I know a few people participating in the AIDS LifeCycle ride this year, and they're tougher than I am! The training, dedication and devotion it takes to prep for this ride and then finish it is something I admire. Most of the people I know who are doing it are people who aren't hardcore athletes, but they've been pushing themselves in a way I know I can't, to make this ride a reality. I like this fundraising effort because it doesn't shovel funds towards research and paying for luncheons and red ribbons - money raised by the people who make the 7 day trek go towards education, and assiting men and women living with HIV/AIDS. Good stuff that can't be forgotten.

There's a group of LA riders who have been working hard not just on their endurance, but finding a way to make their ride something that will not only provide for the beneficiaries of the AIDS LifeCycle, but something that will enrich the LA bike community, and I encourage everyone to check it out - it will be at my favorite immediate-neighborhood bicycle community center, The Bike Oven on Figueroa. Fun place where good things happen.

You can find more info on the thread posted on the Midnight Ridazz board, and while you're there, check the list of upcoming rides in your area (or beyond) to have some bike fun of your own.

My bike and I have been apart for a while... too much travel, not enough time at home, and nowadays, she has to compete with a horse - which isn't easy. I'll be in Japan next week, and hope to get a bit of my bike fix on when I meet up with some Tokyo bike peeps. I'll be sure to share when I get back. But yeah, in the meantime, everyone else should live it up and keep the rubber side down!

Happy Buff Day!

You may recognize the character above from walls around the country, from vinyl toys, art galleries and t-shirts. This cake is Buff Monster's, Pink Pirate, and it was by far the coolest birthday cake I've ever seen. Buff's brother planned this surprise for Buff's birthday, and in doing so, blew everyone away with the enormity and awesomeness of this cake. It wasn't vegan, so I can't say much about the tasty factor, but everyone who had a slice seemed pleased. Underneath all that fondant was chocolate cake with massively fat layers of chocolate frosting in between the cake - three or four layers I think. Decadent, just the way Buff likes things!

Speaking of decadence, I popped into Whole Foods inbetween errands this morning. My tummy was rumbling, and I needed to get a few things for the critters and the house before packing up to head off to New York Comicon this weekend. The Whole Foods in West Hollywood is like a pseudo eco-friendly, free-range meat market - always a good place to watch self-righteous Prius driving people watching people.

After finding some seitan to snack on, I went to the drink cooler by the salad bar to find a juice to wash the gluten down with with. There was an old white guy in front of the case trying to get people to try a new Green Tea beverage Whole Foods was carrying, called Carpe Diem. There weren't any weird non-vegan ingredients in it, so I chose the "Ginkgo" version for a taste. It wasn't half bad, but I almost gagged on the spiel the old white dude was dishing out.

It started innocently with a lesson in Latin, and degenerated into a monologue about the Green Tea in all the drinks, and how Asian's knew the score on secret ingredients, which was some sort of indication that Asians knew all kinds of other secrets - like how to build better cars, better tiny technology, and how their food was the best.

I couldn't argue with a lot of the points he raised, I mean... we have a tendency to look like the master race most of the time, but I couldn't help but feel like this was a racially motivated sales pitch. There are lots of those thrown our way at GR, and it's something I never get used to. I have an urge to launch into my own monologue about race here, but I'm kind of wiped out from the weekend and the current week of madness. I'll save it for another day.



I bought a bottle of the Ginkgo Carpe Diem, kind of out of pity since the old white guy reminded me of the Korean women handing out kim at the Korean market, trying to get you to buy the grocery item they've been assigned to shill that day. If I try it, I usually buy it unless it sucks. This drink was okay, I guess... kind of like an oddly carbonated Arizona Green Tea. I won't be buying it again, even if the person pushing it tells me that my almond eyes are exotic and asks me how to say "Green Tea" in Korean.

Only 99 Cents!

This is one of the reasons I love living in Lincoln Heights. The 99 Cents Only Store on Broadway never fails to surprise me with a whole mess of vegan food and treats. I could pretty much get away with doing all of my food shopping there, save some proteins and fresh green veggies... Of course, this isn't a new concept. These guys did it once before, and did it more creatively than I do. They did this in blog form first, but then... as seems to be the fashion lately, looks like they turned the popular blog into a book.

I'm not much of a cook, so I'm all about the easy eats. If I don't have to do much more than boil water and open a package or two, I'm happy!

Speaking of bad cooking, this afternoon I Tivoed an episode of Ramsey's Kitchen Nightmares that takes place in a little vegetarian restaurant that I visted in 1999, Piccolo Teatro. The place has changed hands and had a facelift, but according to this episode, itwas still struggling to make good food.

Eating vegan in Paris was tough... tougher than anywhere else I've ever traveled. Parisians like their meat. I ended up going to 4 or 5 different places during my stay there, and only really liked one or two of them. This place kinda blew because after a full interrogation about the presence of dairy in my dish, there was still some in the gravy that was poured all over my seitan steak. I spent most of that evening in the tiny little French bathroom in the tiny little French apartment we were shacked up in for the stay.

I guess Gordon Ramsey wasn't able to bail them out in the end. The place is closed and for sale. Maybe I should move there, buy the place and show them how it's done. For lunch I'll serve Malt O'Meal knockoff cereal and soymilk, apples with peanut butter, and on weekends, fried ramen. Dinner will be a little fancier.... maybe some rice stick noodles in vietnamese sweet and sour soup paste with a spoonful of garlic siracha, novelty pasta with sauce out of the jar, a Gatorade sangria, and for dessert, these AMAZING maple cookies that are 100% artificial, and taste 99% like very un-vegan glazed donuts.

Let me know when you're ready for seconds!

My Life on the Detainee List

On Thursday I made it back across the Mexican border into the homeland.... just barely.

I spent two amazing days in Baja with my BFF Christiaan, recharging my batteries so I'd be all set to face the next few months of lots of GR related travel, and the big Year of the Rat show opening at GR2 on the 16th. (Finished hanging it at about 2 am Friday morning, and VERY proud of the show and the GR staff and friends who helped hang it!)

The original plan for Mexico was actually a trip to see Stereo Total play their tour date closest to North American, in Tijuana. After just a few minutes passing through the fringes of Tijuana traffic to get to our first destination (a secret spot in Baja), and after checking in to our first hotel room of the journey, my travel companion and I decided that it was going to be an impossibility to leave the sanctuary we had arrived to and go back into the chaos of the city, even if it was our only chance to see Stereo Total before they slipped further and further South.

The decision was the right one, and we spent that evening staring at the starriest sky I've seen in decades, watching the waves glow blue with red tide, smiled back at the crescent moon as it fell into the ocean, and had a delicious night of sleep knowing we would get to enjoy so much more when the sun was up the next day.



Wednesday was spent sunbathing, wandering just a bit further into town to pet local ponies hanging out in people's front yards, enjoying criminally yummy margaritas for $1.50 and doing short story writing exercises until the hotel bar closed. It was a pretty perfect day, even if we couldn't get a roaring fire going in the fireplace in our room. Next time we're bringing lighter fluid. You'd think I'd know how to get a fire going with the practice I get at the San Diego Comic Con, but every year GR somehow channels the pyromania of our genius art and comic friends that are more in tune to nature than we are, and let them take all the well deserved glory to get the GR Bonfire blaze going.

Thursday started out just as well as Wednesday had. This time at breakfast we got the added bonus of frolicking dolphins in the waves that were in perfect view of our table on the restaurant patio. We got on the road earlier than we planned, butweren't rushed, and didn't do much grumbling about the line at the border. We car-danced to 80's music and politely declined the offers of wilting churros, warm Pepsis and ukeleles from the vendors walking the lines of traffic. Everything was pretty groovy until we got to the Border Patrol window...

In times like these, you want to land the person who's new to the job and just wants to get through the day with a low profile. We didn't get that person... we got the guy who had probably been doing the job for many, many years and loved it for the chance to puff out his chest, maybe pound it a little, and manipulate the lives of the general public in a way that amused him. Not realizing that a passport was required for travel to Mexico, I got busted for not having mine and was sent to the secondary search at the border and detained for an hour so Border Control could verify my American citizenship.

I made a few mistakes here.... not bringing my passport would be the most glaring. The second mistake I made was telling the Border Patrol officers that I was born in Seoul, Korea. The third mistake was telling them that I was a Naturalized citizen.

I'm very rarely id'ed as someone who was born overseas, but I was. I moved to the US in 1979, born to a Korean mother and an American citizen, which I learned on Thursday - regardless of circumstances, made me an American citizen at birth. For some reason, my parents told me that I obtained citizenship through naturalization, but that wasn't the case. I called my dad while I was being detained - to get some clarification about the naturalization issue, but also to let him know that I had been safe during the trip... the only difficulty was the situation I was presently in.

After the Border Patrol officer checked some other database (since I didn't show up the one for naturalized citizens) I was given a good scolding for not traveling with my passport and let go. Being detained wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. I was allowed to leave the car and use the restroom, we got to see two awesome drug busts while we waited, and I got to learn a little something about myself. I feel silly for not knowing, but I guess I heard it as a child and it stuck there as a kernel of truth - kind of like when kids are told that skinny people are better than fat, and girls should be helpless while boys should never cry.

Crazy adventures in bottled water, dope sniffing dogs and self-awareness.

You still have time for your bike movie...

The deadline for submissions for the Bicycle Film Festival has been extended, and you still have time to get a film in for 2008. I've talked to so many people about this, and so many people get excited, but now you have to get those films in, people!!

K,THANX. BAI!

In my lifetime I have come to know about some pretty special people on the planet. People we are lucky to share lifetimes with, people notable not just for their fame, but for their individuality. Crispin Hellion Glover is one of those people - unique in every way, driven by a fiercely independent creative muse, and devilishly handsome. Madonna is the most obvious. She's carved her own path to icon status, blazed a million trails for women everywhere with lace-clad fantasies, and she helps AIDS babies with her own money and not just her name.

Most recently notable on my Notable Peoples list is Bai Ling. Bai Ling has been in the scene for quite sometime. She pre-dates Lucy Liu in the "dragon lady" vein, has more balls now than Joan Chen did in the 80's, keeps it real for all the good looking celebrity shoplifters out there, and Bai Ling holds it down for dressing like a kook when Bjork gave up after that swan incident. The lady is no quitter.

Bai Ling is most *recently* notable because I was just introduced to her blog by my friend Franky. I want to share this gem with all of you.... Let me welcome you now to the world of Bai Ling.

Are you ready?

Are you sure?

Cause this is some mind expanding, world shifting, Oprah book club type shit.

Seriously, Bai Ling is tuned in to some crazy wavelengths that don't register with normal humans.

She's all visionary and stuff...

Are you prepared for this?

Okay.

Meet Bai Ling.....

This is now one of the blogs I read on a regular basis. It should become one of yours too. Bai Ling helps remind me that the world is a beautiful, exciting adventure everyday, even if I don't look as good in a bikini as she does. She reminds me that hair is an accessory to be modified, often as our bodies are impermanent. She reminds me that it's important to have friends like Angelina Jolie, who have selfless passions in life and inspire us to develop those passions in ourselves. Bai Ling reminds me that travel helps to simultaneously feed and center the soul. Bai Ling's childlike look at love reminds me that love should be easy and full of joy, even if in the now it feels like a laborious, uncalculated risk that brings nothing but heartbreak.

Enjoy Bai Ling. Share her with the rest of the world, and as Franky says, "be nice" to the little star dweller. (You never know, she could report back to her planet if we're jerks to her, and they could destroy all of planet Earth in a fiery blast that we never saw coming.)

Sunday Bloody Sunday

After an exhausting weekend of boy troubles, boy triumphs, visual overload and ponies, I started the week with a weakened immune system that allowed a nasty cold to come visit for a day and a half. I've beaten it into submission with the help of Airborne, bedrest, and tonight... a little bit of vodka.

What I meant to do earlier this week was share how blown away I was by U2 3D. My hero, Souris helped make this film come together and has been an amazing force in getting it recognized. I haven't been a fan of U2 since Jr. High. My best friend's boyfriend, Brandon, made me a cassette tape of War and Joshua Tree. It was back when a boy took time to make a mixtape... he drew on the cover, omitted songs that weren't tops, and delivered it by hand. I don't think I've given it a listen in more than 15 years, but it's still there in my collection of cassettes, never to be discarded.

Now, Souris' been pimping this film like there's no tomorrow, and yeah, we all know that everyone is supposed to come clean to loving to U2 at least once in their adolescence or young adulthood, but who, besides the schmucks that paid outrageous ticket prices for those concerts last year and paraded around those little white rubber bracelets, was ready to plunk down some green for a U2 cinematic experience? In the spirit of supporting a friend who I believe in, I agreed to go check it out for myself at the Arclight on Sunday. When the film premiered at Sundance, Robert Redford came out of his leather embossed, lambskin lined cave to attend the screening. My rule: if it's good enough for Robert Redford, it's good enough for me.

I had low expectations... Captain Eo in Tomorrow Land expectations, but this is NOT that kind of movie. The film jumps right into the concert experience and keeps you there. There are no cheesy 3-D gimmicks. There are big sweeping moments matched by intimate times on stage that lock you down for the whole film. The crowd is full of sexy, young, shirtless Argentinian boys (and girls - although, they mostly have their shirts on) and the enegry of this crowd is amazing. Even more amazing, is how it's captured.

You know how in Lord of the Rings, and all those other action films that followed, that have the giant scenes with mobs of people/soldiers/trolls/Occidentals that are surging a castle gate, or flooding across a giant expanse towards an enemy - you know how you're always like, whoa... that's soooo many people/soldiers/trolls/Occidentals... that looks really cool. Well, you get that in U2 3D, except the giant mob surging with energy isn't a bunch of digital heads bobbing around in an algorithm created by a team of 20 nerds. This mob is real. It's thousands of people moving without calculation, driven by the rythym and emotion of the performance on stage. The crowd undulates and explodes, and you feel that energy in your cushy theatre seat. There were times when I was tempted to take my 3D glasses off to see what it looked like without the technology, but I didn't ever want to miss out on what I was seeing. The woman who's been creating the visuals for their concerts is the director of the film, and you get the feeling that this film is the way she means for everyone to experience a live show.

Admittedly, I took a five minute nap-eroo between New Year's Day and Sunday Bloody Sunday... I'm still not U2's biggest fan (and my state of sleep deprivation, accented with a chugged cocktail on the Arclight patio didn't help), but I HIGHLY recommend checking out this film. The rest of the set after my nap was a knockout. I was rocking out in my seat for more than a song or two. If the idea of paying hundreds of dollars for a ticket to see U2 pisses you off, this is the way to go. You get lost in the magic of the film, you can have popcorn and an icee, you don't get bootlegged t-shirts shoved in your face, you don't have to smell anyone who's been standing around and sweating Coors light for the last two hours, and you get to experience the band in a way that you deserve to experience them.

Evan Hecox book signing at GR2 tomorrow. Should be good, and a mellow pre-cursor to his opening on Saturday (not at GR2). Anne Ishii in town this weekend. Cold on it's deathbed... the rest of this week could end up pretty sweet. Tomorrow Selma Blair is riding at the barn. I'm signed up for a ride in the early AM so I can stalk from afar. Life in LA....