I had a great weekend and just wanted to get it down in writing. I rarely go back in the archives to view old posts, but that doesn’t mean I won’t in the future.

I guess it really started Wednesday. I babysat Owen – played in the backyard, had dinner (delicious pizza from Two Boots) with Cyn, Josh and their Chinese exchange student QiaoQiao (pronounced “Chow-Chow” vagy csaocsao), had bath time and the towelly-towelly run, read some stories and put him to sleep. Then finished up season four of The Wire (NSFW) while waiting for Abby to get home from another Wednesday at The Edison. It’s hard to describe what a great show The Wire is, but I guess the best way is to say it’s not like a “show” at all. Rather it seems more like a window into a part of this country that I know nothing about, a sort of docudrama of urban life in America. Anyway, you should definitely see it.

Thursday I got up early to go climbing at Malibu Creek with Chris (and nearly bailed because I was so tired), who brought along his friend Annabella and her mother. I led the first climb of the day, a 5.8 that was one of the longer routes in the spot, and then we watched Annabella’s 67-year-old mother do it in tennis shoes without much trouble (though she skipped the hard start). As her daughter put it, “my mom’s pretty badass”. It should also be mentioned that she lives on a 40-foot catamaran and sails up and down the eastern seaboard most of the year, and she’s “always looking for crew members.” Um, yes please? Also led a 5.9 later in the day. We swam in the creek and ate PB&J. Hit the road and caught rush hour traffic back to Silverlake; I got home with just enough time to shower before my class at LA Trade-Technical College (sorry, Cole, no walk today buddy!). Spent three hungry hours learning about solar photovoltaic modules, alternating current vs. direct current, and laughing at our instructor’s funny stories. The students’ attitude is very colloquial – like high-school shop class – and many of the instroctor’s anecdotes start off with the groan-inducing “so I was talking to this guy…” Got home around 10pm and hung out with Howard, who had just returned from a week of food conventions in New York, for a bit, then watched the first half of The Seven Samurai, by Akira Kurosawa. It’s really pretty amazing that I haven’t seen any of his films, being the Japanese Art guy that I suppose I was, and though I did doze off in parts I could immediately see why he’s garnered so much acclaim.

Friday did my usual news-reading put-puttering around the house, then Howard and I met Jess and Emily at the Barbarella bar for happy hour. After tuna tartar, hummus, a so-so mojito and a terrible caipirinha (sigh, still drank it), we left and watched the sun go down from Crestmont between games of billiards (I won and lost every game on a technicality, scratching and so on). Next was a party up in the Mt. Washington area, which was nice because a) it had a great view that was different from the great view at Crestmont and b) there was a hot tub. People traded jokes and were merry. At midnight I got Jess to sing the Star Spangled Banner, with the group joining in for the last two lines. Three hours of singing, hot-tubbing, drinks and smiles later, we headed to our respective places of rest.

Saturday was little Abram’s second birthday and he performed like a champ. Pool party at Grandma and Grandpa Goldstein’s house in West Hollywood, with lots of the little tykes in attendance. Also met Leonie, Carson and Dajana’s two-week-old baby girl. The cake had a basketball theme – Abe loves the “b-ball”. Lifeguard “straight out of central casting for Baywatch” was on duty, and tried teaching QiaoQiao to swim (what’s with Asians and the fear of water? People I knew in Japan didn’t know how to swim. On an island nation for chrissakes! Maybe in China all the lakes and rivers are too polluted to warrant learning? Probably better off drowning than growing a stunted third arm from your hip or melting your face off.) After that headed home for a nap. When I woke up Eric had gotten home from 6 weeks in New York and Minnesota, so we caught up for a while. He’d been working on a job installing artworks at the newly-reopened Governor’s Island. Later on I caught up with Hilary and friends (also just back from a few weeks vacationing in Europe), Jess, Emily and QiaoQiao to see a screening of Jaws (“See it, before you go swimming.”) at the Hollywood Forever cemetery. It was packed and got cold by the end, but we’d brought lots of great snacks and drinks, so it passed nicely. After I dropped off QiaoQiao (not noticeably disturbed by the roboshark), I regrouped with Jess and Emily and friends and drove around looking for “The End of the World”, a semi-secret (and hella hard to find) lookout spot somewhere below and west of the Hollywood sign. We eventually found it and passed a bottle of wine while sitting on top of a wall painted with the American flag, toasting to the liquor laws in the land of the free. Home again around 3:30am.

Today got up about ten (for a change. It’s hard to sleep late most mornings because the light comes right in my window and pokes my eyeballs out right through the lids) and made some eggs and fruit. Got on the net and finally used up my Borders gift card that I got for Christmas to buy two CDs: K’Naan – Troubadour (convinced by Magee and others with quite dope musical tastes) and the new Mos Def – Ecstatic (convinced by the track with Slick Rick that is blowing up KCRW). Hooked up with Abby, Merlin and Owen (thankfully feeling better after five tough days and nights of high fever) and headed to Santa Monica for some beach action. It was packed, but windy and much cooler than east LA, so my three consecutive days in the water came to a close without an ocean entry. Had mediocre and over-priced sushi for dinner (but! $2 happy hour pints of Sapporo!), then got a couple of slings and locking caribiners at REI. Wanted to get so much more – a sport-climbing rack of quickdraws, a messenger bag, new biking gloves and shorts, a water bottle, headlamp, etc etc. but oh yeah, I’m still unemployed for the most part. Added to the list of other wants (new laptop, circular polarizer, 10-16mm Tokina lens, plane tickets) for when I finally sit my ass down and find a job. But that’s what Monday’s are for, right?

Life in LA is good. Pictures to come soon. And after all this, happy birthday America. We’ve come a long way, and we’ve got a long way to go. But it’s good to be here, and I wish you could be too.

Since 2005, San Francisco-based mashup DJs and Bootie (the party) pioneers Adrian and the Mysterious D (aka A+D) have compiled their favorite mashups of the previous year into a must-have selection of that year’s hits. If there is one bastard-pop album to be had (though since they’re almost always free, you should really have them all) each annum, this would probably be it.

Residents of any of the cities where Bootie events go down will likely be pretty familiar with the tunes, which are mainly composed of this year’s pop sensations combined with yesteryear’s funkiest or best-known tracks. These come off the dancefloors and onto wax in Best of Bootie 2008.

Some of the more obvious entries include the A+B mash of The Police’s “Roxanne” and The Bee Gees’ “You Should be Dancing”, by DJ Zebra, and the tongue-literally-poking-through-the-cheek irony of Divide & Kreate’s “Until It Talks”, a combination of Coldplay and Metallica tracks.

But the award for creativity most definitely goes to SF’s DJ Earworm, who mixes not two, not five, but sixteen different artists (Rihanna vs. Kardinal Offishall vs. Akon vs. Ne-Yo vs. Estelle vs. Pussycat Dolls vs. Leona Lewis vs. Danity Kane vs. Madonna vs. Timbaland vs. Justin Timberlake vs. Lupe Fiasco vs. Matthew Santos vs. Britney Spears vs. Flo-Rida vs. T-Pain) to create “No More Gas”. Bordering dangerously on the Girltalk-dominated sub-genre (or is it a completely new one?) of extreme mashups, this is a whole bunch of song fragments, choruses and other bits that somehow got stuck in your head over the year. No need to go back to all those (mostly) bad originals, now you have them all in one track! It’s like a “Best of” list all in itself.

Anyway, as always with the Bootie compilations, this one is pre-mixed for your continuous listening and dancing pleasure. Many thanks to A+D for keeping the Bootie series going and here’s looking forward to a mash-terful 2009.

Click the photo above to go to the Bootie site and peruse the album, or just click HERE for the full zipped download, complete with cover art!

A while back E and I were on the Boat, just having a few drinks with friends, when suddenly we found our feet tapping and heads bobbing. Soon the drinks were dropped, the sweaters tossed in a corner and we were full on rocking out to some jazzy, disco-y, funky music, with a singer that just made you remember what the hell singing is supposed to be about in a club.

The next day, we found out this was the Singas Project. “Sin gas” is Spanish for “without pop” – meaning this was no teenie-bopper-friendly BS, but some soulful dance-jazz that we found ourselves immediately enamored with. Check out the below video (be patient with the crowd chatting at the beginning) and let me know if you want their album – I’d be happy to buy it and ship it to you, because I think they’re that cool.

Halloween RULES.

Photo gallery HERE. Post coming soon.

Saw a great brass/combination band from France last night at Trafó called CQMD. The line up is comprised of two percussionists, both of whom carry their drums, marching band style, three horn players (tuba, trombone, trumpet) and a banjo. They rocked it, bringing a combination of lively brass band funk that gets your feet jumping and head bopping to the stage and with the addition of the banjo and amplification to give it more musical texture and creativity. From my very limited experience with new-school brass bands, which are the hippest thing to hit the U.S. in years, I could see that this one had roots in the outdoor, unamplified, party band area, then progressed to a more musical, staged act. They still came down into the crowd to mix it up, which is a trademark of the style, and the Hungarians loved it.

This Halloween I decided to get a little bit ambitious and build my costume. As a regular reader of the Make Blog, I came across this site, and, being in Hungary and all, instantly knew the costume that would a) fulfill my creative impulse, b) be something that no one else would even think of doing, and c) endear me to any Hungarian that saw me in it. They don’t even celebrate Halloween here anyway, but because I work at a tourist magazine, we (well, I) had the idea of throwing a big party. This is the process and results.

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Bounced around last night to the sounds of old-school junglist Gavin King (aka Aphrodite) at hipster hot-spot Tuzrakter.  Although I was never more than a dabbler in the rave scene, the abundance of post-adolecsent crackheads still getting down after what, 10+ years of this stuff was enough to make me glad I never rolled too deep with the homies.  But the scene itself was authentic -sweaty, smoky and swinging- and brought back (good?) memories.

A word about the music itself: Aphrodite’s sound hasn’t changed a bit since he blew up in ’95- it’s still hip-hop and ragga samples over rat-a-tat-tat beats and nimble basslines.  He even played some of those old classics like the Ready or Not remix and Western, plus of course the title of this post, much to the crowd’s pleasure (the “I got five on it” remix would have been a little too much to ask for however).  There was a day (and there sometimes still are) when I envisioned the rock-star life of being “just” a DJ, but when I see some of these guys who are my real favorites, I think again.  They’re just all a bunch of 40-ish overweight white dudes with a ciggy hanging out the side of their mouths and a beer wedged between the Mark V’s and the CD-J who look like their main profession is riding around in red convertibles in Ibiza chasing underage European girls.  Why that sounds negative I can’t exactly say. Maybe I’m getting old.