September 9th, 2008
When I was thirteen or so, a new show hit the WB 11 lineup in my hometown of New York City. It starred a spunky, sporty gal named Sarah Michelle Gellar and was set in Anytown, USA (well, okay, Anytown, California), a place that proved itself to be a not-so-sleepy suburb under which lay a lair of nefarious vampires. Snarling, ghoulishly-faced, bloodstained vampires.
It, simply put, scared the shit out of me. As a growing teenager, I curled up in my chair at various stages of my life, sitting down to watch the latest exploits of the Slayer and her band of buddies.
It’s been years since I’ve seen Buffy, but now the show has returned to my radar via the ever-popular hulu.com, a site recommended to me by Chris that features streaming re-runs of old (and new) favorites. A bona-fide hulu junkie, I decided to give the show another shot.
The pilot, which is where I start, does not mirror the seat-gripping show I remember from my younger days. In its place is a campy, slightly clunky but incredibly earnest endeavor complete with unlikely effects, strained actin and a young Eric Balfour. Part of the episode, set in an unlikely all-ages bar called The Bronze, looks like an early-nineties music video, bad flailing-crowd scene and head-banging lead singer in baggy shorts and all. The vamps, while hideous in makeup, are too talky and less bitey and David Boreanaz displays all the trappings of a happy novice non-actor looking to break into the scene which, I’ve read, he was.
That said, I have to say I’m sucked (pun intended) in. Buffy is a likable character, a not-so-cool cool girl with a soft spot for the school losers and a healthy dose of resentment towards being an otherwise normal teenager saddled with an abnormal–and dangerous–task. Giles, her librarian mentor, is endearing with his stuttering speech and doe-eyed Willow, Allison Hannigan’s breakout role, is sweet in her shapeless gingham dress as she bumbles her lines.
All in all, Buffy proves itself to be a fun romp but, thus far, just that. But, with lines like “what’s your childhood trauma?” who can’t be won over?
July 27th, 2008
Caught the Mannequin Piss/Annihilation Time show on Wednesday night at the recommendation of Mel and Lisa. It was a true punk extravaganza over at The Tower, the best dive bar in San Diego, in my estimation. In the midst of the beer-spraying and moshing, everyone was incredibly nice for some reason, offering us their edamame snacks and introducing themselves. Before the show, a friendly young man in a Motorhead shirt offered me a snort from his bottle of… Well, whatever it was he had in there. I politely declined but an offer is an offer and does not go unnoticed by this writer.
The bands had a ton of energy and the drummers in particular had great chops. It was fun to watch the kids in the small pit shove each other around; the spitting of beer was not quite as amusing but made for good theatrics all the same.
A.M. Vibe played the Pink Elephant last night to a somewhat thin crowd for a Saturday night. I guess it was fairly early for most at 11 pm but I was dumb tired. Lisa and Mel had been to the Casbah and met Porter, A.M. Vibe’s bass player, at the door so after our mini cast-and-crew screening of Flamingo Tango and HRH Electric, Persnickety’s latest shorts, we headed over to the Pink Elephant (ELEPHANT, DAMNIT, NOT BAR PINK!) to hear ‘em play.
For only three people, they make quite a bit of (delightful!) noise. Porter holds his bass bent almost double and his thrumming rhythms shine amongst Lisah Nicholson’s fuzzy guitar riffs. Mark Vernon plays a mean set and together they form a sound that reminds me of Ultrababyfat with perhaps a tinge of (as my friend Chris pointed out) The Cranberries (without all the extraneous trilling). All in all, a good night even though I was plum tuckered.
July 16th, 2008
This week I had the pleasure of attending not one but two shows–I must make up for lost time, after all–at the Casbah and Belly Up Tavern respectively.
The first was for Joanie Mendenhall’s CD (”On a String”) release–she’s also a member of local band The Ex-Friends–and had the pleasure of going with my friend Christy, who knew Mendenhall in high school.
The show was an excellent one. Mendenhall was earnestly confident on stage, as was her band, which includes guitarist/violinist Ray Suen, who recently joined the Killers. The set was long but good and showcased Mendenhall’s multi-instrumental talents, as she pounded an electric piano–standing up–plucked a bass and, in a bait-and-switch with Suen, produced a face-melting (to borrow from Jack Black) guitar solo from bended knee.
The Duke Spirit, in short, rocked. Liela Moss, the lead vocalist, looks not unlike a Swedish model but can play the harmonica better than your grandfather out on the porch. Clad in a black Spandex bodysuit–camel-toe be damned–and button down shirt, she strode the stage, possessed, occasionally stopping to thrust one hand aloft into the air with command. The band played at a blazing, breaknecked pace and did a selection of songs from their latest album, Neptune–and a few older tunes–seemingly without stopping.
Their current tour has, it seems, been costly for the group; during one of the few brief pauses, Moss informed the audience–to a chorus of cheers–that her family had to mortgage their house so they could hit the road.
If you can catch these acts–if you live in SoCal or New Jersey, The Duke Spirit is hitting your town or one nearby as they travel the country–do; both are highly recommended by this writer.
July 12th, 2008
After some recovery time and a long silence, I’m up and attem once more.
Today’s You Need This Song comes all the way from the UK with The Duke Spirit. Their single “The Step and The Walk” is getting some airplay here in San Diego and it’s a great tune. With silky, silvery and ethereal vocals (and a haunting ‘oooh-oooh’ backing track), the song travels well, drums simple but pounding and guitars pleasantly minimal. Singer Liela Moss’s accent creeps in as well, always a treat.
Check it out.
June 26th, 2008
The emergency rooms here in San Diego are smaller than I expected. I have now been to two and found their size to be surprising considering that San Diego is one of the larger cities in America.
In any case, I have now become intimately familiar with the UCSD Emergency Department in Hillcrest. I spent several hours there on Sunday morning amidst an odd assortment of characters; a spindly-legged fellow who claimed to have fallen down a flight of stairs and blacked out; a duo of middle-aged blond women eating fast food; a wizened Mexican gentleman and his portly cohort and, last but not least, a guy in a CSI hat with an obvious mental disorder who kept asking the registrars about syphilis and smelled overwhelmingly of fermenting yeast.
In any case, writhing in lower abdominal pain, I was admitted not once but twice to UCSD Hillcrest and, a CAT scan, IV and much poking and prodding later, was diagnosed with an obstructing kidney stone. Yes, those horrid little things your grandfather gets, along with flatulence and excess ear hair. I would feel more like an old man if what I wasn’t already feeling much of the time was intense, pulsating pain (which is currently being remedied by the wonder-drug Vicodin) and a general sense of uselessness, as I have not left a two mile radius in four days.
But, like most things, kidney stones do, well, pass.
June 17th, 2008
Just wanted to let everyone know I will/have been AWOL for the next/past few days, as I’m teaching Girl Scouts how to plan, produce, shoot and edit videos. On broadcast quality equipment. For thirteen hours a day. For a week. Yes.
Should be up and running again come Monday or so.
June 12th, 2008
I think I must have done a double take, but the contract was right in front of me. It was the usual, a simple pledge to do a good job and keep your nose clean and that sort of thing but then there was the fine–well, fine-er–print along the bottom.
“The Girl Scout Promise,” it read.
I continued reading.
On my honor, I will try: To serve God and my country, to help people at all times, and to live by the Girl Scout Law.
‘Oh boy,’ I thought, ‘have we got a problem.’
I’ve been an atheist practically since birth. My brushes with faith have been brief; at age six I thought the Lord looked like the disembodied head of my upstairs neighbor and at seven, when accompanying my mother to shul, I looked from rabbi to cantor and asked “Mommy, which one of those guys is God?”
In any case, imagine my surprise to see that affirmation of assumed belief. I thought that, in the interest of inclusion, all such things had been struck from the credos and pledges of organizations that serve a secular public.
A quick trip to Wikipedia explains:
“In early 1992, the Totem Girl Scout Council suggested changing the promise to make it possible for girls who did not believe in a monotheistic god to join. In November 1992, the parents of Nitzya Cuevas-Macias sued for their daughter to be permitted to participate even though she refused to promise to serve God.[40][41]
On October 23, 1993, the Girl Scouts of the USA voted 1,560-375[42] to permit individuals to substitute another word or phrase for “God” in their promise.[43]
“THAT, since the Girl Scout organization makes no attempt to interpret or define the word ‘God’ but encourages members to establish for themselves the nature of their spiritual beliefs, it is the policy of the Girl Scouts of the U.S.A. that individuals when making the Girl Scout Promise may substitute wording appropriate to their own spiritual beliefs for the word ‘God’.”
with the explanation that
“For some individuals, the word ‘God’, no matter how broadly interpreted, does not appropriately reflect their spiritual beliefs. Since the belief in a spiritual principle is fundamental to Girl Scouting, not the word used to define that belief, it is important that individuals have the opportunity to express that belief in wording meaningful to them. It is essential to maintain the spiritual foundation of Girl Scouting, yet be inclusive of the full range of spiritual beliefs. This [policy change] does not take the word ‘God’ out of the Girl Scout Promise. It gives those individuals who wish to do so the option to state their commitment to the spiritual concepts fundamental to the Movement with a word or words more appropriate to their own beliefs. For instance, an individual may say ‘my faith’ or ‘Allah’ or ‘the Creator’.”"
Hmm. So to effectively “scout,” one must have a “spiritual foundation?” I wonder how that effects atheist members and their parents… If there are any.
But, as our team leader declared, reciting from a pamphlet, the Girl Scouts do not discriminate–cannot, really–in who they hire based upon, among a slew of other things, religious belief… Or, in my case, non-belief.
So I sighed.
And I signed.
June 9th, 2008
So I just finished watching the third season of Weeds and all I can say is wow. What a well-crafted, side-splitting, bedsheet-clutching, cringe-inducing, cliff-hangingly good series. While it can dip into the absurd–one of the supporting characters is conveniently and all too quickly discharged from the Army after his “battle buddy” is mysteriously killed by a flying missile during a training session, for example–it is just so perfectly put together that, frankly, I’m blown away.
And, I happened to notice, in a scene in which one of the young stars is illegally driving a camper van, as he is seated upon several San Diego-area phone books, my suspicions that the fictional California town in which it is set is meant to be not far from where I live have been confirmed. See for yourself:
June 6th, 2008
(Image from
Amie Street.)
(Thanks must go to Chris for this one.)
The Submarines, who list themselves on Myspace as “ghettotech” and “shoegaze” have a good thing going, here. “You, Me” is a well-crafted song, lo-fi in all the right places with a slight fuzz on the otherwise clear and tuneful vocals. A marimba dings sweetly amidst hand-claps and deliciously mushy guitar, accompanied by pounded piano and the crinkle-clash of a tambourine. A toe-tapping ditty with a poppy, almost anthemic chorus and spoken-word element, it’s a keeper for sure.
June 4th, 2008
(to borrow from R.E.M)
Bad days should be uncommon here in San Diego. It’s sunny most of the time, the ocean is, for many of us, a hop-skip away and hey, it’s California. So when things go sour, it feels almost like an insult. Why, amidst all the palm trees and jasmine-scented sidewalks, blue skies and salt-tinged air, must it all go so horribly wrong?
But rough times are hard to weather anywhere, I suppose. There’s just something about all this beauty that makes it seem even more wrong. In a tangle of East Coast gloom, under clouds and in rainy streets, a lousy mood is easy to nurture. Here, with the sweet-smelling breezes blowing your way, cheer just around the corner, it just makes you seem like a bad person, that your misery should just melt away when, in fact, it cannot.
The upside is, however, San Diego is a great place to hunker down and wait for everything to get better.