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~ Valley Boy ~
I hate so many L.A.-based personal weblogs. Before I went on forced employment hiatus a few weeks ago, I spent much of my downtime at work reading - with much contempt - these circle jerks of cyberspace. I'll come clean: It's entertaining, in a gnarly car crash sort of way. Everybody links to everybody in this secret society of hasbeens and hacks, who gleefully hemorrhage their vapid opinions, shamelessly namedrop the parties and people they know, and plug their self-published vanity projects or whatever mediocre second-rate fishwrap that dares publish their prose.
Having said that, here's the Valley Boy blog, print edition. If I suck, I want you to tell me.
August 23: Rock the Boat
I fear that the Swift Boat stooges who've torpedoed Sen. John F. Kerry haven't done their worst damage to the Democratic presidential candidate. I'm bracing for the next wave of attack ads directed at Kerry's post-combat protesting of the war. I worry that the less educated among us will buy into the fallacy that this is just another John Kerry flip-flop, but think about it: Who better to protest the atrocities of war than someone who's seen it with his own eyes? Yeah, I know, it's too complicated a concept in Bush country. Do people forget that Bushie got a permission slip to ditch the war altogether? Let's make them remember.
August 24: Honky Cat
My cat Oblio is all messed up. Again. He's been pissing in the bed and having seizures. I stormed to the Studio City Emergency Animal Hospital, thinking it was finally time to let the air out of the old boy. I couldn't bring myself to do it. I got him as a kitten in 1997, and, though I've dropped nearly 10 grand keeping him not dead by doing things like having his urethra surgically widened, I realized while I sat in the waiting area that this isn't the way I want it to end for him. Instead, he's now popping Phenobarbital, which will eventually shred his liver, but that's a problem for another time ... . I love animals, yet I sometimes eat them, particularly culottes from Taylor's. I'm resigned to the fact that it will be a point of contention with my vegetarian wife 'til we're both slurping Jell-O from a straw.
August 28: Come to the Sunshine
Max and I ventured downtown to California Plaza to see the Cover Problem deconstruct L.A. pop history. Looking at all the geezers in the audience made me realize that Stew and company have morphed from something secret and cool to a smarty-pants hipster version of Billy Vera & the Beaters. And looking at all the familiar faces from an upstairs perch, it felt like Spaceland 1995, but what's with all the old people? Except me. I'm exactly the same ... .
Arrangements were clever, too much so. Stew needs to love his own artistry a little less. And what was up with John Doe? Why did he get to sing his own composition ("Los Angeles") and totally butcher it? When I saw X at the Country Club in Reseda in 1982, John had a flattop and wore a sexy-dangerous black mesh T-shirt. Now he wears hospital pants and flip-flops. Not a good look, dude.
Stan Ridgway saved the day. I was never keen on Wall of Voodoo, but his take on the Seeds' "Pushin' Too Hard" was off the hook - and the way he slid the Frank Sinatra flop "L.A. Is My Lady" into it brilliantly straddled the line of clever and stupid.
August 29: Ain't We Lucky We Got 'Em
The VMAs. I didn't watch them. I don't care ... . I'm bummed that I missed Gwendolyn and the Good Time Gang in Topanga today. They are ostensibly a children's group, but their fairy dust enchants us adults as well. And that "Ooodily-Ooodily" song was really creepy in Chuck & Buck. Beats the hell out of that woman Laurie Berkner on Noggin.
August 30: Down and Out
There's something utterly mortifying about not working. This is the start of my third week at home, and it becomes easy to turn into an emotional jellyfish. I could start a job at any moment, or I could land my alternate dream gig as a Peet's Coffee district manager in a few weeks. I've been unemployed before, but never with a mortgage and a child. The last time this happened, in the wake of the dot-com bust of 2000, I did a variety of soul-sapping jobs, like writing marketing newsletters for Paul Mitchell salons, before making the desperate leap into porn journalism. And, damn, writing this column isn't taking my mind off it like I hoped it would. Perhaps I should just say "fuck all" to principle and crank out that unauthorized Lindsay Lohan bio so I can put Emmett through college ... . My wife says she wants to move to Vancouver and get away from all this, but that would mean I would never get to go to Tito's Tacos. Fuck that.Published: 09/02/2004
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