golf, driving in the desert, lightning, horsie horsie horsies, motorcycles, my ipod, four-wheel-drive quads with gunracks and knobby tires, military airplanes (f117, a-10, f18, b2, b1, b52, c17, the x1!!! the sr-71 (thanks, mike!) and of course, the connie), howard hughes, chuck yeager, junior brown, johnny cash, vintage sci fi books, wired magazine, japanese teenagers, my thesaurus (haven't cracked it open in way too long...) heartfelt music (can't stress this one enough), theme bars, dive bars, bars in pools and cocktails in weird containers or pineapples, jukeboxes (especially in 24 hour taco joints in east la), old cars and the sounds and smells that go with them, power tools, dimensional paint (metallic and otherwise), pumpkin martinis, superman seat grabs, bmx trickriders, my og checkered vans hightops from 1982, architecture and design and the magazines that go with them, mid-mod interiors, collecting (well, now i am into purging...), furniture and fabrics, carved chinese dragons, colors, area 51, conspiracy theorists (in small doses- those guys are exhausting!) the smell of gunpowder on my fingers after an evening at the 6th street gun club (miniskirt a must- gotta please the japanese and british tourists!) making metal spark, and the smell of metal being cut (mmmmmmmm......) i love SHOES!, expensive cosmetics, getting my hair done, dressing up and acting like the girly girl i don't get to be often enough, cooking, horses, kissing, kissing horses, riding under a full moon or under no moon in the dark... sailing and spending days anchored off an island with nothing to do, thinking for hours, reading until the sun comes up and my eyes burn, learning about anything and everything (lately, i have been learning quite a lot about myself, which has led to me learning a lot about other people, which is pretty cool - it is of course, an endless journey), waking up outside, airstream or any other old, well-designed trailers, seeing big motorhomes pulling trailers filled with dirt bikes on the freeway headed out of town.... miniature golf courses, sixties coffee shops, dingbat apartment buildings, drive-ins, bowling alleys, screen block brickwork, tikis (and crying when any of the last several mentioned items are knocked down for an ugly ass stucco and pseudo-european apartment building or a starbucks), chrome, stainless steel, rivets, machine screws, compressors, my leopard skin coat collection, a really good piece of leather, fudgecicles, little tokyo, driving through la in the middle of the night when all the assholes are asleep, especially when it is foggy and surreal, leaving la, then coming back when i have been away too long, doing crossword puzzles naked in bed, blueberries, busted neon, big belt buckles, intelligent robots that build space stations on the moon, day-old sweat, that barbeque smoky smell that gets on your clothes when you are cookin', living in the moment and taking risks, flat black primer and chrome mags, riv's, 'cuda's, el caminos, the 1956 continental mark 2, chevy 2, imperials, old trucks (f***ed up or fixed-up), duallys, coronets, uncomfortable custom bikes, starting over, making progress, accomplishing goals, figuring out a way to eliminate the need to sleep so i can get more done. trying to be happy without hurting anyone.
you are NICE.you are HONEST with me (even if you think i don't want to hear it.) you are spontaneous, yet stable. you don't play games. you really know and like who you are. you think of life as an adventure, even the little stuff. you love music beyond description. you are compelled, compulsed, driven, obsessed, amitious, or motivated about SOMETHING.......it really doesn't matter what. (but it helps if it runs on gasoline....) you aren't afraid to be alone sometimes. you think you are SEXY (even if you think you are out of shape or kinda ugly- it's all in the mind) you know you are COOL. (and i mean that in the "Johnny Cash" way and the "hey, that's no problem - we can work it out" kind of way.) you're not embarrassed if you get sucked into reality tv. and i can't emphasize this one enough: you NEVER use the word "party" as a verb.......male or female, friend or otherwise, this list applies to everyone....
to quote donny and marie: "i'm a little bit country and a little bit rock n roll." you would have to come browse my collection to get the big picture. desert island music: HANGMEN. BLUE HAWAIIANS. VANDURAS. if i had to pick a single musician to be stuck on the island with, it would be gary brandin, steel guitar player. hell, i like anything and everything. i play music as a soundtrack to where i am, how i feel, or what i am doing. music for day, music for night, music for sex, music for driving. i love surfy guitars, lots of pedals, SPRING REVERB, restrained solos, tight drummers, front-man bass players, frappy saxes, sick keyboards, weird analog synths, accordians, marimbas and vibes, pipe organs, MINOR CHORDS, music recorded in echo-y bathrooms, blue notes. steel, slide, dobro, banjo, mandolin(in the right context.) UPRIGHT SLAP BASS. Ray Brown (upright bass rides in the front seat, wife rides in the back...), Spade Cooley, Patsy "Lovesick Blues" and "Hungry for Love." "Swingin' Loser" by Buddy Greco. Doors " You're Lost Little Girl" "Queen of the Highway," and "I Will Never Be Untrue." JAMES INTVELD! Mario playing upright. Frenchie playing harmonica. Jimmy James playing slide. EDDIE SPAGHETTI and the SUPERSUCKERS. HANK FUCKIN III, (AND JR, AND SR) Thursday nights with the Riders of the Purple Sage at viva. Leon's Steakhouse (RIP) 17 piece band and the "broken-hipsters." Schaber's Cafeteria (RIP) and the crazy cast of characters eating their tapioca and mashed potatoes and gravy. Kevin Banford singing "Ghost Riders in the Sky." SODA AND HIS MILLION PIECE BAND!! That Cambodian psychedelic record that Mark Fontana gave me a copy of. The soundtrack to "Cowboy Bebop." NOTHING TOPS when the music stops.....then everyone drops back in.....mmmmmm...... "Danger Zone" at the airshows (but NEVER anywhere else.) Club Cherry and DJ Mike Messex. He can make me shake my ass all night. Dancing until i feel like my heart is going to explode at any and all BLUE HAWAIIANS shows. Certain moments in songs catch my throat- the little guitar string across the bridge thing in the middle of White Stripes "Girl You Have No Faith In Medicine." funny enough, but there is a moment in the Coolio song "gangster's paradise" when the choir voices sing that gets caught in my throat evey time i hear it, whether i am deliberately listening or not. hard to explain. trent reznor can still do it to me every once in awhile. radiohead "climbing up the walls" and "talk show host." Rev Horton Heat "In your Wildest Dreams" and "One Time for Me." JUNIOR BROWN is the greatest live performer on the PLANET. Dick Dale walking out in the middle of the sunset strip while playing a wireless guitar solo at the key club. the first time i saw the LORDS OF ALTAMONT, when jake lit his farfisa on fire. FUCKING WOW! I am slowly working my way through the country section at Amoeba. I am also a sucker for cat stevens, neil diamond, and elo. not too big on doubled vocals or harmonizing, badly rhymed lyrics, or the hippity hop (most of the modern stuff anyway.) i can name that tune in one note. i don't absorb lyrics too quickly - the melody and instrument choices and the sound of the vocals get to me way before i care what they are saying. wish i had taken more music lessons......a note to all you musicians out there: most of us can smell whether a musician is motivated by fame or truly obsessed with music. don't waste our time. be clever; don't emulate or jump on a bandwagon- unless that is the clever thing you are doing to make your point. homage is much different than imitation. everyone has a story or a point of view. stick with yours, not kurt cobain's or jack white's or any other person's. have some balls. work on your craft. stop partying so much. most bands will only ever have one good song. great. record it the best you can, then if the other stuff isn't as good, pack it in and call it a day. you succeeded. stop torturing yourself and us with pale attempts to recapture that moment. and don't just do it to get the chicks. don't worry, the chicks will always be there- i am always having to push them out of the way so i can hear the freakin band....it's actually kinda a turnoff to the chicks you probably don't even know you want, anyway. sorry, music is kinda important to me- i get a little carried away....
don't get me started............my stepdad used to plan weekends around going to the movies. we would start on friday night somewhere down in orange county, pick up again on saturday and work our way across the city, usually ending up in westwood on sunday nights. i would watch three movies a day after school (after i would watch MV3 or some MTV) i am very wary of going to see a movie, for fear of being disappointed. i hate the whole market-researched, money-motivated, formulaic world that films have become..... people hate watching movies with me because i am always deconstucting them, from recognizing the color of the gels in the lights, to criticizing the acting, to pointing out the endless continuity problems. i apologize to anyone who has ever had to watch a movie with me. just get me a box of something chewy to keep my trap shut and i promise i will try to behave.... a short stream of consciousness list: mexican go-go movies from the 60s. intriguey, political, double agent-y movies from the 70's. indian films, carchases, love stories that can make me cry. movies where the endings are sad and i feel a truly deep sense of loss. futuristic shit from the sixties (especially european.) spaghetti westerns. movies that create their own version of the world (ex: clockwork orange, raising arizona.) great art direction. auteurs. kubrick. the loved one. TOBY DAMMIT! buckaroo banzai. marilyn. fellini. joseph losey. face in the crowd. an american dream. noir. hate horror, except "alien" or "the shining." you can have all that modern horror crap, or just make them into nine inch nails videos instead....
gene simmons. girls next door. deal or no deal. hgtv. la ink. rock of love. pga golf tournaments. (eek! i know!)
i recently realized that most of my books are about people who live life the way i think it should be lived. a catalogued reminder of the way things should and could be if people just made a little goddamned effort.i have a pretty eclectic collection, but have recently been thinning it out along with all my other stuff. feels good, actually. people shouldn't have to look at my bookshelf to get an idea of who i am. but i guess it kinda works.anything about death valley, las vegas, howard hughes, stealth fighters, chuck yeager, old hollywood. vintage sci fi, auteur director biographies, non fiction crime, the usual assortment of musician and golden age hollywood star biographiesinterior design books and magazines (vintage and current) i am a MAGAZINE JUNKIE!!i am obsessed with doing crossword puzzles these days, so there are a lot of crossword books lying around......
stanley kubrick. howard hughes. chuck yeager. jackie cochran. kelly johnson and ben rich. sheldon freid. frank lloyd wright. le corbusier. mies van der rohe. charles nelson reilly. william manley. terence stamp. junior brown. thom filicia. big daddy roth. carroll shelby. steve mcqueen. the rat pack, including shirley maclaine and original members bogey and bacall. my grandmother, doris. kane. bryan small. mark fontana. gordon and timbo. uncle richard (zack). hank III. horace. mike motherfuckin mad max knox.........