…is shaving it:
it was time, friends…unfortunately, in my excitement, the first thing to go was the stash…so i missed out on possibilities for both Hitler AND John Waters. Alas, I tried to make the best of it and went for…euro-douchebag? I don’t know, I’ve always wanted giant tiger-like steps on my face.
So a lot of new shit has gone down lately. First off, I’m now the lead graphic artist at Whole Foods Santa Monica! More skrill, lots of responsibility, working my balls off…but really any job where i can blare Belle and Sebastian and paint for 3 hours…is amazing.
In addition, I’m singing at the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels, which if you know L.A., is the largest and newest cathedral in America. The cathedral itself is insane…Gregory Peck is buried in the basement, I’m not shitting you. As for the choir, it’s 35-40 people, all ridiculously talented and super professional. So it’s fucking amazing to sing classical music with great singers again…I don’t know how i feel about going to Mass every Sunday, but at the moment I’m just enthralled with the mystique of it all (the hats!).
It’s been a little over a year since I packed up and moved to Smoggy Mountain and I have to say, Los Angeles, people have you all wrong. Sure, you are completely ridiculous, but that’s part of what makes you so wonderful! I love that I get to watch Willem Dafoe shopping for cheese at work, and that Hillary Swank has told me jokes in her workout gear. Who cares if they film awful crap like The Hills, The O.C., Laguna Beach, Asshole Cove, and Mindless Made for T.V. Shitfest #384 here? Actually, I do…it’s disgusting, fair city, but I am wise enough to know that the delusional and desperate for celebrity are not the only Los Angelenos. There are also the rich and brutally disfigured housewives and endless throngs of douchebags that make up your glitz and glamor, but even in a crowd of such plastic there is a shared spirit and great history that is forever fascinating. It’s a show at the Hollywood Bowl, or a night at the Magic Castle…or a day trip to any of your famous cultural neighborhoods that transport you somewhere special…and for that I thank you.
To all of my friends who hate on sunny California’s most famous megaplex…maybe this will help you understand…
I present to you Charles Phoenix’s famous Disneyland Tour of Downtown Los Angeles:
I’m a Californian!
Yes, after a year living in Los Angeles, I finally got my drivers license. Now I can vote and drive (legally) in this god forsaken place. I was inspired to do this after being hit for the second time in six months, minding my own business, by people who cannot speak English, but that’s neither here nor there.
Kimora Lee Simmons filmed her reality show at work today. Luckily I left before she brought her black cloud of made for TV death upon us all, but I’m looking forward to hearing the goings ons in the morning. Lonely Planet is filming tomorrow.
Two weeks ago, I finally went to the Takashi Murakami exhibit at MOCA (free on thursdays!). It was glorious. Life size sculptures of naked anime dudes ejaculating and lassoing with their own jizz? Check. Robots with boners? In spades. Other than the sexually bizarre and splendidly ridiculous, it was an amazing collection in several different mediums. If you ever get a chance to go, don’t pass it up. Here are some photos:
Sorry, I was trying to be inconspicuous with the camera so it just looks like i took pictures of awkward couples. The MOCA website walks you through the whole thing, though. Seriously, check it out here.
Holler! I don’t know why I didn’t do this before! Actually I do; I can’t stand growing this shit. It’s only been a week (thank you Italian and Scottish forefathers!) and I’ve held the razor in my hand so many times contemplating giving up. Expect to see me looking even surlier in the coming days.
On Friday night, after driving in L.A. rush hour home from work, Meiyee and I decided to go to happy hour downtown. We chose McCormick and Schmick’s located in the U.S. Bank building (the tallest building on the west coast apparently…a security guard checked my trunk on the way in?) where I had the best $1.95 cheeseburger & fries ever. Not that you can really go wrong for $1.95, but this shit was delicious and the bar was so downtown and fun. It reminded me of Working Girl; all of the downtown fancies fussing and mingling after work. We barely squeezed into a corner:
So i spent all day Saturday hanging signs after watching this:
Heh, isn’t it hilarious? …I mean it’s horrifying, but so ridiculously so that I just cannot stop laughing at it. I wish i could just loop the first four seconds. There are also two other comedic gems; one where a female chef is scalded in a restaurant kitchen by dropping a giant pot of boiling water on her face and another where a construction worker gets blown off the side of a 10 story building in an explosion and lands on a passing truck!
Anyway, I think they turned out nice, all things considered.
So I got some new glasses…Jean LaFont from Paris…I think they’re rad…apparently somewhat “Clark Kent”? Saturday evening was a treat! After picking up the glasses in Brentwood and having dinner at Chin Chins, my roommate Meiyee and I picked up her gentleman caller Joel at his place in Venice and headed to a graffiti art gallery opening. There was one piece I really enjoyed but across the street was the real fun; a collection of album covers by Alex Steinweiss spanning his design career starting in the 30′s.
After that we met up with a pal in Echo Park who had asked me to participate in an art piece. A friend of his decided to “build Rome in a day”, so from 12 midnight Friday, until midnight on Saturday she had been constructing cardboard buildings on a timeline from Rome’s conception to its glorious demise. My friend Stephen was playing Constantine and I was in his posse of “glam fags” (i know) which ended up really just being three of us looking awkward and gay as usual. We wandered around the model breaking pagan buildings with cross shaped bludgeons and smearing crosses all over Rome and people’s faces with mascara and chapstick. There were actually a lot more people watching this then you might imagine…and I realized why when our narrator invited the crowd who had now become Visigoths to enter the city and sing a Visigoth song. No song. Mayhem ensued as everyone bum rushed the models and violated them. It was glorious. After that the performers took over with some kind of ancient poetry set to song and interpretive dance about Saturninus, and a black baby, I don’t know, that was my cue.
Meiyee and Joel head to a mask party Downtown.
Roxy vomits up your soul.
