2001-09-10 - 7:06 p.m.
Had multiple brushes with coolness and lots of external validation this weekend.
It all started when I went to Street Scene on Friday. Normally I stay as far away as I can from these massive block parties in the Gaslamp--of which Street Scene is the biggest of the year--because they�re essentially Amateur Night on a grand scale. But X and Rollins Band were both playing, and there�s always plenty of good food to eat and inebriating beverages to drink and partially-unwrapped eye candy to look at, and besides that I�m going to New York in less than two weeks and I�d better get used to teeming masses of humanity, so what the hell?
So at one point I�m waiting in a beer line and I spot, in the adjacent line, someone who looks an awful lot like Petey X of Rocket From the Crypt. Just as I confirm that he is, in fact, Petey X of Rocket From the Crypt, he sees me and comes over to say hi. (It�s not like I�m best buds with the band or anything, to be truthful--I�ve simply gone to enough of their shows and stick out enough in a crowd for them to recognize me on sight.) We chat for a minute, I show him my new tattoo, and that�s that. An hour passes, Rollins kicks my ass all the way across the Gaslamp and back, and then Speedo himself appears from out of nowhere and says to me, "Dude! Lemme see that tattoo!"
Damn, I love this town. Where else would one of my personal rock �n roll gods materialize right in front of me and order me to roll up my sleeve? L.A.? Fuck, no. Jesus himself wouldn�t make a public appearance in L.A. without his people coordinating it first.
I also got a lot of random comments on the "HANDICAPPED" T-shirt I was wearing. It�s bright blue, the same color as all the gimps-only parking signs, with a stick figure on it that at first glance looks like the international wheelchair symbol but is actually a guy sitting in front of the TV holding a bong. I had about two dozen or so potheads wanting to take me home that night, all because of that shirt--and if they hadn�t all been skinny dreadlocked white boys with puka shells around their necks and vocabularies limited to "Duuuuude! Thaaaaat�s sooooo raaaaaaad" I might have taken one of them up on it.
All in all, a good time was had. To be sure, each of the things I hate about such events was present in abundance--crowds, bad sound, poor views of the stage, overpriced food, puke-filled porta-potties, evil corporate sponsorship everywhere you looked, obnoxious amateur drunks whose limbs might as well have been in another state for all the control they had over them. And for who-the-fuck-knows-what reason the organizers put the huge electronica pavilion right inside the entrance, which meant that you and everyone else had to plow through a massive throng of rave-kiddies right off the bat. (Although I finally did get a definitive answer for why rave-kiddies carry pacifiers--it�s to control teeth-grinding, one of the side-effects of Ecstasy. Personally, I�d rather grind my teeth down to the roots than go around in public looking like Baby Huey, but hey, it�s all good. ...)
The whole thing reminded me of why I never liked It�s a Wonderful Life. Whenever I get to the part of the movie where Jimmy Stewart is seeing the alleged hellhole that his hometown became without him--with all those bars and pool halls and strip joints and whatnot--I always find myself thinking, "Wow, this town�s a lot more fun than the other one," which obviously wasn�t the director�s intention. Fuck Bedford Falls--I want Pottersville and I want it now.
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Apologies for the long lapse between entries. I have no excuse, really--just writer�s block combined with the urge to spend the end of the summer away from my computer as much as possible, that�s all. Now that autumn has--I dunno--autumned, I expect I�ll be updating more often.
Before I go, I do want to thank Dlove for taking such good care of Uncle Joe�s monkey at Burning Man. Being loved on by all those nekkid hippie chyx has put a real shine back in his coat. And I notice someone in my guestbook has dared to ask the eternal question, "Why Miguelito?" Why indeed? The answer tomorrow.
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