...it's enough to drive you crazy if you let it

For several weeks now, I have been volunteering for a crazy ex-cowboy who is doing good arty things downtown. The man has done much for revitalising what used to be skid row. He has instigated a wonderful art event once a month and moved many independent designers into store fronts around the area. But his lack of linear thought is preventing me from tooting his triumphs too loudly. He has somehow associated me with secretarial duties and so I have frequently been called in to note-take on our strolls around downtown. The plus side, of course, is that I, now, know Downtown like the back of my hand and every so often get a sneak peak at a beautiful, old, closed-down theatre. The event we have been working towards is this Thursday. Hopefully then I will be able to stop checking my email a bajillion times a day on the off chance I may be of some use.

Also, I'm going to Vegas on Friday so nothing else matters really. I will finally get to see naughty naked Cirque Du Soleil and the girl likes to gamble so I guess I'll be doing some of that too. A review site just told me "don't take your mom" to this show, however, I think Mummy would enjoy some scantily clad acrobats and if she was here I would insist she she the show... Perhaps I should actually see the show before recommending it to my mother.

In other news, it seems I have discovered a sport I like. It's called Roller Derby. Basically its a bunch of tattooed chicks roller skating in circles while trying to nudge each other out of the way. Observe here. Also, keep your beady eyes peeled for a Drew Barrymore/ Ellen Page film called Whip it!

Happy 4th of july!

Yes, yes I realise (with an s) that the 4th was days ago but I was too busy having a happy 4th of July to wish you all a happy 4th of July. 

My happy 4th did not include fireworks or BBQs or Beer drinking. Instead my lady friend and I went to see a screening of Jaws in the Hollywood Forever Cemetery. And we all know how I love a cemetery. This particular one has some lovely palm trees silhouetted by the faint pink glow of the city around it. 

My lack of 4th fireworks was rectified on the 5th. We went to THE Hollywood Bowl to see Tegan and Sara and Death Cab for Cutie. Apparently DCFC are kind of huge because they talked the LA Philharmonic Orchestra into playing with them and had an accompanying pyrotechnic display for their finale. They were most enjoyable and the Bowl sounds incredible. My only question is where was T&S's Orchestra and Fireworks? Hmm?

I must admit that living in Sydney has somewhat desensitised me to the marvels of fireworks. Although I can now appreciate the caliber of an Aussie firework. They really are quite good.

Where the F#*K has Sascha been. Part 1...

Ok I know I'm a terrible Blogger. I've neglected the bloggosphere for weeks. My poor mother is on her death bed because the world is so horrible and without my witty repartee she has nothing to live for. Actually she just has the flu. See? Now I'm lying. Oh where will my horribleness end?!

How about right now dearest readers! That's right, I'm back with a vengeance and a burning desire to recap and over share. How does that sound? Fantastic!

I'm writing to you, once again, from sunny LA. But how on earth did I get myself back here? I here you ask. Well here's how. Cue Flashback music and wavy screen transition....

Our story begins in Nashville. Actually it began in San Francisco where I flew out of. It was here that I realised that my pants had a massive hole in the crotch. How long was this hole there? It certainly wasn't there when I got dressed to leave. And of course by the time this discovery was made my luggage, including all other pants, had already been checked onto the plane. Never fear, resourceful as anyone who attend CSU's Design for T&T, I used the pin from my "Happy Birthday Sascha" Disneyland badge to save me from further embarrassment. Lucky I wore undies that day.

So Nashville, where the lovely Linda collected me and off we went to Manchester. As Bonnaroo Volunteers (because we are cheap), we had to check in two days early and hang about until the happenings of the festival began a-happening. All I can say about those two days was that it was very hot and we set up a lovely campsite complete with Australian patriotism and battle cats.

Battle Cats Not Included

  

When the Roo officially began, I was introduced to my Volunteer Assignment. There was no trash (that means rubbish here) picking up for this little black duck, oh no, I was assigned to the Golf Cart Pool. I spent my two shifts being a golf buggy valet and at one point got to go on a buggy safari, on the hunt for stolen carts. Add to this amazingly enjoyable occupation the fact that neither of my shifts were scheduled at the same time as any of the bands I wanted to see, I felt like the luckiest Roo-ster in Manchester.

And what of the Bands? I hear you ask. Stellar. Never in Australia have I seen a festival line up of this magnitude. Public Enemy, Beastie Boys, Ani Difranco, MGMT (always thought this song was called Electric FIELD. Huh.), Bruce (The Boss) Springsteen (who treated everyone to a rendition of Santa Claus is coming to town), The Yeah Yeah Yeahs and my man, Snoop Dogg all on the one line up.

Erika Badu, a favourite of mine since high school, was phenomenal. Although the lady is not rocking the turban these days, her set had so much bass in it that I could feel my oesophagus vibrate. Girl Talk, had his own party up on stage with half the audience. Actually, no where close to half. That set was packed out. Kaki King (I do love me some Kaki) was shirtless! Although I did find the Yeah Yeah Yeahs playing one stage over some what distracting during Kaki's set. Karen O was going off.

I have nothing to say about Rodrigo y Gabriela except that they were amazing and my stand out favourite of the festival. Also, you should all listen to a Norwegian four piece called Katzenjammer. That's an order. They are not only adorable but their vocal harmonies are beautiful and they swapped instruments for every song. Those girls know how to put on a show.

I feel I should also mention Andrew Bird. Linda loves this man. She would possibly consider having his babies. He used to be the fiddler for a little group called The Squirrel Nut Zippers (whom I have just discovered have a FREE gig here in LA this month - Jealous, brother?) and also had a little something called Andrew Bird's Bowl of Fire. Both were/are incredible. His new solo stuff, which he was playing at the Roo, is not as incredible as the aforementioned. But Linda did get the man to sign her Violin and that made her very happy.

Now I may have mentioned my fondness for Snoop Dogg before. While I do still love the man for his general snoop-ness, I suspect he may only have three songs. Also the crowd watching his set felt something a kin to spring break Cancun. To be expected really.

The Roo was indeed all the magic a festival should be. It was hot and dirty and muddy and rainy and smelly and heaps fun. I did not shower for a week - in true festival spirit and because,  despite free showers being offered to Volunteers I did not feel it important enough to wait in line for an hour to get one. Speaking of facilities, the USA, land of opportunity, does not have porter loos that flush. Nor do they have sinks. Come on guys, is this 1996? I can't remember the last Australian festival I attended where the facilities were so primitive. Oh well at least I know well enough not to fall in one. 

 

I'm sorry Ms Jackson...

Your son has died, over shadowing Farrah Fawcett in the process. 

I love me some MJ. I always have. Exhibit A is my current itunes library, Exhibit B is the fact the Billie Jean is not the only Jackson track I can sing-a-long to. The man was a genius and like all genius's had a few problems existing like the rest of us. Plebs that we are.

When the news broke, I was staying in Westwood, blocks away from UCLA Medical Facility where he died. Helicopters were flying overhead all day and the crazies camped outside the hospital were only a short walk away. Lovely. 

Return of The Ev-I

Actually the Big Ev never stopped I just forgot to tell you guys about it. My darling Blogosphere, how I've neglected you. Apologies to my fans, in particular Kym who has not had a reason to get out of bed since the introduction of Super Diva.

I think maybe I've been in a bit of a non-blogity funk after leaving the fabulous people of LA to be all alone in the wilds of San Francisky.  Actually I'm not alone at all. I'm staying with my Mum's Half Brother's Wife's Twin Sister. She is mothering me as best she can, cooking for me more than my own does and warning me of the wiles of being a single gal in North America. It's all very sweet if not a tad unnecessary.

So the question is, what, o what have I've been getting myself into since we last met. Well, there has been much sitting on couches but that hardly amounts to news. Also there was this:

The happiest, most lovely work place in the world.

I went to Grauman's Chinese Theatre and saw the concrete. Here's me, (auto) straddling Susan Sarandon's teeny tiny feet:

Then saw Terminator Salvation inside Grauman's Chinese Theatre. Now, I'll admit I wasn't paying all that much attention but this film actually isn't even that very good. This is my summation: 

Christen Bale is all serious and using his Batman voice. Lots of really loud explosions go off and bullets fly. Then a man appears covered in chocolate pudding. Turns out pudding man is a robot which is obvious about 2 minutes after the pudding is gone but is not actually revealed for another hour. Then someone says" come with me if you want to live" followed by more loud, ear shattering, explosions.  I don't know how kids these days can stand it. I had to turn the hearing aid down. 

Christen Bale is still all super serious and says "I'll be back". Suddenly Helena Bonham Carter appears as a super smart robot and a complete waste of her talents. Pudding man is tackled by by a Computer generated, porn star days, Arnie. I assume it was CG because the Governator certainly does not look like that anymore. Explosions, bullets, Christen Bale gets impaled and robot pudding man donates his heart so that Christan Bale can continue his super serious bat voiced tirade. Aaaaaaand Scene.

After several more infuriating days on LA public transport it was farewell City of Angels hello San Francisco! And its many flavoured burrows. I've been to Fisherman's Wharf for clam chowder, seen murals in Mission, rainbows in The Castro, drug addicts in the Tenderloin, Chinatown, Downtown, and! and! Alcatraz!

At Fisherman's Wharf they have a place dedicated to old school arcade games. We're not talking Pacman and Pog, I'm talking REAL old school. For 5c this house told me my fortune was to marry four times: 

and this wizard dude told me my job will be this:

Anyone know what a taxi dancer is? Is that like Shirley Maclaine in Sweet Charity? Is that like a whore? Fair enough.

Then on Saturday I went to The Maker's Faire in San Mateo. Oh Lordy, geeks everywhere! And the really incredibly encouraging thing was that most people there were young. They were my age and really interested in creating stuff. Yay the world! Yay Gen Y! Yay the future!

I particularly liked this:

You can purchase it here.

It seems the kids these days are into Steampunk and LEDs. See, I'm hip.

Then there was art at SFMOMA and De Young Museum, most notably the R. Mutt Urinal, and exploratoring and the Exploratorium. Alas it was freeby day so all the kiddies were getting in the way of my play time. Brats! Every one of them!

That sounds bout it. Except for the Prop 8 rally I saw. I have a lot of feelings about the validity of rallies. I'm not entirely sure they do much actual furthering of the cause. But that's a conversation for another time.

On Monday I fly to BON-A-ROOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! I'm totally going to meet Snoop Dogg. You know you're jealous.

 

 

I'm a Super Diva. Super, Super, Super Diva .

 Saturday, I was treated to a trip to Long Beach Pride. Never in my life have I seen so much rainbow. The people who invited me were volunteering for Equality-something-something. Marriage equality is the gripe du jour here. I have a lot of feelings about this that I won't bore you with right now. Let me just say that I think there needs to be a debate into the semantics of what is being proposed. And of course, that Jesus needs to get the fuck out of politics.

Annnnnnnnyway, as well as the multitude of rainbow souvenirs I saw the most amazingly passionate signers I ever hope to see.

And this guy, who sang an original composition for Pride Idol. It's called Super Diva and is so bad, it's fabulous. This song has been on rotation in my brain since. I only wish I got more footage so you could all see its true glory. 

Stop. Hammer time.

The Museum not the happy-panted, white-collared big guy. This blog post would be more aptly titled Get Some Culture Up Ya as I wish to share with the world some wonderful artists I've seen here in LA. 

For those of you who don't follow art, suck it up and get some culture up ya.

Firstly, I saw a lovely exhibition of local contemporary LA artists at The Hammer.

Llyn Foulkes - Does some lovely 3D collages.

Charles Irvin - His work feel like it was made by an inmate of a mental deviancy institution. I like a bit of crazy in my artists though

Victoria Reynolds - Paints meat!! And titles her works things like Reindeer in the Snow. 

Lisa Anne Auerbach - Lots of feminisey knitted dresses and photography.

I also went to MOCA last Thursday before having dinner with the boy genius that is Tathom. Microsoft was paying for him to be in LA for a tech conference and subsequently was paying for us to drink at the hotel bar.

MOCA has a wonderful permanent collection but the Dan Graham works that are just passing through were the most wonderful. Very architectural. We all know this excites me.

Then there was LACMA. Oh LACMA, how you pleasantly surprised me. The Los Angeles County Museum has a varied collection, as you would expect, but where every city in this country has Warhol, Lichtenstein and Jasper Johns (whom I have concluded is the art world's Jack Kerouac - American, patriotic, slightly chauvinistic, incredibly and unfoundedly well loved) on show, here, they actually show rare pieces. How many times have I seen Warhol's Elvis? Quite a few, but at least at LACMA it was presented in conjunction with a bunch of his other crazy shit.

There was a wonderful collection of German Expressionist. I like these guys. They're really dark aesthetically and thematically. You know, animals eating people and stuff. 

There was this:

Work by Frank West

Which reminded me of one of my own works:

I call this piece Mould of the Large Intestine

And this:

It's hard to tell from the piccy but this installation was giant iron curves that created long winding corridors for you to walk through. Walking through these structures reminded me of that one time in High School when a bunch of us dropped some acid and walked to Richmondo KFC. The footpath seemed to go on FOREVER. Sorry Mum. Only happened that once. Promise.

Also! Also! There was no video art! Not one little itty bitty piece. Nosferatu was being screened but that is most certainly not video art. Thank you LACMA for having standards. 

I am going to go out on a limb and say this; I am so over Rietveld's Red/Blue Chair. You see one of these in Australia and its super exciting. It's a historically significant item. Here, though, Every. Single. Gallery. Has. One. Come on, Rietveld, give us something new already. 

Next to LACMA is the La Brea Tar Pits. The only reason I wanted to see them was because they are featured in a comic I read. Unfortunately I couldn't get underneath them to see if there really is a secret lair. 

My understanding of the pits real, actual significance is this. Way back in the ice age, animals and stuff used to get trapped in the tar and die (as demonstrated above by the struggling mammoth), so, heaps (that's Australian for "a lot") of fossils were recovered from the pits. And thus The Pits have been kept on display in all their smelly glory.

 

You get the world for your birthday baby...

Welcome to my post birthday post. Feel free to sing me that song instead of the birthday song. Or this song is good any day of the year.

Disneyland really is the perfect place to spend your birthday if you're on your lonesome. Not only do you get in free but they give you a badge (actually I got two):

So that everyone knows its your birthday and everyone gives you a big "Happy Birthday".  The ride attendants, the food vendors that hates their jobs, other park goers, other May 13th-ers. So you feel both special and part of the crowd both at the same time.

I'm not sure if Disneyland is quite the happiest place on earth (I'm reserving my judgement until after I get to Dollywood) but it sure is chipper. I walked down Main St to one of my favourite musical nerd burger songs, I ate a pretzel that looked like Mickey, I ate a churrio that looked kind of phallic, I rode tea cups and Mickey even let me drive! He gave me a driver's licence that was just as easy to get as my international permit. 

Funnily enough, the autopolis attraction was the one with the longest wait, despite most of the people in the queue being adults that drive EVERY DAY. 

For a brief moment i wished Ffrench and LK were with me when I did the Indiana Jones Ride simple because they would have believed they were in fact Indie. Then i thought of all the revolting things they would be saying around small children and i was once again glad to be on my own.

Hey remember that film called "Who Framed Roger Rabbit?"? And remember how much I love that film called "Who Framed Roger Rabbit?"? Well check this:

I'd like to take a moment to reminisce the wonder that was wonderland. My fellow sydneysiders, come with me. Everyone else just know it was the shiz. Now Disney rides were good and their fabrication was superb. I could go on and on and on and on about the A-Mazing attention to detail in the dressings, however I wanted a little something extra. (I'm selfish like that, it's how I roll). Now maybe it was because I was younger and tinier and more of a wussbag but Wonderland had rides that Scared the shit out of me! Disney had no upsidey roller coasters, no free-falls, no space probe, no demon, no unsafe wooden rickety coaster. Alas.

Was a lovely, exhausting day, even without losing my guts. 

I have a little video content for you lovelies but alas it is not converting. Another time. 

Got the Pig

My brain is a little cloudy right now so I don't feel like my usual witty self. Apologies my adoring public, all six of you are very dear to me. I have the swine flu. 

Not really. I did hang out with a latino in LA but I'm fairly certain its not in their DNA. No, this is entirely self inflicted. The result of too many beers on too many nights. I blame the English. Damn them, with their pounds and their drink guzzling ways. Such a bad influence.

LA was lovely though. I plan on heading back their next week for a few more days. I desperately want to go to MOCA and Mickey is going to let me into Disneyland for free on Wednesday. He better not sing me Happy Birthday or I'll break his floppy jumbo ears. I loath that song. 

I saw lots of pretty things already in LA like sleeve tattoos, shiny shiny new cars and this guy:

The Shat

I made LA friends too (not just the naughty english ones).  One of said friends took her dog inside a club. Woman was on the dance floor with a fluffy black pomeranian in her arm. So LA. The other, is teaching me spanish... sort of. I now know the chile is salsa not jalepinos and can say beer and sleep. I'm almost fluent.

Right now I'm chillin' in San Diego with my cousin. I think I'll spend tomorrow at the beach provided I find myself a cheap and non-offensive bikini. Oh I guess that means I'll need to shave my legs too. Lame.

For those of you following its progress, the toe nail hasn't faired so well.