busblog

five years ago this weekend we went to vegas with some of her friends

we all stayed at the palms place

and then we saw the black keys play.

back then the black keys were cool.

last night was cool because we ended up meeting these very nice women who grew up in the south bay.

they had just worked out at the cross fit downt he street

they made the terrible decision of saying,

“lets just pop into kanpai and have a few slices of king salmon.”

next thing you know theyre eating drinking and telling us their deepest secrets

this was all at the new kanpai on sepulveda. ali had never been.

on a friday at 730pm even the new kanpai is packed so we went to this german place next door

for a quickie beer drinking competition.

i let her win.

 

the best part of friends is they push your boundaries

they help you grow as a person.

me, i do everything i can to avoid growing, but fortunately i have been blessed by people around me who actually enjoy maturing, learning, and developing into even better versions of who they once were.

aj had the french toast with carmalized bananas

ali had the cobb salad

and i had the bacon eggs and grits. the grits were bad, the bacon was thick and wonderful

but aj won with her waffles which were amazing and delicious and understated and devilish.

be careful when you order a small juice at square one because it will be a little baby size

like omg i think you get more in a juice box.

i need to open a dennys in silver lake, but not cool like fred 62, but not trashtown like an actual dennys. somewhere in between. eggs bacon and vegan crud for the vegans, but when you order a juice you get a real glass of some damn juice. that shit does actually grow on trees, you know. dont be stingy.

i could drink a bucket of juice.

at my ghetto dennys i might actually serve buckets of juice. $5 for a large glass. $19.76 for a bucket for the table. fucker comes with a ladle. maybe its a souvenir ladle. great, you talked me into it. $19.76 it comes with a ladle for you to take home and show your friends.

maybe call the place the silver ladle.

bands’ll play.

usually im intoxicated when im with them. who knows why.

last night we were out with a group of friends to celebrate ali’s technical birthday.

today is katie’s technical birthday and last night katie and i shared an uber

in which i told her my secret plan of college domination.

katie and ali are very fun, a little too smart, and know way more about music than girls their age should.

it can be a bit unnerving sometimes so you just keep drinking and try not to figure it out.

robots? androids? shapeshifters? yes. probably. partially.

and sometimes the good lord just says lets mix some of the hippie gen with some of the rock gen

with some of this unforgivable edm gen for flavor and see what happens.

the results: good things happen.

this morning i thought someone had stolen my wallet.

it was in a bag, in the fridge, of leftovers from last night.

naturally.

thats your souvenir from hanging with these girls on their birthday.

it all started before donuts, which is what the army taught me.

remember that crazy line “we get more done before you eat donuts than most people do all day?”

yeah me neither. but i did have a great airport drive at 7am in hella traffic that got me $89.

as i drove back to civilization i grabbed some donuts and they were all here have 16 for the price of 12.

happy early birthday.

then i had delicious sushi with patrick j patrick for lunch.

then i was able to help someone at work and that made me feel useful, which i rarely feel

after work i remembered that ali had earlier in the day invited me to play the new Guitar Hero game

and see a special secret show starring the one and only Weezer

YES WEEZER

so i called my man chris and asked him if he wanted to come and he said

duh

so we drove out to the marshlands of playa and parked illegally

then took a huge mercedes party van into the party

and met up with katie, ali, and a beautiful young rock critic named Andrea who shared in my Weezer nerdom

we all drank and the waitstaff offered us tiny burgers and hor d’oeuvres and we watched the opening band from outside

i noted that the handsome guitarist of Weezer was sitting near us, alone, and i wanted to say hi

but i was loving the convo that we were all having about rock criticism and badly behaving edm djs

then the time came to go inside to see Weezer and mama mia was it great to be soooooo close

and hear three fantastic tunes

yes three, ok! It was fun. shut up!

seriously.

so.

much.

fun!

and we were super close because it was in someones garage that fit like 55 people.

afterwards we took a selfie

THANK YOU ALI FOR INVITING US ALL!!!!!

 

even though it was the lords day, i had a full day which started with sass texting me telling me she was back in america did i wanna meet her for brunch

i said sure, where? she said how about by your house. so she drove her mini to me and got a table and texted me which is precisely what you should do and i waltzed over and we started chatting and soon there were grits and eggs benedict and lemonade which is also precisely what i love for brunch.

sass is traveling a lot. globetrotting. and of course in the midst of lots of dramaz so it was fun to talk about all of those things. afterwards she wanted a real juice because the air quality was affecting her sensitive ph balance so we drove over to hipster central and got her some of the Tony Special. it was lovely.

ali called me out on insta the night before because i was ubering in her neck of the woods and i didnt reach out to her. you just assume a smoking hot single girl who has been toning that sweet bod through crossfit would be up to her eyeballs with male attention, but i suppose everyone wants a little more busblog in their lives, so i texted her back and said lets sushi? she said oui.

because the lovely amber had hooked me up with some uber rides i decided to play it safe and uber over because the large saki large beer combo is just begging for a DUI so for the past few times ive gone ive ubered. it’s nice. thanks amber.

and because it was the Lords day i brought my ipad and read the bible on the way. we were driving right into the sunset and it was a dream. i really am very lucky to live here. especially when i hear about boston’s 100 inches of snow.

ali and i had a great time. peter served us well. the only frustration he and i had was she wouldnt tell us what secret video game she is so busy working on, but in a few months we will all know and she swears we will love it.

on my uber ride home i was totally prepared to read more especially when my uber driver was struggling with english, but as we talked i realized he is from Iraq. so he told me all about what it was like to live there his whole life but was forced to immigrate here after the fall of saddam because the violence was unmanageable.

he told me that the two times the US bombed the city we were always careful to only hit military targets, civilians rarely got hurt. but after the fall of saddam other islamic forces started fighting each other. “it would be like Glendale fighting Burbank” he explained. he said he often had to inspect under his car for bombs and eventually the bad people took over his whole block and kicked everyone out of their homes and then blew them up.

fortunately he had been working for an american company for a few years and they helped him move here with his family. older guy. so sweet. answered all of my questions with very little emotion. but i was dying inside. imagine being terrorized by one enemy after another and worst of all the “liberation” of your tyrant turns out to be a bad thing.

when he dropped me off i thanked him for sharing his story, i tipped him well, and even though i was a little buzzed i said, “hold on, wait, i know this phrase, ah yes, a salaam alaikum”

he smiled very warmly and said “Wa alaykum.”

indeed it was the Lord’s Day.

so i said chris lets go to the taco fest in east LA!

he said si so ali go tix and we tapped up our tap cards and took the red line to the gold line

and arrived at the 4th annual taco fest!

this was the beer garden.

yep.

after a few beers things started looking better but we werent there for beer

it coulda been a mirage but magically a tequila tasting appeared in the beer tent

but we werent there for tequila

we were at the Taco Fest for TACOS!

unfortunately so were thousands of people and only 8 taco tents.

so the lines were loco.

at the temps were super hot.

and the lines barely moved because apparently it takes forever to put meat on a taco

there were no lines to buy ice cream from the ringy dingy man

or talk to the wireless spokesmodel with tube socks

but we’ve been around the block a few times and weirdly ALL of LA has tacos.

so we split and drank some japanese white oak whiskey

and thought about how weird it was that the only place you couldnt have a beer while you ate tacos

WAS AT THE LA TACO FESTIVAL

so we went downtown to a place where you could play pinball and drink beer

a little place called 82 which is always packed at night, but in the day its air conditioned and lovely

your dad is even there and hes great at pinball

great call, Ali, thank you for taking us there

so after the beers and shots and more beers Ali wanted to show us something she learned in Venice

and we loved it.

sometimes the tastiest lunch will be at a place youve passed a million times

but went to the left or the right instead.

then on a lazy sunday you go and youre all mama mia.

making me think sometimes i dont know anything.

i walk around drive around fly around thinking i know something

sometimes quite sure i know something

but i dont know squat.

one thing i do know is i enjoy IPA beer

even though i dont know what makes an IPA an IPA.

for all i know it could mean Idiot Person’s Alcohol.

but i drink it and it tastes good to my tongue and soothes my belly.

id never been to Angel City Brewery before. ali said lets go. i said why not.

weirdly i knew where it was only because of all of the ppl id picked up there

while ubering on friday and saturday nights.

and man it was way better than i expected.

way better.

how are the kittens? crazy. and i think they have fleas.

sad thing is no one wants to de-flea them because theyre too young.

so somehow i have to do it. but i dont know how to do it.

do i know how to do anything?

i can busblog, thats probably my only skill. and i dont even do that much any more.

why? because i love my jobs and i’d rather get better at those things.

why? because theyre challenging and this is a walk in the park.

how hard is it to type type type your feelings?

must be sorta hard because only a handful of ppl even do it any more.

anyways fun weekend, lets see what the week has to offer.

i was having a great night ubering when i got a call from ali who said she was having sushi dreams and where was i

i said i was in south gate. she said wheres south gate i said its between huntington park and lynwood

she said what are you doing there?

i said, this super cool family in redondo beach knows this great mexican restaurant out there so they ubered me to take em

and it really does look great.

she said, you know what would look great: sushi in my belly.

and somehow i stopped working and sped down the 105 west and was mildly disappointed when i didnt see my man peter there

peter knows whats good whats super fresh whats rare and whats entirely fictional

then he puts it on the table and then it gets shoved down my face.

but without him i was voted the person who should order and i did pretty good on most things

and not good at all on other things: example a: the mythical mystery conch

resting on a bed of columbian cocaine, this legendary delight has sauces and textures that will make your dreams turn to 3D

just make sure not to eat the cocaine, it’s decoration, and super expensive, and terribly addicting

and they kill you if you even look at it too long

next was this mackerel who talks to you as you eat it.

try the tail first, he says

now the sushi part, be generous with the sauce

it was creepy and annoying but in a way it was his last meal too

afterwards they deep fry the bones and you eat them like potato chips.

good times were had by all and we decided we need to call ahead next time to make sure peters there

because even though i did pretty good with the salmon albacore lobster rolls and blue fin hand rolls

the talking fish with dirty jokes was not really what i was expecting.

so if you order it, eat it first.

i was like 1) i dont even work for you any more and 2) knock knock there was a knock on my door

and your bff ali was at the door wearing daisy dukes holding a picnic basket saying

we gotta get you out of LA for a day

and before the sun set i was in a place i aint never been a’fore: mt. st. helens washington

i mean little big horn, montana.

i was all ali isn’t montana like way far away? i feel like we only drove for an hour an a half.

she was like shhhh just go with it. why you always gotta be so literal.

the long cross country drive made me thirsty so we went into the local establishment

Pappy and Harriet’s Pioneer Town Palace.

because of the holiday and our lack of plans the woman up front told us there would be a two hour wait for a table

but if somehow we could find a barstool we could eat at the bar

that sounded like a fun game so we went to the bar and

wait a durn second

is that

could it be

no not the rack of ribs just bbq’ing over the open fire

smelling delicious and looking amazing

but

wait

no way

 

VICTORIA WILLIAMS? IS THAT YOU PLAYING IN THIS SUPER SWEET COVER BAND?

are my eyes deceiving me?

victoria williams who wrote such songs as This Moment, Love, Shoes, TC, You Are Loved, Big Fish, Lights, Crazy Mary

played none of those as far as i heard, but it was still fantastic,

heres a lil taste of the night, i believe this is Sweet Virginia from some brit poppers:

did i mention it was free?

EXACTLY WHAT KIND OF MUSIC COMPANY IS THIS?

afterwards we wanted to go fishing or play a bassoon but no  one was around to help

but we did meet two flamboyant young gentlemen who loved us so much they bought us a couple of shots

that was nice.

as per mr ken laynes recommendation i ordered the catfish poboy and a side of mac n cheese

young ali ordered the tacos

we each had a mason jar of the Corvette Summer which sounded better than it tasted

but whateves it did the job and before we knew it the jetpacks flew us over to palm springs where we woke up

and ate at the ace hotel diner

heres a few things you should know about me: i always try to stay as positive as possible

 

i love taking pictures of people

i hate having pictures taken of me

and if green eggs and ham are on the menu im gonna order some damn green eggs and ham.

happy memorial day america.

tell your momma you love her.

katie and ali are lovely young ladies and yet this picture both fills me with joy and a tiny bit of dread

joy because if youve ever hung with either of these women you’d know how fun they are

and how much love they have for great music.

dread because the shirt katie is wearing (probably ironically) is from a concert i saw

(probably before she was born) in Long Beach of Iron Maiden

that was later released on record (cassette and cd) called “Live After Death”.

indeed you can hear Bruce Dickinson yell “scream for me Long Beach” (probably ironically)

during the anthemic “2 Minutes to Midnight”

why does this give me dread?

because it makes me feel soooo old.

and yet lucky, cuz that was a bad ass concert. we were 10th row because my (rich) friend (rob) was obsessed.

weird fact: Twisted Sister opened and insulted some kids for not standing up for their (lame) set.

Dee Snyder had the spotlight guy aim the beam at them in the cheap seats

and try to get the crowd to chant “F You” at the longhaireds

the crowd also wanted TS to get off the stage so none of us complied

and the stoners just flipped off the make-up faced singer and they finally stopped.

and then darkness… and then Eddie appeared on stage.

and the rest is why pretty girls wear that tshirt a million years later (hopefully)