Dawgs on a Roof

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Originally uploaded by kayekilla.

I spent most of the day outside at the LA Times Book Fair. I helped out at the WG booth for a bit and took some time to wander around. I watched the long line at the Ray Bradbury book signing for a bit and studied the area map.

What the hell are you really supposed to do at these things anyway? I stopped by the Poets&Writers booth to let them know I am a subscriber. One of the P&W ladies left like that was the cue to take a lunch break. And I thought that if I stood by the McSweeney's booth long enough someone would recognize me as the person that sent in a story that they rejected and they would try to befriend me.

There were three people in that booth. On the left was a guy with dark curly hair, girly thighs crammed into faded levi's, and thick black glasses. He spoke with a voice that sounded like a mix of Ira Glass and Fran Drescher. I imagined him writing stories about being a picked-on bookworm in private school. In the middle sat an expertly freckled fresh-faced blond girl in a modern-cut ethnic print sundress. She didn't speak unless spoken to. I heard her say "Those are fifteen dollars." On the right was a cartoonist from San Fransisco. Tall, skinny, dark skinned, with a patch of hair on his chin. Standing in front of his books. What a set of jerks! I stood around for a while before screaming, "you don't know me!" and rushing off to find the shuttlebus.

No escape from street fairs though. As soon as I got home I was reminded that today is the Atwater street art fair. I spent the remainder of the sunlight deepening my sunstroke by walking around in the smoke of meats on a grill.

Sorry KK but I never used your wok or your garlic paste that you gave me before you moved to New York. You must already know this because revenge has been served. I had the wok on my floor, near the door so I wouldn’t forget to take it, and several other items, to Goodwill. Everybody knows that anything you want to remember you put near your doorway. At 11something pm, fifteen minutes into the dramatic suicidal tale in “Taste of Cherry” I decided to get up and grab a little something from the kitchen (beer) on the way back I slammed my foot into the wok on the floor. It hurt in that mutherFerIjuststubbedMyToe kind of way. I danced around for a second or two before I sat back on the couch holding my be beer in one hand and my wok-ed foot in the other. It wasn’t until I let go to concentrate on my beverage that I saw the blood. Covered, dripping, totally bogusly gross. I glanced at the wok to couch pathway and saw the trail of blood. The wok had nearly severed my little toe off. It wouldn’t stop bleeding. I held a towel around my foot for fifteen minutes and took a peek and ended up slipping around in a pool of my footblood on the bathroom tile. It’s very hard to nearly bleed to death on your own because you want to live, you want to fight for your life but you keep thinking, “if I live I am going to have to get the blood stains out of my couch and carpet.“ I don’t know exactly when the bleeding stopped because after about an hour and a half (I finished my beer and the movie) I got tired of applying pressure and just passed out leaving my fate to the gods of coagulation. I woke up to a bloody towel and a painful, crusty baby toe. I’m finding out that you really need your little toe for balance but you don’t need a wok to cook vegetables. I still haven’t gone to goodwill but I put the soon-to-be-donated items in the trunk of my car.

I have huge gaps in my literary knowledge. For example, I only know a few things about Graham Greene, I've read a short story or two and I know that his novels make for some tight movies. But I've finally gotten around to reading one. I'm in the middle of "The Heart of the Matter" and I know it's good because I'm rewriting one of my seventeen novels as I read it. What appeals to me most about this book and his work in general is that I consider his characters and settings to be straight out of my past life destiny. It's all horny Anglos dressed in linen written as outsiders/foreigners in the mid fifties southeast Asia, western Africa, Cuba - those kinds of places. The same kinds of things that made up the good journalism dramas of the eighties "Year of Living Dangerously" "Salvador" and the recent "Blood Diamond" (so retro). I really think Greene would appeal to those of us raised on Indiana Jones. I'm rambling but I promise you it all goes together. I'm just so tired from working with spastic minipeople all day.

To be a master giftgiver is to achieve a status higher than the pope or the president or the Boston Red Sox.

PJ gave me the greatest gift ever this evening. I was so stoked I could barely concentrate on "Street Kings" but I managed. I do think the film would have been much improved had they cast Rutger instead of Keanu as the lead cop with a dead wife. It also might have been better had they not let the craft services people write the script. Between "Street Kings" and "21" I have seen possibly the worst screenwriting in the history of screenwriting. I mean I've seen episodes of "Guiding Light" that had more continuity and believability. Its maddening knowing how many writers there are that could have done a better job in a first draft than what ended up on screen. I'm not going to get mad though, I'm going to get busy. Busy writing my own street script. "Blind Fury" meets "Drumline" with a "Coach Carter" twist - get ready for it.

I've got a design challenge for my homies. My new ride has this rad cassette tape storage compartment. I'm trying to come up with some ideas on what to do with it. Suggestions?


Cassette Storage Contest from kayekilla on Vimeo.

Have you ever had an MRI? I just had one. It sounds like a Wolf Eyes concert. I wish I would have recorded it but I didn't so you'll have to just ask me to reenact it for you.

The dude blew out my vein when he put the contrast in so I'm totally bumming - a little cotton ball with ridiculously sticky medical tape is not taking the pain away. I'm going to have to start drinking before lunch yet again.

I came home to find that I had left my gas burner on about medium flame. Nearby was my plastic Dodgers thermalunchpack. It was far enough away to not cause a house fire but I'd say just barely. This reminds me of the time I left for the aiport in a rush and forgot that I had just cooked a snack in the oven. 375 for five days - ho-o-o-t in there but no house fire. Why isn't this shit on those times when I neurotically go back to double check?

I am afraid they are going to find a hole in my brain where the gas stove mechanism is. At least then I will have answers.

The best internet time waster of 2008 has arrived: 54 Years of Sports history.
Thank goodness, I was getting a little too productive.
A few of my favorites (as in covers or photos - I haven't gotten around to the articles too much yet) can be found:
Here,
Here
&
Here
And just cuz I like toothless hockey players from time to time: Here
And because E and I decided to pick one thing to really get into and that thing being the 84 Olympics: Here - It's really no wonder I moved to Los Angeles.

So it's been a swell at-home weekend, minus the hour and fifteen minutes I spent on the phone with HP tech support only to find out I had a bunk SD card - good thing I spent 40 minutes of that time ranting about how much I hate Vista and how I was probably just going to return my new laptop. Anyway, enough of that, I liked hanging around town for a change. I had to stick around for a pals birthday extravaganza and I had a class today. The class went well and all the students obeyed all of my irrational requests and were generally rad, even if one seemed to know a little bit more about AfterEffects than I did. I can't know everything all the time, it just seems like it. The real take-away lesson of this first weekend in April was to not over-mix cake batter because you will get spongy cupcakes. It's not like I ruined J's birthday or anything but whoever gets my next batch of cupcakes is really going to be in for a treat. Maybe I will give them to neighbor that has a condo in Maui.

Rolled..

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Originally uploaded by kayekilla.

in fields of poppies. Just like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz.

Golden Child

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Originally uploaded by kayekilla.

It's very difficult to write a weather blog when you don't like the weather. I would not make a good journalist. That's like the number one reason I am not writing for The New York Times. I could if I wanted to of course, same deal with the WNBA, but I don't like their uniforms and I think they should lower the rims.

I taught my first full fitness class today and it was awesome. I mostly catered to a couple chubbier yet jovial participants because they gave the most feedback. Feedback meaning, "ouch" and "whooa, is the air conditioning working?!" I guess I need to get over the fact that people aren't in a group fitness class to chat it up or laugh at my jokes. I suppose they are trying to concentrate.

I quit my stupid corporate job today. I do hope someone will show up to pay my bills. A few helpful fellas did show up this afternoon (thanks J+F!) to help me paint my bedroom a youthful lavender. A colorful testimony of my avoidance of adulthood. I should have Swiss Almonded this place like a proper renter.

I don't really care about work or any of that time-sucking bullshit truthfully and keeping up that facade has been exhausting! I only care about it because people seem to talk about it a lot and I have a tendency to want to please others (which is why I always look so good). I know what I am supposed to be doing and thank god I freed up some time so I can work on my petition to change Jeff Kent's batting song. I have a few other like-minded projects and I am looking for collaborators, residency not required, but an undying passion for the baseball zen peace movement, is.