Spending some time traveling around using the lite rail system. My main idea is to investigate downtown as a place to live or work. That's what I tell myself. Maybe a bigger part is the fascination I have for street life--people watching. Looking for myself in the various expressions of humanity.

My favorite of the trains is the Redline. I guess cause it's underground, it makes me feel like I'm in a big city. Like New York but without the graffiti, smell, or crush of people. Disneyland style. In the tube the trains announce their arrival with wind. You feel the breeze as it approaches before you hear or see it.

Travellers on the Redline run the gamit between the extremes of downtown Los Angeles and uptown Hollywood. Secretaries, executives, homeless, transexuals, punk rockers, rockers... Those who would save. Those who would be saved.

Each station has it's own theme or motif. My favorite station so far is the junction between the Red and Blue lines. The 7th street station. Everybody just seems to be going somewhere from here. The trains stop... and damn near everybody gets off. All rushing to get to the other line.

Today on the Blueline I sat down and settled in only to find a hand between my back and the seat. It moved, but then was back subtly rubbing me. For a second I'm scared thinking it could be anybody--Boy George, Darth Vader... nah. I don't turn and look. I just know... it's a chick. She likes me.

Most people would turn around to see what was going on. Not me, I break out my pocket computer and start reading. The back massage is intermittent but continues. By the time we get into downtown I'm so into my book I forget she's there. As I'm getting up to disembark she stops me: "Is this the 7th Street station" she asks. "Yes", I stammer while noticing how cute she is.

Just finished Frederick Barthelme's collection of short stories "Chroma". He seems to have this theme of poking fun at consumerism. Here's a sample from his story "Black Tie":

"...Katherine returns with two RC Colas, three candy bars, and a package of peanuts... Paul... starts the car. Katherine puts an unwrapped Snickers in Paul's mouth, an open RC Cola on the seat between his legs, and she drops the peanuts on the glove compartment door..."

It's subtle and tongue-in-cheek but little jabs about our consumer lifestyle are woven throughout the stories. Fun reading. I particularly like the first story "Driver" where a white guy (having a midlife crisis?) buys a low rider. The stories had me thinking about how more and more we define ourselves through the purchases we make. Is the sum total of existence to be a good consumer?

Just finished Frederick Barthelme's collection of short stories "Chroma". He seems to have this theme of poking fun at consumerism. Here's a sample from his story "Black Tie":

"...Katherine returns with two RC Colas, three candy bars, and a package of peanuts... Paul... starts the car. Katherine puts an unwrapped Snickers in Paul's mouth, an open RC Cola on the seat between his legs, and she drops the peanuts on the glove compartment door..."

It's subtle and tongue-in-cheek but little jabs about our consumer lifestyle are woven throughout the stories. Fun reading. I particularly like the first story "Driver" where a white guy (having a midlife crisis?) buys a low rider. The stories had me thinking about how more and more we define ourselves through the purchases we make. Is the sum total of existence to be a good consumer?

Took the metro downtown to the 7th Street station. Went up to street level to see what downtown looks like on the weekend. 7th and Flower. Film crew happened to be there doing a beer commercial. Someone said they had twenty head of buffalo. Well Maybe... I saw at least three and they were impressive. An eighteen wheeler there seemed to be full of them. Cab bright pink. South Dakota plates.

The trainer got a huge buffalo out of the pen and had him do a few tricks. The most impressive was when he laid him down on his side and stood on him. Let me just mention that Buffalo turds are to be avoided.

When I asked what the deal was one of the crew told me: "you've heard of 'the run of the bulls' in Spain? well, this is 'the run of the buffalo'".

There seemed to be several crews working simultaneously--shooting the buffalo stunts and the main shoot: a taxicab with New York plates with a bunch of models strewn over it. After they finished the taxicab shoot, the same models were doing still photography next to some prop posters of uncle sam doing his "we want you" deal.

While shooting the taxicab scene a dude with a bullhorn would yell: "Roll video, roll tape, action", then the actors would clink/clutch their San Miguel beer bottles, smile and high five each other while a bunch of extras strolled by. Everybody was wearing red bandanas in various manners--head scarf, around the neck, etc. Does that make it a Crip or a Blood beer commercial? I suppose Google could give me the answer.

When they were done rehearsing the guy with the bullhorn said: "let's get those bottles looking sexy!" so a guy comes out and mists them. Makeup for beer bottles.

This has been the week of film shoots. Seem to keep running into them in my travels around town. Maybe they're always happening and I just don't get out enough to notice.

Finally got my hands on a copy of the annotated version of J.G. Ballard's "The Atrocity Exhibition". As I suspected it has that flavor of poetry. Just like his book "Crash". One thing I'm noticing about the way that he wrote it is that he's deliberately using bad grammar in his sentences. Making them ambiguous on purpose. For example:

"Dr. Nathan gazed at the display photographs of terminal syphilitics in the cinema foyer."

The sentence is constructed in such a way that it's not clear what the object is (not to mention it's just plain freaky.) Is Dr. Nathan standing in a cinema foyer? or were the syphilitics standing in the cinema foyer when the photos were taken?

The odd sentence constructed like this could be a mistake but when it's done again and again it's obvious that's he's doing it on purpose. The result is similar to an optical illusion or a drawing by Escher. Sometimes you see a vase, sometimes you see two faces.

So far it's a collection of vignettes. The same characters and objects taken and reused.

"...Zoom Lens. Dr Nathan stopped. Reluctantly, his eyes turned across the room to the portrait camera mounted on its tripod by the consulting couch. How could he explain to this sensitive and elusive woman that her own body, with its endlessly familiar geometry, its landscapes of touch and feeling, was their only defence against her husband's all-too-plain intentions? Above all, how could he invite her to pose for what she would no doubt regard as a set of obscene photographs?..."

I'm reading it slowly. Kind of like letting wine roll under my tongue. Same way I read "Crash".

Just finished watching another japanese zombie flick: "Junk". Worth seeing is about all I can say. Pretty cheesy, but then so was "Versus", which had tons more style. Both movies copied a lot of famous scenes from other films. "Versus" was more blatant about it and the scenes came off better.

There's a scene at the beginning of "Junk" where three guys are going to rob a jewelry store. One of them is walking tough guy style with a trench coat while some techno music is playing--skinny film student trying to look like Arnold. Pretty funny.

One funny bit that I have not seen anywhere else was when a zombie rips a piece out of his own stomach and chews on it to prove how tough he is. A similar scene in "Versus" was much funnier though: three zombies are walking up on the hero with their heads all sideways and half eaten. You know the zombie drill. When they hear the hero cock his gun they respond by brandishing guns of their own. I was laughing for a good ten minutes after that.

Some of the stuff copied from "Alien" reminded me again what a great flick that is. I love that bit at the end where she goes back for the cat. For a freaking cat! They made it work good. "Junk"... not so good.

Sometimes a cheesy zombie flick hits the spot. Know what I mean?

Just finished watching another japanese zombie flick: "Junk". Worth seeing is about all I can say. Pretty cheesy, but then so was "Versus", which had tons more style. Both movies copied a lot of famous scenes from other films. "Versus" was more blatant about it and the scenes came off better.

There's a scene at the beginning of "Junk" where three guys are going to rob a jewelry store. One of them is walking tough guy style with a trench coat while some techno music is playing--skinny film student trying to look like Arnold. Pretty funny.

One funny bit that I have not seen anywhere else was when a zombie rips a piece out of his own stomach and chews on it to prove how tough he is. A similar scene in "Versus" was much funnier though: three zombies are walking up on the hero with their heads all sideways and half eaten. You know the zombie drill. When they hear the hero cock his gun they respond by brandishing guns of their own. I was laughing for a good ten minutes after that.

Some of the stuff copied from "Alien" reminded me again what a great flick that is. I love that bit at the end where she goes back for the cat. For a freaking cat! They made it work good. "Junk"... not so good.

Sometimes a cheesy zombie flick hits the spot. Know what I mean?

Been in a few arguments recently. Not about anything important. Got some insight into what's going on with that on new year's eve. While arguing. Of course.

I realized that the arguments I have been having, have been with my friends that are "J's". I'm a "P". I'm talking about the Myers-Briggs personality profile test. J and P are the two ends of one of the axis's of the test. They stand for judging and perceiving. A J type person is constantly making up their minds about stuff. Even when it's not important that they do so. A negative way to characterize this is to call them "judgemental". On the other hand J people tend to see P people as procrastinators. P people always want as much information as possible in order to make the best possible decision. I was told recently that I "over analyze my options". Of course, this was my J friend that told me this. hehe.

All this is background information for the "insight" that I had the other night. So here it is: I realized that I wasn't so much arguing about a particular thing with my J friends. It was just that my "P sensibility is offended by the "J sense" of having to constantly decide things. Speaking with J people it seems as if they have their minds made up about so much that it seems as if the world to them must seem so black and white.

I'm wrestling with the tone of what I'm trying to say here. I don't want to come across as sounding like I think I'm right and they're wrong. It's not a question of right and wrong. It's a question of personality difference. J people tend to have their minds made up that their P friends are procrastinators. Whereas, P people tend to think their J friends make up their minds too quickly, are frequently wrong and tend to see things in black and white.

It's not that I'm trying to present the P perspective as the "right way to think". It's just that, since it's the way that I do think, I just happen to know more about it.

An example of this occurred several year ago in Vegas during the time of the Monica Lewinsky scandal. My friends were all arguing with me about Clinton. Saying he should be impeached for having [as Chris Rock puts it] "lied about a blow job so his wife wouldn't find out". I'm sure my friends thought I had an opinion. I didn't, but I was offended by how easy it was for them to make up their minds and this was what lead to the argument.

Now that I know about this dynamic maybe I can cut them some slack and let them make up their minds as quickly as they want to. And hopefully it can be ok for me to take as much time to form an opinion as I want to. Or even not to have one.

The world needs J's and it needs P's. It's can be hard for either to see, or admit this though...

It occurred to me last night how lonely it is being a dj. I mean, I'm there at a party but it's not like I get to talk to anybody. No conversation that lasts longer than a few minutes anyway. Though I am getting better at talking and bs'ing while selecting, cueing and beat matching. Multitasking. I could hook a broom on my ass and sweep too.

It was fun chatting with Andre last night, since, being a musician he knew what was going on and not to take it personal when I was distracted. Other people have not been so forgiving. I remember one time trying to tell Dave a story as I was trying to cue the next song. He got really frustrated when I had to pause. Part of being a dj is not letting people fluster you when you're doing your thing.

I realized last night that it's time to go back to having oodles of music on hand. I learned this at burningman too when I came prepared just for beatmatching a downtempo/acid jazz type thing but then ended up on the radio instead. I got room on the hard drive. I can go back to making it kind of a swiss army knife.

The past several gigs all the music I use is prepared ahead of time [as if I was a professional dj]. The beats are counted and the position of the first beat is noted. Rather than marking this information on the label of the record it's stored in the id3 tag of the mp3. It takes a lot of time to get all this squared up before a party. I have about 400 tracks prepared in this way. Not much of it was suitable for last night's party though. If I had more music available I would have played something totally different.

It's cool that I am starting to get a handle on the beat matching thing. But last night I was the only person that noticed. Which I guess is good. Kind of like user interface design--you know you're doing a good job when nobody notices it.