As sort of a spur-of-the-moment, "Let's celebrate three birthdays and we really don't want to be working on that 15-page paper due on Tuesday," thing, a bunch of us from the grad program headed down to the Short Stop in Echo Park after class with a few assorted friends. It was a fleeting-but-fun diversion from the drudgery of academia filled with drinks, dancing and cigarettes. However, when we left at around midnight, I was struck by a sense of utter disappointment. Outside of the Short Stop, there was a line!
I wonder why on earth people would stand in a block-length line to go into a bar, particularly when there was another bar that seemed equally sketchy-Echo Park-hipster less than twenty feet away with no line in front. Despite the fact that we had a good time at the Short Stop, I never would have stood in line for entrance. Are people so enraptured by the full-bodied taste of Stella that they will wait for an hour to get into a bar that has it on tap? Is former Afghan Whig's frontman/Twilight Singers head/Short Stop owner Greg Dulli such a bona fide LA hipster that people are wont to hear him play the same party standards that one could hear at any other bar/frat party/wedding? Was the Cobrasnake taking off-kilter photos of the fashionably wasted for next week's LA Weekly? I don't know. However, the only justifications for standing in line are a) a kick-ass band; b) music that you know you won't hear anywhere else or c) um, actually, I'm really not sure if there is a c, but if there is, it probably involves an open bar.

Whenever I respond to people's inquiries as to the date of my birthday, the next comment is almost inevitably, "Oh, yeah, that's the day John Lennon died."
Yeah, I know, it was all over the news on the evening of my fourth birthday. It's the sad fact that will most likely ruin any chance I have of interviewing Yoko Ono in the future. Stop making me feel like the kid whose elderly relative died on his/her birthday and whose other elderly relatives bring it up every year.
But, there is more to December 8 than that. It is the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, a Catholic Holy Day of Obligation, which really hasn't meant anything to me since I graduated from a Catholic high school and stopped getting the day off from class. And, while we are on the subjects of Catholics, today is also the natal celebration for a certain pop star-turned-priest-turned-reggae artist.
Yes, dear readers, today Sinead O'Connor turns thirty-nine, making her precisely ten years older than yours truly. Honestly, I feel damn proud to share the date with Ms. O'Connor, as she has been one of my favorite singers since I heard "Mandinka" on KROQ back in elementary school.
Since this is Ms. O'Connor's birthday, I suggest you locate your copy of The Lion and the Cobra (and if you don't have it, for shame) and listen to "Troy" until the song forces you to curl up in the fetal position on your bed while balling.
Sometimes, if we were lucky, the DJs at Helter Skelter would play "Troy" and the dance floor would turn into a black velvet sea of heartbreak slowly morphing into tidals waves of "I'm just a cold dark candle in the cruel white world" style anger. You can hear it in the song, the forlorn recollections of "Dublin in a rainstorm, sitting in the long grass in summer, keeping warm" building to the realization that "there is no other Troy, for me to burn" and culminating in the cries of "You're still a liar!" As we drove from club to club, My friend Angel and I would blast the song from his SUV, screaming along to this song. He could hit the notes. I could not.
I would go through fazes of just listening to "Troy" over and over again, listening to the buildup and wondering how could someone who was, at the time of the recording, no more than 21 write something so gut-wrenching, something that might actually be classified as genius? Sinead O'Connor has a rare, underappreciated gift. We should declare today Sinead Day.

Sorry about the lack of posts lately. It's finals time. Anyhow, today marks the anniversary of John Lennon's assassination and, as such, you can hear a tribute to him on BBC 2 featuring Trash Can Sinatras, Paul Weller, Badly Drawn Boy and more. Check the site for times. Also, the program should be online for a week following the broadcast.

I did this interview with Mouse on Mars back in October and now you can read it online at PopMatters.

Special thanks to Sarah and her mom for helping me spell narrenkappe. It means "idiot's cap," basically that one's naivete serves as protection from harm and is more proof that German is a more efficient language than English. I really need to learn German.

Setting: Sunday afternoon at the Geffen MOCA for the Ecstasy exhibit. The Usual Suspects and I have just exited a light display in shades of Apple II E green and were approaching a display of Glenn Brown paintings (including "Death Disco," which you can see if you follow the link).
"Hey, that girl from High Fidelity just walked in there," Nelson said, nodding back to the room we had just exited.
"Which girl from High Fidelity?" I asked.
"The singer."
"Lisa Bonet?"
He didn't respond.
"As in Denise Huxtable?"
"As in Lisa Bonet from A Different World?" Carlos asks.
"As in Lisa Bonet from Angel Heart?" I add as Juan starts to giggle.
"Yeah, her."
"No, shit! That's cool."
A few minutes later, we stared at a series of Fred Tomaselli pieces, pointing out hemp leaves and Vicodin tablets embedded in the layers of the work, when I noticed her.
"Wow, he's right. That is Lisa Bonet."
Celebrity sightings are remarkably common in Los Angeles, so common that we generally don't give a damn. However, it is not very often that you go to a museum and end up five feet away from Lisa Bonet looking exactly as she did on A Different World. Her face is the same as it is on tv, unlike some people who, in person, look like a plastic surgeon's malpractice suit in the making. Her hair still hangs in those ass-length braids she still dresses like a Hillman-bound Denise, baggy pinstriped gray pants, man-tailored jacket, oversized straw hat pulled low on her head. The only celebrity sighting we have had the could possibly top this was when the usual suspects and I saw Gary Coleman at the Derby one night and Carlos walked into the bathroom right after him.
Lisa Bonet aside, I highly recommend checking out Ecstasy. "City Glow," a video produced by Murakami, is my personal favorite. Also, there is a large painting and sculpture by Murakami, a mushroom room, light displays that made me dizzy in a very good way and a piece called "Homo Crap #1" (I can't remember the name of the artist) that is better than any gay club in West Hollywood. After two hours, we left feeling unsure that we had covered the entire exhibit. That said, we'll probably see Ecstasy again. It's open until February 20, 2006.

Each year, I dread hearing the same Christmas carols all over the airwaves. Though, I rarely get to hear my favourite, "Christmas Wrapping" by the Waitresses. In any case, someone alerted to Santastic: Holiday Boots 4 Your Stockings, a collection of Christmas mash-ups including Eartha Kitt, Destiny's Child, The Jackson 5, Mr. Hanky The Christmas Poo, The Peanuts, and many others. My favourite is track 8, "Biggie's Last Christmas," which is Wham's "Last Christmas" vs. Puffy's "I'll Be Missing You." You can download the entire album here.