Fly vs. Spy

I've got cool friends

Ashattack

Following Ashley's Rwanda travels. My college buddy, an avid adventuress, activist, and movie maker. Respect. Lots of respect.

Blogging

I'm back to professional blogging! This time, it's all about downtown Los Angeles.
Check out my first post on downtownster.com

Who's watching me now? The IRS!!!

I've been up to lots of things...

Working as a personal brand manager/social media arsenist. Questioning whether sometimes it's better to put out Internet scandals and PR fires...or throw gasoline on them?

Soon to be spare time blogging for awesome new site downtownster.com. My interviewer, Stan (aka Downtown Oliver Brown), never took his sunglasses off once during the entire interview. Bravo, I say! There is something admirable about Los Angeles cliche' taken to absurd extremes...don't you think?

Still staying behind the Orange Curtain whilst waiting to move into the Spring street loft April 15th. Every time I tell someone I'm living in Orange County, they get this look on their face. Like...whu?? And I'm like, it's supposed to be so not cool that it's cool, right? It's ironic. And they're like, no, sorry Shannon. It's just plain old not cool.

Went to see Anytown premiere last night in Agoura Hills (almost as not cool as Orange County). I had a few favorite scenes in the movie, and enjoyed it. It was sort of like Kids meets Blair Witch Project, but with 9/11 influenced storyline.

The Writer's Roundup went well. I decided to take my memoirs and turn them into children's fiction. You know, tinkering with young psyches is so much more gratifying than trying to manipulate...er...write for adults.

Taxes got filed. Nothing is packed, or unpacked for that matter. (This is what happens when you start living out of the boxes instead of unpacking them)  I've been smoking cloves, wearing cocktail dresses, drinking scotch, and watching reality television shows. I haven't done Yoga in two days, which makes me cranky.

On that note, I'm going to bed. If there's one thing I know how to do right, it's sleep.

 

Writers + cupcakes

March 2009 Writer's Roundup @ Pitfire Pizza, Downtown Los Angeles. Niiiice cupcakes, Sarafina!

guerrilla style

Our lead backed out at the last second, and we couldn't find a boombox. This first time Zombie's Without Borders guerrilla street performance at artwalk was looking like it was going to be a flop.

BUT! No. Instead it was fucking awesome.

First we solved our sound system problem by grabbing the speakers and amp from Fina's coffee shop. Then we trooped the equipment back to her place, carrying it through the streets like true LA rioters. But we had another problem-- where were we going to hook it up? Solved! I asked a nice gallery owner to use his electrical socket and we were good to go.

Then, we drank rum and rootbeer. We slapped together some peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. I squeezed into two pairs of black stockings, a body suit and skeletal armwarmers. We drank more rum.

I did Michael's make up half M.Jackson and half Gwen Stefani, Sarafina threw a blond wig on him and a red jacket poof! we had our lead. We got razzed by the doormen at the Rosslyn, and weaved our way through the packed sidewalks to the gallery.

We passed a large crowd on the corner and someone yelled out "peanut butter jelly time!"

A very good sign indeed. Within minutes we had a large crowd assembled around us, much larger than we anticipated. Fina broke into a strenuous hoop dance and the rest of us jumped around behind her to get warmed up. Clay and I shared a cigarette between rounds of jumping.

We launched into Hollaback ThrillerGirl and the audience went nuts. Then peanut butter jelly time-- this is the part where we launch peanut butter sandwiches with zombie stickers on them into the audience with blow up baseball bats. Also a hit.

They ate the sandwiches, called for an encore, and we did the whole thing over again. Except the second time, traffic stopped on both sides of the street around us. We got the audience involved more, and not just the homeless men that spontaneously jumped into the performance the first time around. (Which, admittedly was probably the best part of the show.) Michael had a Carol Burnett moment where his Gwen wig went flying off in time to the music. We don't know how he did it...it was priceless. Joe's breakdancing was a hit. And Clay did the robot like nobody's business.

We took a bow and sat on the curb as the crowd thanked us and...Whew! We'll be there next month for sure. It was that good...

Downtown is full of pirates

Courtesy of Rynofoto on flickr

Every big city I've lived in has its cast of famous faces. Strange people you see on the streets every day. Tokyo had Tiger Mask, the bicycle delivery boy with a boombox and a child's colorful tiger mask on. New York had the lady who would wear nothing but a black trash bag and writhe around on the concrete in the dead of winter. (Don't get all emo on me, the hot dog vendor told me that she has clothes, but stashes them behind the buildings before she goes to 'work' every day)

Los Angeles has Ricky the Pirate. Mentally ill, crack addicted, pirate hat and eye patch wearing homeless man in his sixties.

The first time I saw him was on Halloween. I thought, that's so cute, the homeless guy is wearing a pirate hat! I realized later that the hat is standard uniform for Ricky. Because for the last eight months, every time I go downtown, I bump into Ricky the Pirate. Granted, I'm on Main Street most of the time, which is his stomping grounds. But still, out of the twenty or thirty visits I've made to downtown in the last half a year, every single time, I bump into him.

He's sidled up to me with an umbrella when I got caught in the rain. He's suddenly appeared to help me over a fence when I was too drunk to hop over. He materializes to mooch cigarettes, crack jokes, sell me things out of his pockets. Sometimes he gets in my way when I'm trying to park. My friend is constantly throwing him out of her coffee shop for sleeping on the patio during business hours. But he always comes back...

It's this ongoing joke with me. A few months ago I started to play this game to see if I could get out of downtown without bumping into Ricky. I just couldn't do it. I almost got out last weekend without seeing him and he snuck up behind my truck in the parking garage to show me a photograph he had. It got so ridiculous that I started thinking it was a bad omen of some sort. As if Ricky represents a nuisance in my life, a negative influence, a trickster or a thief. Every time he shows up, perhaps I should take a good look at who or what I'm interacting with in my life at the time.

But tonight for the very first time...I didn't get Ricky-rolled.

I went downtown, had dinner and drinks, walked all up and down Main Street, got in my car and went home. Not a pirate in sight. I'd like to say that this had to do with self development or some spiritual transformation I've gone through where I recognized bad influences in my life and guarded myself against them. Enough to stop getting the same baffling omen over and over. I'd like to say that.

"Oh, Ricky?" my friend said when I told her the story. "He's probably just in jail again."

Beggars

I found this quote while reading the Obama speech recap tonight.

"The way to lead is not to raise taxes and put more money and power in hands of Washington politicians," said the charismatic and youthful Jindal, considered a possible presidential candidate in 2012. "Who among us would ask our children for a loan, so we could spend money we do not have, on things we do not need?"

I'll answer that one. My mom. She once demanded I give her several thousand dollars for 'moving expenses' so she could secretly go get lasik surgery. We haven't spoken in seven years. Thank god. 

Just looking...

A commitment phobe is like the man who walked into the strip club with no cash in his wallet. He sits in the back just watching all the pretty ladies dancing, one more beautiful than the next. Doesn't want to drink. Doesn't want to tip. Just looking...

human viral misery chain

I've noticed a chain reaction type of effect going on amongst my fellow humans. The mental image is one person stabbing another with a knife, and then the victim immediately turns around and stabs the next person. Every time I hear someone complain about a personal attack, I watch them do it to someone else, completely unaware.

Someone had their friends turn on them, so they turned on one of their friends. Someone never got an apology, so they won't apologize to someone else. Someone got pushed out of a group, they will go and push someone else out of a group. Someone gets tricked into trusting the wrong person, they will become the wrong person and trick someone else into trusting them. The immediate response to an attack is to turn around and become the person who attacked you. It's energy vampirism 101.

Human viral misery. Is this is what Jesus meant when he said "turn the other cheek"? That if you refuse to attack back, and refuse and refuse and refuse, then eventually the entire system will break down and set you free?

I hope so.

The thief

When I got to Oregon last week, I stopped by my friend Barb's house for the night. We sat in bed drinking nigori out of wine glasses and nibbling on Valentines Day chocolate. She was having a hard time because she woke up that day with a swollen right hand. She was in a lot of pain and we sat trying to figure out what the problem could be. The doctor told her it was an infection on a cellular level and might require antibiotics.

I remembered that one time my mother had had the same problem. She woke up with a swollen, red hand one day and it went away of its own accord about a week later. Barb loaded up on vitamins, put a splint around it and we went to sleep. Just as I was falling into a road weary slumber, I suddenly remembered that during the same time my mother had a mysterious swollen hand, she had also confessed that she had been pilfering cash out of my sock drawer to pay some dental bills. I laughed out loud...

Caught red handed.