the motivational altruism on display, with images of starving kids in africa and videos of Bush and Blair being assholes, but the moving stage, overdone lighting and big-screens made it so theatrical, so Cirque du Soleil. plus, your live singing voice was mneh and all that interpretive dance was tiresome.

but hey, i still love you. you’re Madonna and you’ve earned the right to do whatever the fuck you want without having ungrateful little shits like me judge you. you and that midas touch of yours will always stay on my radar. your impact cannot be overstated or paralleled. you are still the answer to the fourth wave of feminism. and from what i could catch on that big-screen, your ass looks amazing.

still forever your fan.

Drive Slow, Homey

funny that just a few months ago i was desperate for life to sloooooow down and wait for me, and now that it has finally slowed i find myself bored, restless and, perhaps most disheartening, with nothing to blog about. oh, the horror and shame.

i guess i could blog about smart things like politics and art, but i'll leave that to the experts who can do it better, as i have no original insight to propel those conversations. opinions are cheap, especially on the internet. the only thing i feel qualified to blog about is my own lame life. being a narcissist will do that for you. so for lack of expansive topics, here's some news in brief:

-- i saw mr. kanye west at universal ampitheatre this past saturday night. his being an egoist guaranteed a spectacular show, and the man delivered with a high-energy performance and tons of special guests, including common, patti labelle and even jamie foxx who came out to do the intro to "gold digger." kanye made quite the funny when he announced during that song: "white people, this is your only chance to say 'nigger' and have it be ok, so go ahead!"

-- i have been wasting far too much time on myspace.com, which has sucked me in with its vastness and many pictures. i know it's been around for years, but i've jumped on its bandwagon only recently. i imagine this addiction will pass just as my brief addiction to friendster.com had passed a few years earlier. in truth, i have no reason to be on myspace as i'm not looking to hook up and my blog is not housed there, but i hate missing a good party so there i am. visit my obnoxious profile to add me as your friend if you haven't done so already.

-- it's still not cancer: my last physical exam detected no strange or abnormal cells near my cervix, confirming my suspicion that the earlier nasty cells were brought on by stress. now there's less stress and more B vitamins in my life, so my kitty is kosher again.

-- work is slow now that i'm between projects. freelance work is also slow now that seasonal shutdowns are beginning, so i find myself quite idle lately. this translates into lots of daydreaming during the day and lots of couch-sitting during the evenings.

-- couch-sitting has involved oodles of TV viewing, most notably America's Next Top Model. that's right, i love that show and i'm not ashamed to admit it. DVD viewing has also gone on, including watching the second seasons of 'Nip/Tuck,' 'The L Word' and 'Arrested Development'; the film 'Crash'; and the documentary on strippers called 'The Strip Game,' directed by Method Man who provides a hilarious director's commentary.

-- people-viewing has been less frequent lately. all the partying left me pooped and i've entered a hermitic hibernation that will likely last through december. i'm still attending the choice outing here and there, but for now, couch-sitting with a blanket over me and juice and/or Momo by my side appeals to me far more than bar-hopping with pals.

and that's about it.

Sing Blue Silver

wow, wow, wow. i saw the incredible duran duran in concert at the staples center on saturday night. wow, wow, wow. i screamed like a 14-year-old girl. i screamed so loud my stomach muscles hurt the next day.

it was the original lineup that included the three unrelated Taylors. it was their reunion tour used to promote their new album Astronaut (which isn't too shabby). they looked so hot, despite having the fortysomething faces of men who've partied like the rock stars they are. simon lebon is still the swaggering frontman, and he still had it -- so had it. cutie pie roger taylor, the shy one, hid behind his drum set looking all boyish and beautiful. nick rhodes is still the most stylish muthafucka ever. and, of course, my future ex-husband john taylor diddled the bass like the pro he is. i was swooning. i really was.

staples was sold out and the crowd stayed largely on its feet, leaving only after the final notes of "rio" were belted out. the band played most of its old hits and a few songs off their new album. just stunning on every level. a huge video screen behind the band played clips of old videos like "the chaffeur" and "girls on film" -- shit i hadn't seen in ages, but that reminded me what true artists those guys were. they had some serious vision, despite be panned as new wave fluff of the '80s. and i'm not just saying that because john taylor is gorgeous. duran duran is a damn fine band.

in high school i was a diehard duranie, my bedroom walls plastered with the faces of "the fab five." the concert was like entering a time machine, and i'm sure my fellow concertgoers had the same experience. hearing those songs took me back to a past life that's rarely revisited, reminding me of a certain year, hairstyle, moment, outfit. today, those memories seem kinda laughable, though wholly heartwarming.

cheers to D squared!