Is This 1863?

A few high profile Republican Party members seem to be a bit pissed that a black man is scheduled to take over the house that they feel God ordained to white men:

http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/12/26/rnc.obama.satire/index.html?iref=mpstoryview

Holy fuck. WTF were they thinking? Barack the Magic Negro?!?! The Star Spanglish Banner?!?!

One of my favourite things about the 1st Amendment giving everybody Freedom of Speech is that it makes it very easy to identify pieces-of-shit racist assholes.

Show This Saturday At Tangiers

Comrades,

I’m playing this Saturday at Tangiers, around 10:30PM. It’s going to be a night of good acoustic acts in one of my favourite intimate venues in LA. Unfortunately, it’ll be the last night that Tangiers is open. They’ve been bought out and it’ll soon become a Japanese restaurant.

So come and enjoy the last night of music at Tangiers, there will be a lot of people there to celebrate and soak the place up before it’s gone. It’ll be me, and Nick Hanson on percussion. I’ll be playing a bunch of songs, some new, and some very very old, and some that haven’t been performed in years. I’m really looking forward to it.

Tangiers
2138 Hillhurst Ave
Los Feliz, California
90027
10:30PM

Cheers,

SJ

Karma Chameleon

There is a guy who lives on my street, literally. He sleeps in his large truck with a shell on the back of it. My neighbours can’t stand him and they are constantly complaining about him. I’ve never had any problem with him though.

He doesn’t leave any trash around, and he’s never creepy or weird. We’ve stopped each other on the sidewalk before and talked about skateboards and other Venice things. I’ve always been nice to him and just treated him like another neighbour, and he’s always done the same for me.

Well, today it paid off even more for me. I had left my car out on the street and today is street sweeping day, and I was 5 minutes over the limit for when they start ticketing. My homeless friend came and got me to remind me and I moved my car before the parking nazis left a $55 ticket for me.

I don’t know if karma is real, but that’s real enough for me.

The Apocalypse Has Come

It is raining here in southern California. We are all at a complete loss of what to do. Oh well, I have about six weeks of Dexter to catch up on, and maybe I’ll even record some songs.

And yes, I’m a complete wimp. I just spent an hour crying after burning my lip on a cup of hot chocolate. Not really.

*sniff*

Dorothy Almost Lost Toto

Today we have some apocalyptic winds coming off the ocean in Venice. I had to walk over to the beach and see what kind of chaos they were causing and within a few seconds I saw a small dog being slid down the sidewalk by the wind until its human picked it up.

If I wake up and go outside tomorrow and see munchkins and the Emerald City in the distance, well, you should know what happened to me. Or actually, I guess since I live right near the Venice Boardwalk freakshow, anything is possible anyway.

Back To Busking

I have busked in at least 20 countries and never have I faced so many rules and regulations as I did when I started to busk in Santa Monica yesterday. I almost got two tickets.

I decided recently to get back in to busking, so I went and got my permit from Santa Monica City Hall to play on the 3rd Street Promenade, the large foot traffic shopping area near the ocean in Santa Monica. For some reason that takes 3 days to process even though they just give you back a laminated sheet of paper with your photo and permit number on it. Maybe they were sending my info to the Department of Fatherland Security, I don’t know. It also costs $37 and is only good for the year you purchase it, so if you get one in December, you still have to get another one in January if you want to keep playing there.

So while I’m waiting for my permit to be processed I go down to scope out the area and talk to some of the performers and do a little reconnaissance. The rotation they have going seems pretty simple and the weather has been good so I figured it would be fairly hassle free. Wrong wrong wrong.

This week I went and picked up my permit and the rulebook from city hall. Rulebook?! I’ve played in many many cities and never have I been given a rulebook, and it almost truly is a book. So I give it a read through and although there are a lot of specifics it all seems pretty straightforward.

Unfortunately when I finally collected my guitar and gear and went down to play, it seems I missed a couple of rules. I had a little CD rack with about 20 CDs in it. A cop came by and was going to write a ticket because I’m only allowed to display 5 CDs. Fortunately I was able to talk my way out of that ticket. A few minutes later a cop came by to give me a ticket because I didn’t have my permit “properly” displayed. I’m not sure why the previous cop didn’t catch that, but again fortunately I was able to convince him that giving me a ticket was just silly so I dodged another ticket. Another performer saw all this and assumed I got the tickets because they have a zero tolerance policy to breaking any of the rules. Jedi Mind Tricks are sometimes very useful.

Anyway, overall I had a good time. Sold a few CDs, got some tips, met some nice folks who liked the music. I’ll be back again in a day or two, but I’m going to spend some more time with the rulebook before I do.

And I’ve Been Knocking, But No One Answers

Pull out your copy of Imagine or at least a Beatles album and give it a spin today. It’s the 28th anniversary of the John Lennon’s murder.

I Knew It Couldn’t Last

I knew it couldn’t last. The U.S. news media is all over the O.J. Simpson sentencing like flies on shit. I guess I mean that literally.

I’m not too surprised, but I was impressed with the media before because over the last few weeks they’ve been focused on events and news that actually affect our lives like the election, job losses, economic woes, bailout plans, etc. etc. 

I just hope they’re not permanently back to their regular scheduled programming.

The Guy You Wanted To Have A Beer With

The only person to purchase a home this month is none other than President Bush:

http://www.newsweek.com/id/172063

At least somebody is benefitting from the housing market crash. Maybe we’ll all get kicked out of our homes and just go live with him. I’m sure he has plenty of rooms in the house, and we can all just sit around and have a beer with him. Finally.

So Fucking Special

I think it’s time to start an online petition to get The Specials to come and play a few days in North America.

They just announced an eight date tour of the UK:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/hi/music/newsid_7760000/7760636.stm

I know I have some 2-Tone gear somewhere. Must get my checkerboard Vans out of the closet at least.