One rides for free

This morning I skated fast up to the bus at the stop, only to be denied by the mean driver who pulled away from the curb. I stopped waving my board and slammed it to the ground. Crap! Nothing to but play the new Money Mark on my iPod. It's sad but thoughtful and gorgeous--a good way to soften the anger while soaking in the sun's rays.

When the next bus arrived 15 minutes later, I was already in a better mood. Then when I pulled out my token to drop and reached for the box, it turned out to be covered by the driver's coat. It must have been busted, and he waved me on.

No one rides for free, but I did today because of the first driver's lameness.

For Callum

A benefit CD for Cal Robbins, who suffers from Spinal Muscular Atrophy, has been released by Catlick Records. It's got tracks by great bands and artists like Maritime, Mission of Burma, Channels, and Joe Lally, as well as an old demo by Jawbreaker! And did I mention it's a benefit for Cal Robbins?


Check it out here.

Steve Perry vs. Mark E. Smith

Lance Hahn once sang something like, "I'd like to see a movie about the Vietnam War from a Vietnamese point of view." Here it is, in Journey From The Fall. Ham Tran's movie opened last weekend and packed theaters in New York City, Westminister, and San Jose. The support it got in those heavily Vietnamese areas was pretty cool, but the film will truly prove its mettle if it can cross over into other audiences.

Can it be as big as The Deer Hunter or Full Metal Jacket? There's no chance with an all-Vietnamese and Vietnamese-American cast, but those who see it are likely to be impressed. It does a commendable job of doubly depicting the chaos that accompanied the fall of Saigon as well as the challenges faced by the Boat People in the U.S. Not many people are familiar with their plight, and Tran took painstaking steps to insure historical accuracy.


Director Ham Tran is interviewed in the new GR, which is at the printer now.

Puzzlemaster time: Can you think of other movie titles with two band names in it? I've thought of three so far...

Bigfoot sighting

Two feet that add up to more than 24 inches...


Wendy and I attended the opening of Bigfoot's art show at the Corey Helford Gallery in Culver City last night and saw lots of nice new art and some friends, too.


Here's Albert Reyes and his video artist bro Ryan, looking fresh with five eyes.


The man of the hour, Bigfoot himself, with our pal Bret of Rasa Libre, Ipath, and We Are Banta fame.


Uh, oh. Wendy has an encounter of the Baseman kind.


Another view of the first pic: apeman vs. monkey suit.

...and twins

My brother Greg and I aren't identical twins. We're fraternal. But we have pretty similar looks. Similar interests, styles, and demeanors, too.

I don't know if we have any super-secret twin powers (other than playing really well together at games like Scattergories, etc.), but for some reason, we have a history of having similar haircuts. In the grunge-powered late 80's, I grew my hair long-ish. So did Greg. Then when I cut mine off and didn't tell him in the early '90s, he cut his, too!

But for the last few years, my hair has been shaggy but short while my brother's has been shaved. That made it really easy to tell us apart. Now his is growing out, and we're looking a little closer. Can you tell the difference?

Enter the DragonForce

Last night I saw DragonForce, a band that combines arena-rock vocals with death-metal blast beats and speed-metal solos. The overlapping layers of metal history are mixed with triumphant RPG soundtracks and meshed into epic songs that typically last over 7 minutes. The band from London, England, has resuscitated a style of music that has been long dead (at least in the U.S.), and its songs could easily be dropped in on classic rock stations' rotations, right next to Led Zep, Maiden, and the Scorpions--and not stick out like when DJs play Nirvana or Pearl Jam just to prove they were still functional in the '90s, and not baked on coke. Meanwhile, the straight-up ripping musicianship and endless power will win over the hardest-core fans of the new-ish metal genres and hybrids.


Where are the Asian rock stars? That long-standing question--which has been bandied about by Asian-Am journalists, scholars, and popular culture mavens--or complaint, more precisely, has been rendered obsolete because DragonForce's leader and guitarist Herman Li is an emerging rock god. Already compared to the likes of Malmsteen and his Rising Force, Li's DragonForce will probably be bigger than that. Instead of simply noodling with notes and nanoseconds, he and follow axeman Sam Totman work ridiculously complex guitar solos into incredibly melodic songs. Imagine Eddie Van Halen playing with Steve Vai in their respective primes, not dueling but pushing each other to go faster and building off each other's riffs. It's something like that, but on a tipping iceberg while glaciers implode and whales and squids battle around them.


Forget Asians in rock. This is something that could affect everyone. I hope it steals a chunk of kids back from American Idol, mainstream rap, and nu-metal and dedicates them to rock 'n' roll. I'm totally serious. Even if you hate the sound of metal and its long-haired style, or wish the lyrics had some social commentary, DragonForce's seemingly boundless talent, energy, and potential cannot be denied. Nor should it. Locate your lighter, and jump in the pit.

MP free

Six new songs from Mick Jones (The Clash, B.A.D.) Tony James (Generation X, Sigue Sigue Sputnik) are on the Carbon Silicon site. Download them for free!

Eat it

So there we were at Mammoth yesterday afternoon, getting our passes scanned before going up Chair Lift 23, when three dudes cut right between Wendy and me to get to the loading area. I don't care if was Monday and there was no one in line; that was just rude. So I said, "What's going on here?"


Me eating outside Warming Hut 2. That's why my face is so funny. We packed our own veggie turkey sandwiches but used the cafeteria's relish packets. You can pretend we're sitting outside in the sun, resting our dogs and telling stories about our day on the slopes.

Shockingly, the lift operator did something. First, he told the guys to stop and then he directed them to get out of the way so Wendy and I could get on first. That was pretty nice.

We shot down Cornice and took Lower St. Anton to get to the McCoy gondola station. That's when I noticed the biggest skier of the three coming right at me. His legs were like shock absorbers and he was sitting too far back, totally out of control. He took a hard fall right in front of me, and lost his skis, poles, and glasses. Yard sale. I carved to a stop, grabbed one of his skis and glasses, took them down to him, and made sure he was all right. He said yes, and I moved on. His buddies gathered and brought down his other gear.

On the next gondola ride, I was laughing about chain of events and told Wendy that I wasn't being spiteful. I just found the situation ironic. You know those guys had to be steamed, no one likes to be lectured--especially if its a skier who feels like he got ratted on by two young-looking snowboarders.

Maybe they were hauling ass to teach us a lesson? To prove they were faster than us or tougher than us? Maybe they were part of the Russian Mafia. Anyway, it must have been like salt in the wound for me to help the guy and then ask him if he was okay.

Usually, things happen and you wish you did something else or said something differently. This time was perfect.


Wendy walking along from the top of the gondola to Dave's Run. We took it all the way down, past Chair Lift 5, did the baby jumps and halfpipe, and unstrapped at the lodge to end the day.

Not over yet

Late Friday night/Saturday morning, we finished the magazine and I took home the hi-res PDFs. After looking at it with fresh eyes, we converted the files into hi-res PDFs and dropped off a FedEx package for Monday pickup and Tuesday delivery to our printer in Canada. From Kinko's, Wendy and I hit the 405 and went straight to Mammoth for a couple days of decompression.


Wendy rips up Dave's Run. The run is steeper than it looks.

Contrary to popular belief--at least in California--snowboarding season is far from over. Except for the top chutes, pretty much the entire mountain is open. It was T-shirt and hoody weather, so we stayed on top where the snow stayed firm and fast: mostly Cornice, Scotty's, and Dave's.


Walking back to Motel 6 from Perry's after dinner, I played around with the Ricoh GR. Arty or bad? I can't tell.

At night, I looked over the PDFs one more time, knowing that I could send PDFs tonight if anything showed up. Yeah, I found a few more errors. Almost forgot to credit a contributor! I actually woke up in the middle of the night and had a panic attack about the mag. I fabricated all these things I was supposed to remember and didn't--but couldn't, because they were figments of my imagination. Maybe it was guilt from making the trip before the mag was truly in Canada?

As of 10 minutes ago, the mag is officially out of our hands and I'm trying to set up another trip to Mammoth...

Courtside

Still working on the mag, but we've switched background noise from classic rock on KLOS to the Lakers game. Is anyone else watching? The entire first segment was shot from a courtside camera with no commentary. It felt like we were sitting with celebrities!

All you hear is squeaking shoes and chatter. We turned up the sound so we can hear complaints and cussing. Is this an experiment or a mistake? It kind of sucks, though, because without commentary, we're forced to watch the game instead of just listening in and finishing off the mag...

Second segment just started. Still no announcers!

47

It's a magic number, 47. Hammerin' Hank, Michael Idemoto, and the famous ronin. Wait, is that redundant? Anyway, we're still plowing away at the 47th issue of Giant Robot. Just a few holes to fill and a lot of cleaning up. Then we ship files to our printer in Canada.

As usual, the last-minute articles are turning out to be some of the best. One reader came in last night, read a one-page piece that we assembled the night before, and said, "This is funny, this is inspiring, this is everything that I love about Giant Robot."

Will you be able to tell the difference between the articles took weeks of planning and fine-tuning and the ones that we made on the fly? I do think there's an energy that comes with freestyling. Sometimes when you have too much time things get structured. I'd like to think the mag is pretty seamless in the end, though.

Being spontaneous and able to change things up at the last minute is a benefit of having a small crew that works nonstop without too much structure. Working late nights all week and doing a ton of revisions goes with that, too.

Okay, time to stop thinking about the process and get back to doing it... One more late night, and then we cruise.

You need hands

On the calendar, it said that we'd be done with new issue on Monday. Looks like it won't ship until Friday. We're in the midst of lots of long days and nights, which I enjoy, but it's taking its toll on Wendy. Her right hand is burnt from using the Wacom tablet and now she's resorting to designing the mag with an optical mouse. She can't even hold a fork, and has to write with her left hand. Look at her to-do list for tonight.


Yikes. After the magazine ships, I'm going to take her to get a mani/pedi. Maybe the massage and soak in warm water will help. We should take Pryor, too, although I don't think he's been taping his hands this time around.

Animals strike curious poses

Eric, Wendy, and I ate at Native Foods last week. On the way back to the car, Eric spotted a fancy European fancy magazine on the sidewalk and Wendy decided to keep it. Those things costs bucks!


Flip through it, and what's inside? Uglydolls.


What, no pictures of David or Sun-Min? Oh well. Maybe they didn't have their Prada ready for the shoot.

I hope this tidbit provides a fix for Ugly junkies during David's move-induced blog embargo.

Bassmaster general

The other day I got a call from my longtime friend Aaron, who happened to be on tour with his band and heading down for a show at The Smell in Downtown L.A. Would I be interested in meeting up for dinner?

We're in deadline and in lockdown, but I knew we were going to close up the office to attend Pryor's birthday gathering--which happened to be downtown. I told Aaron that I'd try to check out the show afterward since shows tend to run late at the particular venue where he was playing.

It turns out that Mr. P's celebration was right down the alley! After hanging out and before getting some Chinese food, I gave Aaron a call. We got to chat for a little bit, but his band was slated to go on in like an hour. Rats. So close and yet so far... We'll hang out and catch up next time.

No new tale to tell

Something else I almost stepped on--this time in front of Wendy's parents' house.

It's a lizard tail. What happened? Did a cat eat the rest of it? Maybe it caught the tail, and the lizard let it go? Who knows, but it's nasty.

The fact that it was still on the sidewalk is proof that Chinese people don't eat everything that movies--or is it?

The horror

Holy crap! It looks like the new J Church album is finally being released. You can stream the entire thing at the No Idea Records site.


After that you might even choose to buy it for 7 lousy bucks, like I did.

I am the garbage man

Today, I dropped off a couple boxes of stuff at Goodwill and took three garbage bags full of beverage containers (mostly water bottles) to the recycling center. It was me and a bunch of homeless dudes in line, and I walked away with $5.45!

Above: Citizen Dog is Wisit Sasanatieng's follow-up to Tears of the Black Tiger. An interview with the director is in the new issue of GR, and latter film is making the rounds at U.S. arthouse theaters now!

True Love pt. 3

GR online store guy Keenan got a throwback haircut last weekend. It's already growing out, but you can still read the words.




Fo realz. Keenan says he did it to amuse his wife. Shockingly, she is still willing to be seen in public with him. That is true love.

Deadline

GR47 is in the works. We've got some last-minute additions that are making the process a little bumpy, but I think it's going to be solid. There's a nice mix of Japanese, Vietnamese, Korean, Thai, and Chinese stuff. Lots of movie-related articles, and plenty of surprises.


Kiyoshi, have you come up with an idea for your self-defense article yet? Bring it on. I'm ready.

Sign o' the times

Still cleaning up the house, and things are being tossed. Here's a cool GR artifact that I just don't have space for anymore. It's a signboard that we used at comic-book conventions, in-stores, and occasions like that. The last time we put it up, we were able to list each issue as well as a couple articles from each one. Some letters are missing, but you should be able to fill in the gaps.


My friend Tina provided some manual labor for a Beverly Hills deli that was going out of business, and walked away with a couple bucks, some potted plants, the sign, and a bag of letters! It wasn't until a couple years later that we used the sign for GR purposes. Thanks, Tina. Thanks, sign. See you in the next life...

Easy being green

More random photos from the last week or so. I don't know why I take these pictures.


Here's an alley in Chinatown. I don't know if you can see the kitchen, but the chefs are actually Chinese! What's that chair doing there? Is it for smoke breaks? Snow pea snapping?


A while back, Eric posted a photo of this construction site. The walls, which had huge blades of grass printed on them, have been removed to reveal a gas station with a Gehry-looking, chiseled/crumpled canopy. To me, it looks more like something from the Flintstones than anything cool.


This is the same alley I posted last week. Walking by once more, I noticed that Maggie Cheung is in the Ebel watch billboard on the left. Who's that on the right? Can't tell because of the angle, but maybe it's Tony Leung--so close yet so far.

The velvet touch

Back in the '70s, my family used go to the Velvet Turtle on special occasions. It was weird for a steak and seafood place to be on the edge of Chinatown, but there it was. Kind of like Little Joe's or even Philippe's, perhaps. I don't remember all the details, but it was always dark inside, and my brother and I liked to order lobster. (He and I ate meat back then.)


Other steakhouses like Morton's and Taylor's have survived, but the Velvet Turtle did not. Perhaps no one wanted to deal with Chinatown traffic/bad drivers to get steak when they could go to the local Black Angus or, later on, Outback for upscale-but-ultimately-chain food? Maybe it was the '80s obsession with frozen yogurt and salad bars that killed it, as well as the Hungry Tiger, in addition to that ribs franchise with a great jingle called Love's. I'm sure some grad school business student has written a dissertation on the topic.


As for what should take this spot, another Chinese restaurant is the the last thing the area needs. Maybe somewhere for bands to play, since there are so many art galleries opening up in the area? Who knows, but I'm glad the sign is still there because the logo is fresh.

Godhead

I haven't listened to KROQ since I was in high school and it was the "Roq of the '80s." Back then, Raymondo and the Blade picked on surf reporter Poorman in the morning show, the Swedish Egil didn't play techno, and the Young Marquis had the Sunday night's comedy slot. Before that was Rodney on the Roq--the DJ/scenester was already a glam, punk, and girl-band god even back then. He played the Beach Boys, Ramones, Bad Religion, and Annette Funicello, and he still does now. The funny thing was that the music was awesome and unpredictable, but you could barely understand his squeaky voice!

Next week, he's getting a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, and there's a great show to celebrate it. Redd Kross and Channel 3 are total GR bands, and the Donnas and Nymphs are nothing to scoff at, either. It sounds like KROQ is actually doing something good for him. Someone should give the legend a decent slot, or convince him to move on to Indie 103, where listeners will appreciate him!


PRESS RELEASE!! Rodney will be receiving his OWN star on Hollywood Boulevard on March 9th at 11:00 a.m. The exact address is 7021 Hollywood Blvd! Lots of surprise guests! Be there to support Rodney! More details about this event will be forthcoming!
The concert will take place that evening at the Fonda theater
The bands playing are The Nymphs, CH3, Redd Kross, AND THE Donnas!!!!!! tickets are $10.67.

I'm not down

The pain of bone against concrete. The sting of a barely scratched skin. The moment of wondering whether your skateboard is going to roll into the street and cause an accident. The embarrassment of rounding up the lid from your Tupperware and apples rolling down the sidewalk before hustling to the bus stop.


The flat spot left from skidding on tree debris is still evident.

I'm not becoming some weirdo goth who's going to start embracing suffering, but all of that felt good this morning--a release from stress over the pending magazine deadline, a mountain of housework, worrying about disappointing the people who matter most.


Funny how surface wounds can sting like hell. These pants weren't my favorite anyway.

Sitting on the bus gave me a lot of time to think, and weigh the various shitty parts of the morning. In the end, it wasn't so bad. True, I was on the bus with bloody knees, sitting next to crackheads taking hits in the back seat, but I was between my awesome wife and my perfect job.


My knuckles are okay and ready to type.