inside the wonderful world of vee

i found a new “talk to us” friend! rachel and i went to westlake center today to hold up a sign saying “talk to us.” we went around 6, and initially, people were reluctant. i take it because it was rush hour.

THE TWO BLACK GUYS I COULDN’T REALLY UNDERSTAND.
the first two people to talk to us stopped by and talked to us but it was an awkward convo. one was wearing one of those handkerchiefs around his face and didn’t talk. the other one was friendly, but he was a little odd. he said he was going to stand on the street corner to be a “living, breathing stereotype,” and he was going to be the “angry black guy standing on the corner.” a little random and kind of funny. but kinda very random.

THE DUDE FROM LOUISIANA.
this guy was nice, nice. he walked by us at first (after giving us a smile), but came back right after. he asked us how many people had talked to us and we said not many. he said, “that’s seattle for ya!” and i said, “usually it’s a lot better than this.” and he said that if we were in lousiana, where he’s from, everyone would stop and talk to us and ask what we were doing and invite us over to their homes. kewl. he didn’t have much to say as he was meeting up with his friend, but just wanted to say that he thought things like this were great because they make people stop and think and make people understand that other people exist.

THE GUY I ARGUED WITH.
i forget this guy’s name but he was half-awesome and half-annoying. he had an extremely interesting way of looking at things. 4/4 on black male stopping to talk to us. anyway. he asked me if i was a citizen. i said i was. he asked how i knew. i said because they told me i was. then he said, “i don’t know if i’m a citizen sometimes,” and i asked him why. he said, “because i’m black.” and then i said… “well, at least you have some rights.” that brought a tear to his eye, cause he thought i meant that black people don’t have all the rights. i don’t necessarily think that, but i said some because i figured he was thinking that if he said he didn’t know sometimes if he was a citizen because he was black. bleh. some other stuff transpired, and then he asked me if i was in school. i said i’d graduated and that i was a sociology major. he asked me what the solution to the world’s problems were. i said i didn’t know. he said i had a sociology degree but i didn’t know? and then he proceeded to tell me i was a clone because i had a sociology degree — that having a degree and going to college made people clones. i said, “what if i didn’t think it was necessary?” and he said, “it’s too late. you’re already indoctrinated.” he went off about how no one wants to solve the problems in the world because then they would be without a job… that sociologists would go on to become social workers but they would only social work enough to solve the problem a little but not enough to solve the problem 100%, because they simply wanted to keep their own jobs under wraps, and solving the problem of homelessness or of the poor would mean that their jobs would be eradicated. i didn’t know how to argue with that. at some point while he was bitching and crying i kind of started to yell at him and i said, “you don’t like rich people. you don’t like people with degrees because you think they’re clones. you don’t like social workers because you don’t believe they’re really trying to make a difference. who do you like then? it’s not like poor people aren’t trying to be not poor anymore.” he didn’t have anything to say about that. sat there for a while, silently. and then after a while, i said, “nothing to say?” and he said, “popcorn that’s put in a pan is still popcorn if it doesn’t explode,” or something like that. i didn’t understand. then he said something about how martin luther king was once asked why he was looking melancholy, and he said he was looking melancholy because he was thought he was trying to integrate his people into a burning house. and he said some crap about how fire changes things and that for change to be made, america must burn. i was all a little confused by this.

at some point a few people interrupted — who knew him — and would come by. one large black dude and his? wife? came by and were yammering on about god. they asked the guy i was arguing with if he’d spread the word about god yet to me, and he said he was getting there. and the god guy said, “well, i’ll leave you to it, then,” and left. well the guy never did share anything about god, thank god, but if you’re going to talk to me about clones, what about religious clones?? TALK ABOUT CLONES. anyway.

THE HOMELESS LADY WHO WAS CONFUSING.
another lady came by, staring at our signs for a long, long time and not saying much. she finally came by and asked if we were in school or something and the guy i was arguing with (who knew the lady) said that i had a sociology degree. apparently they knew each other from a soup kitchen or something, and she asked me if i knew where that soup kitchen was. i said yes. she asked if i’d been there, and i said no. and then the guy i was arguing with said, “she wouldn’t ever be going there. she has a sociology degree.” bitter much? that’s pretty much the gist of it.

THE COUCHSURFER FROM FINLAND.
unfortnately, i didn’t get to talk to this guy because i was too busy arguing with the one guy and rachel was talking to him… this guy was from finland and was basically just couchsurfing across the united states (which is funny, cause i just signed up for that site yesterday…) and had just used rideshare to get a ride to seattle from wyoming or something. more details from rachel hopefully, since i cannot relay it, since i didn’t get to talk to him. which really sucks. because i want to couchsurf and i’d love to pick his brain about it T__T i actually juuuust looked him up on couchsurfing, though, and it’s pretty funny. i looked for people traveling in the seattle area and he was the third person on the list!! too easy!!

at some point here the security guards came by and shooed us away because we were sitting on westlake property and no one was supposed to loiter there (we’d long seen the signs but ignored them!). another homeless guy who had a sign asking for $20 was trying to save us, telling them that we didn’t want money and that we just wanted to talk to people, but we ended up getting shooed away anyway. nice of him. we just went to the planters across the walkway from where we were, and that worked out fine.

THE GAME PRODUCER FROM MASSACHUSETTS.
this guy was pretty much just trying to kill time while his friend was doing something else. he was here for a microsoft meeting and had just moved to boston. he was a producer? for lord of the rings online. didn’t talk to him that much… mostly just small talk. upper middle class white guy. he said it was cool that he goes into meetings and just discusses hit points all day. haha.

THE “JESUS LOVES YOU” LADY.
she asked us, “what do you want to talk about?” and we said, “anything.” she said, “did you know that jesus loves you?” and the massachusetts guy was still here — obviously uninterested when she came by. we answered in the negatory. she continued by saying that god would show himself to me sometime. i said, “i hope he does, because if he doesn’t, i will never believe him.” she left on that note.

THE CASUAL GAME AND TOY CREATOR FROM LOS ANGELES.
this guy’s name was ferad or something. he said he had tried to make up a story for his name before, since no one had actually heard of that name. he said he used to make up stories about where the name was from but that he’d forgotten it. i said he should say something about the fact that he is a prince, and he said it was something similar to that. lol. anyway. this guy was pretty laid back but still kinda cool. he was a freelance casual game designer and was just up here to crash some conference or something. he had bought an eyemask from daiso. i asked why. he said christmas. whatever that means. *__* he was very patient… when the christian guy (see next guy) was babbling on and on and on, he was obviously uninterested but still stuck around until the guy was finished. *__*

THE “JESUS LOVES YOU” MAN.
clones much? as if his wife asking us, “did you know that jesus loves you?” wasn’t enough, he comes by and says, “talk to you about what?” and we say, “anything.” he responds by saying, “did you know that jesus loves you?” i mean come on guy. nice thoughts but you’re a bit too um… clone-like. except whereas his wife backed off really fast, this guy shared personal stories for muuuch too long. there was the massachusetts guy still hanging around and ferad, and everyone was stuck listening to how he used to be an alcoholic but was no longer one and that jesus saved him blahblahblah. he told us that if we had a bible, we should read john 3:16, and i mean, come on. pick a better verse. any fool off the street can tell us to read that verse (and they do). he was nice and jolly though so i can’t fault him too much, and they didn’t argue about no one being interested in jesus… they mostly just spread positive vibes despite the fact that they were preaching, so i’m kinda mostly okay with it even though it was just a little boring. as they were leaving the wife regaled a story about how one of her friends got shot in the head and got in two accidents on the way to the hospital, and that he died and went to hell, and when he came back, he knew he didn’t want to go back to hell so he changed his life. she said he was a bad man prior to that. well, that’s certainly interesting. i thought she was going to say something about how he got shot and then started believing in god but at least this story has slightly more weight to it. then they went on their merry ways. they were, though, in my long times of doing this, the first couple that actually straight out preached to us. other people have given pamphlets or done run-by, “jesus loooves yoooooouuuu!”’s but they were the first ones that actually stopped and TRIED to make a difference, so kudos to them on that, although their plights fell on deaf years. the lady before she left also kept saying, “he’s going to make a difference in your life,” to me in particular, and she also said at some point that she wished she could witness it when it happened. if she were a little more um, not fanatical about christianity, i’d mighta’d give’d her my info or gotten hers to see if it ever happened. but no. no thanks.

THE FRIEND OF THE LOTR GUY.
the friend of the lotr guy had been buying a drink in starbucks and when he came out, he got me and rachel drinks (this all while the couple was preaching). he said, “you must be tired after listening to this guy yammer on!” and we thought it was very kind of him, even though the drink was sick as shit.

THE GROUP OF KIDS FROM BELLINGHAM.
this group of kids who had just graduated from high school — despite the fact that they looked older than rachel and i — stopped by after two of the guys, donovan and paul, noticed us and came by. their friends stood a ways away watching until they realized that donovan and paul were talking to us just fine and that we weren’t terrifying… and then it was all good even though the fact that we were surrounded by a wall of kids was kinda scary. *__* they were like this:

- girl 1 - guy who looked like john lennon - girl 2 - paul - girl 3 - donovan -

wow, now that i realize it, they were in perfect changing order. even though john lennon guy looked a little bit like a woman. initially, at least ;0 those kids had driven down two hours from bellingham or whatever JUST to watch “dark knight” in imax. that’s dedication right there. they all loved it. who doesn’t love that movie? pretty much everyone loves it. donovan works at colophon cafe (or at least i think that’s the right one) in bellingham. he told me to look him up if i went there this weekend — which i am going to. so i’m going to! this all because paul said bellingham was kinda hippie and that people would DEFINITELY talk to us there, and why not… i’ve never explored bellingham at all so i’d love the opportunity this weekend (sunday) to explore the place! anyway, when they first walked up, paul was mentioning that people did “free hugs” in bellingham and i said that wasn’t intimate enough, and the girl to the left of him said, “can i get a hug, though?” and i said yes, and we exchanged huggles. and then we talked a bit about donovan’s totally mangled shoes that were orange and green and looked like they had been destroyed, and they had been signed by flogging molly. he was also wearing red and blue socks. AWESOME. apparently paul’s shoes had been set on fire seven times — which i wanted to ask him about, but there was way too much conversation going on. all in all cool kids, and they asked us if there was anywhere in the westlake area to eat that was cheap. we said no and told them to walk ten blocks east to capitol hill to find something to eat. i gave them a redefine card telling them to check it out since they obviously liked music (at least, liked flogging molly). that was all after i said that people always thought we were selling things when we weren’t… but they said it was okay since this time the selling of things came after the talking and that it was an effective method of selling things. and off they went. i shall try to contact them this weekend. or something.

and that’s it for now. still have to recap on talk to us part six. i’ll try to do that another time *__* but now yay! rachel loves it and she will participate with me in such events in the future. finally, someone that actually likes it.

i’m listening to… thievery corporation - expo in tokyo, 2pac - ambitionz az a ridah.
so, y’all know i’m out of a job. why not have some fun in the meantime!?!!

our house has been getting some doorhangers and fridge magnets of different people advertising their services. i thought i’d try my hand at the matter. here’s what i made today for it:

i am literally going to go around the neighborhood and stick this on people’s doors. i’m still trying to figure out the best way of doing it, but it seems like it’ll be pretty fun ^_^ i’m very much interested in seeing whether or not this will yield anything.

text is kinda hard to read, so:

“Housing contractors and home fixer-uppers are always putting doorhangers, postcards, and other paper scraps on my doorstep, in the name of advertising themselves. Why are they the only ones who do that? Does it even work?!! I am a great fan of social experimentation (I was a Sociology major), so I decided to try for myself. It was between either this and standing on a street corner with a sign that says, “WILL DESIGN FOR FOOD.” (Don’t worry - if this works out, the sign comes next.)

What I’m offering is design services for just about anything - print and web. For the past year, I’ve been working as the Creative Director for a start-up, but we ran out of funding and I got laid off. I’ve done print design for two publications and hand-coded/designed dozens and dozens of websites. And what’s more is that I’m a fellow Seattlite, and I live in your neighborhood (on 61st). Yay?

If you’re thinking of hiring a designer for some work, I’d appreciate your consideration!

For samples of my work, go to: http://www.redefinemag.com/portfolio.pdf
Or view my resume at: http://www.redefinemag.com/resume.pdf“

um, can i just start this off by saying… I LOVE FOLK LIFE? i’ve never been to the damned thing before. the only thing i knew about it was that it was a “hippie” fest but i am so into it. i guess i am partly hippie, maybe that contributes to the sentiment that folk life is AMAZING.

alright so, after circling around queen anne for a long while, completely unable to find parking, i decided that i should just park at the spaghetti factory since i have a pass to park there. and so i did. and i checked on this piece of paper i stuck on the pole near the sculpture park last friday, and it was full, so i took it down.

the point of that piece of paper was to tell people to contribute one thing to the drawing to build off of what was there before it. woot. i’ll have the results up sometime soon.

walked up to the space needle and it was like, five blocks or so. put up another sheet of paper right near the space needle. then walked into folk life.

upon first going in, this guy! and he had a “free hugs” sign so i gave him one. WOOT. the first of many. he had these little stuffed lions framing him. haha. they had tiaras… one had a tiara that was a tambourine. how cute.

there was another folk band with accordion and washboard… these things are all the rage nowadays, that’s for sure.

then there was this guy with a whiteboard… on it had the word “who’s right?” and below that were other words, like “athiests”, “jews”, “christians”, etc. um, he was doing a lot of screaming and not a huge amount of dispelling anything interesting, really. he asked this question… “who thinks they are a good person?” and someone responded that he said he was. and the sign guy said, “have you ever lied?” and the good person says, yes, and somehow the sign guy took that to mean that he wasn’t really good, because he’d lied before. blahblah. then he got bored so he pointed to lenny and asked lenny who he thought was right, off the people on his board. lenny said, “i think all of them have good qualities,” and the sign guy said, “i agree with that,” and moved on. some guy to our left said, “hinduism? there’s something right about hinduism? they have a multi-armed monkey man picking his nose… something something bullshit bullshit,” and i said, “it doesn’t mean that’s the part that is the good part,” and he did this kind of pompous knowing scoff/laugh and said something about else along those lines. and i said, “you don’t have to be religious — i’m not religious — to think that religions have something good to offer,” and he couldn’t even say a godamned thing. nor did he try. he just gave another knowing laugh. and i said, “yeah, that’s a good answer.” and i was like mad, lol, and turned around. what a fucker. can’t even give reasons for why he thinks no religion has anything good about it… can only press his opinion that is worth shit. FUCKTARD.

anyway.

there were some other guys with jesus signs (pictured) and these three guys wearing all black walked by and like said “BAAA BAAAA BAAAAAAA!” in their faces. it was really quite quite hilarious. shoulda videotaped. oh well, at least i have this photo. ahha. i mean. it’s an asshole thing to do. but it’s still hilarious. unfortunately i caught him in pic too late so he’s not screaming in this pic :{

walked around a bit. ran into lenny’s friend. it was kinda awkward. but interesting! because her husband had the exact same camera and exact same lens as i did! he had a lens hood… that was the only difference.

found some cardboard in a recycle bin (after lenny gave $1 to this guy who had a sign that said, “i bet you $1 that you will read this sign”), haha. genius. ripped apart the cardboard in preparation for sign-making. never a shortage of cardboard, i guess.

borrowed a marker from the vendor that lenny bought a nature photograph from, and wrote a sign that said, “talk to us (about anything) we don’t want money, we just want conversation.” (i wrote that last part because there were SO many people begging for money at folk life, albeit rather creatively.)

there was this DOPE balloon guy. he did some things i’ve never seen a balloon maker do. he would pinch off sections of balloon without popping it… i don’t really understand how. he also got water into the balloon after blowing it up with this little cup-like gadget. he was trippy. his hat said, “NO WEAPONS,” and he said he only made things that were “helpful”. which is soo awesome. this is his helpful thing for this kid… it’s a fire-fighting airplane… hence the water on the bottom of it (can’t really see :[):

drum n’ bass… with a TUBA? fucking awesome. someone said this was a french horn. it is a tuba, isn’t it? i don’t know. too lazy to look it up. oh god. no i have to. no, it’s totally a tuba. i win. asshole.

got a smoothie and went to find a spot. there was this great spot on a corner but this band took it, so we found another spot near the main path that didn’t have seating or nothing… we just sat on the ground. werd.

and so, the adventure begineth.

***

THE FOLK LIFE STAFF GUY, IAN.
we’d seen this guy talking with the “who’s right” guy. he came down and sat down by lenny. ian and i talked about where vee and i were from and what we do for a living. he mentioned that he was leaving seattle soon and that folklife was like his goodbye seattle thing.

THE GIRL WHO WE KEPT IGNORING (AND FRIENDS).
so this blonde girl comes with two of her friends — a guy and a gal — and tries making conversation with us but we keep getting distracted and kind of ignoring her. she asks what our best conversation with people has been and i fail to answer because all these other people come by… (see below…)

THE 14 YEAR OLD RAVER GIRL.
so i saw that this girl was wearing a ton of candy and asked her about raving a bit. she said that this was her first time coming to folk life sober or some shit. i was like, what?? and she said that she had just popped an ecstasy pill (wtf!) and so i was like, whaaat! and i asked her how old she was and she said she was 14, and i asked her how many times she’d done it, and she said she’d lost count. i said, what? like 100? and she said, no, more like 23 or something. i was like, wtf, that’s more than me and i’m 24! and yeahhhhh. *__* she’s too young for that shit z0mg. her friend was on the phone, refusing to talk to us. i didnt talk to this girl but i talked to ian about them. i was like raver chix lul and he was like “hahaha”

THE GROUP OF 13 AND 14 YEAR OLDS.
initially spurned forth by two of them — sam and this other guy whose name i don’t know — these two thirteen and fourteen year olds sat down next to us. the asian kid with glasses asked us what we thought about marijuana. i said it should be legalized. i had forgotten who i was talking to. then that kid said that he agreed. sam was surprised. then asian kid said something about how marijuana was less dangerous than alcohol. i said, yes! but then lenny asked the kid if he’d done those things before. he said that he had not gotten drunk but had tried marijuana. so lenny said, then how do you know? and he didn’t seem to have an answer, really. meanwhile their group of friends came by but didn’t much say anything. when the 8th graders were talking to us about what we were up to i mentioned that ian was getting paid while doing this at the same time! sweeeet. i got the vibe that the asian kid with glasses was trying to act cooler than he was as a means to impress his lady friends. more power to him. go, asian kid. the girls in the group were quiet, they seemed like they wanted to talk but seemed like they were used to staying quiet. i wanted to hear what they had to say, but oh well.

THE ARMY GUY.
this guy came out of nowhere. i didn’t see him coming, but he gave his opinion of marijuana, and that was that it was not only a gateway drug but much, much more. he seemed to think that being in the military almost gave him credit to say this or something. so like this guy was just sitting there for a while next to ian listening to our conversation. so i saw him and said hey whats up. when we started talking about drugs i wanted to help him join in on the conversation so i was like “hey do you have any words of wisdom for these youngins?” and he was like haha i like how you turn to the oldest looking guy in the group, so i was like yea with age comes wisdom! lets hear it! so he started talking about how marijuana was more than a gateway drug and that he’s seen people’s lives ruined by it and he used to be a dealer down in cali but never did it. he started talking about how a joint was way worse than smoking a cigarette then the asian kid with glasses was like “do you smoke?” and he was like yea, and the asian kid was like you spend 3000 dollars a month on cigarettes, and the army guy was like dude i spent 3000 dollars in the past two days, and we were like wow on what? and he was like hahaha i dont wanna say so we all just assumed it was on hookers or something.

THE FOLK LIFE STAFF GUY, IAN.
ian interjected by saying that he was 25 and from his personal experience he felt that people did marijuana but outgrew it. oh yea this is where ian interjected with his personal experiences and that only people who have addictive personalities have a problem with marijuana, and that marijuana itself isnt bad, its just that the people who are gonna get addicted to something anyways happen to get addicted to marijuana

THE ARMY GUY.
got a phone call and left after not really agreeing with ian. so yea he was just like preaching about how drugs were bad and stuff and then he started talking about how his job is way more dangerous than smoking and that he was a soldier… anyways he ended up leaving and it was like woa

THE FOLK LIFE STAFF GUY, IAN.
ian tells lenny some stuff. (lenny?)

THE GIRL WHO WE KEPT IGNORING (AND FRIENDS).
the girl tries to continue that conversation and tries to ask us what our favorite conversation in other times we did this was. on the spot, i can think of NOTHING. now i can think of a buncha things i coulda told her, but at the time nothing seemed all that appropriate or interesting :{ suckage. they leave after a bit. sorry, gal.

THE HUGS RAVER KID.
this kid was dressed up totaly awesome, raver-style, and kinda femme, with lots of pink and purple mixed with black. he had purple/black hair, i think. totally etarded, i’m pretty sure. he was talking about how he had scammed some “dirka dirkas” into buying his broken ipod and that they owed him $10. and he was totally looking to get that $10 even though he had scammed those guys and sold them a broken ipod that was stuck on the same one song. wtfs. those people hadn’t even checked it!!!! and he was asking if we’d seen the arabs and iraqis and we said no. he went to go look for them. he kept yelling dirka dirka! im lookin for some dirkadirkastan guy!! when he walked over i was like lawl this is gonna be interesting

THE GROUP OF 13 AND 14 YEAR OLDS.
leave and promise to come back. before they leave, i tell them, that if they’re going to do drugs, to make sure NOT to do meth, crack cocaine, or heroine. ahahhaha.

THE LESBIANS WITH A KID FROM KAZAKHSTAN.
or at least i thought they were lesbian. they were nice and middle-aged, with a cute asian-ish looking kid who they had gotten from kazakhstan. one was saying that she was talking to her partner about the trip to kazakhstan and how vacations like that were so relaxing and nothing much mattered on vacation. she said that what we were doing with our sign was probably like a mini vacation. the other woman had other thoughts to add… and that was that as she was getting older, she felt like she was talking to people less and less because she had no real interest in speaking with them, and that perhaps she should do something like this, too. they tried getting the kid to say hi to us but he had just awoken from a nappy nap.

THE PEOPLE FROM REDMOND.
this mom, with her two kids and… boyfriend? stop by. she’s the only one who talks but she loves the idea. there’s some generic talk. we talk about the delicious-looking donuts her youngest son has. they’re from redmond, as the younger son baseball’s tshirt says (redmond west).

THE POETRY GIRLS.
so some girls were walking by and told us to contribute one line to their poem. i told the main chick that she should go contribute to the paper that i posted up, and she said, “oh? that was you?” and it’s pretty cool that she’d seen it! i gave her my card and told her to send me the poems she got. the line i wrote in her poem was “they then searched in vain for the fuse” oh yes! my line was something about “penguins marching in line to the ______” here’s one of the poems they got that people contributed to:

THE SHORTEST POEM IN THE WORLD GUY.
this guy waited until the group left and then approached lenny and apologized if he talked funny… i guess he’d suffered a stroke before. he then said he used to know the guy who wrote the shortest poem in the world and recited the poem. it was something about how a day is just from dawn to dawn. and lenny said, “that’s a very straightforward poem.” this guy was pretty cool i could see him standing behind everyone eagerly awaiting to talk to me so i kept saying hello to him to get him to join the group conversation. he seemed perfectly content and i could tell he wanted to wait till other people were done. i commented about the card around his neck and he said it was an indian reservation card or something, then he was like i suffered a stroke so please forgive me if im slow with this, so i was like oh ok and he said he used to know the guy who wrote the worlds shortest poem, and i was like oh cool lets hear it! and he was like oh man and got nervous and forgot the poem and was like forgive me im nervous, but then he remembered it and told it to me, it was something like “i yawn until dawn”, and was like oh thats very short and straight forward, nice!

THE FLY-BY KONICHIWA MAN.
some elderly man walked by and was like, “konichiwa,” and i said, “i’m not japanese, but okay.” don’t think he heard cause he’d said konichiwa without really caring if we responded, methinks.

THE CRAZY LADY WITH THE SUNFLOWER SEEDS.
this partially crazy lady with a bag of sunflower seeds came by. her first question to us was, “how come orientals don’t talk to people?” and we were like whaaa? cause how the fuck do you answer that? lenny said something about how it was probably cultural. she would sit there listening to his answer and not saying anything… picking at her bag of sunflower seeds. and then lenny would offer forth some other idea and she would continue doing the same. no real answer-giving. and then because it was so awkward, lenny would keep saying stuff about how he thought it was cultural that asians don’t talk to people as much blahblah, and also mixed in a lot of “i don’t know”’s because, well, she wasn’t responding and made everyone feel uncomfortable. finally she spoke and said that she thought it was all a front that asians don’t talk to other people and that there was nothing cultural about it. she was weird. and ignant. she walked away. lenny and i were giving funny looks to the air as she walked away and i guess she kept turning around and seeing those. i didn’t see her reaction but lenny said she looked like she wanted to kill. this lady was thoroughly disappointing, but good thing she showed up because she gave us something to talk about afterwards: her. anyways… i kept offering answers to her like well its mainly the older generation that is old fashioned and more reserved, but the younger generation is more outgoing and she was still mean muggin the whole time. so these two asian kids (see below!) sat down and i was like hey you guys why do you think asians in general are less social than most people?? the asian kids were like what ?? asian people are the most talkative in my class, (although one did say asian girls were more quiet!) so i was like oh no i mean the older 1st gen people, your parents are asian right? and they were like yea haha it sux and i was like lawl azn parents. so i keep talking to the old lady trying to convince her that its not a defect in asian genes, its a cultural learned thing but she was just not having any of it. she started talking about how when asian people dance they have no feeling and its all just robotic, and i was like again thats cultural. and then she started talking about how she doesnt like how people blame it on culture and that thats just a front to cover up their own inadequacies.. anyways i started showing disinterest in her and she got the idea and walked away. as she walked away i gave the two kids this funny look and she saw me and glared at me and i started laughing and she kept turning around to look at me as she walked away, owned! im sure i didnt help fix the image of asians in her head.

THE TWO OTHER ASIAN KIDS.
so while crazy lady was there, two other kids sat down — one mixed, one not. we filled them in on what the conversation was about and they agreed with OUR ideas about it, but again, they too were scared by crazy lady. as soon as crazy lady left, the mixed one said, “i wasn’t talking because she was there.”

THE HUGS RAVER KID.
he comes back and tells us that he found the iraqi guy he was looking for, and that the guy gave him his $10. a bit shady. lol. oh well. then he saw some guy walking by with a free hugs sign and ran after the dude and was like growl-screaming, “GIVE ME A HUGGGG!” (so wish i’d gotten it on video.) after he’d hugged that group of people, he came back, and i saw another, and i was like, “ZOMG FREE HUG!! GO GO GO!” and again, he growl-screaming, “GIVE ME A HUGGGGGG” and went flying after those people. ahhahaha. man. shoulda definitely taken a video after setting him up like that. damn. :{ We were talking to those two other kids when he came back and i had to give them the backstory on this guy and why he got 10 dollars and stuff, they were like ohhh ic one of those two asian kids complemented raver kid on his totally flaming outfit. awesome.

(see that guy with his arms raised? that’s our raver kid who growl-screams for hugs.)

THE SPOKEN WORD GUY.
this one guy, raajni, stopped by, and he was a spoken word artist. he had a buncha cds with him and had sold eight today. lenny bought one from him for $7, although the suggested price was $10. he liked what we were doing, and said that he was trying to spread dialogue just like we were. he gave us a little taste of his spoken word / rap, and it was basically along the lines of how there is no more democracy in america and that everything is a lie. i said, “i agree,” and he said, “she concurs,” and gave me a pound (fist pound). there was a lot of fist pounding and he was pretty much awesome. and in all honesty, his spoken word was not at all bad! his spoken word was suprisingly good it had a good message about the state of our country and where its heading

THE TWO GIRLS?
they don’t get a better description, unfortunately. one just asked me about my lip ring and said she was thinking about getting one later today. i said it just felt like getting your ear pierced. i don’t even know if they’re old enough to get that shit. don’t you have to be 18?!!!?!

THE PSYCHOLOGIST GIRL.
so, people with signs are DEFINITELY attracted to other people with signs. this lady stopped by and she had a “psychiatric help, 5 cents (suggested donation)” sign. she was with a guy who didn’t really say a damned thing. she talked about how she had earned $1.25 or so from four people, but that only one of those people had actually talked to her about an actual problem and that everyone else just wanted a diagnosis but didn’t want to share a problem. so this couple was pretty funny, i talked to them about how portland is a vortex of unfun and how it was good for them to get out of that horrible city. talked to them also about various stuff and she said alot of people asked her what her qualifications were and she was like “look im offering help for a nickle! do i need qualifications?” and i was like lawl, talked about peanuts and how she needed a booth.

THE SALMON GUY.
so i don’t know if this guy came by because the psychologist girl was there but he said something about, “what do you think about this problem? no more salmon fishing for this year,” or some shit. and we were like, surprised, both by the idea of it and by his statement, i guess, since it was so random! this was obviously very much on his mind. haha. this guy was funny, he was appalled that they cancelled the chinook salmon season, and i was equally apalled because i love salmon, and he was like at least the silver salmon season is still on, and i was like oh jea silver salmon is my favorite salmon! his wife then came to talk to us about what we were doing and how it was awesome

THE HIP-HOP TEACHER.
this black lady came by and lenny talked to her a bit about the marijuana convo we’d had with the kids. i didn’t listen to that entire conversation but did catch that she worked at a middle school for a rotation program… those schools had hip-hop dance, i guess, not squaredancing shit like we used to. she said she saw a few of the kids she saw at the middle schools and that they would stop swearing as soon as she walked by. haha. she seemed cool but again, i didn’t talk to her that much. oh yeah, and she asked us what star signs we were and was surprised that we were sagittarius and cancer… she thought that we’d be aquarius and gemini. keke. then she asked us if we knew where we could pick up a program. we weren’t so helpful in answering that one.

THE OLD GUY WITH THE HAT AND GLASSES.
he was a cute older guy who sat next to lenny. i’m not sure what he talked about. i forget T__T

THE ASIAN LADIES WITH THE ANIMALS.
a couple of asian ladies came by and one was silent while the other one asked us questions like, “what animal would you be?” i answered that i would be a sloth. (i wanted to insert the awesome fact that sloths could swim well but i didn’t.) lenny said he’d be a flying squirrel. as she was leaving, she told me that next time she thought of a sloth she’d think of me. lol? when vivian said a sloth i was like DUDE A SLOTH’S HEAD IS LIKE ABNORMALLY TINY <– cute old guy, above, thought that was hilarious. i wanted to say my half favorite fact that sloths can swim really well but there wasn’t a good place to insert that in. darn!!

THE MEDICAL MARIJUANA GUY.
he was just passing out flyers. guess he didn’t really want to chat!

THE POT-WANTING GUY.
this guy was a total bum and talked to us briefly about how he likes making signs too, and that once he made a sign saying “potless”. then he asked us if we had pot. lol.

THE GUY WHO WORKED AT UW.
this man and his wife — who had funky fake teeth — stopped by. he worked at uw for biostatistics and we talked about how the building was far away and stuff for a while. along with tons of other people, they asked us if it was a school project. it’s funny, people are searching for reasons, and after i say that i was a sociology major then everyone is like, AAAH. as if all the pieces finally come together and it actually makes sense now. haha.

THE LADY AND SON IN RED.
both of them were in red, yes. i was talking to someone else when they came by but the lady seemed really cool and nice. she liked the idea. the son didn’t say much. we talked to the lady about the scary lady who was kind of racist and she said, “it seems like she is the one who didn’t really like talking,” since scary lady would say stuff and then like not really respond to our answers. lenny talked to her more. the lady liked what we were doing and asked how often we do it and the types of people we talk to and if we got anyone freakish so i mentioned racist lady. as they were leaving i told em they should try “talk to us” sometime

THE JAPAN-LIVING GUY, MICHAEL.
i didn’t talk to this guy much, but he had a blonde mustache with one tip (right side) that was white hair. it was quite interesting. quite interesting indeed. this guy had lived in japan for a while when he was 18 and was pretty fluent in japanese, i think. he said he’d been the only white guy there so everyone knew his name was michael but he didn’t really ever know what most of their names were. haha. he’d spent a recent year in china and picked up some chinese. i put him on the spot and had him try to speak some but i think he was a bit bashful about it. this guy was pretty cool, very chill and laidback, he looked kinda goofy but i liked that about him. he was the kind of person that i can get along with easily he was in seattle for a few months on his break from this neat study abroad program he was in for school he just got back from china and was gonna go to japan next and then 2 other countries which i forget. the thing i liked about michael was that we could talk about the people vivian was talking to and it was fun like that, he stayed for a while and we had many a conversation.

THE WELSH ACCENT GUY.
this guy had some musical wooden sticks. he sat down and he said, “nihonjin desuka?” i said, “no,” as i always do when people ask that question haha. and lenny said, “iie, chugokujin desu.” whatever. people always ask that shit and i always try not to humor them haha. i always answer with a blunt “no”. it’s almost weird that they say that right away because they’re expecting that you’re japanese and asking you in japanese — probably to show off their limited shitty japanese skills — but if you’re not japanese… and you didn’t know any japanese… then you’d just be like, “what on earth are you saying?” and it’s just a bit odd to ask that in another language, i think. just my opinion because it happens to me so much, though, i guess. i talked to him for a while as lenny was talking to michael. i mentioned that he had an accent and asked him if he was irish, and he said no, but i had a keen ear, and that irish accents are similar to welsh accents, and maybe that’s why. um, he told me this joke… something about how people who speak three languages are trilingual, people who speak two are bilingual, and people who speak one are american. we then talked about how it sucked that in america you learn another language when you’re in like, middle school and high school, and not elementary school, and by then, you can’t learn languages as easily. he said he used to tutor vietnamese kids and that the older kid would learn english fine but never could really get rid of his accent, whereas the younger kids learned the same amount of english over the same amount of time but were able to get rid of their accents. interesting point.

THE BEST IDEA GUY.
this guy asked us what we would do when we were out of good ideas. i think lenny said something about how we wouldn’t run out of good ideas, and i said something about how we’d just keep using this idea. i don’t know. then he asked us if this was our best idea and lenny said sushimonsters was his best idea. yeaaar. so this guy was like ‘this is a neat idea what other ideas have you come up with’ and i was like ummm and then he was like ‘whats the best idea youve ever had’ and i was like ‘this one!’ and he was like ‘haha’ and he was like ‘ what will you do when you run out of ideas’ and i was like ‘cry, ill cry’ and then i was like ‘ no just kidding i wont run out of ideas’ and then i mentioned sushimonsters.com and then michael was like ’so what are you some kind of good idea guy?’ that was funny.

THE TIT GUY.
this guy was the only one to come over out of his group of four. he was baked, i guess. came over and lifted up his shirt and said, “tit?” and then said, “talk to you about anything, huh?” and i said, “yeah, anything, but i don’t want to talk about your tit,” or something, and he said, “do you want anything?” and looked at me, and i was like, “uhh no,” and he’s like, “don’t get shy on me now, you don’t seem shy,” and i was like yeahhhhhhhh. felt a little awkward haha. after the tit thing and intense look… not really sure why :0 he just bumbled on a little and then apologized for being really high.

THE 14 YEAR OLD FREE HUGS GIRL.
this younger girl had a free hugs sign so i called her over and gave her a hug. i pretty much gave a hug to everyone who i saw with that sign that looked our way, haha. she was wearing a tegan and sara shirt and i mentioned that redefine had had a tegan and sara interview recently, and she said, “oh no way!” so i wrote down the address of the website for her, along with the redefine myspace site. she told me some story about how she went to go see tegan and sara in bellingham and almost passed out because she was anxious since they were four hours late getting there or something. i don’t really know. she also said that her friends and her were starting up a screenprinting clothing site and was going to launch into something about how we should work together but then caught herself and said nevermind. she asked me what my lip ring felt like and i told her just like a ear piercing, really.

THE GROUP OF 13 AND 14 YEAR OLDS.
they came back. sam was first and said that he kept his promise. i said something about how he loved us and was like, “right?” and he was like, “yeah.” haha. he was this cute little black? maybe mixed? kid with basketball shorts on. they had a crew of like 8 kids — guys and girls — their age. i don’t know the names of any of the rest but we talked to them for a good freaking while. this time we talked about a lot of things.

for starters, myspace, and how their parents wouldn’t let most of them have them. apparently those kids had taken sexual predator classes in school hahahaha. weird. and i said, “we never had those,” and lenny said, “because it wasn’t a problem when we were kids,” and i guess that’s true. sam asked if we’d watched “to catch a predator” before and i said, yeah, and that he should be able to have a myspace because don’t predators usually target girls? and this taller boy with massive calves (i guess he “had hops” hahaha) and a basketball t-shirt on said that he had been approached by older men before. the first story was that he was at a basketball court playing basketball and some guy approached him and asked if he wanted to play, and he said okay, and played with the guy for twenty minutes. and he got really sweaty. and then the guy said that they should go to his house to shower. hahahaha. and this kid told him to fuck off. and he said that it was easy because these predators who had approached him were way shorter and smaller than him (he was pretty tall). this other predator came up jogging behind him when he was running around greenlake. again, he was sweaty. the guy said that later they should go skinny-dipping in the lake at midnight. hahahaha. the kid again told this guy to fuck off. and lenny told him, “maybe you should stop getting sweaty, then,” and he said that he got sweaty from doing nothing. SO FUNNY. we continued talking to the kids about what they termed as chimo’s (child molestors) and four of the kids (two being brother and sister) had a sex offender living in their neighborhood. this chubbyish kid said that there was one living two houses down from him and that that guy would always be staring at him. haha. that kid was cute too. quite rotund.

this one girl had a really cool necklace with legos on it, and i guess all four of the girls there had one of those and they’d made them together. they looked DOPE. i want one. anyway, one girl (after being asked by lenny) suggested that we talk about how young kids have cellphones. she said she was 14 and had just gotten hers and thought it was ridiculous that some 8 year olds are walking around text-messaging on their cellphones. interesting stuff… i got my cell when i was 16 so it’s not too far off. interesting, the generation gap.

we asked them if they had people in their school that smoked pot. one girl said only one kid did. her friend said, “yeah, but there’s only 19 people in our class,” and she said, “true.”

after that we got to talking about the rules they have at their catholic school, since all of them went to catholic school. something about how girls aren’t allowed to wear nailpolish… and then there was talk of uniforms and all that jazz. and how they got in trouble more than we could ever imagine. sounds like a pain. i went to catholic school… i don’t remember it being that strict since i was third grade and under, but as a high schooler or middle schooler, i’m sure it’s a bitch.

at some point talking to all these kids got overwhelming. there were just SO MANY of them and all of them had something to say, which was really kinda cute. they were really open and cool kids.

THE PREACHER LADY.
as we were talking to this group of kids, stupid lady came by and handed us this piece of paper. she said, “this is a good discussion topic.” the paper said on it something like “make peace with god.” further inspection made us realize that it was some advertisement for billy graham. ahha. i said, “no, we are not talking about this,” and stashed it away. lol. kid who had been approached by elderly men said something negatory about those christian word-spreaders (of which there were a LOT LOT LOT at folk life).

THE COOL-LOOKING KIDS.
again, some emo-ish looking kids… four of them… one with a banged up hand drum. talked to them briefly about how — and this is kinda weird of me — they were the coolest-looking people to stop by and that other people who “looked cool” didn’t really stop and talk. and one of the kids said, “guess they aren’t really that cool, then.” touche. his other friends were rather silent, however. i dont remember that conversation at all and didnt notice that they looked cool , i did comment about how their drum was neat though

THE OLD CHINESE MAN.
lenny talked to this guy a little and then told me to speak to him in chinese. bah. putting on the spot. such badness. i spoke to him a little about what we were doing there and he asked if we were practicing english and i said no, that we were born here in america, and he got a bit uninterested at that haha. and i asked him if he was playing his instrument, since he was carrying a case, and he said he was taking a break, and then said bye and left. ok so this guy was mad grinning at me, he was standing to my left when we were talking to people and i noticed him and was like have tharr!!! and he was like are you chineeese! and i as like im half , are you chinese? and he wwas like yea, and i was like do you speak mandarin? and he was like ya, and i was like so does she! you can speak to her!!!

THE SPANISH SPEAKING GUY.
some guy came by and said, “hablas espanol?” and i said, “poco,” and he said something really fast, and i said, “lentamente, por favor,” and he said something about, “yo quiero ir al bano?” and i said, “no,” not that that even makes sense. but he left and as he was leaving, said to his friend, “they said to talk to them about anything.”

THE RAINBOW CAMP PEOPLE.
two folks, unique? and mike, came by and gave us some flyers for this event in wyoming that is like burning man but FREE. sounds interesting. i am actually kind of interested. welcomehome.org is one of the websites. i don’t remember the other off the top of my head. she said that she thought we would love it and it was for weeks or months at a time. i don’t think i’m that much of a hippie haha but she said that it would involve just going into the woods, having giant bonfires, playing music, doing drugs — and she kept stressing we didn’t need to do drugs but that we could — and other fun ol’ hippie stuff. sounds like a jolly good time, i’d say. they said they were getting there a week early so they could get the best hallucinogens but again stressed that we didn’t need to. unique? said that if we went they would for sure see us. she was crouched talking to us and three dirty guys threw water down her pants and said, “it was getting hot down there,” and she stepped up and smiled and they were like, “ohhh she likes it!” and i don’t know if they knew her but it was fairly amusing.

THE INSTRUMENT KIDS.
three kids with various stringed instruments in their cases. asked them what kinda music they played, and they said, “kinda like folk.” i said, “oh yeah. duh. it’s folk life,” and they said, “yeah.” asked them how much money they’d made over the weekend, and they’d made like $120 or so. not bad, not bad. they were young. again, probably 16 or under. cute kids. one was silent. the other two kinda talked.

THE CAMERA GIRLS.
we were walking to sushiland and had to walk through fun forest, and i saw some emo kid with a “free hugs” sign so i went to go hug him. he asked me what my sign said and i showed him, and his two female friends started talking to me about my camera, and one had just gotten a film minolta camera from her grandma and wanted to invest in a digital rebel next. ah yes more 16 and under year olds who are friendly. it’s fucking weird.

THE FACTORY MUSIC GUYS.
so, at every local seattle event… or maybe washington event… there are these tribal guys who play music. they were at all the days of folk life, of course. one of the guys saw our sign and started talking to us after we said hi to him. just asked him if they’d sold a lotta cds and they said today was slow but sunday went very well. interesting!!

***

OBSERVATIONS:
1) people our age (21-30) barely talked to us. the primarily age groups of people who did talk to us were 16 and under and hmm, probably over 45 or so. very interesting.
2) some people seem to assume that “talk to us about anything” means that we have the answers to everything… no… it really just means talk to us. lol.

***

i shall end with photo of little girl crying. haw haw. this is totally NOT in focus but look at her awesome (and scary) balloon. she was unfortunately no longer in the throes of anguish, either. she was totally crying a second ago. :[

i would like to tell y’all about my new hobbies. prepare thyself! can you guess?

first up: postcrossing.com, a website where you can write postcards to random people around the world!!! my first five people are from finland, france, netherlands, china, and BOTHELL, WASHINGTON. aka 30 minutes away. luckily, the bothell guy is a dream psychologist though. that’s pretty dope. my first postcard, which i got today, was from germany. w00t. anyway, i encourage everyone to sign up. and when you do, here’s my profile!

my second hobby is writing to people from prisonpenpals.com, which is sweeeeeeeeet. some people probably think it’s a little crazy for all of these, but don’t worry!!!!!!!!! po boxes for me :D anyway, this booklet above is something i got from church from a lady at bethel baptist church… i sent it to one of the inmates, who said he was a struggling christian. though it is useless to me, maybe?! it’ll help him?!

i wish that human beings did not need to adhere to conventions so much. some are probably in place for a reason (i reckon a lot of it has to do with interests in self-protection), but it’s a bit annoying on a daily basis. i just wish that people didn’t always have to have a 6 foot bubble around them, you know? why can’t we just start talking — i mean, REALLY talking — to a person on the street for no reason whatsoever? it sometimes happens, but not nearly enough. particularly in the united states. i find that people in other countries are more open to that.

but that’s even on the extreme end. there are even such basic things like “etiquette” and “manners” and pre-programmed responses like “i’m fine,” when people ask you how you are, even if it isn’t true. it just all seems so pointless. people should just learn to speak their minds and get to know people for real, without faking. if it’s my first time meeting me, you can ask me whatever the fuck you want. i don’t really care. i don’t see why people SHOULD care. you only live for so long. why fake it?

this was at sxsw in austin. read other post for more details. got jason of bangarang! to participate.

***

“TALK TO US ABOUT ANYTHING?!”
elvis, the guy from arkansas.
afterwards, we went outside and played “talk to us” for a while. that’s always good. i made a sign from a poster ripped off a post. it was quite easy because they like saran wrap all of their posts there, so shit comes off in a fucking jiffy. jason had said that he had no plans so he would do whatever we were going to do, so i made him sit with me outside of some bar. before we had even finished making the sign, some guy had some to talk to us. his name was elvis. he was from arkansas and had just moved to austin, and said that he loved austin and that he sold roses for a living. he said that on an average day sometimes he makes like, $20 of profit or something, but i guess he gets free housing from some guy who offered him free housing during his first week in austin, in exchange for housework. he said his name was elvis and i didn’t quite believe him, but he pulled out his arkansas license and it was true!! aaron elvis or elvis aaron. i forget the last name. la la la. anyway he was missing a lot of teeth and i thought he was a hobo at first but he wasn’t. he said he was excited about purchasing a trailer home from the guy he was living with, which had everything except for a shower. nice guy. he wanted to join us or have a sign of his own, so jason made him one, also using a poster ripped off from a post. it said, “talk to me about anything. (my name is elvis.)” i’d be curious to see how that worked out! elvis fucking hated the police. i told him to draw something in my book and he draw “FTPFTW” making up the outline of a cross type object. and when i asked him what that meant, he said, “FUCK THE POLICE, FUCK THE WORLD.”

the cows and pigs girl.
some girl, who is dressed like she’d be the fan of invader zim or something, came up while elvis was still there, saying, “about anything?! about cows or pigs???” and we said, yeah! elvis, however, pointed at a cop in the middle of the street and said, “there’s a pig right there!”

the guy who made us move.
well, so we were sitting against the wall of a heavily populated corner, with our backs resting on a bar. bouncer didn’t like it and told us to move. i said, “we’re community building!” he said… “it’s our building.”

so we moved. the new spot was subpar, and we sat in the middle of the sidewalk as opposed to on a corner. always a mistake. no one really looked too much.

the hippie girls.
there was some hippie girl who read our sign and then asked us if we knew anything about something cycles something chakras. i said no, but i knew that we have chakra points. she didn’t seem to like this answer and kind of didn’t pay attention anymore and left. her friend, with very hairy armpits, said, “there’s a good reggae show going on (in the bar right behind us).” we said, thanks. that’s about it.

the old lady named phyllis.
i saw phyllis and the first thing i said to her was, “hey, i saw you yesterday,” and she was like, “yeah, i did.” because she was smiling at me the previous day. she mentioned she had just gotten hip surgery and couldn’t afford to pay for medications even though it was like $5, and that none of the young people wanted to help her. we said we’d give her money if we had money but we didn’t T__T she was a cute old lady. i had her draw in my book. she wrote, “you two are beautiful people. phyllis. xxxx” and then she was off on her way. aw. i like phyllis.

there were some other hits here but nothing significant. mostly subpar.

T__T and then we were getting up to move to a corner but then hojo showed up (he had been calling me, i guess, but my phone had not been ringing… i looked and had three missed calls!) and then we continued this later.

anyway, though, before i continue on the second part, sit outside for long enough and you see interesting things.

***

sat in the middle of the sidewalk again, and hojo said, “your sign is not working.” i knew that it wasn’t going to work there and wasn’t really even trying, but since he mentioned it, we (jason and i) moved to the corner again. there were some hits but nothing that great. seems like everyone was in a rush somewhere. which is lame sauce.

the guy who liked the raveonettes.

this picture is actually of his friend who dressed crazily. but this guy chatted with us briefly about music and was fairly nice. all we had to do was ask him to talk to us. it was all good. he was from the bay area

the free hugs guys.
i had previously given these guys with free hugs signs a hug as we passed them in the street, and earlier when we were at the barricade with tera melos we saw them and had said hi again. i saw them across the street and called them over and we mini-teamed up. except their free hugs sign seemed to work better. we had a brief debate over which was better, because hugs attract more people but on a more shallow level. HMMM DEEP. these kids were total ravers so i chatted to them a little about the scene in austin and got some contact infos. werd. they had a third friend, though, who didn’t have a sign. owned. :[

mick, the micturiting guy.
so i’ve never heard of this word “micturition” but jason used it, and apparently it means to urinate. this guy seemed like he was curious about what we were doing, but then was like, “i have to pee really badly,” and ran off.

seville, the indie music promoter.
she worked with a lot of hip-hop artists, most notably tech n9ne, and yeah. her friend was really cute. they were both very friendly and into independent music promotion.

gilbert, the guy who was looking for a park, and redheaded friends.
gilbert was quite friendly enough and asked us if we knew where this park that had free food was at. we didn’t know. he was with two redheads, because in his words, he is only friends with redheads. we said we weren’t from austin, and he was, so we were weirded out by why he didn’t know where the park was. he said he hadn’t been here that long. one of his red-headed friends was into film and editing and production stuff, and i chatted with him a teeny bit. the other didn’t talk and just looked quite uncomfortable the whole time. this was while they were waiting for gilbert to finish drawing in my book. awethome.

the old political man.
i would have liked to talk to him for longer, but gilbert and his friends were around and i felt bad. the guy’s first question to us was, “who are you voting for? i know it’s a personal decision and all…” i said i was voting for nader. he said, alright, because he had voted for nader in a previous election. jason didn’t really know much about politics and said he didn’t much know the candidates and would have only voted for ron paul. apparently (?) this made old guy mad and he walked off. damn. i wanted to talk to him. :[

the confused girl.
i merely waved to her and she just said, “do i know you or something?”

the spanish-speaking guy and girl.
a girl from monterrey, who runs a music blog there, and a guy from spain, who didn’t speak all that much. the girl talked about how she was staying with random friends and they crammed “10 persons in a room.” she was cute. he was quiet.

and that was about it. i would have liked to do it for longer :[

oh yes i will regale you with tales from sxsw, i will. i actually think i took too few photos. fux0rz! :[ god, this blog post is going to take forever. i am dreading it already. this is why you always have to write shit down the day of. or else massive skimping.

READ OUR OFFICIAL REDEFINE MAGAZINE SXSW COVERAGE

***

thursday, march 13th, 2008

slept over at hojo’s on sunday evening and dennis took us to the airport in the morning. flight arrived in houston in the late afternoon, and then we had to take another flight to austin. got there at 6pm. met some old guy on the plane (houston to austin) who said that he moved to austin for retirement. he had just come back from vacation in veracruz, mexico. he was very sunburnt. haha. so very red!!! he talked a little bit about music when he found out i ran a music mag, like willie nelson and stuff. and said austin was the only place in texas he’d live since it’s liberal.

anyway, we got there and was going to stay at koji’s sister tomoko’s house, but she wasn’t off work until like 8, so we had to shoot the shit until then. took the bus from the airport. it took forever to come and was late. :L at the bus stop was an editor from the seattle times and some random musician guy who gave hojo a CD. the musician self-booked a show that was not sxsw-related. afterwards, went to the convention center to pick up our press passes and get photo credentials. blahblahblah. saw that hanson was playing at sxsw. lul.

got to the streets and i still have my bag and don’t have anywhere to put it. we get some food at a taco stand. i like getting weird stuff at the taco stand, so i got a fried chicken taco… it was fucking delicious. i also got a fried avocado one but that was not so good. but man. fried chicken taco for the fucking winnnnnnnnnnnn. hojo went to check out a show and i was sitting there finishing up my taco and a couple of guys came up and were like, “you were so hungry you didn’t even stop to put away your bag?” and i was like, “yup.”

afterwards, hojo wanted to go to a couple of places but i had my bag so i didn’t want to walk around and shit. we went into a couple of bars but /fail and then i was just like this shit is lame and we went to sit in a coffee shop instead. looked up some shows on the internet. then went to tomoko’s cute little house, pictured below!

dropped off our stuff then went to eat bbq at stubb’s. i did as i always do — that is, got a vegetarian plate at a bbq house. werd. pretty good, though. what it was… on the top… fried okra. on the left… mashed yams (i shoulda gotten mashed potatoes but i like to get shit that is weird, what can i say). on the right… cheesy jalapeno spinaches. quite the spicy. the dinner itself was weird/awkward for me because tomoko and hojo were like catching up and i was just like………. zzz.

ever wonder what a piece of wonderbread looks like when condensed? this is what it looks like. the 1″ x 1″ ish square!!!

afterwards hojo and i wandered around kinda aimlessly. went to a couple of shows, kinda. went to a random show at habana calle 6 (outdoors) and it was mediocre. but then we went inside and saw something great.

ANAVAN

and that something great is los angeles band anavan (shit, that shit rhymes). CLICK HERE TO SEE A VIDEO OF ANAVAN. they’re all very good musicians. when i first entered, the vocalist was wearing a helmet and so was the keyboardist. before i knew it, vocalist boy was in his underwear, dancing around and playing drums with hairy man legs, and hugging a pole while singng, and putting his head on my shoulder rofls. quite the good show. if i had to describe their music, i just say “electro screamo.” not sure how else to say it!!! but it was fucking fantastic. see anavan if you get the chance.

why yes and i almost forgot to mention the crazy rotund asian girl who was trying to get on the singer’s jock DURING the show. he was starting to take off his pants and she kept screaming, “TAKE IT ALL OFF!” “TAKE OFF YOUR SHIRT!” etc. he ignored her. then during the set she got all close (everyone else was rather far away since the singer likes to utilize a lot of floor space) and was like trying to get all up in his face while he was performing lol. then of course she was the first one to rush over after the set, calling him by his first name. maybe they knew each other, i don’t know, but it didn’t seem like it. it did definitely seem like she wanted his bawlz, though.

this is the inside of that venue, although it is not anavan in this photo. i don’t know who is playing at this time.

SHOUT OUT OUT OUT OUT

it’s quite confusing how many outs are involved in this band’s name, but they were some kind of house electro band with a live band. not too shabby… but it was weird because at any given time, one of the band members would be doing absolutely nothing at all. (… nothing at all… nothing at all… nothing at all…) lol. the keyboardist (not shown in this picture) was a crazy boy who looked funny and was extremely drunk. at the end of the set, he was playing guitar propped up against the wall, like he was half passed out. then he fell behind the stage, with just his shoes sticking out from behind a projector screen. lul. it was weird and funny. like wizard of oz witch stylee.

DIZZEE RASCAL

we didn’t have much to do after that and hojo wanted to see dizzee rascal so we went. prior to dizzee rascal were like three rappers. shit sucked big time. dizzee rascal was okay but i was bored out of my mind. i don’t like jump-up type hip-hop at all. shit sucks. :[ blech. yeah. my feet hurt and the venue was at the scoot inn, which was in the middle of nowhere. shit sucked. and the walk back was somewhat amusing but much too long.

we did however, run into this homeless guy who wanted some money in exchange for a joke. we were without money, but i told him he could tell us a joke anyway. his joke:

***

friday, march 14th, 2008

woke up in the morning and hojo needed toiletries because he had not packed a toothbrush or anything. outside, a homeless guy stopped us and he wanted some change for ‘food’. i bought him a drink — i had an apple juice and a vitamin water. i was hoping he’d take the apple juice but he took the vitamin water. oh well, though. both were alright. lol.

half-assededly covered up graffiti near the cvs, at some recycling depot. and omg! haven’t been to a cvs pharmacy in for fucking ever!!!!

afterwards, called up jason of bangarang because we were supposed to meet up and hang out. so i’ve been talking to randy of bangarang for a while now and i guess he gave jason my number since jason was coming to sxsw. anyway, so we met up with him and we got some food… somewhere… i forget where. as we were at the bbq place, some guy was squeezing new potato salad out of a plastic bag and it looked fucking gross. like playdoh. he was going to run and get some more coleslaw and i was like, no thanks, i will get out of here before i see him squeeze that shit out.

DUB TRIO

not bad. their name was unfitting, but yeah. basically they would rotate between like metal riffs and dub at the drop of the time. i don’t quite remember what their music was like, to be honest. sadface.

afterwards we headed over to the pitchfork party at emo’s for a little bit, where i was going to meet up with judy from warmfuzzy. there was telephone confusing and i had a hard time finding her because emo’s is like, four different venues in one haha. we then decided to meet outside. hojo had gone off somewhere else so jason and i met her and her friend. wOo! they wanted to get some food so we followed them to dirty dog. there wasn’t really any food left, so i had a coleslaw sandwich. haha. it was um, not good. :0

LIAM FINN

they were playing at the dirty dog. judy left early and we agreed to meet up later but that never ended up happening. she didn’t have a wristband so things were hard :[ anyway, jason was obsessed with the pedals the liam finn guy had and he says he’s going to build pedals into a block of wood since i gave him the idea?? lol. anyway, they were an interesting band. experimental and extremely random. :0 they were both spazzy as fuck. spazzy is good.

“TALK TO US ABOUT ANYTHING?!”

see post above for details on this……..!! it should be a separate post from the music stuff because i’m anal like that, i guess.

the hot dog king was there, but he was not dressed up. he should have been. /disappoint.

THE LITTLE ONES

went to see some san francisco band — purely by accident — because they were playing a little bit before the helio sequence. shit was lame. there were sound problems and the mic went out for a couple of tracks, but people there — mostly an older crowd — were super into it. i was not so much down with it. :0 blech. couple asian guys in there, though, which was interesting.

HELIO SEQUENCE

as usual helio sequence was great. i had thought they were playing in the room the little ones were playing in but when the little ones ended and no one came on, i figured there was actually a back room where the helio sequence was playing. it was fantastic even though it took them a long time to set up because the mic was all fucked, and one of the guys in the crowd was being super assholish and anal, and telling them to hurry the fuck up and that it didn’t matter. but of course, it always matters. benjamin weikel is like the best drummer ever, for eternity. i tooketh some hilarious video of his great drumming faces and actions. ^__^

BRITISH SEA POWER

when i was done with helio sequence i called hojo and him and jason were at british sea power at the mohawk. i met them there. british sea power, unlike all the other sets before it, had to of course play like a one hour set. i wanted to die. it was THE most boring show i saw at all of sxsw. i wanted to leave but wasn’t sure where else to go. at least i got a free gross-tasting, overly-sweet watermelon popsicle. at least jason picked me up a pin of a girl feeding a popsicle to a husky… not as good as the one he got of a squirrel riding a horse, but it’s okay. i’ll survive. british sea power is the motherfucking suck. i thought this showing would maybe have changed my mind, but no, it didn’t. i do like their crack-headed looking guitarist, though. he totally looks like a druggie biatch.

after british sea power, we had nothing else to do for a couple of hours so hojo wanted to get some hot dog at best wurst, so as we were walking over to the stand, we saw some guy being arrested by the cops. i took a couple pics through the barricade. while at the barricade, some guy started talking to me about taking the photos and getting good shots, and he mentioned he was in some band. i asked what band. turned out it was two guys from tera melos. then i said, “i know you. you guys are friends with facing new york,” and they said, “yeah.” and then i said, “i wrote a review about you guys,” and gave them a card. and they said they new. the lead singer said, “this might be weird, but i think i may have read that review, and you were in our van?” ahahaha. i guess it was amusing because they had been reading that review and had never met me because i had just silently gone into whatever van they were having the listening party in, and were just like, “who the hell is this girl? she was in our van?” guess that question got answered!!

afterwards we went to go get some waters at the convenience store. blahblahblah. then more talking to people!

RETURN OF THE “TALK TO US”

see next post!!!!

SO DOPP

blargh hojo wanted to check out japan nite so we went there before shit even started. cause he was bored because he was not participating in the talk to us. the show was mer, whatevers. i guess it’s cool that asian girls are in bands and the bass licks were neat but other than that, it was pretty much non-exciting. some person kept shining around one of those scary green lasers. the bouncer / worker tried finding that person but /failed.

after that went to eat some mexican food at… jaime’s?? it was not bad i guess. i got a steak fajita taco or something. mmmmmkoi. and then i was going to go see danger radio but i got there too late. boo urns. i didn’t want to stay around for envy on the coast, so then i met back up with hojo who was trying to get into something else. he failed. we went to walk hella far away to see devotchka. waited in line for like an hour and a half to get in because tons of people were there, trying to see vampire weekend. vampire weekend got out and we were still not inside. in line, talked to some drunken fool with a six pack. haha. it was amusing. he shared one with hojo and one with a guy next to us. then some homeless guy came up and was eyeballing the six-pack (he somehow knew even though it was in a paper bag) and the guy was like, “dude, this is a sandwich my mom made me!” and then as the homeless guy was walking away all dejected, the guy was like, “hey man, i’m sorry, i’m just an asshole. here you go,” and he gave him one. lol. interesting. he talked about how he got his wristband online or something and had to get a hotel also, because that was the deal. blahblahblah. god this journal is taking way too fucking long.

DEVOTCHKA

they were alright. not as good as i had hoped but they did have some elaborate instrumentation going on. unfortunately, they had a mini orchestra which could barely be heard. but man, THEY HAVE A TUBA. how fucking awesome.

CONSTANTINES

they would start off every band here with some little poster with a sometimes witty kind of saying. the constantines one sucked (shown) but the devotchka one was good :0

asides from my newfound love for their keyboardist (feet shown here) who is like, amazingly cute mannerism-wise, constantines were fantastic. one of the best shows i saw, for sure. prior to the show, i had sat down on the ground (second row, middle of the crowd), because i was super tired, and before i knew it some other guy had sat down also. then a few other people, and soon there were six people on the ground! WOOT. i tried talking to the guy next to me but he didn’t quite say much lol. i told him, “thanks for joining us,” and he just kind of nodded. and then he tried to get someone else to sit down but failed. interesting. anyway, those attempts to talk to him were nice though because later when some people left in the first row, in front of him, he let me take the spot. so i was right in the first row, next to this hella old grey-haired guy who was uber drunk and rocking out to constantines. good stuff. but i love the keyboardist. and they closed with an ac/dc cover, i guess. anyway, great performance. that’s all there is to it, really. i’m a fan now.

guitarist playing with a broken hand. pretty hardcore shit.

i wasn’t allowed to leave the menu with a cup of water because it was considered an open container. weak!

then we went home. took a petticab part of the way and the guy almost crashed us twice. he was totally like not paying attention and was in a rush. he dropped us off at like, 6th and red river because he was lazy. and that cost $5 each. bleh. he said he didn’t want to take us the whole way because it was his rush hour. yea, yea.

walked home the rest of the way and it was all good. werd. >__>

***

saturday, march 15th, 2008

god this shit is taking way too fucking long. BAH. i’m getting hungry. woke up and it was late because i had a killer nosebleed which went on for like a half hour. bah. bled all over tomoko’s kitchen and paper towel roll.

THE VALLEY ARENA

went over to emo’s lounge to FINALLY see the valley arena. it was a good show, although maybe not as good as i was hoping. it was for alternative press, which is weird to me still. ummmm. afterwards i talked to warren and chris for a little but hojo was fucking hovering, wanting me to get him into fader fort. which is lame. because i would have really liked to talk to them longer since i probably won’t even see them again, at least for a long time. weak fucking sauce. my fault, though, i should have just asked them what they were doing later and tried to meet up with them again. bah.

went over to the “south by seattle” or… the northwest showcase to get some free food. there was some pretty bomb zucchini mixed with red pepper and some little things with creme cheese and salmon on a piece of pastry. and some meat thing that looked gross, so i didn’t eat it. i would have eaten a plate of that squash and zucchini, though. lol.

THE COPS

the cops, or at least i think it was the cops — that or throw me the statue — were playing at the northwest showcase when we got there. surprisingly good. as far as the crowd goes, maybe hot people like seattle music, because there were a lot of good-looking fools there.

after that we went to fader fort. lame. it was far and pointless, at least for me. especially since hojo’s name WAS on the list too, so i basically left the valley arena for no reason whatsoever. i was kinda pissed the whole time. after that i had to go back to the place i just was watching the valley arena at to see anthony green, so it was REALLY pointless.

DOES IT OFFEND YOU YEAH?

british, or something, electro rock band. pretty good. this seems to be the direction music is headed though. i wonder how oversaturated it’ll get. then everyone will want to eventually return to rock roots. it’s going to be a mess.

ANTHONY GREEN

anthony green is a naughty boy, and while circa survive is great, his solo stuff is just mediocre. that being said, anthony green can do whatever the fuck he wants. he has that kind of cult fan following who will follow his every move without quite thinking twice. what he did end up doing was inviting the whole crowd (or whoever would fit) onstage with him during his last song, and i did manage to get this one good shot. again, though, the music was mediocre.

i was trying to meet francesca from equal vision but she never showed up so i sat around for a while with all the little kids.

ALL TIME LOW

all time low is kind of crude, but i guess people like that. i could care less for their music but i guess they kind of give off a good pseudo-punk vibe or something. i find it to be rather juvenile but i can see how kids would like it. they fucked up on a song, called themselves amateurs, and then they said:

met with jeanette’s friend janet briefly. we went to eat but she was in a rush to leave practically the entire time, so it was completely and utterly pointless. yeah. well i guess it was slightly point-ful because she told me that crystal castles had not cancelled their show, so i managed to see them still. that was good, i guess!!!!!!!!!

after that i walked back towards emo’s to meet up with francesca. finally did. had a brief chat and it was good. turned out greg sieme was with her, and i would have liked to meet him, but it didn’t end up working out :[ walked in the wrong direction to see ole time relijun and that sucked. walked really far. then i went back the other direction and actually it was near the fucking scoot inn. motherfucking boohoo. so far. so so far. i was walking on the way there and some fool stopped by me and he had the most giant hickey on his neck, lul!

OLE TIME RELIJUN

well, the stage they were at made it absolutely impossible to see shit. i literally just saw the top of the standup bass and the top of the singers head occasionally, and nothing more. they would have been very good, though, i think. had i been able to see them. their lead singer also spoke french, spanish, and japanese. lol. amusing. they pulled in such an interesting crowd.

HEALTH

so i’ve heard health and i like their music but i never really expected it to be mind-blowing or anything. well, it was fucking fantastic. from the intro to the end. i can legitimately say i’m a health fan now. it’s funny because while in line for the constantines, people were saying that their music was absolute noise that could not be considered music. and health isn’t even ALL THAT noisy. so it’s hilarious. they were older, though. like 40s. CLICK HERE TO WATCH A VIDEO OF THEIR INTRODUCTION.

this day was a good day. lots of shit going on. but all hectic and stuff T__T i wanted to see why? and some other bands but mer.

WIZARDS

i wasn’t paying attention while they were playing, because i was talking to some older graphic designer guy. music sounded okay, not exactly my chip bag. they blew out the power twice, though. hehe.

the venue health, wizards, and ole time relijun played at, which is usually a mexican bar, i guess.

KBN

walked back to japan night and saw some taiwanese electronic band called kbn. it was decent. they invited some buddies up and they were just okay too. yeahhhhhhhhh.

LOOK. SEE. PROOF.

this band was extremely good-looking and had nice accents, because hell, they’re from the uk as we were waiting for them to come on, started talking to some producer from the uk, who introduced us to the band’s managers. this uk guy is now working on producing an album by the harajuku girls — yes, gwen stefani’s back up dancers. i guess he has worked with a lot of big names. look.see.proof. were just okay. pop-punk mixed with like, arctic monkeys type thing almost. it was okay! only a 20 minute set, though.

CRYSTAL CASTLES

crystal castles’ vocalist has recently broken a couple ribs and yet she was jumping around. she was hot. the vibe was amazing. everyone was so into their music. i started off in the second row and somehow ended up in the fifth. met some couple random people who were into health and crystal castles and loved the sets of both. lots of jokes about shortness. met some guy who was also going to finish off his night with mstrkrft. his name was richard. anyway, crystal castles set was decent but i couldn’t see shit, so it was decidedly less exciting. hojo was bored by it and hated the people in the crowd. i didn’t see any real problems.

afterwards, i wanted to see mstrkrft. hojo followed me under the presumption that i wouldn’t get in. i did get in, so he left and did whatever.

ZTRIP

ztrip was extremely random and played all sorts of mashup music. played the pink floyd remix i like. blahblah. during z-trip this guy (pictured) was crowdsurfing for like… i want to say 5 minutes… or at least the duration of a song. people kept pushing him up to the front but the security kept pushing him back into the crowd. he had his middle fingers raised up for a while because well, he was up for so long.

KILLA KELLAH

however the fuck you spell his name. beatboxer who used up time between mstrkrft and ztrip’s set. it was mediocre.

MSTRKRFT

the mstrkrft show was probably the craziest show i’ve actually been to in a loOooOoOong time. which is strange because, well, it’s a house music party. but people were acting like it was a rock show or something. soooooo many crowdsurfers. i want to say at least… 15? and they just kept coming and coming. i got kicked in the head once with a chick wearing giant platform boots, and one guy started falling on me, so that basically my back was supporting his fall. luckily he got caught before he fell the entire way… three people (at least) fell on the ground but most got up right away. one girl who crowdsurfed wearing a mid-length white skirt. one guy who was with mstrkrft. one guy who had a nice camera in his hands and was just taking photos as he was being pushed around (this happened twice). people were like really a lot nicer and more careful with the guy with the camera… everyone else just kinda got tossed around but it was almost as if people respected that he had a camera and wanted to preserve it. cause that’d be a real bummer. lul.

shit kept falling down from the ceiling… not sure if people were throwing it or if it was literally falling from the ceiling. there were rocks and things. i had my arms crossed at one point and giant shit fell down and i guess i caught it. so i mentioned that to the guy next to me — who i later found out was named EJ and worked for limewire — and haha he showed me his arm when the strobes were on and because his arm was sweaty, it was covered with small black rocks. ahhahahaha. it was hilarious. X:

one other girl got wind that there was stuff falling from the ceiling and started being super paranoid about it, pulling at her hair like every few seconds or so.

one other guy said he had saw people throwing ice cubes as well. (there was a balcony up top.)

pretty much an awesome vibe from the entire show… i mean, it was crazy but still good. later on my newfound friend from the crystal castles show found me. he’s going to send along some crystal castles pics cause i was too short to get any good ones. owned.

***

sunday, march 16th, 2008



morning trip with tomoko and her boyfriend to taco fast food stand. woooot. it was yummy. horchata popsicle for the fucking win. best popsicle i’ve had in like my life. best meal during this entire trip too, because this trip fucking sucked as far as food goes. this place was called “el chilito” or something like that. tomoko’s boyfriend was pretty cool. she seems cool too but she like didn’t talk to me as much.

then they dropped us off downtown so we could catch a bus.

but before that, this is like the most amazing thing. on sundays, some church holds a homeless church service for all of the homeless people, with food. this is what i’m doing next time i go to austin. that’s sooo fucking amazing and interesting!!! i thought it was a fucking swap meet. lol.

anyway, while at the bus stop, talked to a guy from the seattle times who is a rock critic. he pointed out a house that used to belong to the founder of rolling stone. interesting. he had crazy curly gray hair that was wild! luckily for us, the bus was on time so we made it to the airport in time. flew out of austin to san jose for a layover.

so let’s just say that the san jose airport sucks balls. to get from terminal to terminal you take a fucking bus. not only a fucking bus, but a fucking poorly marked bus that says that it’s going to long-term parking but really can go to the terminal. needless to say, there were a lot of confused people. we only got wind that the long-term parking bus could bring us to the terminal when i eavesdropped on some guy — also coming from sxsw — asking the bus driver if the long-term parking bus went to the terminal. werd.

even their food court is ghetto.

and apparently now there’s some card you can get?? that let’s you get “in and out of security in four minutes??”

indeed.

getting on the san jose airport flights = outside walking. which is kind of nice and cool, but still somewhat ghetto.

fuck i’m glad this blog post is over. +__+

i’m listening to… “hallelujah” by jeff buckley [cover].

nicholas hubbard and i decided to head over to church today. a while ago he had mentioned that for a while he went to all these different churches and kept a blog of his experiences in those churches. so i mentioned i wanted to go to a pentacostal church (to hear people speak in tongue), so he found one. only… they didn’t speak in tongues. but it was still kind of interesting. the church was the “bethel christian church” in the central district. this is going to sound kind of ignorant, but wow, there are a lot of black people in the central district. like… i don’t see *that* many black people in seattle, but that’s all i saw in the central district. it’s just interesting.

as soon as we walked in, we were greeted by a handful of people who were really nice. one lady, i forgot her name, was particularly nice and gave us these little booklets with bible verses in them. haha. she came up to us and was like, “shalom” to nick cause he looks a little jewish, and he was like “what?” and she said, “shalom,” and he’s like, “oh, no.” and then she turned to me and was like “ni hao ma?” and i was like, “yep, that’s right,” and she’s like, “yay at least i got one out of two!”

mostly everyone in there was old. and everyone was black. we must have stood out quite a bit. but people were all very nice and genuine (with the exception of one girl, notably).

let’s see. it began with singing and more singing. but what was interesting is that their singing didn’t include lyrics for people in the pews to sing. there were like… seven? choir people onstage, including a couple of instrumentalists. the first couple songs were good, but bylike, the third or forth, shit, the songs were really godamn good. so good. nothing i’ve heard before in church, but still good. it was fucking intense, though. i thought i was going to like faint at some point. i got all light-headed. it didn’t help that the sun just happened to be shining in from the window at me, either.

followed by that were some prayers. their prayers were largely of the, “we need you to get through the day, lord!” type nature, “thank you lord!” type nature. certainly nothing i was used to in church, but that was okay. it even got a bit repetitive in the sense that i soon had no idea what the guy praying was even talking about. it was dizzying.

next came the offering… they passed around these little buckets, and the usher (wearing white gloves of the snazzy variety) picked them up.

then came the offertory stewardship, with a message by some guy about “god’s purpose for money.” i don’t quite remember what it was about, but i did take down some quotes. because quotes are great.

next came announcements, and they welcomed us by telling us to stand up. i had written on the card i had turned in that i was referred to the church by “myself” and the lady got a kick out of that and said that, “vivian has come by invitation of herself.”

after that was some shaking of hands and meeting of people… it was fairly entertaining. lots of half-assed hugs and some real hugs. one girl was like walking by and thought that she should hug nick but then didn’t really want to and the result was like this half-hug, half-running away type deal. it was amusing.

then came more songs with the choir singing and no lyrics.

then came this oh my god. sermon. holy. let me start off by saying that before he really launched greatly into the sermon he mentioned that they were collecting $$ for a sister church in alaska. he’s like, “i need $1,000.” so we literally waited there until he got $1,000. it started off with a couple people giving $100 each, and then it was just this uncomfortable peer pressure type thing until people slowly coughed up the rest of the money. at some point he’s like, “if you don’t have money, that’s cause you haven’t asked for god’s help. hell, you can ask me for help, i have a couple thousand dollars in my pocket right now,” and he like pulled out a wad of cash out of his pocket. like. wtfuz.

i guess there was also a couple who had called him the previous night, fighting. he had talked to one person, then hung up and talked to the other person. he revealed to everyone in the church that it was fighting because the man ate 6 of the woman’s cookies. haha. they’d better have been girl scout cookies (which i bought this morning)!

alright. some other quotes from his sermon, cause he said some amazing shit.

there was also a mention of acts 2:45, and how god blesses people with money in the sense that they have two cars and a house that was formerly a mansion… like these were the things that matter. he also read a bible verse and then randomly went into a rant about how people need to have clean houses.

after his uhhh all-over-the-place and hardly enlightening or particularly religious sermon, there was an invitation, where people who wanted to be prayed for went up to the altar and got oil on their foreheads. they were prayed for. we sat in our seats and watched as people went up. one guy had like 4 guys putting their hands on him and praying for him.

this one guy came to us and put oil on our foreheads and prayed for us… nice gesture, i guess. but ew, oil.

after that was the benediction, which is a blur. and then we left.

the whole church probably had like, 25 people?? 30? 35? i’m bad at this stuff.

afterwards, i dropped nick off and rachel and i went to i heart rummage at its new location at chop suey. it was pretty f00king disappointing, actually. nothing of quality (or new) really. i want to make some shit. sigh. i’m so lame.

after that we went to this REAL rummage sale. unfortunately it was the last day of the rummage sale and we missed out on the good stuff, but i got a bunch of christmas cards which i think are fucking hilarious. i’ll scan some sometime. i love giving people christmas cards that are like… ridiculous and funny. ahhaha oh man. i have some ridiculous ones. i think i got at least like 50, and a couple books (50 years of best photos from life magazine and a disneyland book)… and it all only cost me $2.00!!!!!!!!

okay — here’s my so-cal journal entry, finally.

friday, july 27th
get to so-cal after work. got two hours of sleep before due to magazine design. w00! go crazy!!! jeanette and lindsay pick me up from the airport. great fun, great fun. we head on over to the omni hotel in san diego… jeanette’s friend kayla works for warner brothers and as a result, had a space there and all that jazz. free housing?! how can we resist?! so we get ready to go out.

“300″ party. yeah yeah. by the time we got there it was kinda late and no one was really around anymore… there was some dope ass food, though. if you’re wondering what it was for, it was for the “300″ dvd release. evidently clive owen (the main dude in “sin city”, during the prositute town section) and jessica alba were there, and clive owen was in the elevator with kayla at some point, talking to her. nyes. anyway, did i mention the food was good? yeah, it was quite good. that’s all we did really, so let me mention it again. the food was good.

apparently, like, people in LA like to pose on red carpets after they’re used.

me trying to hide from a picture and failing. this was at some rooftop bar. uh yeah. i just have to say — so-cal people, at least in this area? not my style. prior to the bar, though, it was even worse. we met up with their very friendly, quite possibly gay friend who was really excited to talk to me about seattle because he had just come up for ultimate frisbee or something… i liked him, though. very friendly. but yeah, before the bar we went to a club — a hip-hop / top 40s type club, and i’m not very comfortable in clubs unless they’re playing electronic music, so needless to say, i was uncomfortable.

that night we went home, and kayla had drunk quite a bit, i guess, and s