Alt Resume

I am close to taking my Summer Sabbatical, which is not really what it is, but it makes my Mom feel better when I say “I’m Taking A Sabbatical” instead of “I’m quitting my job and hanging out all Summer”.  I thought it was time to get my list of “OTHER” skills together and post them on the Internet.

If you feel like you read a slightly different but kind of the same list as this one, it’s because my site was hacked and my service restored from last week’s restore point and I lost it.  It’s because SOMEONE was very jealous of my 70 hits a day.  Eat it, haters!

1. Pit Toilets: I’m very good at using pit toilets in Asia.  You just have to pretend you’re camping, which you kind of are.

2. Sleeping on Airplanes: Also work related.  I can sleep bolt upright on a red eye to Turkey and emerge as fresh and ready as if I had slept in a garbage- filled car.

3.  Tap Dancing.  I’m not the world’s best tap dancer (SAVION GLOVER, because we can really only have one famous tap dancer at a time), but it’s the skill that took the most time and expense to learn, and which has the lowest street value.  I’m considering trying to make people pay me NOT to do it.

4.  Bemani.  It’s no longer fashionable but I can totally do it- I get more points for style than accuracy on Dance, Dance, Revolution, but Karaoke Revolution is my bitch.

5. For that matter, I can lead in six count swing, and I can lead about five things in Lindy hop- I’m a good Lindy follow- I like a lot of dances.

6.  I can make dance parties happen.  I can make people do it.  At karaoke, at coffeeshops- most of the time.

7.  Karaoke.  I’m good at it.  I don’t have the most amazing American Idol style voice, but I know my range and I will perform the SHIT out of a song.  I like to work a crowd.  When I do it in Hong Kong they are upset with the dancing and eye contact.

8.  Comedy.  I do it for money and for free.  Mostly for free.  Don’t ask me to tell you a joke, I’ll make you laugh, m-f.  Just you wait.

9.  I can draw- I haven’t for around five-seven years, but I probably still can, right?  I’m sure I can.  I have an art degree.  I can blind contour the shit out of something.

10.  According to the Munsell test of Color Acuity, I am a Superior Color Discriminator.  I will discriminate the shit out of your color.  I need a lab coat and a light box with a true North setting.  But I will do it.

11.  I can make patterns and sew.  Again, I usually don’t.   But I can make seriously obscure and fucked up Halloween costumes!

12.  Goth Makeup and Fantasy Make up!  I have an airbrush and I’m  not scared to use it, including airbrushing a fake tattoo on you!

13.  I’m really good at telling long, involved, interconnected stories to people on acid.  I can be on acid or not, it doesn’t matter.

14.  I can tell a fake art history lecture at the drop of a hat, especially if the hat is from a particularly evocative period

15.  I’m really good at making one kind of vegan chocolate chip cookies.  Just one kind.

16.   I’m really good at maintaining a blog for 8 years that only my mother consistently reads!

17.  If I had just bought my first guitar, I would be a crazy natural guitar playing genius- however, I have had my own guitar for a decade, and play it occasionally.  I’m mediocre, but proud!

18.  I’m really good at steering an oversized Costco shopping cart with my elbows while eating free BBQ nuts.

19.  I’m a good trivia team member- I don’t know that much about television or sports, but I’m very good at arbitration to try to determine the likeliest answer.  Also, I like to win but I don’t care if I do.

20.  I’m really good at running a White Elephant party.  I will whip the crowd into a frenzy over Scratch tickets and a rubber garden gnome.  Blood will flow!

21.  Despite all the above, I’m really good at not going to Burning Man!  I haven’t gone every year it’s happened!  Consecutively!

With this kind of skill set, I’m gonna destroy this job market!

So Totally Cal


Darlings;

I have moved to Southern California, and because of my dayjob deep in Orange County, I am living in Long Beach.  I love Long Beach.  It is quiet but has some good bars and clubs, a good selection of goth, punks, and weirdos of all stripes, I can park on the street, I can ride my bike, and I can walk to the beach.  LA has the highest pedestrian and bicyclist injury rate in the nation.  That’s why nobody walks in LA, Dale Bozzio of Missing Persons fame!

I know it’s not Los Angeles.  I understand that.  Look, I used to give shit to people living in Beaverton that they didn’t live in Portland.   But I’m half an hour away from most of LA.  I know that because it can take an hour to drive 3 miles in Los Angeles, in your mind you think that 30 miles away is a 300 minute drive, but it’s not.

I am 25 minutes from Koreatown.  30 from Hollywood.  45 from Pasadena and Sherman Oaks.  I am 35 minutes from Santa Monica and Venice.  So stop asking me:

1. Are you visiting?  Yes, I just got in from LAX, which is closer to me than it is to you!

2. How long are you in town?  Arrrgh!

3. Are you staying the night in LA?  I can probably make it home, thank you.

4. Do you ever get out to Los Angeles?  Yes, about 3-5 times a week ,depending on what’s going on.

Now, caveat- I can never be anywhere in Los Angeles reliably before 6PM on weekdays.  But neither can you, darling.  Neither can you.

Nick Cave Push The Sky Away: Your Questions Answered!

Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds at the Fonda Theatre: Setlist (spoiler alert):
Push the Sky Away (played the whole album with children’s choir and string section, with Nick singing about hookers and lady snatch in front of eight year olds from Silverlake, because he’s Nick Fucking Cave is why

It’s a lovely record. Some amazing Warren Ellis loops on it. Atmospheric. Everyone enjoyed it and clapped politely. Of course, when he tore into the best of, the aging goth crowd went apeshit. You know how it goes.

From her to eternity
O Children
The Ship Song
Jack the ripper
Red right hand
O Deanna
Love letter
Mercy seat
Encore:
Stagger lee

And yes, he’s had hairplugs since the last time I saw him live.

And yes, he’s shaved the Evil Cowpoke moustache.

And yes, the children’s choir started shifting around and getting restless, even though they were onstage with a legend, because children are children.

And yes, nobody loves a satin shirt with pearl snaps like Nick Cave.

And yes, if your dancing is peppered with karate kicks, that means you’re from Australia.

Taipei 101

DSC_0094

Tri Nguyen and I thought that having our picture taken atop the tallest tower in Taiwan would bring us closer together, but it just tore us apart.

Hey Ya! Song Interpretation

This was one of the biggest songs from the last decade, but do you know what lies below The Love Below?  I’ll be interpreting songs at Book Klub, hosted by Doug Mellard and Sofiya Alexandra, every month at Stories on Sunset!

A Very Gothixxx New Year

Bloodmeadow and Helfire compare notes from the holidays, answer viewer questions, and look forward to a spooky new year!