**Sorry, I know I'm behind in the blog again,

I've been busy getting harassed by evil clowns.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Saturday - 4/08/06 
5:44 pm
Los Angeles, CA
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Today I woke up early as usual and did laundry and a couple other menial chores. Then I messed around with the VSO in headphones while my roommate Zen slept. After doing chores and practicing I looked for projects I could do to upgrade and/or repair the VSO, which is always an issue. The rope lights attached to the VSO stage which elevates my feet over the pedals allowing me to play standing up had partially fallen off back in Natick, and I had never bothered to repair and/or think of a suitable repair solution for the lights.

As you can see my velcro holders weren't nearly strong enough for the rigors of the road. My friend Garrett back in Santa Monica actually pierced his foot with a staple attached to the velcro as I had done many times as well. I actually have more involuntary staple piercings than most of the Goth weirdos around here...I guess I should have switched text colors for that last sentence but it's too much work to go back and change it now. Since my chores were done and I had written my song of the day I decided to head to Home Depot to buy the necessary hardware for the solution to the stage lighting problem. I am not going to tell you what my solution because I want it to be a surprise. Actually the real reason is because I forgot to take a picture so don't get your hopes up, it's not that great (Unless you're Garrett) Instead I will include a picture of the covers to my rack boxes. I thought for sure when I kept walking by I was going to flip my lid.

After the dumb joke I headed out
the familiar back gate to the street...

...and made my way to home depot
to buy the surprise hardware.

Before I continue I'd like to tell you a few more things that have been going on with the VSO. As we know I did some street performing down at the 3rd street Promenade, and figured a way to make it more portable, and better suited for the occasion. I plan to get out there and perform every time the weather agrees and I can find someone to park my truck. With the new VSO portable system it may be possible to park the VSO in a nearby parking garage and wheel the rig all the way into the Promenade by myself. I have to survey the area between to garage and Promenade to see if it's feasible. Besides the street performing I have been figuring ways to get out and perform wherever I can. I have replied to several craigslist ad's for musical acts, and even studio musicians. I have only recieved one reply so far from a theatre company in Silver Lake, about 4 miles away. They're throwing a party for everyone involved in the organization, and were looking for musical acts for entertainment. The audition is this Sunday, the 9th at 11am. This isn't a paying gig, and I would only have a 10 minute slot to perform. You may ask- "Greg, why bother with doing a non-paying gig where you will spend 2 hours setting up just to play for 10 minutes?" As Woody Allen once said- "Half of any gig is just showing up", or something to that effect, and it may not have been Woody Allen who said it, my apologies to all. Despite the saying and/or who said it, it rings true, to me at least. I feel the VSO is so unique and potentially intriguing enough that any venue I manage to play may spawn connections and leads to more gigs and exposure.

Back to my bike ride. I found home depot no problem

On the way there I noticed traffic wasn't that bad today

It was actually moving a brisk 11mph

I have brilliantly discovered a partial solution to avoiding bubbleheaded and cell phone wielding mobile obstacles ceaselessly roving the area. It turns out I'm not as smart as I thought. The ObViouS sometimes escapes me. LA is set up basically as a grid, pictured below for your enlightenment.

As you can see, the streets are laid out in a grid, and generally set up in parallel/perpendicular fashion. Along with my general clueless nature as to not being able to find my way around yet, which Zen is constantly mocking me for (it hurts too) when I do find my way, particularly on the bicycle, one small detail escaped me until today. Previously I was riding on the main roads, in busy traffic, fearing for my life. The idea came to me like a blinding orb from beyond that I could ride my bike on the smaller, parallel streets and not risk life and limb (as much) riding on these smaller side roads which inevitably get me where I'm headed.

As you can see (or as I'm telling you) these roads are way better for the bike, though I do have to cross numerous crosswalks over the main roads I'm trying so desperately to avoid, but all in all it works out much better. The buses have all but vanished, and the number of irritating Mercedes drivers has been reduced considerably. Although there is still the problem of the gully's

I would really like to applaud the complete lunatic who came up with this deranged drainage gully idea. I mean who do you think you are? Certainly not a bicyclist. I'm sure whoever designed this scheme is completely obese, sitting behind a desk all day waving his leaky pen in the air like a red-faced mountain gorilla in heat. Why don't you join a gym? At least get up from your chair and take a walk around the corner to order that meat lover's, 7 cheese pizza instead of having Domino's deliver straight to your gaping mouth. Here's a tip for you- Get a clue...and a bicycle. So you can attempt to ride over these gully's without your wheels getting stuck, forcing you to ride on down the track like an hefty and slobbering version of Thomas the tank engine® (I will now switch back briefly to calling him Thomas the tank engine because said architectual engineer resembles, and weighs quite a bit more than a Sherman tank) Are these slots in the pavement really necessary? Do they really help that much? They surely help me fall down and break both ankles and wrists you sluggish gibbon.

Here is another wonder-gully I came across

This gully had another perpendicular drain which met halfway through.
I'd love to see two out of control, hellbound bicyclists tobogganing
into each other in an involuntary jousting match at this intersection.

and here is the same gully with a belligerent
motorist driving by adding to the turmoil

as you can see even cars have a tough time
traversing the numerous and terrifying gully's

Let me just say if I ever get a hold of the girthling who designed and/or implemented these gully's they'll be in for the strangulation of a lifetime. Actually, I probably won't be able to fit my hands around your portly neck so you're probably safe, unless I reason a way to calculate a plan to figure out the UZIquation to bust out some rounds in you old school.

Let me just stop for a moment and ask if you've ever seen the movie King Kong. Not the original, if you haven't seen that you've been under quite the large rock. What I am talking about is the new version in all it's Hollywood over-budgeted glamourosity.

Looks a little like the guy who designed the gully's

(Actually he's not that attractive)

I would have to say this is a better
representation of said yuckmouth

A reptilian carnivorous city official tearing meat from your bones vic(ar)iously*
through the ever-slashing teeth of inner-city trench-erous drainage ditches

I think I'd rather ride my bike over the slippery
and vine encased King-Dong log pictured below

At least if I fell off I'd plummet to my death, instead of being run over in a fleeting fancy by luxury cars and relentless LA scooterists in the middle of the road immediately following my derailment. Actually King Kong® is a pretty good flick, myself not being a tremendous movie buff...I guess I should get used to sitting through movies and all their glitter being here in Hollywood©. The movie was pretty good. The director™ really caught the mood of the original film®, despite the starring role of Jack Black™. Naomi Watts® starred as Ann©, the girl® who fell in love® with Jack Driscoll© (Adrien Brody$) while the character Carl Denham® (Jack Black©) was seeking to make a Blockbuster® film which would inevitably sell out

Leaving us to find a video store that did have the movie

The scene with Kong@ the edge of the cliff during sunset with the fair maiden Ann, was quite tender and raised some inevitable questions. What do these two see in each other? This is a culture clash of the most polariffic kind. Due to obvious size differences, mating would be a painful task to say the least, especially for the human female, with all her microvaginal tendencies. Talk about a frustrating sex life. Hopefully it's frustrating, because otherwise I'm sure said human female would look like a peeled banana left in Kong's wake. Cast aside with all the other sacrificial fleshy blonde banana peels in the corner of his remote cave dwelling. Despite the obvious lack of intercourse throughout the film, it was pretty good. Except for the insect scene. Any of you out there who have seen the movie surely know exactly what I'm talking about as this was the creepiest movie scene ever conceived in my opinion. Just the backing music alone...maybe you don't remember that part, but to me it brought the whole thing home. The music almost didn't seem to fit the scene, until you really thought about it. Watch it again and you'll see what I mean. You'll be unpleasantly insectified. The special effects were pretty good, and Jack®, Niomi©, Adrien™, and Kong |:-| all played convincing roles in the classic remake of this 1930's thriller.

I'm not sure why I went off on a bantering movie review
as it has nothing to do with me, except for the King Dong.

Moving on

While out on my bike ride I succeeded in not hitting all the
trash cans placed out on the curb even though it wasn't trash day.

These dips had better move their cans inside
before I give them the whalloping of a lifetime

It's amazing how quickly the residential areas change from upper class to lower in LA.
In a matter of a few hundred feet the property values fluctuate at an alarming rate

This house was very nice indeed

this was the house next door.

Not really, it was two houses down.

This street was very nice too, and had no trashy canned obstacalia

This was the next street over

I'm not sure if that dog is dead, or merely stolen from google's image search,
but I assure you the caption said "Sleeping dog in dirty street"

the transitional traversed territories tis tremendous

I saw some more homeli apparati

As with the gully's, trash cans, and vagabonds, the tap water in LA is pretty bad. We use a Brita water filter to get out the big chunks. I'm not sure where the toilet water ends and the tap water begins actually. Forever cycling through your bladder, into the gully's, and right back into your mouth. Sorry that was completely graphic and a bit nauseating. Unfortunately, though in bad taste, it seems to be true. I have switched back to drinking iced tea and Kool-aid just to mask the taste of the Britterly™ filtered water. In all honesty you should probably forgo drinking the filtered water and use it instead to shower with. Either that or shower at +212° to kill the ocean of microbial bacteria spewing out of the showerhead. The ensuing burns would no doubt be better than being laid up with bubonic plague for several months.

They even have water cafe's here

I joke you not.

Although the sign is obscured by the local fauna, they really do have water joints where you can buy bottled water, and even sit down and have some decent water for a change at small tables set up for thirsty patrons.

what's so funny?

Alright I seem to have wandered a bit

When I got to home depot I locked my bike
in the most suitable way to avoid lurking thieves.

Of course I did such a good job had to leave
it there as I couldn't put it all back together

After buying a new bike, I rode past
 a Prestigious Ivy little-league school

Then I saw this grandiose mansion
on the top of a hill in Hollywood

While I'm taking pictures of obstructive
lamp posts take a look at this one

What I really wanted to show was the distant helicopter which is circled in red. The helicopters are everywhere in LA. There is one overhead virtually all the time. The one pictured is the furthest away I've ever seen one. I had to wait to photograph this one as the camera was blowing out of my hand when it was nearby. Now either they are FBI choppers stalking me for the Asian female slave importing (which I assure you I know nothing about) or they are just ceaselessly swarming the area like angry bees. When I was back in Santa Monica I was woken up by an apparently crazed whirly-bird pilot. It was 3am, I was sleeping peacefully. All of a sudden I woke up abruptly to what sounded like a fission powered lawn mower falling on top of my head. This helicopter must have been 11 feet from the house. It was going in circles and every time his exhaust pipe was pointed in my direction, or whatever was causing such a racket, it would let out a blaring bellow that sounded like a stock car at full throttle driving by my open window. I thought the world was about to end. It went on for at least a half hour. Everyone else slept through it but I will never recover fully.

Then I saw the Jesus van

This thing had Jesus loves this, Jesus loves that, got Jesus? seen Jesus? All about Jesus bumper stickers plastered on the thing. I mean Jesus, (that was one too) what the begeezes were you thinking (that was another one) Gee whilickers (that was mine) This Christian of the most outwardly projecting variety apparently bought this minivan as it had so much square footage for the many corporate Jesus ads. Apparently he had outgrown his Yugo several years ago with the addition of "Jesus Christ, Super Car" (that was mine too)

'nuff said

After going to home depot I decided to go back out and investigate the Guitar Center in Hollywood. I went back the same direction on my bike again, apparently unphased that I had just driven halfway in the same direction and back again going to home depot. I figured it was a good workout and it wasn't raining for once. Since discovering the parallel streets which were less crowded I was glad to take another ride. Not much happened along the way besides the usual gully's, choppers, scooters, trains, planes and automobiles. There was a Ralph's grocery store a block down from guitar center so I decided to lock my bike there, walk up to guitar center and buy whatever groceries I could fit in my backpack before I headed home.

They had a pretty sweet bike rack

After locking the bike beyond repair
I headed up the street to guitar center.

This place was huge. As many of you know guitar center doesn't allow cameras wwhich is unfortunate but we will all have to live with it. On the way in I met a guy originally from Norwood MA named "Glass" This name was easy to remember and is the only name I remember of all the people I've net here in LA. Actually that's not true. I've met Zen, Ben, Jen, Dave, Irene, Art, George, Willie, Chris, Rebecca, Lisa, Steve, Wendy, Mike, Mark, Christina and the crazed clown lady. Who will be in the next blog I assure you. The store had a wide selection of guitars

the keyboard room was immense

The drum department went on and on

They had a whole floor for accessories

On the way out I noticed the famed "guitar walk of fame"

I hope they have room for a footprint

Left by the VSO in all it's Kongdamonium

* Readers Choice®

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