101 Get-a-'bout alley...

LA Zoo recruits Feng Shui expert

"Give unto the chinese monkey, what is the chinese monkey's..."

Los Angeles Zoo has hired the services of a Feng Shui expert to help three golden monkeys loaned by China feel at home in their future surroundings. Read about it Here.

"Chewbacca" arrested for head-butting in Hollywood

Read all about it here:
http://today.reuters.com/news/

"It's sooo FUNNY!"

...no it's not.

Gawkers actually clog up the major arteries in my neighborhood to take in these panhandlers. They want, or are fooled, to think these guys are legitimate street performers. Between the tourists and junkies, It is a menagerie of confusion for 10 blocks, 24 hours a day. 

If I need to travel between anywhere Beverly and Franklin, I have to avoid this area as though it were Calcutta. The crosswalks are clogged with misinformed out-of-towners.

Jimmy Kimmel thinks its novel to shoot his show above it.

What is Hollywood Boulevard? It’s an alternant reality in which Walt Disney chose not to develop milquetoast theme parks, but instead; He did a line of bad cocaine, walked into a white trash city ghetto, dressed up souvenir shops with flaky paint, and gave derelicts super-hero costumes to sleep and pee in.

Ahhh, my rant…. Triggered and released.

Take a tip from the Irish, La-La Land...

SUV resident parking fees set to double in Dublin...
If Los Angeles (hell, alla’ California...) took on this measure, it would be the beginning of a beautiful dream: www.ireland.com/newspaper/frontpage

Requiem for the Night Watch

In the northern hemisphere, today is the Winter Solstice, the shortest day of the year and the longest night. Therefore, from here on, the nights will grow shorter until June 21st. This saddens me every year. I am a night person, I have many predjudices against day people. Yet, I put them aside so that I can work alongside the cog-like sheep that mind the store during daylight hours.

It's also officially the first day of winter, and one of the oldest known holidays in human history. Anthropologists believe that solstice celebrations go back at least 30,000 years, before humans even began farming on a large scale. Many of the most ancient stone structures made by human beings were designed to pinpoint the precise date of the solstice. The stone circles of Stonehenge were arranged to receive the first rays of midwinter sun.

Ancient peoples believed that because daylight was waning, it might go away forever, so they lit huge bonfires to tempt the sun to come back. The tradition of decorating our houses and our trees with lights at this time of year is passed down from those ancient bonfires.

"Please, tell me. Can my baby leave LA.?"

Story: Baby Put Through Airport X-Ray Machine 

Infant Rushed To Los Angeles Hospital; Did Not Receive Dangerous Dose Of Radiation (had to stay in LA.)

Truck stop whiskey and bad cocaine…

Got me on this conga train,

...down to the tip of the Baja. A back door trip outta’ the big nipple, into the Sea of Cortez, is the current position.

Didja’ know that PCH goes this far? …well it does. Fractured as it is,  segments of it get so narrow that pulling over to let oncoming Toyotas pass isn’t enough, ya’ need to fold in your mirror as a necessary courtesy.
The streets are made of slow days full of desperate hawkers ...every 4 feet, “Silver Senor?”-“Pottery Senor”-“Want to get high?”. I’m a like a language CD skipping on the etiquette track: “Gracias, no”-“No, gracias”-“No, por favor”
To purify, I snagged a Stienbeck. I’m diggin’ it. It goes well with all the Carnivale reruns the Redhead and me have been downloadin’.

With enough lime and mineral water, the cheap tequila is'nt so bad. It puts some distance between you and the salty sting. Seems like the slug trail of the ugly American media creeps everywhere (on the back of MTV's spring break).  Everytime you go to snap a picture of local color, they assume you want them to "go wild".

On Board

What kind of pirate am I? You decide!
You can also view a breakdown of results or put one of these on your own page!
Brought to you by Rum and Monkey

The following is a musing on the WAG persona sent via hotmail from this man:

(also note: he riffs on my habitual "bar napkin rose disorder")

"So, I was thinking about how things are said so that they sound better when I remembered the phrase "Wag the dog"  Which then reminded me that your initials are WAG.  Thus "WAG the Dog" was born." 

WAG the Dog - "Hey!  How are ya?  I would like to give you this rose.  Can I get you something to drink?  Come on... what do you drink?  I'll be right back."
~Evaluation: Smooth southern style.  Much like black velvet, if you please. 

WAG the Dogg - "Sup ho?" Ghett to the O.  Very L.A. but not effective in clubs.  Well, not our kinds of clubs. 

WAG the Dawhg - "Good evening, M'lady.  Might I interest you in an intoxicating libation?  Certainly a beautiful child of the night such as yourself would derive pleasure from some devious refreshment.  But now, a rose.  Sweets to the Sweet."
~Good at clubs... if you were 18 and picking up on the 16 year old that was there with her sister's ID. 

WAG the Good' 'ol Dog - "Sweetheart you are about as perty as a Georgia peach in a bright red wagon!  Mind if I get y'all a drink?  You like sweet-tea?  Hears a flahr fer you.  I didn't pick it, but I made it myself.  I would be right honored if you would wear it in your hair fer me." Too "aw-shucks". 
~He would just come across like L'il Abner. 

WAG the D-hog - "Yeeehaw! Let's get'er started baby.  Natty Lights all 'roud.  Hell, make it Pabst... Blue Ribbon.  Nothin' is too good for us.  Come on girl!  Drink up we are gonna have a ho-down here tonight, and I am talkin' bout YOU!  Heh heh.  Harooooo! Thesouthillriseagin'!!"
~Would be shot on his way back to his monster truck, or beaten to death by skinny pale kids metal lunchboxes with pictures of Care Bears on them.

WAG: I can be all these things, at differnt states of drunkeness

I’ve been dragging. If you can tell, I’ve been busy.
I've been organizing and designing a company picnic. They asked for “Dragon” everything, décor, invitations, awards, etc... The T-shirt printers gave me problems too. I had to redraw and reformat all my designs. Finally the picnic is held and all the prep work is over. Then, the day of, the activities organizer had not really developed a plan. I had to improvise ideas, shout & cheerlead 70 people for 6 hours.

Thank God its over, but last night I dreamt that my boss asked that I construct a Dragon Diorama. As I was running weird errands in the dream, I actually was inspired to construct together a little self-contained story of love & loss. I went to my childhood bookstore, “the Book Nook” in GA and collected material from 50’s era romance comics. I photocopied the panels and cut them up and juxtaposed them as wallpaper for the enclosure to tell the story of a handsome man and pretty girl. The two fall in live and he promises he will build her a house; her only wish.
I then built a small model house made of metal and granite rocks, painted in deep greens and burgundies. I went with shapes of wrought-iron designs.
In front of the house was a grave with a little white cross and tiny yellow flowers. Standing there at the foot of the grave I made a dark green dragon out of pin sized deflated balloons and paper mache. I dressed him wearing a tan raincoat with his head hung down.
The wallpaper on the diorama was a saccharin picture book of romance. The models depicted an ugly reptile with a broken heart.
I entered it into a Hollywood Science Fair and left instructions for viewers to pick a yellow flower and observe a moment of silence. Can you see it? The little monster who was redeemed by the love and affection of a pure-hearted damsel, only to lose her before their dream was realized?

Clearly, the work has infected my brain.

Feel lucky I don't record all my dreams...

So my week did indeed end up being more awesome than a de-railed train jumping a pit full of giant flame throwing scorpions. But just like any stunt involving high-speed locomotives and fire, unexpected situations did arise.

- yesterday morning proved to be a challenge, since I didn't walk through my own door until 4:30 in the morning and I had to be up and ready for a wedding by 9:00 am. If Sunday morning was God's way of telling me I'm weak and irresponsible, then too bad, fella! I'm gonna do it again next week! Next time don't waste your precious magic on me...
To make up for spending my day of rest at a  wedding, my girlfriend and I did our best to achieve the role of wedding sluts. You know who I'm talking about. Every wedding has an annoying couple that can't keep their hands off of each other until they eventually slip away to give each other latin in some gazebo. Good thing we chose the one gazebo the bride and groom where going to use as a backdrop for some outdoor photos.  I'd feel terrible if I actually got to finish...assholes.

I should note that this was my first Jewish wedding. Not that I was so far removed from anyone involved,  I thought I'd also wear a yamika. I was one strange lookin' jew-boy. Too bad my only previous encounters with the chosen people were through Woody Allen movies. Everything worked out fine though, since it sounded exactly like a Woody Allen movie starring fifty Woody Allens.

As soon as I arrived at the wedding though, I immediately regreted losing my whiskey flask from the night before...

Sweetn8 ponders the monogram of William Allan Gibson

The following is a musing on the WAG persona sent via hotmail from this man:

(also note: he riffs on my habitual "bar napkin rose disorder")

"So, I was thinking about how things are said so that they sound better when I remembered the phrase "Wag the dog"  Which then reminded me that your initials are WAG.  Thus "WAG the Dog" was born." 

WAG the Dog - "Hey!  How are ya?  I would like to give you this rose.  Can I get you something to drink?  Come on... what do you drink?  I'll be right back."
~Evaluation: Smooth southern style.  Much like black velvet, if you please. 

WAG the Dogg - "Sup ho?" Ghett to the O.  Very L.A. but not effective in clubs.  Well, not our kinds of clubs. 

WAG the Dawhg - "Good evening, M'lady.  Might I interest you in an intoxicating libation?  Certainly a beautiful child of the night such as yourself would derive pleasure from some devious refreshment.  But now, a rose.  Sweets to the Sweet."
~Good at clubs... if you were 18 and picking up on the 16 year old that was there with her sister's ID. 

WAG the Good' 'ol Dog - "Sweetheart you are about as perty as a Georgia peach in a bright red wagon!  Mind if I get y'all a drink?  You like sweet-tea?  Hears a flahr fer you.  I didn't pick it, but I made it myself.  I would be right honored if you would wear it in your hair fer me." Too "aw-shucks". 
~He would just come across like L'il Abner. 

WAG the D-hog - "Yeeehaw! Let's get'er started baby.  Natty Lights all 'roud.  Hell, make it Pabst... Blue Ribbon.  Nothin' is too good for us.  Come on girl!  Drink up we are gonna have a ho-down here tonight, and I am talkin' bout YOU!  Heh heh.  Harooooo! Thesouthillriseagin'!!"
~Would be shot on his way back to his monster truck, or beaten to death by skinny pale kids metal lunchboxes with pictures of Care Bears on them.

WAG: I can be all these things, at differnt states of drunkeness

dream purge...

I’ve been dragging. If you can tell, I’ve been busy.
I've been organizing and designing a company picnic. They asked for “Dragon” everything, décor, invitations, awards, etc... The T-shirt printers gave me problems too. I had to redraw and reformat all my designs. Finally the picnic is held and all the prep work is over. Then, the day of, the activities organizer had not really developed a plan. I had to improvise ideas, shout & cheerlead 70 people for 6 hours.

Thank God its over, but last night I dreamt that my boss asked that I construct a Dragon Diorama. As I was running weird errands in the dream, I actually was inspired to construct together a little self-contained story of love & loss. I went to my childhood bookstore, “the Book Nook” in GA and collected material from 50’s era romance comics. I photocopied the panels and cut them up and juxtaposed them as wallpaper for the enclosure to tell the story of a handsome man and pretty girl. The two fall in live and he promises he will build her a house; her only wish.
I then built a small model house made of metal and granite rocks, painted in deep greens and burgundies. I went with shapes of wrought-iron designs.
In front of the house was a grave with a little white cross and tiny yellow flowers. Standing there at the foot of the grave I made a dark green dragon out of pin sized deflated balloons and paper mache. I dressed him wearing a tan raincoat with his head hung down.
The wallpaper on the diorama was a saccharin picture book of romance. The models depicted an ugly reptile with a broken heart.
I entered it into a Hollywood Science Fair and left instructions for viewers to pick a yellow flower and observe a moment of silence. Can you see it? The little monster who was redeemed by the love and affection of a pure-hearted damsel, only to lose her before their dream was realized?

Clearly, the work has infected my brain.

Feel lucky I don't record all my dreams...

Tevye and co.

So my week did indeed end up being more awesome than a de-railed train jumping a pit full of giant flame throwing scorpions. But just like any stunt involving high-speed locomotives and fire, unexpected situations did arise.

- yesterday morning proved to be a challenge, since I didn't walk through my own door until 4:30 in the morning and I had to be up and ready for a wedding by 9:00 am. If Sunday morning was God's way of telling me I'm weak and irresponsible, then too bad, fella! I'm gonna do it again next week! Next time don't waste your precious magic on me...
To make up for spending my day of rest at a  wedding, my girlfriend and I did our best to achieve the role of wedding sluts. You know who I'm talking about. Every wedding has an annoying couple that can't keep their hands off of each other until they eventually slip away to give each other latin in some gazebo. Good thing we chose the one gazebo the bride and groom where going to use as a backdrop for some outdoor photos.  I'd feel terrible if I actually got to finish...assholes.

I should note that this was my first Jewish wedding. Not that I was so far removed from anyone involved,  I thought I'd also wear a yamika. I was one strange lookin' jew-boy. Too bad my only previous encounters with the chosen people were through Woody Allen movies. Everything worked out fine though, since it sounded exactly like a Woody Allen movie starring fifty Woody Allens.

As soon as I arrived at the wedding though, I immediately regreted losing my whiskey flask from the night before...