COMMON ZOMBIE TIME
So today, Common is jamming out at Cal State Northridge and Shadowscene was there earlier today showcasing the It's Turbo!!! comic strip and Botwear...and hooray because Common was pretty stoked on his Classic Botwear! For the month of October, you can check out a selection of the It's Turbo!!! comics at the Hear Gallery so make sure you look for them!! Otherwise, just go check the strips at the Shadowscene myspace page. Rad.
Now of course, it's off to Hollywood Forever for the long awaited screening of Romero's Dawn of the Dead!! Where else could I ever watch a classic zombie film in a cemetery with over 95,000 people, and still be in front row. Zombies attack!!!!!

STUFF, STYLE & METAL
Thursday rocked me. So hard. So, so hard. I got to shoot and hang out at the STUFF Magazine Style Awards party, rooftop of the Arclight theater. First off, any party that gives you unlimited free beverages and tons of food is a hit. Not to mention Adam 12 DJ'ing with Franki Chan.
But the fun doesn't stop there. The Eagles of Death Metal kicked some serious ass (as usual). Furthermore, some crazy break dancin' act from Vegas hit the floor and then, this is the funny part, we had a guest beat boxer busting out some rhythm when the cops came. What Hollywood function ever gets broken up by the cops? And apparently, one is required to have a Beat Box permit. What the hell?? Do I need a permit to wear pants now too? Amazingly, everyone still bounced around macking on the free booze. Thanks Stuff, for showing us all a great time. Hooray to EODM for rocking and for all the wonderful companies that gave my tummy some free filling. One never can have enough egg rolls, alcohol and rock n' roll.

MONKEYS AND VIRGINS
So far this week has continued to be full of surprises. First off, our monthly Get Famous at BOA the other night was yet again a success!! Wayne Brady and some of the dudes from Queer Eye stopped by early in the night followed by the freakin' original drummer from the Monkeys. Hey man, that's way cool. Lots of free drinks for the crowd and DJ Paparazzi tore it up as usual!! Plus, last night at Check Yo' we had three absolutely amazing bands. The Fawnhawks ruled!! Followed by Myles' Bloodcat Love and Jason's Dead Ponies. All three bands really played amazing first gigs. Yay!! Rock and roll and dancing madness continues.
Today I spent the afternoon catching up on photos and meetings and preparing for three upcoming art shows. The madness never stops. Now it's off to the Stuff Mag party to scope out the schwag and snap the shots.

WHAT JUST HAPPENED?

I've feel like I've sort of fallen off the face of the earth and yet so much has happened in the past few days it's been nearly impossible to keep up with. Lots of dancing, lots of madness, a little tonic, a little more vodka. Over the course of a few days I've experienced enough to exhaust me for a year. So here's a bit to just give you a glimpse.
From last week until today, more mexican food than one could imagine, Guest DJ turning a party into the best dance party I've seen in months, burning eyes from endless smoke, Boston chats, long car rides, five people in a pick-up truck, lounging on building stoops, missing out on Axl, designing tattoos, DFA rooftop parties, champagne pre-parties, nostalgic music, empty pools, and finally, a massive accumulation of madness in last nights ultimate chaos...consisting of cowboys, more free drinks, dancing, peanuts, more peanuts, stickers covering my friends and I from head to toe, people too big to be jumping on, jumping on me, ass spankings, dribbling drinks on sweaters, getting punched twice in one day, slapped only once, intriguing waiters gyrating on pianos, watching girls vomit next to the bar, doing splits, people singing songs that go something like head, chest, knees and toes, knees and toes. Being told my friend has been cut off, but he's not even my friend. Getting lost in the back room of a bar. Losing Creeksta in Universal Studios. Finding a phone. Losing the car. Losing the phone. Finding Creeksta. Puddle jumping, coyotes chasing, passing out on sidewalks, Thai food. 5am. Endless nights and forgetful mornings. The rest of it's becoming a blur.

FOLIAGE
Gotta love it. New England is amazing this time of year. And I've come to realize, the only place I've seen any sort of Fall foliage out here in LA is in Beverly Hills. For some reason the leaves on Doheny and Wilshire, Beverly, Rodeo and such all actually change color and fall. I don't know what the deal is, they must pay for some sort of seasonal effect over there and the rest of the city gets deprived. Sidewalks covered in leaves! Yay!! Only in Beverly Hills! But today I had a treat to top it because there's nothing better than getting some real genuine leaves shipped over across the country. Literally, good ole' Mama J mailed an envelope with leaves...pretty rad stuff. My own little New England fall festival in an envelope.

WE GOTS LUBRICATION!
So it's starting to seem as if Anna and I are on a bit of an ask and you shall receive pattern. Although it's a bit more of a mention and it will happen. It began with the cake fight the other night (we spoke of great cake wars, and alas, that's what occurred) and then last night it happened to us again. Anna and I headed down to Safari Sams to see 8-Bit and Leslie and the LY's, and damn, it was awesome! Hilarious! Fun! I'm totally going to score a Bedazzler asap!! At the end of the night, we are walking back to the car, and she starts telling me a story about how one night a friend and her were walking in the same spot and a dozen cars tried to pick them up, as if this were Santa Monica & Highland or some crap. So what do you know...just as she finishes the story a car pulls up to the side of the road and makes an offer, followed by another vehicle that intersects in front of the first and tries to top that offer. Meanwhile, Anna and I are by no means looking like street walkers, so it's all a bit strange and seems we've stumbled upon the hidden hot spot street corner of Hollywood. Naturally, we pass on the offers and get into our car. But naturally, it doesn't stop there. We drive. And then a third car pulls up beside us, and the best part is, they scream at us that they have lubrication. I mean seriously, that's a hard offer to pass on, right? WHAT!? A car full of dudes pulls up next to you and yells that they are lubricated?? What the hell? I mean that's a major selling point, we'd be pretty crazy to turn that offer down. I wonder what movie they scammed that line from? Needless to say, we rolled the windows up and reluctantly passed on the thrilling "we're lubricated" offer then proceeded to embark on a hunt for the 2am quesadilla. Laughing, joking, jumbling around we finally park at the Shadowscene headquarters and nestle ourselves safely inside, spicy quesadilla and tacos in hand.

HOLY MOLY
This weekend was nuts...first off, thanks to 8-Bit for doing yet again, another amazing show on Friday. Crazy drunk robots!!! And hooray for all the cake...and cake fighting. The best was that just 10 minutes before the cake war broke out, Anna and I were talking about how much we wanted to just get a cake and throw it around, you know, just for fun. Then all of a sudden, we were in the midst of what we had asked for. Cake flying everywhere, smeared in hair, shoved in faces. Good sweet sticky fun! And that cake honestly weighed about 40lbs and we somehow managed to let a bit of it last long enough for eating. Yum.
Then Saturday night was the monthly BLOW UP LA at Hear Gallery, another crazy night of dancing and amazing bands. Kissing Tigers and This Blush were both awesome and the freakin' Gangs of Neon came out and DJ'd and man did it get nuts...those boys can motivate a dance floor. No cake fights but lots of neon style embellishment and sweaty dance action. Gotta love the Hear.

HOLLYWOOD STAKEOUT
So last night I went out to lovely Alhambra to shoot the Latino speaker Jesus Andres Bueno. Joe came along for comedy considering he doesn't know or understand a lick of Spanish other than "Hola"! So he stood by wondering what the hell was going on and making up dialogue inside his head. Hooray MST3000 with Joe Joe!! Regardless, I got to run around ninja style and photograph this guy for a couple of hours, and oh the hilarity. There was even a song and dance.
Of course, then Joe and I headed out, stole a couple of golf balls from the nearby driving range for our weird collection of nothingness, and then made it back to Hollywood in 9 minutes. And we had plans. We had lots of plans...Vanguard for free copies of BPM, Social for short lived entertainment, little dark bars for a couple of drinks...dancing...but no.
Instead, we spent over an hour in his car, trying to repair the broken sunroof, considering it was starting to drizzle, and the damn thing wouldn't shut. So for an hour or so we took turns pulling, pushing, holding in clicking buttons, kicking rooftops, punching the padded ceiling and nothing. That damn sunroof is still stuck open. Although, we did spend that hour directly across the street from what we discovered to be a hidden drug house. And by hidden I mean literally buried by shrubbery and in pit of darkness. We watched about 7 people and 3 couples lurk around and make hidden exchanges. Of course, we then looked like we were on a stakeout and apparently we're not very good at it because we were caught!!! Some dude managed to see us just sitting in the car poking around and being up to no good I suppose. And boy did we get the evil glare. Total creepazoid eye contact on a dimlit street stranger to stranger. There were about 30 seconds of awkwardness, a new century stare down and considering Joe and I weren't decked out in our Warriors Shadowbot vests, we opted on checking out of that scene. In other words we decided it would be best to leave. So we did.
All in all, the Hollywood stakeout and attempted car repair pretty much took up our entire night, although we managed to sneak in some Crunch Wrap Supreme before calling it an evening. An evening of retardedness with Joe Joe and Ellei.

IN A NUTSHELL

I went to eat dinner a few nights ago...at this cute little italian restaurant place in Larchmont Village. I decided to order the vegetarian lasagna, because well, why not. Yay veggies! But the thing was, when the plate of steamy food finally arrived, it was more or less cheese. And I love cheese. Love it! But when I was excited for veggies, and wanted all those lovely little nutrients, I didn't want all that cheese! No more cheese! Damn it...there were like four little slices of squash and zucchini in there, whatever that green and yellow stuff was. And a wonderful non-abundance of maybe a piece of spinach. And then the rest of that steaming hot plate was compiled of four layers of pasta noodles and ten thousand different cheeses. More like cheese lovers lasagna. Regardless, for dessert I ordered the New York cheesecake...I'm not kidding. And that thing was fantastic!

Valley Day
So today, I ended up heading out to Burbank to pick up Creeksta from the airport. So much better than working or going to LAX for that matter. And oh the awesomeness! We went to Hugo's for lunch and dipped in on some lime oj wine. A pitcher of it to be exact. With some fluffy rolls and funky salad with jicama. The best part was that the waiter simply kept coming back and filling up the glasses. How dare we leave them half empty! Sip. Sip. Sip.
After lunch, and conversing about swimming in fountains and I don't really remember what else, we found ourselves wandering around in an empty house for sale. Lame house, sweet pool. Loads of fun.

HAPPY FALL!!
Yeah!! So my favorite time of the year is here...finally. I mean, I love the summer, but fall is seriously the most colorful, temperature waving, vital time of the year. And of course, Halloween is the bestest of the best!!! Yes! Yes!
Besides, in a couple weeks I get to partake in the screening of the original Dawn of the Dead at the Hollywood Forver cemetary. Plus...this year is a Zombie Walk in early October!! Oh the crazy clad clan that will be. I can't wait. I simply need some hot apple cider to melt me into the fabulousness of fall.

FUNNY STORY
So I basically shut down for about a week. Let me just say a break and some time off is just what I needed, screw milk, sleep does a body good. Obviously.
So last week the Shadowscene solo art show was confirmed!! Sweet deal!! Yes! So come next month, sometime in October anyway, there will be a crazy art show party over in Beverly Hills with straight up Shadowscene Ellei J art. Nice. But here's the funny story.
So Friday night the gallery had an opening and my lovely friend Anna was working. Needless to say this wonderful woman was quite inquisitive about the gallery and upcoming artist and no matter how many times Anna informed the woman that she just really didn't know much about the art, because she was simply serving the wine, the woman insisted on details and information being revealed. So, when she asked about the next show, Anna naturally let her know about the Ellei J. show. And oh boy did the woman's face light up. Maybe at the final revealing of some gallery tidbits...oh but it didn't stop there. "Oh yes, she says, I've heard of her. Amazing artist yada yada yada". Of course, it'd be amazing if she'd honestly heard of me. But really...that'd be pretty far out and a bit uncanny. Oh Anna...gotta love you for holding back the laughter and playing along with the curious ole' lass. Funny. Nothing better than someone bullshitting with another fellow bullshitter. I kid you not. And stuff.

Can You DIG It?
Tonight was amazing...I finally ventured out minus camera in hand and just embraced the evening. And hooray for cemetary screenings!! Hollywood Forever did me the pleasure of screening two hours of 1979 funky clad males running endlessly in The Warriors. Yes! I haven't seen this movie in it's entirety until tonight. And seriously, any movie with dudes running around in vests, mime costumes, Yankees attire and face paint, leather, random hats and all black is good for me. No complaints here. This movie is awesome!! And plus, where else can you watch a 27 year old film with the starring actress in the audience with you...on her birthday. Sweet Hollywood film screenings!! Lounging around on blankets, huddled with friends for comfort and warmth, wine, crackers and jalapeno cheese...more wine, spinach dip...you get the idea.
From there a group of us headed over to Hear Gallery...where Elina was busted with a can-o'sparks in her bag. So of course we all stopped and stood with her while she was forced to pound the Sparks outside the door because we couldn't bring it in with us. What!! Where the hell else do you go and they let you keep it...and make you drink it! We made it in just in time to watch The Afterhours trash their gear and finish their set. Game over...
Creeksta and I drove off in the Club Tattoo truck...and hung out at El Grande Burrito, which to me seemed to be tucked away in a very intricate wire fenced area in some random neighborhood. But damn, did they have some amazing tacos. Tacos!! An hour under the red plastic canteen lights and a few ounces of salsa later, we migrated...to the land of soft plush pillows and kittens.

HAZY, DAZY, DISCO
It's hazy. It's hot. It's wild. This week has been nuts!!! Last weekend was the Sunset Junction yearly festival. So Sunday, I decided to drop by, or sneak in, and run around with some friends. Yummy food, flashy lights, and random run-ins with strangers and their pets. Good times! We pretty much skipped out on all the bands, but what the heck, it was more about the joy of aimlessly wandering around.
Then, Tuesday night was insane! Matt & Kim played an amazing show at Check Yo' Ponytail with Kill Hannah. Plus, the lovely girls from Rocket are back in town...(yay!!!) and we all celebrated with a homecoming show. Lots of tequila shots chased by Corona. Wheee. Other than that, I've been playing a bit of catch up this week...tee-shirts are flying outta here like a crazy-winged bat. Or something. And I think I'm sinking into a photo collage of life. But now, I'm back and ready for tonights RAPTURE at the Hear Gallery!!! It should be absolutely nuts, especially considering they just renovated the venue and got a new AC and larger bar. Holy crap. I don't know if you know, but that place typically leaves you covered in about a million other people's gallons of sweat. And you're guarenteed to leave with a perm. But no more!! Not tonight! There shall be dancing, and a bit of sweatiness. But no more boiler room action. Sweet...sweaty...disco dancin'. Yes.