Awesome Gig! Terry Bozzio, Alex Machacek, Doug Lunn

I spent Saturday night at the Baked Potato in Hollywood watching Terry Bozzio, Alex Machacek and Doug Lunn play some of the coolest and most interesting music I've heard in a long time. I saw them back in May and posted my thoughts and some pics. Alex composed of all the music and it was fantastic!

If you ever get a chance to check these guys out, I highly recommend it. If you've never heard of any of them, check out their web sites. Lovers of music that push the envelope and has nothing to do with the music business (especially Zappa fans), will really love this stuff! Terry is in the top-three list of my favorite all-time drummers. He's at forefront of the few drummers that are evolving the drum set and how it's approached as a musical instrument.

Click pics to enlarge

Video of Terry's drum set

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"Tagging" and the Hygienically Daring

For those of you that don't know what "tagging" is, it's those "personal signatures" (names, gang nicknames, name of the gang or neighborhood) that are scratched, painted or marked into various places. Graffiti.

These vandals mark up places that advertisers wish they had the balls to put their ads. And the location that's the most interesting is toilet seats. I mean, these guys are supposed to be cool, right? To tag a seat by scratching your name into it takes a good amount of pressure. So they'd probably people have to get down on their knees, which is pretty sick in a men's bathroom because there is usually urine and pieces of toilet paper on the floor. (Yes women, your bathrooms are always cleaner than the guy's bathroom.) Then they'd have to get their face pretty close for leverage and accuracy.

The only time that's acceptable to me to have your face that close to a toilet seat is when you're puking, or when you're praying to God Almighty and pleading "Oh God...Oh God, please let me get through this and I promise that I'll never drink again!"

Tagging is also used to "mark your territory." That's why you see some tags crossed out by someone - rival gang member or someone who wants their tag to be the valid one. You know what dude; you can have your territory back right after I finish taking a leak. Then you can get back to guarding your precious real estate to your heart's content.

I don't know who's sicker, the tagger, or the guy that came back to the restaurants to with his camera to get these disgusting shots for his blog.

Note: These are clean and decent restaurants to eat in with an "A" rating. It's just that the bathrooms look like hell.

The "Power of Now," the DMV and the Unconscious

I'm currently reading this book called The Power of Now (does listening to an audio book count as "reading"?) where the author discusses what it is to "be present" and the effects of it. He points out how most of us walk around "unconscious." I prefer to use the phrase "being on auto pilot."

Since starting the book, I've been noticing more when I zone out, and when and how other people do the same. So I decided to go into one of my favorite hangouts, a place where employees and customers never zone out, are always present, and good cheer is spread on a daily basis. I went to the DMV (Department of Motor Vehicles)! Why did I decide to go? Because it's one step above "slitting my throat with a dull knife," on my to-do list, and I couldn't find a knife.

My wife is recovering from foot surgery and I wanted to get her a Disabled Persons Placard so she can get those primo parking spots. Here's where the fun starts. I wait in a line for about 10 minutes. That's pretty damn good for the DMV! I finally get to the front and the guy says, "Next." I say hello and hand him the completed application. He stares at it for a second, flips it over, his eyes scan the page, flips it back over again and his eyes keep scanning.

I ask, "Is there a problem?"
His response is "What do you need? What's this for?" as he flipped and scanned...scanned and flipped.

Now I'm sure this guy is a nice guy. I'm sure he's good at his job, and maybe I just happened to catch him at an unconscious moment. I tend to give people the benefit of the doubt. But when you see a pic of the application below, you'll see why his response of "What do you need? What's this for?" was so -- how do I say this without sounding mean -- unconscious.

Me: "I'd like to get my wife a disabled person placard."
Him: "Okay. Take this number and we'll call you."

They called my number, we got the placard, I went home and found the knife. Damn! Too late!!

The Pope, Madonna and the Media

Have you noticed that every news story about the Pope that you read or hear on television or radio follows the same template? It goes like this:

[1st paragraph] The Pope...
[2nd] The Pontiff...
[3rd] Pope Benedict...

Here's how every story on Madonna is delivered:

[1st paragraph] Singer and pop star Madonna...
[2nd] The Material Girl...
[3rd] Madonna...