The following were some of my favorite posts (in reality all of our contributors pieces are my favorites) from some of the regular contributors on this site in the past year, I hope you enjoy them as much as I did:
(Not in any particular order, click on links to read the full column entry)
Contributor: Amanda Jones
Column: Young and Reckless: Stories From a Girl With No Hesitation, As Eyes See It: Tales From the City, Make a List Baby!
“Buy the Ticket, Take The Ride”
Hunter was what I refer to as the last of the great dinosaurs that roamed the earth. Beautiful and frightening. A ferocious beast, in the best way possible. He lived a life that couldn’t be replicated if you tried. That’s a good thing, could you imagine the United States chock full of little HS Thompson’s? It would be mayhem and chaos in the streets. I might enjoy it myself but I think the average everyday citizen would be a little frightened, locked tight behind their blockaded front doors.
So much of what is currently going on in the world mystifies me, we live in a nation of post 9/11 fear . It’s just the way it is, as times and politics change. Unless you choose to say, “Fuck the rules, fuck the status quo – I’ll make my own rules ” and Mr Thompson did indeed do that.
“Welcome Home, Conan O’Brien!”
I think I’m supposed to be writing about something in Los Angeles but all I want to write about is Conan O’Brien on The Tonight Show. Technically this works as he is new to Los Angeles and I’m damn excited about that, but I think I’m going to keep this practical and give him some pointers about L.A.
As a white man – a very white man – I want to point out that this part of the state is always sunny. I worry about Conan so I’ll take some pointers from my equally white girl-friend, Julie.
Before proceeding outside Conan, please put on/bring with you:
Sunglasses
Sun Screen
Hat
Umbrella
Long Sleeves
If Conan really feels up for it, he could wear a Babushka? I think Conan would look lovely in one!
“An Ode to the Renters of Los Angeles”
Poof – $1000 gone! Apparently they had to repair so many things!!! So this is my wake up call to all of you….on what to do when you rent in a town where money is going the way of the Dodo bird!!
1. Your landlords are not your friends. No matter how nice they seem! They are there to collect a check and hopefully repair crap when it breaks. Don’t befriend these people. Just don’t do it! This is mostly a reminder to myself – I think everyone is my friend.
***NOTE: There is always an exception – my Pasadena landlords were awesome – and I partly blame them for this predicament (sorry Sunday and Louis).
2. Document everything when you move in and take pictures! Even things that don’t seem important- like the fact that the carpets are a little worn. One day they may make you pay for new ones – so note it somewhere and make them sign it!
Contributor: Del LeFevre/Deltron 3030
Column; Gimme Gimme Schlock Treatment
Posts
“CD Collections Already Dead or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Do the Denial Shake”
We can all agree that thanks to iTunes, iPods, and CDRS , our old CD libraries have become completely irrelevant. Fact: No one needs cds anymore. At least that is what I’m currently trying to tell myself. I’ve done something today that is forcing me to falsely embrace this mantra. You see, thanks to my recent actions I’m currently in a state of denial.
So long “…And You Will Know Us From the Trail of the Dead”. We had some good times “Franz Ferdinand”. Hate to see you go, but I love to watch you leave “Rilo Kiley”. Even though I had all of my music (117 gigs) backed up on MULTIPLE hard drives I could never bring myself to sell back certain cds, even if they hadn’t seen the light of a CD player laser since Clinton was in office.
Nevertheless I wanted cash for a new bike so I convinced myself it was time to clean house. I grabbed the remnants of a once proud collection and headed over to SecondSpin. Stepping into the store I felt a bit panicked. As I watched the salesclerk examine each cd for scratches I found my cds taking on a life of their own, making desperate last minute pleas with me. Elvis Costello’s Greatest Hits tried playing the whole “We look alike! Don’t do this” card. I didn’t bite. The Who’s Tommy looked at me as if I murdered Keith Moon and said “If I knew this was going to happen I would have joined Quadrophenia in the trunk of the Prius, all scratched up. At least those discs died with some dignity!” The Beatles “The White Album” looked at me incredulously as if to say “Um, HELLOOO I’m the White Album. You’re joking right?” Afraid not lads. That decision triggered something in me. I was frightened. I realized if I could hand over an album like The White Album for $9 I was capable of truly horrific things.
“25 Random Facebook Things I Hate About You: Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Make Mix Tapes”
Sure I could tell you that I’ve never had peanut butter before, or chicken mcnuggets for that matter, but why would you care? Instead, through the power of music, the great website 8tracks, and a mind like a steel trap, I will bring you my Mix 25. Narcissistic? Yes. However, after reading it you will either be too tired to write your own or be so disgusted with my over sharing that you will think better of it.
Prepare yourself for the shock and awwww that is “Deltron 3030 is a Mixtape”:
1) The Blues Brothers – “Someone to Love”:
Seeing this movie on TV as a kid I always assumed that Jake and Elwood were twins. They dressed the same and the limited personal experience that I had taught me that was what twins were supposed to do. As much as I hated the twin dress code enforced by my parent’s wallet, I could dream of at least being a Blues Brother twin. No such luck. Damn you matching red blazers and white turtlenecks! I always wondered why we couldn’t dress up like the “Blues Brothers” instead. I had expressed this on numerous family events when I was made to don the dreaded red blazer but my wishes always fell on deaf or uncaring ears. Imagine George Steinbrenner as a boy …on a fox hunt. That’s what I looked like. I’d rent the movie from the video store when my turn for rentals would come up and hope that my parents would happen across the movie and be inspired by the vision of Jake and Elwood... “Quick kids get in the car; we’re headed to Sears to get the twins matching black suits!”
It never happened. Great movie though.
5) Hall and Oates – “Method of Modern Love”:
As a kid I had blonde hair and my brother Gene had dark hair. This would lead to easy casting for when we played CHiPS (damn that bastard got to be Ponch), Dukes of Hazzard I got to be Bo. He was more of a “shoot first, ask questions later” type (Badass, like myself), and Hall and Oates. This particular duo’s casting was a lose-lose situation for both parties. Even worse was that for percussion’s sake, I would “play” the white living room wall w/ my filthy Daryl Hall hands. I’d be banging away at the wall bongos like a chimpanzee, the whole time thinking I was keeping the beat like a pro. In reality, all I was doing was covering the walls with my filthy paw prints. My mom was not pleased and wall drumming was outlawed. I did learn to spell M-E-T-H-O-D at a very young age though…so that’s got to count for something. Hall and Oates, educating the youth of the 80s!
To this day this concert is my secret shame when someone asks “What was the first concert you went to?” It is part of the music fan’s holy trifecta of questions.
I sometimes will tell people my first show was The Grateful Dead, as it was the first show I paid money for. I’d love to use this trick with question number three, but my second cd was Andrew Dice Clay and my third, a confirmation gift, was Vanilla Ice’s seminal classic “Ice Ice Baby
“Deltron 3030 Recommended: Various Artists – Adventureland”
The marketing campaign for this movie lied to me! It wasn’t the fun loving goofball comedy that I was expecting. Instead the movie was full of broken hearts, broken homes, and broken promises. I was bamboozled! I’m guessing it tested poorly so the studio decided to do some re-shoots, adding in the multiple punches to the groin that were peppered throughout the movie. I lost count but there were at least five separate fist to balls in there. Comedy Gold. Needless to say I was a bit letdown by the movie. Even still I gave this movie three stars in my netflix account…. all based solely on the power of the kick ass soundtrack.
Contributor: Eric Summer
Column: You Can’t Spell ‘Acerbic’ Without Eric
Posts
I’ve decided to try something a bit different this week. I’m going to write an overview of the New Maximum Donkey show I saw at the Scene last Friday (two Fridays ago, by the time you read this). But as an experiment, I’m going to do it two different ways: first the way I’d normally write something, and second in the manner of a “regular” rock writer/blogger. Who knows? Maybe the way they write things is just more effective at conveying this sort of thing, so I’m willing to try it out. Here goes: click here to read more.
And one of the reasons for this was highlighted pretty damn starkly by one of our Myspace friends, who posted a comment to the effect of “Why don’t you guys put your stuff on Torrent so I can have it for free?” Actually, this was Myspace, so it was probably more like “Why ur guyz songsjhg putt on Torrent I wanna sdghlueyt freeeeeeee myooozik lulz FTW.”
However the question was framed, the message was crystal clear: “Why isn’t your music free? Entertainment should be free!” The quick answer, of course, is “Good lord, that is insulting!” The long answer, naturally, would be “Because we spent years learning how to play our instruments and sing, and months writing and recording the album, and spent vast amounts of time and effort making it, and none of that is free! Now somebody bring me my goddamn naked girl grapes! And adjust my memory foam mattress; I still have to move my neck to see the TV!”
Irrespective of anyone’s views on the subject, we live, broadly speaking, in a country with a vaguely capitalist economy. The way you show that you appreciate and value something in that type of economy is to BUY IT. If the prevailing sentiment becomes one wherein anything creative should be available for free, it follows that anything creative is inherently valueless. That worries me. A lot.
“Movie Ideas That Will Make Me Rich”
It’s gonna be awesome. Lego Jan-Michael Vincent and his neo-retro helicopter made entirely out of Legos, shooting little Lego bits at a middle-aged Ralph Macchio and the Weekend at Bernie’s II-style reanimated corpse of academy award nominee Noriyuki “Pat” Morita. I’m gonna make so much damn money. Everybody might as well start emailing me with suggestions on how to spend my guaranteed fortune.
And it’s not gonna stop there. There are dozens of untapped properties to use in my quest for shitloads upon shitloads of money.
Contributor: Notes From Vivace
Columns: Notes From Vivace, Out to See, Flash Optional –In Photos
Posts
The Upfront. Yes, I’m playing off of (500) Days of Summer,but we here at TRAffIK really liked that movie.
What’s going on here. Now TRAffIK did technically kill off summer with the following blog, but hey, I had a nice summer and wish to do my own summer exit. This blog is going to take a trip from Highland Park to the Sunset Strip and various other locations between these two music spots.
“Part II: Looking for the Music Scene in Vancouver”
In part 1, I totally struck out in my search to final the local music scene in Vancouver – well, not a total strike out, I just didn’t have the necessary funds. That night might have qualified as a music strike out, but it was fun just walking around the city. On Tuesday, I found one of Vancouver’s local weeklies, WE. I scanned the nightclubs section and this led to some success on Tuesday and Wednesday night.
Overheard conversation one: I was eating at an Indian restaurant. There were only two other customers in the restaurant. I couldn’t help but over-hear their conversation. One guy was talking about his marital problems with the other. He talked about how he now had different interests in life compared to his wife’s interests. He liked going out to various Goth Nights around Vancouver. He’d head out once a week, but his wife never liked going to these nights. If he had another try at life, he’d have married someone with similar interests instead of marrying an opposite. Goth equals knowledge of the music scene, I thought. I almost went up to him to ask him about the music scene in Vancouver, but I just didn’t have the guts to admit that I had listened in on his conversation.
The door lady knew the right way to go. We found ourselves speed walking towards the door and arrived around 10:28 p.m. IO Echo was walking past as we got our wristbands and I pointed out to my friend that we were there to see the people who had just walking by. (Note of interest and probably a take on her personality: IO Echo herself stood in line for awhile. Her band mate looked over at her and waved her over to the door, saying that they could cut in line as they were in the band.) Back to the point about being rather cheap: once in, we saw a rather sizable crowd inside so; hey, there are a bunch of folks like us out there these days.
We hung out for awhile, checking in with our other friend who had arrived separately. Then IO Echo came on stage. I’ll have to admit that I found it hard to get into the set during the first couple songs. I had this slight level of anxiety. I’d convinced two friends that this was a local band to check out. Also, this was only the second time I’d seen them so honestly I wasn’t exactly sure what to expect. I’d built up this band based off of seeing only one previous gig. Sometimes you see a band for the first time and think they’re great, and then the next time you scratch your head and wonder what you were thinking previously. After awhile I stopped thinking about my friends’ potential negative opinions about the band and got into the music. It was hard not to get into the music when towards the center of the floor the crowd was jumping to the music. The band ended with a couple songs that they just hit out of the ballpark. And then it was over. Hmm, how long was that set? Where was the encore? Hey, I wanted more.
I’ve been trying to subscribe to your rss feed but it’s telling me “XML-RPC not enabled”. Please let me know when it’s fixed. Thanks!
i like your writing style