Numbers are So Cool

Everything has a neat name. Everything has cache. Especially if you use the number of it. Like me. I'm No. 1. Or my apartment address is #10. We're a 10. Get it?

I finally saw Gang Gang Dance tonight. I wasn't expecting a dance party like they gave. I felt like I was in New York. I've never been. I also wasn't poorly affected by the young age of most of the audience and actually really enjoyed a lot of the sincerity I saw from them. They weren't so indie rock. They were artsy punk and having a lot of fun. Hooray! Cool shoes.

Gang Gang Dance have not sold out at this hour. This was a thought I had. Did I miss their heydey? Would the cool kids not be there because they've already seen it all? GGD has something out on Warp now but I don't know if they're a Warp band for keeps. But their funk would have me think so.

Drums, guitar, keys, samplers, drum pads, loops, two drums for the singer and a tip of my hat for Ari Up meets Nina Hagen on the dance floor. They covered an MBV song too. Holy Shit. I turned aghast to Ahn, first afraid of a blatant rip off of "I Only Said"'s opening trill. Then the similarity didn't end and we agreed - it was a cover. I always used MBV as part of my Gang Gang Dance description.

Sick Of It All.

Opened the latest Spaceland Blast eMail - this covers Spaceland (hardly go to anymore), The Echo, Echoplex and others. But mostly those tres L.A. nightlife hot spots.

Every time I am disturbed with something, there's always another something reviling within me first.

Fine. I know.

So anyways... I open the eMail and there they are, staring back at me - lackadaisical and scruffy, relationship challenged for both intimate and general social betterment, politically well read for current propositions, beer drinkers. I think I have an attitude problem.

Actually, I know I do.

But truly. Move me to the farm. I just want to make art. Aye! There's the rub.

Open this post and here I am, starting back at you - bitchy, opinionated, breathless in a state of perpetual chafe, relationship challenged for both intimate and general social betterment, well read in all politics.

Every Friday and Saturday Night...

I'll just say one thing, God is good. Miriam Makeba died on stage singing and singing Pata Pata.

When I was probably 10 I found my dad's copy of Miriam Makeba's first album. Lucky little girl to find this spirit of Miriam Makeba's sweet foreign sound. After I discovered Miriam, it was years before I would consider a spin with her husband Hugh Masekela's LP. How could he compare? Would I dance around and sing like that? Hard to consider that from a trumpeter. But that was the humor and dedication. Couldn't risk missing listening to her.

I sang along with no idea what I was saying. She was just so groovy and it was so good. She had joy. She makes you discover that a wiggle is a dance and your smile is your groove.

The song that got me the most was The Click Song. I loved her introduction explaining the click was referring to her dialect. But what I loved the most was how she belted out those last notes, so loud and full. She chimes and resonates like jubilant honey. You swear you're living for real now. You have discovered bliss. You've discovered heaven on earth.

The Garden of Earthly Delights

Chris' new job - The Thirty Meter Telescope.

That's a big telescope. He actually worked on some of the designs a few years back. The Canadians took it, didn't do much so he's going to do it again. Here's what they say: "A 30-meter telescope, operating in wavelengths ranging from the ultraviolet to the mid-infrared, is an essential tool to address questions in astronomy ranging from understanding star and planet formation to unraveling the history of galaxies and the development of large-scale structure in the universe. The 30-meter aperture permits the telescope to focus more sharply than smaller telescopes by using the power of diffraction of light. The large aperture also collects more light than smaller scopes, allowing images of fainter objects. TMT will therefore reach further and see more clearly than previous telescopes by a factor of 10 to 100 depending on the observation."

Dig? Word.

I like the new telescope project. Now Chris wants to go to camping possibly so we can enjoy the starry sky he's building to. I love to camp.


So bailout the car companies - they are too big to let drop. BUT they must Go Green. Create jobs by creating Green Jobs. Same thing as when we made military ships during Truman but now we're Green and peaceful.