--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Wednesday - 4/05/06 
11:33 am
Los Angeles, CA
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 Disclaimer -

For anyone observant enough to notice, I've started out here on my ranting yellow text. I assure you things are only going to get worse. So if Mom & Dad are visiting the blog today...

I highly urge you to exit now.

This will be your last and only warning

Please leave, I will not be held
responsible for the ensuing onslaught

I guess you're even more
intrigued now, but please

if you don't

I will be forced to continue
anyway but I highly urge you to

It's raining again,
48 degrees,
my feet are cold,
and I got a parking ticket

please

This is the infamous ticket which will be described thusly

It's 9:45, Greg has been up for several hours, still on the lame eastern time schedule. Zen gets up and walks by saying good morning in his usual style. Zen happens to look out the window, encrusted in fairy dust, and notices something has gone awry. He comes back to the doorway and says "Dude, it's Wednesday, street sweeping day, you got a parking ticket." I will now, not only switch to uppER CASE, BUT I WILL SWITCH TO MY RED, AND HIGHLY AGITATED TEXT, THE LIKES OF WHICH HASN'T BEEN SEEN BEFORE DUE TO FCC REGULATIONS. WHY THE BLASTED MOTHER DO YOU NEED TO CLEAN THESE STREETS ANYWAY?? IT APPEARS AS IF A TRASH TRUCK HAS BEEN DRAGGED DOWN THE STREET BY A GARBAGE SCOWL AND YOU ARE MERELY CLEARING A PATH IN SAID RUBBISH, LEAVING THE SURROUNDING AREA LOOKING WORSE THAN IT INITIALLY DID!!!

OK I HAVE TO CALM DOWN, I'M WAY TOO ANGRY,

NO F THAT, I AM JUST AN EASTERN BOOTNIK, WET BEHIND THE EARS...A MERE SUBURBANITE THRUST IN A MALICIOUS SELF-INFLICTED PONDEROSA OF AN IDEA TO ACTUALLY MAKE SOMETHING OF MYSELF, BESIDES WAFFLES,
WHICH ARE BURNING ON THE &^%(*& STOVE!!

HOLD ON...

MAN I HAVE TO calm down,
OK, just reason it out, breathe.....

try to make some logical sense of it all

Ahh...that's better.

While I'm back to my calm rational white text I'd like
to say that Zen builds some pretty outrageous custom PC's.

Actually if you turn that equation sideways it kind of looks like an UZI

which is what I'm going to buy

down in one of these seedy

two bit

ILLEGAL PAWN SHOPS

TO BLAST A HOLE

IN SOME

TICKET

PATROL

MOTHER

TRUCKERS!!!!!

^&%$*^%

 Zen is a brilliant computer wiz/total geek and builds custom PC's and has his own computer tekkie business as well. below is a picture of the interior of one of his custom built PC's

As you can see it looks like Willie Wonka's Chocolate factory

and performs twice as well.

This machine has dual processors, at least two huge hard drives, and a video card the likes of which I have never seen, and which is probably more powerful than my entire laptop. The video card is pictured just below the big fan over the processors, and has cooling fins and is even liquid cooled for performance. These machines are for high end video production and multimedia applications that require extremely high processing power. Comparable machines go for anywhere between $10,000 and $20,000 but Zen can build them for much less than that. If anyone needs a super high end PC, let me know

 Zen also builds high-end chandeliers.

Actually he doesn't, but this one must be
pretty valuable as it's locked to the ceiling.

I'm not sure why it's locked as it's not that nice.
3 of the 5 bulbs are out, and of the remaining two,
one flickers on and off during earthquakes.

While I'm on my ranting yellow text again, I'd like to say that I went to the bicycle shop 4 miles away to buy an air pump. Not only did I buy the air pump for the bike tires, but for the new VSO hand truck portable orchestra-on-wheels street performing setup which will be described soon. Of course it was raining here in this sunny-de-light-but-not-so-sunny-oasis-of-a-places. I decided to ride my bike anyway to save up my gas money for all the parking tickets. If I was out driving in my truck I wouldn't have gotten a ticket. That'll learn me. Back to the badventure- I rode my bike down Beverly blvd. west toward the bike shop. I was basically riding in the gully's to the right side of the road which were more or less full to the brim with rushing brownish, wanna-be white-water inner-city runoff

These gully's are atrocious. Apparently LA is normally dry, and the ground is so dry and compacted that rainwater just runs off as the ground can't absorb it. This is why there is flooding and frequent mudslides here, not mudslides the drink, though I need one right about now. The brilliant yuckmouth engineers who designed the bridges in the area figured it would be a good idea to put an inch and a half groove in the cement to allow for runoff. This also allows runoff into12 trash cans for any bicyclists who happen by. The grooves are exactly tire-width and force one to continue in a forwardly direction despite any efforts to turn the bike sideways out of said groove. I didn't wipe out the bike in this way today, partly because I was walking it, which I will get to in a moment, but I did wipe out Teresa's bike trying to turn out of one of these blasted and not-so-groovy grooves a few weeks ago back in Santa Monica. Along with the gully's, and the rain lately, let me just say that the buses are equally relentless around here.

Not the school bus as much, but the one pictured in front of it. The fearless public transportation buses in the city of Los Angeles, which is bustling with buses. These bus drivers don't care about you. Just keep that in mind. They rush past and splash you with a reckless abandon by tirelessly traversing their tires through torrential torrid puddles which lie in your path. These dingbats wouldn't even slow down if they hooked me with their side mirror and were bashing my dangling corpse off every car parked on the side of the road as they drove hastily along. They pull over in front of you to pick up their lame passengers going to their dead-end jobs, and cut you off around corners in a self righteous manner. I will never take a bus in LA for fear that I will club the driver to death, seeing said turkey as a representative for all the fowl bus drivers around here.

 Back to my biking adventure

The ride started out ok, dodging the clod-hoppers going off to work at their pointless jobs. I used my normal passive aggressive offensively defensive city bicycle riding technique, and was without incident from both hated trash cans, and clueless cellphone weilding motorists (the cell phone being the most deadly weapon in the gladiatory arena of car vs. bicycle) PAY ATTENTION, THERE IS A THINLY ENCASED FLESHY-SKINNED ORGANISM TO YOUR RIGHT. I avoided said steel involuntary mirror jousting opponents in all their hornyness and rode on the sidewalk at times in illegal fashion at some of the more deadly points along the route (blind corners/tight right lanes) I'm pretty sure that sidewalk riding is prohibited, but everyone seems to do it. In fact most people ride their bicycles on the sidewalks in fear of their lives, and I may be in the minority being on the street 75% of the time. The police don't seem to take notice. I figure there are plenty of meth dealers, hookers, and parking violators around here to keep them occupied and distracted from a little sidewalk riding action.

 Just then the sidewalk ended

and I was forced onto the perilous street

About halfway, or rather, exactly halfway through the 4 mile trek to the bike shop, wouldn't you know it, my bike gets a flat tire. How did I know this would happen? I was saying to myself before I set out on my ride- "Wouldn't it be funny if I got a flat tire even though I wasn't going to the bike shop to buy the air pump for the bike?" Of course it happened. I stopped at a red light and whooosh, I look down and the tire is flat. Sitting there uselessly airless.

"Great" I think, and proceed to deliberate the dilemma of weather I should turn around and head for home, or fight through the harsh whether and press on to the bike shop. I decided to walk the bike to the bike shop as I was already halfway there. The rain had let up a bit so I continued in the direction of the bike shop. The much talked about bike shop was located at 8338 Beverly Ave, so I started counting up the addresses marked on the local establo-joints whilpst I walked.

Only 100 more to go!

*^%$*&^

I passed this useless air pump
which I wish I could have used,

but the tire had a hole, and
wouldn't hold air until repaired

duh

*&%^*&%^

I walked past the Post Office, which I
know isn't the closest P.O. to the new pad

I was pretty P.O.'d... I know that

Then I was going to grab some
dry clothes out of the donation bin

The sign dared me to do it.

Instead of ravaging through the donation bin for ratty clothes, I decided to leave a huge wad of cash in there but the sign said "Clothes, shoes, and toys only" so I didn't. I wasn't about to leave my shoes either, or my toy (bike) although I was nearly ready to ditch the bike.

I'm at 8300! Won't be long now!

I surfed past CBS

as usual there was nothing good on

Then I went by the CBS sister network

still nothing good

then I checked the tire again...

...yup, still flat

Just then I saw a Laundromat...

...which reminded me of fans back east

Then I saw a street performer

Not really...this was just some grocery cart packed to the
hilt with rancid stuff belonging to some homeless ragamuffin

LA is the city of the homeless so I'm told (as I'm sure I'll be one day, so at least I'm in the right venue) There are homeless people everywhere, especially in trendy Santa Monica much to my surprise. The authorities seem to ignore them, and they occupy many of the public benches, bus stops, underpasses, and grassy knolls in the area. It actually makes sense to me- If you are going to be homeless, you may as well live in a luxurious tropical environment. I mean why live in cold-ass New York city or some other cr*p-hole? Just start walking west, there are better scavenging grounds thatta way >...Sorry, "<". Dumb ass northern vagabonds /\  No wonder you can't get a job (or internet access so you'll never read this and come kill me in a frothy rage) Not only are the winters much warmer in the southern locales \/...allowing for far less bulky, and more streamlined box-houses, but there is much more dough around for you to pillage as well. Just ask Silver dude. I think he is just a homeless beggar who had an unfortunate spray-painting accident. These are apparently upper-class homeless around here. They push around their luxury shopping carts complete with side impact trash bags. Sporting trendy eyewear fished out of a sewer, mumbling incomprehensible jargon at you half-under their foot-cheese breath as you walk by. Oh to be so distinguished.

I wandered past an elegant antiquated building

It turned out to be not-so elegant when I noticed it was
merely a salon with Beverly-Ho-Billy's plastered in the windows

Let's have just a touch of class here, ok people? Maybe you can find some on ebay. Now I realize an antique building around here is circa 1972 due to the lollygagging colonists taking so long to make it out west, but must you erect a mock-castle only to turn it into a nail salon or bikini-waxing joint? Oh sorry, I forget where I am. Anti-culture plastic-ville. Where the air is taxed, and smoggy-doo. Moving on, I finally made it to the bike shop where I bought an air pump, two bike tubes, and tire irons to initiate the procedure of repairing the flat tire in the rear of the bicycle shop, of which the task was agreed to graciously by the shop's proprietor.

The pump worked out pretty well as it
was a portable job, mountable on the bike,

The air pump also was
convertible to a floor unit

I'd now like to start my
VSO mobile hand truck story

(and switch font color as I've finally calmed down)

I went to home depot the other
day with Ben the supermodel

We took a ride up to get a convertible hand truck for the VSO, so I could easily roll the rig around the 3rd street Promenade. As I had described before, I erroneously set up the VSO in a prohibited location the first time I set it up to street perform at the Promenade due to my own negligence. After the ordeal of breaking it down and setting it up again, I figured if I erected the whole thing on an easily moveable hand truck, it would easiest, or at least a lot easier to easily wheel it with ease from spot to spot easy-like while I spent several hours street performing. To refresh, street performers are only allowed 2 hours in any one spot down at the Promenade. The hand truck setup would ease my task of moving the VSO in a big way. After we got back to home depot, Ben had to go to a modeling audition, of which I was thankfully not a participant. I proceeded to break down the VSO and set it back up on the new hand truck in experimental fashion, all the while being stalked by the cat who was hiding under the nearby dining room table

I was very freaked out, to the point of petrification, but still able to break down the VSO and set it up again on the hand truck in about 1/2 hour. Per usual the initial setup didn't turn out perfect. There was some wasted space on one side in between the bulky yet elegant VSO racks on the front of the hand truck, in it's horizontal, flat-bed position

The flange which holds my concocted and eastern drummer inspired
heating pipe staging for the patch control buttons and light show was in the way

My SMWC (Santa Monica Welding Connection)[Garrett] has already agreed to weld the flange directly to the steel hand truck, allowing for equal, if not greater stability. This will allow me to lose the plywood base, and buy roughly 2 inches of space as the rack boxes can be moved closer to the end of the hand truck allowing for more real estate on the other side.

This is the other side

This picture isn't the best representation of the other, or right side, as it doesn't show the marine batteries underneath the footpedal which nested almost perfectly. I have been using two marine batteries to power the VSO through the power inverter. I had initially only brought one marine battery with me, trading my second battery for services and space in my truck, but due to brownouts at the grand canyon I decided to buy another supplemental battery for additional power. The new battery is smaller than the original. With the addition of the much needed light show I may even surpass the voltage requirements and plan to buy another large marine battery. After I weld the flange to the hand truck, and lose the plywood base, I will be able to position the small battery in the recessed nook to the for right of the hand truck, and position the two larger batteries side by side where there is one spun the other way now due to space constraints.

It's unfortunate that I didn't take a picture of the current battery arrangement (pun currently intended) and wasted my opportunity on capturing an image of said batteries by photographing the cat under the dining room table instead, but we will all have to live with it.

Below is a picture of the new mobile VSO setup with the new hand truck.

Talk about a demented version of Thomas the train engine

I would now like to officially switch back to calling him "Thomas the train engine", instead of the correct pronunciation- "Thomas the tank engine" much to the dismay of Ms. Mystic storage. I've decided I'd like to try and avoid any future ensuing copyright infringement woes.

The Mackie PA speakers are strapped to the old flat dolly I was using with a tie-down, which was conveniently furnished via my strap-the-speakers-in-the-back-of-my-truck practice

The whole apparati is now on wheels and I should be able to
pull it along slowly in between designated performance areas

I plan to hitch the separate wheeled dollies together somehow
with rope, cable, chain or any one of your many suggestions.

The previous pictures of the mobile VSO-train include the all-inclusive portable roving setup. When I street perform I don't plan to bring the giant Mackie subwoofer caboose. This thing eats power like a ravaged lion, draining my batteries like a bulldozed fiord. The three SRM 450 full-range Mackie's I have are plenty loud for the street venue. When the coordinator, and highly coordinated guy took the sound levels on the VSO before I started playing, I was at 100db (the maximum being 110db) My volume knob was at "1" so I have plenty of auditory headroom, or in this case, nitrous oxide funny car horsepower, at my fingertips.

Leaving the subwoofer behind...

...This is the official VSO portable rig as it will appear street performing,
(minus the mirror and chandelier, which are forthcoming)

Moon unit Zappa ain't got nothing on me

__________________________

Donations welcome
(coming soon)
(I hope)