Finally… Found a while back that Saul Williams was scheduled to do a spoken word session at ‘Night Vision – MOCA After Dark‘. I’d been looking forward to this weekend for a long time. I was hoping Moody would be able to go with me as well, but he was unable to. Bummer. Even though it’s not Dawn thing, she went along (she’s the best). I think overall she had an interesting time, but it was definitely more of a night for me. Little Man was over at his cousin’s house spending the night.

We got there around 6:30 – 7:00 PM and walked over to MOCA. Once I saw the MOCA Store I had to take a peak. I was good though, found tons of stuff I wanted to buy but didn’t. In hindsight I wish I did buy the nice Muji pen they had, but oh well. I’m sure I’ll be back. We walked around the Museum a bit, I enjoy a lot of it, Dawn not so much. I think her quote on the way home summed up her thoughts on the art – “Just because it’s rusty, doesn’t mean you should shellac it.” At the point she said it, we were both so exhausted that we cracked up all the way home. I did enjoy a lot of the art, but hearing her say that was hilarious. I must say, seeing Franz Kline‘s ‘Tower’ in person was such a sight for me. I can’t tell you why, but it was.

After, we went in and watched a bunch of music videos that won the LA Film Festival. Some were really good, some were not our thing, and a couple had us laughing to each other sitting in the back row. Overall that was damn fun.

Finally time for Saul. At around 9PM we were out there waiting and decided to grab a quick beverage at the cafe. Walked in and saw Saul. Wanted to go say hey, but he was chatting with a few ladies and I didn’t want to interrupt. Went back out and luckily found a spot to stand. It was packed! Great turn out for Saul. While waiting, got to talk to a very nice guy named Fred. We talked about Saul, NIN, etc – great guy. I do hope our paths cross again. Saul went on stage around 9:30PM. It was something. Bigtime. I’m not going to write my words to describe his words, but lets say – if you haven’t been to see the man – GO. Then go again.

Here’s a good link to get you acquainted with one of the subjects of the night. Electronic Lebanon.

Afterwards, Dawn and I walked over to take a quick look around the Walt Disney Concert Hall. They were doing tours but we were so tired that we just walked around on our own for a little while and took off. Got a few pictures there though – this one is my favorite

It was funny, I asked Dawn if she wanted to go back with me, she said “Not really, but I know you and Tricia will be back.” hahahaha… Tricia will find that pretty funny.

Great weekend. Can’t wait to go back to MOCA. (Trish, looks like we have standing plans for your next trip out here. haha)

Today, the little man and I went on our little road trip. A mini-tour of Los Angeles toy stores. First, we took a nice (and very trafficky) drive up to Wacko’s Soap Plant. (Back-note, I’d been thinking of taking little man to Giant Robot all week and Tricia recommended I make time to visit Wacko’s and Munky King. Very good recommendation) I’ve you’ve never been, let me just start by saying, I guarantee the only place a store like this even could exist, is in LA. It’s sooo Los Angeles. All kinds of people shopping while we were there; a family with their 2 1/2 year old, college kids checking out the art gallery, tattooed crew, and even the local punk rock kid in yes, you guessed it, leopard print vest and black bondage pants. Rockin. Like I said, only in LA.

The place is wonderful. I must say, I’m glad I’ve ditched (most of) my habit of buying really spur-of-the-moment type funky weird stuff. If not, Dawn would not be happy with me right now. So many random fun weird toys in there. I was lovin it. And so was the little man; though admittedly, I was nervous he’d wreck at least one of the 37 million toys they had everywhere. But, he did well.

This was little man’s favorite thing in the art gallery:

We walked out of there with a couple of tin alligators, Lemonheads candy for me, and, the coolest thing ever; a black washcloth, with the pirate skull and cross bones on it. Nice.

Next, we were off to Munky King. On the way there I just had to take a picture of some amazing, and HUGE advertising:

Munky King on Melrose is really great. Of course the first thing we get there, Ian spots the girl who works there rearranging some of the display and has to go flirt. (that’s my boy!!!) She played skateboards (little hand ones, not full size) and yes, Daddy is a sucker and bought him a vinyl figure that comes with a skateboard. We’ll share though – I get the figure for my desk at work – he gets the skateboard. He ran around the store and made me nervous so we didn’t stay too long, but he did enjoy the custom larger than life vinyl in the back that all the locals had signed, and added to. Very cool:

Also, as we were paying for his toys I noticed some very nice art they had by ‘Plastic God’. I know you’ll recognize the subjects:

At that time, it was starting to get a bit late. Unfortunately, we weren’t able to make it to Giant Robot, but guarantee we’ll be up there very soon. We had to hurry home meet Dawn for the Modefan meetup, which was of course a blast!!!

Ok, hello, and welcome the new edition of Thursday night exhaustion. Typically, by the time Thursday evening hits, I’m frigin pooped out. This week is no different. Though the point I currently find quite interesting is this, why do Fridays keep creeping up on me? For at least 3 weeks now, it’s been Friday before I realized it.

A couple weeks ago we had a short week for the 4th. I can understand that feeling like a short week, but it’s continued that feeling since then. And, each and every Thursday night I’m tired, exhausted, brain dead. (Yet I still sit here don’t I – instead of doing the intelligent thing by going to sleep) Tomorrow I’ll likely be a zombie. Looking forward to it though, Moody and I are going to take the boys out so the mommas can have a night of fun. Not positive where we’ll go, but I’m sure we’ll have a good time. I can say this though; with the craptastic weather we’ve been having, the evenings plans will likely include ice cream. haha.

So the blog is working for me well so far. Not positive how interesting it is for you, but we’ll have to see.

So I completed my purchase of the ‘River Run Project’ that Underworld has been selling directly through their website, http://www.underworldlive.com. If you have not picked all of them up, seriously, what are you waiting for. Now having purchased all three (went back and bought Pizza for Eggs tonight) I was allowed to download ‘The Misterons Mix’. Those of you who know me – know I adore Underworld.

this picture came with the mix, and I hope it does not bother them that I share it (like I could be so lucky that Smith/Hyde would read my blog), but it’s just got an amazingly eerie quality to it. Had to put it up here.

(I will of course remove the image if asked though)

something about it, just a captivating moment I guess.

What a busy weekend.

First, Friday night Ethan and I went to (finally) see A Scanner Darkly. What a(n expected) mind bender. Truly wanted to read it prior to seeing the movie, but hey, who has the time??? When I first saw the preview it looked more like the movie faded in and out of the ‘Rotoscope‘ effect, but <<possible spoiler>> it does not. It stays in the heavily animated look for the entire movie. But ya know, it really works for the content of the movie. And yes, Winona is still beautiful animated.

Robert Downey Jr. is freakin amazing in this film. I was thinking afterward, and I ran the question by Ethan as well; I wonder, given the subject matter, if this movie was hard for him to make, or it was cleansing in a way. We both agreed in the hopes that it was cleansing. Keanu was really good as well, he fit the character quite well. People give him a hard time, but ya know, (with the exception of his performance in Dracula) I find myself really enjoying the work of his I see. There were a few trailers for small release films I definitely need to see. One was about this little asian kid growing up in a motel. To me it looked like a cross between Lost in Translation and Napoleon Dynamite, if that makes any sense. I’ll have to ask Ethan if he remembers this name of the film. The line that cracked me up was this; <setting: the older ‘role model’ guy is talking to the kid in the movie> “You know, the First Noble Truth of Buddhism is: Life sucks!!” HAHAHAA I was rolling!

Then there was Saturday… COMIC-CON!!!! Always a blast. Even got to see a bit of rough footage from Spider-Man 3 with Mr. Sam Raimi himself! That was frigin AWESOME. One of my other favorite parts of the day was seeing ILM’s Visual Effects Supervisor John Knoll give a talk about the graphic effects done for Pirates2. (All from the comfort of his lovely mac of course) Though Dawn rolled her eyes at my enjoyment in ILM’s naming of their special motion capture technique developed for this film, I loved it. iMocap!!! Dood, what’s not to love!!!

After all’s said and done, one preview I just can’t get out of my mind is for this movie I hadn’t even heard of until the showed the trailer. Renaissance. It’s done in this very extreme black and white, which I can see will be a problem for some people, but, to me it’s very unique. I’ll be looking forward to that.

Today all in all was a great day too. I got to spend a lot of time with my little man, he even gave Venerable Miao Hsi a big hug when he saw her. So wonderful.

So I made a promise to myself today when I was driving to work. I promised I would get through my massive inbox. Time escapes you when you have a lot of things going on, and ya know, the email continues to pile in.

I did end up making a ton of progress. It was really good.