BROTOCOL

"Seriously dude? You're gonna do this right here?" Denver describes the growing trend. All he did was get up to pee at the restaurant and in seconds some guy sat down at the table and started chatting up his date. I have experienced this on two separate occasions recently.
Franklin scenario: holding hands with a date exiting a restaurant, we pass Mr. Famous and a slightly melted looking version of him; Brother. Brother stops my date in her tracks and explains to her that he knows her. 10 minutes of reminiscing speeches ensue. Mr. Famous and I acknowledge each other through head nods and half smiles. There was time for about 30 of them. Finally, Brother pulls out his Droid and goes for the digits. "Oh, I've already got your number," he realizes. I keep quiet - I'm not the jealous type, but as Denver put it, "Seriously dude?" Mr. Famous probably didn't expect to see me a few days later performing on the same stage. Deliciously awkward.
Finally, last night I am with an attractive friend who I haven't seen in 5 years. We walk into the bar next door to my building. It is desperately empty, which is good - we can catch up. We are the only two people in the bar sans the staff, Nice Actor and Old Surfer. O.S. gets ape-shit excited when he overhears that my friend likes the Dead Kennedys, who are playing somewhere in town. "..but what's your faaavorite punk band?" he asks as if we are all at a slumber party. Pictures of his daughter come out, followed by a forced, lengthy tour around the vacant establishment (which I sat out - Nice Actor and I did shots when they left) that ended in her having O.S.'s shirtless picture and a business card with full info. I think he had even written his PIN number down "...so, yeah call me if you wanna try surfing again," he closes.
Seriously dude? Okay, forget Brotocol - but you have to ask yourself, "What would James Bond do?" Would he try to shag your date? Well, maybe, but you wouldn't even know. He would address you first, charm the whole table, and figure out how to contact her TOMORROW.

The Kyle Report

This was a blast to make, special thanks to everyone at Marathon Live who let us film them.

Have a great Labor Day weekend, and if you're in Santa Monica on Sunday night I'll be playing an acoustic show at O'Brien's Irish Pub (Main Street on the border of S.Monica and Venice Beach)w/ Evan Slamka of Square on Square. Starts at 10pm.

Bad Brown

A facebook thread today inspired this entry. The current Mosque debate, in my opinion, is stirring up fear of American brown people in the media. I am an American brown person - half Goan (which is a mix of Portuguese and Indian) and half white (Scottish/Irish descent - Catholic on both sides). Anyway, here is my "stereotyping" story. This is not a sob story... I was very entertained by my role in all of this.

Someone at Jane Magazine thought that a great story after 911 would be to see how average Americans would react to a person of middle eastern descent in a typically American situation. I got the call and was to be paid $150 to show up at Dodgers Stadium to meet a reporter and photography crew. I didn't really understand the premise of the story until I arrived in the parking lot. Upon hearing the premise, I tried not to laugh in this misguided reporter's face. She was from New York - I don't think she knew how many Latin American citizens (as opposed to the Americans she probably had in mind) she was about to encounter in the stadium. "Let's do this," I said.

I met the photography crew. They were having a hard time making eye contact with me. I was not quite the middle easterner they expected. I loved the awkwardness, and tried to be as charming and funny as possible to make them suffer more.

The reporter was still oblivious. She walked next to me as the bright lights of the cameras went off. We walked through the stadium, and she gauged people's faces and jotted nonsense down in her pad. "A lot of people are staring at you..." she said. Just then a girl ran up to me excitedly. "Are you the singer of Incubus?" she asked me. "Yes," I replied. "Yes I am."

We finally got to our seats. The stadium was relatively empty in that area. The lighting crew set up. Cameras flashed. "So.. why do you think all of these people staring at you?" She asked me. "Because I am here with you and a photography crew?" I offered.

The whole project began to unravel. The reporter was dismayed. The photography crew quit and left. Like a true after-school special cheeseball that I am, I said to the reporter "I hope you learned something here today" ..and added "Can I get that $150?"

Banks a lot.

The cruelest part of the hand that we have been dealt by the Wells Fargo Banking Store is right at the tip of its fingers. The tellers they are hiring are really attractive, charming ladies. I don't mean Bar Refaeli hot, or Sarah Silverman funny, but seriously cute and nice. It's in their vibe too.. "Hello Sir (vibe: I'm 23 and this is my first real job. The world is a fresh place to me, so open and new. My heart and spirit remain unbroken), can I do anything for you?" .."Yes, you can. Why is my credit card payment so high this month. Last month it was like $90." ...(vibe: actually genuinely concerned) .."Ooo that sucks (vibe: lingo = we cool ya? Remember my heart and spirit etc..?). "Oh..looks like your APR is at 29 percent now." - her eyebrows furrow, my anger wells in direct conflict to the possibility of us dating. I am off balance. "God that's high. Okay.. thanks, Jessica."

rant 2: I played a show this Wednesday with some awesome musicians that you may remember: Christian from Campfire Girls, and Evan from Marjorie Fair/Parlour. Their new bands, consecutively, are Lonely Trees and Square on Square. This is what music is all about + whatever Mark Lanegan is doing.. or Pandora when I type in "Cuban music."

Bang Bang Bang

*Business, Industry and Development or domestic Blackwater? I'm a bit torn on this issue.. I work sound at 3 Clubs a few nights a week and there is a pine sol sniffin', gold paint huffin', tall boy drinkin' par-tay of homeless folks that I must slalom in order to get into the back door. Sometimes I think - hmmm.. someone should really do something about this! That's what *B.I.D. cops do - they are privately hired by the new big money (W Hotel etc..) that's moved into hollywood to 'clean up.'
Why not just use cops? Because it isn't illegal to gather publicly or be homeless or buy paint, pine sol or beer. So the hired thugs do the intimidating but I am unclear as to what their actual authority is. First of all they ride Segway's - two wheel gyroscopically balanced douchebag transportation units that make rollerblades look gangsta'. They are your high school administrators/gym teacher that couldn't cut it as cops (probably because of unfavorable background checks) but they dress similarly enough to the police via blue suits, pink face tans, iridium glazed glasses and asshole-perfection. So I don't know.. homeless party or thug clean-up? I don't know - both suck.

Tangent 2: Last night ruled. I play bass in the Paul F. Tompkins band once a month and last night was the show. Paul is one of the funniest guys I know and one of the few that can pull off a monthly variety show. Last night's finale song is a good picture of this show: a dance routine from two professional dancers, one dressed as C3P0 and the other as Darth Vader pirouetting in time to the band; Aimee Mann, Paul F, Mark Rivers, Eban Schletter, myself AND Dave Gruber Allen (on glockenspiel) all performing "I Got You Babe" to a sold out house at Largo (now located in the historic Coronet Theater). Epic.

..after that our guest guitarist Tom dropped me off at 3 Clubs where I was severely neglecting my own night Marathon Live (ea Weds at Three Clubs - cool cool bands). Yes I know everyone thinks it's Davey D's night - but that's just a clever ploy ;) Harris Trucks from NY took the stage and rocked it very New Yorkily causing a lot of Californians to push their bangs aside and take note. Then the infamous Rio came down with none other than Josh Homme, Jack White and his new band The Dead Weather, Metric and a slew of their barely-dressed-blackhair-dyed-tattooed hook-up options. The party went into the wee hours as we danced to Victoria DJ's tiny tiny records. There were human pyramids. Shit got weird and awesome. ..after the smoke cleared, I ended up at Winchell's donuts having bagel sandwiches with Sean T (Har Mar Superstar). A perfect storm!

No Papercuts

It's the end of another long tough week of work in Los Angeles. Well, not that tough.. Last Friday, the debut DJ gig of A and B was a raging success at The Room (see 2 posts ago). Amber and I did come to the conclusion that we need a name change - because 'A and B' is a wack name... more to come on that. Also check out Amber on the Arabian Harper's Bazaar cover - stunning!

Sunday was a day and night of craziness at The Shangri La Hotel - Thank you Marc Smith! Coolest boss ever. I cannot go into details about this day as it may incriminate me in some way. Basically it was like Ben Hur meets Temptation Island. Epic and retarded at the same time. (I know it's not cool to use the R-bomb, but I'm not ready to give it up just yet.)

Tuesday was a night of sound duties for a comedy show at 3 Clubs.. my friend and comic Brian Swinehart noted that he didn't find the movie Twilight realistic because he didn't think Ed Cullen could really fix a moped.

Wednesday began with the amazing Spain v Germany game at the Nike Theater. Lots of actual pushing and scrambling for seats - I think my US cohorts might be catching onto the 'soccer hooligan' aspect of the sport! A nauseating amount of German fans were there, and a few confused Latino's wearing German jersey's. That's so Gomez.

Wednesday ended with Marathon Live at 3 Clubs where Trulio Disgracious played (members of Fishbone, Big Mountain and other LA staples). Thursday was a day of music rehearsal and then soundman-ing the Rumble (ala Larry Little), who said he actually read and likes my blog! Thanks Larry! He also said not to get a site counter or I'd go crazy - best to not know who or how many may be reading this I suppose.

..and finally it's Friday. No more work.. so tonight it's off to Tasya Van Ree's art show at some undisclosed address on Santa Monica Blvd. A great week indeed and no paper cuts.

Too Much Discovery

I can't stop watching ninjavideo.net and their unstoppable postings of history channel, natural geographic channel, BBC, Morgan Freeman Wormhole.. etc.. etc.. I justify my obsession with the educational aspects of watching these shows - or my romance with the bleak..

From what I've gathered: The universe started from a single point, exploded, and continues to expand due to the forces of dark energy. We know it expands because the planets and stars appear reddish (if they were blue-ish they'd be coming toward us - which would be bad). The center of our universe is a super black hole which will inevitably devour our solar system, BUT before that our galaxy will crash into neighboring galaxy Andromeda in a gorgeous display.

Ha. You won't live to see any of that. The Yellowstone Super volcano is going to go off - apocalyptic-style (it's supposed to go off every 600,000 years, and is 40,000 years overdue). Not to be concerned are Los Angeles residents who linger next to the largest fault line in the world and can do nothing more than wait for "the big one." Our tools cannot predict any of this - so see if the birds are at your feeder in the morning, if not: run (but know it won't help.)

Barring any of these disasters - our own carbon emissions will surely do us in.

Maybe not. The coolest thing that I saw recently was that we are going create artificial trees that will replicate photosynthesis - reducing carbon emissions. Oh yeah, we're also going to filter and capture carbon from industrial plants and and bury the waste in a Norwegian mountain called Svalbard. There's a lot of shale and sandstone there so ... it'll be cool.

Shit.