23E Studios » sponge

It’s a beautiful Sunday morning in LA. One of my fave cities on Earth. I’m sitting in my parents’ front yard, soaking in sun and catching up my blogs. Got a coffee at my side, spoke with Kathryn (my girlfriend), and dropped a line to my new architect for Portal6. That project is going to be amazing. Expect to hear a lot about it on here. It should be the twin pall bearer to my thesis in the oncoming self-destruction that will be 2008.

Okay, so Friday after work, the last time I blogged, I ran into Noki and we chatted a bit about LA. That didn’t last because Amy was waiting outside CCA to pick me up. We swung by the Gap to pick up some boxes for her move down here next week.

Then we went to Ross. I’ve been working like a frickin dog since August. The downside is my work, art, music and thesis are all subpar because I’m spread too thin and sleeping way too little. The upside is I have more money right now than I’ve had in years. A solid $10k in the bank. That’s unheard of for me.

Most of that is going into savings for Portal6 & 23E Studios. But some gets to be frittered away. So, Ross. I bought three picture frames. Two for Elise and Ben’s wedding present. One for Amy. Later Friday eve I put the pix for E&B in their frames; I will give them those when I get back to SF. Amy’s will get a pic of me when I get back. Then she’ll pick it up next time she’s in SF.

I also bought a pair of light brown jeans and some green corduroy pants. 29 waist. Basically, the cords are the exact same pants I wore in high school. I have avoided corduroy since I was 17, because my private school insisted on slacks not jeans, and cords counted as the poor kids’ slacks. I could afford cords, but not slacks. Or more likely, I didn’t even have a concept of what slacks were. I did like that cords came in colors. I’ve always been tropical in my fashion tastes. Tropical like a forest - I want the birds and insects to feel at home in my closet.

OMG I love shoes. You will get to know this about me. I have like 30 or 40 pairs of shoes. And I bought six more pair at Ross. It felt so good. Like the reward I’ve been earning over the last six weeks. Mostly I got Converse. I love sneakers. I got one pair of men’s slip-on shoes. Not sure what kind of shoe they are. Distressed leather loafer, maybe? Square toe. Lovely big square toe. Kind of off-pink. Very much something Andre 3000 might wear. Love ‘em.

I also got white converse with the word ‘love’ on one toe and ‘hate’ on the other.

Pink slip-on converse to replace my old pair of pink slip-ons which are faded and gross. Threw those out immediately.

White converse covered with tiny purple polka dots. The shoes almost look light purple until you get closer and see the tight polka dots on the white field. And then if you look even closer you see the polka dots are formed up in heart shapes.

Another pair of classic converse. Umm, forget what color they were. Maybe baby blue?

And the final pair of converse are not conventional Chuck’s like all the above. They look like adidas or nikes, you know all plump and soft, not spare and down-to-business like classic Chucks. This pair are black with pink piping and laces and weird pink flourishes. Hmm, I’ll need to post pix of them when I get back to SF. They are beautiful.

Okay, after that I went back to Clara and remixed the new Stowe-Pembleton Project CD, Confusion Bleue. This is my seventh mix and pretty much the final. I just needed to apply EQ changes on the piano and bass across all the songs. And I needed to adjust the bass volume a bit in a few places, up and down depending on the sonic texture the new EQ’ing created within each piece. Then I set the AIFFs to uploading for Nobu (Nobu Stowe, my partner) to hear.

Then Jesse came over. She was going to Costco and I was out of food and had no desire to live my life so I went to costco with her. I wanted to be irresponsible there, but there wasn’t much I wanted. I was leaving and couldn’t use food or drink. They never have clothes I like. I had hoped to get some scrapbooking supplies but they didn’t have any. Lame.
I got a five pack of Polaroid film and some ink cartridges. And some candy bars and gum.
Disappointing.

Then we went to Walzwerk. OMG, that’s the best German food in America. They are on South Van Ness betw 14th and 15th (roughly). The food is to die for. It’s owned and run by an East German couple. Jesse lived in East Germany for many years after the wall came down. She has spent a lot of time there. It’s her favorite place on Earth. After maybe SF.
Anyway, she swears the food is just like home cooking with friends back in Chemnitz. We had a special that was beef wrapped around bacon wrapped around potatoes wrapped around a pickle. It had crazy good spices. Best thing I’ve had there yet. And nothing I’ve ever had there was less than stellar.

Up early Sat. 6am something. Talked to Nobu. Remixed a handful of songs, adjusting the levels after the EQ change. Then uploaded those new tracks.
Worked in Ali’s studio for an hour to get things up to snuff for her return from our mom’s place. Ali’s my sister. I work for her in exchange for the right to use part of her studio. That’s the Clara you’ll always hear about. The place where I make a living, art, music, etc.
Then I packed. Umm, did some other stuff maybe. Worked for Fred a bit.

Had lunch at Tu Lan with Kathryn. She’s soooo cute. Do adore her. Too bad having a girlfriend is stressing me out so much. The whole thesis and art and work 60 hours a week thing is really strangling my mental health.

BART to SFO. Virgin America. Soooo much better than SWA and Oak airport. Never again will I fly Oak and SWA. I can’t even begin to tell you how horrible the Oakland airport is. It’s designed, DESIGNED, to be a place of punishment for the poor and their audacity to thin kthey have a right to mobility.
And Virgin, at least for now, is the same price but everything is an order of goodness superior. It feels bigger, cleaner, kinder.
Well, whatever.
It was a nice flight.

At the airport I delivered a P3 catalogue to my folks. Then we went straight to Fringe Exhibitions in Chinatown. Susan Joyce, the owner, is fabulous. She’s just an amazing person. I delivered a catalogue to her. Then she and I spoke about the gallery, my upcoming show (P6) and its sched. That’s still in the air. But it’ll be sometime between June and October ‘08. But not September. Which is fine with me. Sept is ideal, but not necessary. June or July will heartily suck. August or October could be cool.
We talked about Todd.
That was heart-rending.

Then we had Greek at Papa Cristos. If you’re in LA, best Greek food I’ve ever had.

Came home. And I was asleep by 8:30pm. Slept twelve hours. I really needed that.

Today I’m filling you all in. Then putting up P6 at 23E Studios. I’ll set you all up with the url once I have it. Gotta talk to Kam, the new architect, later.
And then thesis reading and writing like a maniac.

Oh yeah, and giving my dad his b’day present from last month. I’ll get mine from the folks, too.

Sunday in LA

October 7, 2007