Sorry! So I've taken some days off. Everyone needs a vacation from pointless blog postings! Anyway.
This picture was taken on Father's Day this year, when my sister and I took my dad out for a hike (one of his favorite activities.) Punk had the idea of hiking around the Hollywood sign, and even though the sign itself is closed off from about 20 feet in all directions by a really tall fence (which is enforced by more cameras than Los Angeles can probably afford right now,) this is basically the summit of Mt. Lee (yes, the Hollywood sign is not located on Mt. Hollywood, but rather on Mt. Lee) and it offers a pretty sweet view of the city of LA, plus the SFV to the north.
I'm supposed to be preparing to hike to the top of Mammoth Mountain this summer with my dad. We'll see how that goes.
My mom sent me on a routine errand to the Valley's 99 Ranch location the other day, and though I'd been before I'd forgotten about what an awesome place it is. Here's a couple of reasons why it's a pretty boss store (despite the inherent jank of it being in Van Nuys):
1. Observing the differences between what the white people buy and what the Chinese people buy
I was sent because they have really cheap oyster mushrooms, and then I consequently spent 10 minutes in the tea isle (more on that later.) I loved watching all of the equally lame as I white people buy frozen chow mein, Asian pears, other random ordinary produce, Hello Panda cookies, and sushi packages; meanwhile, the Chinese shoppers were surveying gelatinized pork blood, assorted fish meatballs, beef heart, dried and salted talapia, and other various shelf items that were hardcore enough not to bother with English translations on the package. There's nothing quite like feeling all cultured when you show up at an ethnic market, only to buy the most white-bread stuff in the store.
2. The tea isle.
Like I said, I spent a good 10 minutes just staring at all of the delicious options. Since I have a problem where I cannot enter a Thai restaurant or boba shop without ordering a Thai iced tea (hold the boba,) I knew I had to hook myself up with boxes and boxes of the stuff. But then, I wasn't sure what else to get to supplement that with. Should I go for the standard but tasty bubble/milk tea that seems easy to make but I could never get right? Should I sample any one of the seemingly hundreds of jasmine green tea options? Perhaps honey milk jasmine green tea? At the end of the day, I stuck to my Caucasian guns and bought what I knew - the milk tea. And I had some this morning, and it was bitchin'.
3. Seeing American food with Asian characters on it
I just find this weirdly amusing. Kind of like when you get something in the supermarket that has one side of the box in English and a Spanish side surprise on the other. I don't mean this like some random sauce or package that has multiple languages on it - I literally mean, like, Easy Mac with Bacon in Chinese. Or Cinnamon Toast Crunch in Chinese.
4. Almost getting killed by sweet old Asian ladies pushing their carts
They're not actually sweet, but they are old, and they don't look back or apologize when I dive out of the way and hide behind the squid and octopus tank. I love them. I want to grow up and scare children and young adults with the same reckless abandon.
5. The store itself scares and traumatizes young (white) children
I had never been to the store for the first 10-15 years of my life just because my parents never bothered taking me, but I knew all about it from my sister. She found the smell to be horrific, and to this day she likes to remember the store as some kind of open air meat market with animal carcasses hanging in the back where the meat is as if they slaughter them on-site. She has never gone back.
I feel kind of sick because I see the fire as some kind of interesting spectacle. I like looking at it night by night and seeing how the flame patterns grow and change along the mountain range. I tried to take pictures but my point-and-shoot was kind of too crappy to handle distance shooting in the dark. I genuinely feel for the people that it's affected, but for me it's something mesmerizing to watch. It's fascinating to me that for nearly a week now it's had the strength to cast a smoky, ashy cloud over all of the east SFV. It's got its own Wikipedia page and is apparently the largest California wildfire of the last 100 years. It's a beast. I'm in awe of it.
I wonder sometimes if I'm not as thick-skinned as I may let on. I'm pretty good at separating obvious sarcasm and joking put-downs from actual insults, but there are times when people straddle the line, or I know they mean whatever they're saying, and it really affects me. That's where my weakness comes in. I should be better at accepting criticism, and/or better at deflecting and ignoring mean-spirited comments. My mom gets legitimately mad at me when I make comments about my appearance being kind of manly because according to her she doesn't see how I could possibly have that opinion of myself. The truth is, I'm still thinking about some comments that were written about me on JuicyCampus a year ago (which in and of themselves dredged up some lame memories of being teased in middle school - see how farked up this gets?). I should be able to put those demons to rest by now, but for some reason I have still got issues.
On a lighter note, I've been downloading a lot of awesome new (not all of it actually new, just new to me) music lately and I'm pretty stoked about that. Maybe soon enough it will be making its way into the shuffle playlists :) Speaking of which, anyone who cares to comment: do any of ya'll actually care about the playlists still? I mean, I enjoy putting them together but I don't want to feel all pretentious and assume that anyone gives a fiddler's fart about my songs...
So, I'm talking with some friends from my program at orientation on Monday, and they decided that they were interested in checking out the graduate student government table, so I go with them. As we're standing there, this guy comes up and starts waxing socially awkward, making irritating little zingers to try to hold our interest and just generally being the proverbial mosquito interrupting our barbecue lunch.
I was already annoyed, but then he had to go ahead and pull out one of my big pet peeves. "Where are you from?" "Oh, I grew up around here in the LA area." "Oh, well I'm from New York, but I've been in LA for a few years. Which part of LA?" "The Valley." [condescendingly forced pained expression] "Oh, ouch."
So, I know that the Valley was the butt of a lot of jokes in the 80's, and that people on the other side of the Santa Monica mountains tend to still have a little bias against it. And I know that in the 90's people were exposed to that bias via Cher in Clueless, which is kind of the impression that a lot of people have of it now - that it's not as *nice* as the Westside. Which, hey! That's true for some of it. But since when it is cool to rip on anywhere for being less wealthy than somewhere else? I actually thought that was kind of anti-cool. But people still get away with it all the time with the Valley.
Let me tell you, I met someone from Newport Beach this year who told me "I'm sorry" when I mentioned where I was from, and I didn't think it was funny. I just wanted to barf all over her and her snotty privilege. I don't make fun of where other people are from when they tell me, even if I think it sucks. I mean, I might be thinking to myself in my head, "Bakersfield, man, that place smells like cow and it's even hotter than the Valley." But I'd never rip on that person to their face. That's just rude! And even if you think I'm cool with it because I'm not outwardly punching you in the face, "where ya from" is something you can't change, like your family. There's gang wars over people defending their home turf. So no, people who don't know me, making fun of the Valley is not a good way to endear yourself to me.
Anyway - today's playlist. (Commentary is for Laura who is feel free to tell me after this post if it actually added anything meaningful to her life)
Some major points (not per se my favorites among the list, but just those that garnered the stream of consciousness resulting in the following points):
Let Me Know - Roísín Murphy I was glad to see Roísín come up on shuffle today, because I think she's delightful. She's totally weird but what I really love about both of her albums that I have -- Ruby Blue and Overpowered -- is that though there is a cohesive spirit amongst the songs that defines them as unabashedly HER, the songs themselves all come from such different inspirational sounds that it never becomes just background noise. They all have great character.
Burn, Burn - LostProphets This was part of my angry rock phase in high school, but it still holds up well for me as a headbanger. Not to mention I couldn't find fault with the not-so-vaguely pyromaniac message.
Strict Machine - Goldfrapp You'll have heard this most notably in the promos for Nip/Tuck a few seasons ago. I like the heavy downbeat and I'm generally a fan of Alison Goldfrapp's voice. This is pretty prototypical "heavy" Goldfrapp most notably featured throughout Supernature, though this song is from Black Cherry.
I'm Not Driving Anymore - Rob Dougan Rob's featured pretty prominently on the soundtracks for the Matrix trilogy, and fans of his sound on those albums will appreciate this song. It's got the string symphony set to a rock-ish breakbeat that one may expect from him. A bit repetitive, but generally I like it.
Breath and Start - Blockhead I am not sure how to pinpoint Blockhead - not because it's categorically weird music, but just because I'd say beats-wise and frequently attitude-wise it's instrumental hip hop. But the sounds over the beats are often smooth, jazzy even, usually influenced by other genres, and not usually associated with the hip hop genre. I guess generally I'd say it's urban cool.
