Spaced out Mountain

I've never been a big fan of Disneyland. I went twice as a kid...once in kindergarten and another time when I was in the fourth grade. I may have been the only kid whose favorite ride was Mr. Toad's Wild Ride.

For those out there who still find Disneyland to be a magical place, here's a photo I took on the drive to work last week. You'll see the rainbow landing somewhere between Space Mountain and the Matterhorn...

OC kind of blue

Voter turnout for the November 4 election tells the tale of the self-destruction of the Republican Party in Orange County. They are stale toast.

Young Dem and Decline to State voters turned out in droves, and the only zip code with a larger than average young Republican turnout was in tiny, inconsequential Villa Park.

Sweaty Pitts and the Thorns of Life

It's 4:30 in the morning. My birthday. A few hours ago we saw The Thorns of Life, Blake Schwarzenbach's new band. It was no Jawbreaker, but it was sure fun. The drummer is Aaron Cometbus and wouldn't you know it...he was an exhibitionist. He had his shirt off almost the whole time, and he kept pursing his lips like he'd just sucked on a lemon. The dude dyed his hair blond and wore tight European knee pants. He drummed pretty well, but then again, I'm rhythmically deaf. After as the crowd exited, he asked me and Baddicusfinch if we had some matches.

As for Blake, he looks good for a 41-year-old although some annoying bug behind me said he looked like Patrick Swayze. I weaseled my way up front even though I feared getting boinged in the head by moshers. But it turned out to be peaceable gig since the bulk of the audience is teetering on 40. There's arthritis and bad backs to think of.

I have to say that I got really close to him when he brought out a gym bag and started hawking band t-shirts after the show. I was the second one he served. I asked for a medium and a large for ten bucks apiece...one for Jeremy who got me the ticket for my birthday and one for me. Then later, I noticed that the medium was really a large size and the large size an x-large. I hate it when that happens. Blake was in mid-conversation with his pals but I marched up and tapped his arm which was sopping wet from his t-shirt.

I don't know what happened but I ended up touching his pitts. Yuk! But sicker, I actually contemplated sniffing my digits. Anyway, I told him the medium was too big so I wanted small. He said very nicely, "We only have large and mediums but if it doesn't fit, I can refund you you're money." I said, nevermind. I never wanted to steal a kiss from a sweaty rock star before. As I told my friend, Sonia, I'm too shy to be slutty so I just slinked away and left him alone. Did I mention how much I loved him?

Anyway, that's it. That's my brush with Blake. I just have one small beef. The name of their band, The Thorns of Life, sounds like a right-wing church band. Couldn't they have come up with a better name? Oh well. I'm still buying their album when it comes out.

The Mexican's Mexican

On the way home from work yesterday I picked up a couple things from the new Mother's Market in Santa Ana. This supermarket has grown on me like organic mushrooms...I dig their pick-your-part burrito counter with the soyrizo chomps.

I'm pretty sure I saw Gustavo Arellano, the OC Weekly rockstar who cranks out the regular Ask a Mexican column, stocking his yellow shopping basket. He was at the opposite end of Aisle 7, so I could be mistaken, but he sported the signature guayabera shirt.

Nice timing because the previous night I had read his carefully researched article, The Assassination of Sheriff James Barton by the Mexican Juan Flores. Wow...this was a clipper. I enjoyed learning more about old-timey Orange County history, and Arellano showed how facts get twisted by lazy historians, journalists, and academics.

Keep up the good work, Mr. Arellano.

Boston baked books

I had a blast in the Boston area visiting family last week. About a block away from Ray and Dan is Newtonville Books, where I took refuge from a snowy-windy day and browsed the books about local stuff.

Also while in Boston I finished up Cometbus 51, with Aaron Cometbus detailing the history behind the legendary Moe's/Cody's/Shakespeare & Co. bookshops in Berkeley. What a great read.

Got me thinking...Orange County is pathetic when it comes to book stores. So we have Libreria Martinez in Santa Ana (which announced today they'll be moving next door rather than closing up), and Reuben Martinez has worked hard promoting literacy and hawking books, but that's about the only shop worth mentioning from a short and sad list.

Trashin' Sherlock

It's been raining for a few days now so I'm pretty pissy. Usually I love the rain but it makes the house so dark. Not good for bipolar sufferers. So I'm going to complain and whine and complain and whine some more.

Firstly, there's our neighbor across the street. Every Wednesday night or Thursday morning I see this woman, a teacher by professor, slink down over to our side of the street to dump her recyclables. Mind you, she has her own bin because we see it in her garage when the door is open. One time she actually had a pile of flattened boxes on the floor next to her as we were driving into our garage. She just picked them up and pretended that she was just taking a walk instead of dumping her shit into OUR bin.

Don't get me wrong. I love recycling, but this woman - I don't know her name - has her own damn bin. To top it off, she sometimes sends her thirty-something son to do the dirty work for her. The worst part in all of this is Christmas time when gift wrappers fill up our bins. Sure as dice, the teacher and her robot son would shove in their own Christmas crap - probably bringing a stool so they could step on our pile to make room for theirs. Fucking weirdos!

Second and last complaint. I saw pictures of the Sherlock Holmes movie in the works. Sherlock was shorter than Watson and he looks like Charlie Chaplin! What is going on? Fuck Guy Richie, too! Leave my cocaine sniffing, heroin shooting literary hero alone!

Go home

I heard a radio report today about Mayor Blanca Figueroa of South El Monte. For whatever idiotic reason, the City Council didn't think kindly about the looong working hours she clocked, so last Tuesday night the Council approved an ordinance forcing all employees to go home by 11 p.m.

This reminds me of my days with a union job as a State of California employee. Quitting time was 5 p.m., but from time to time I'd stay a little longer to wrap things up. Before long the union rep took notice and gave me The Talk. "You have to stop working right at 5, pal. You're making the rest of us look bad." She wasn't pulling my leg.

What a nightmare. I had management on my case for getting to work late, and the union after me for not leaving on time! I'm so glad I don't work there anymore...no wonder all the lifers were nuts.