Stuff and Stuff

2008-09-27T09:58:00.000-07:00

Happy Birthday to me...

i don't know anymore

2008-09-20T13:27:00.000-07:00

4 killed in SC plane crash; drummer, DJ injured

WEST COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — Hours after performing for thousands of South Carolina college students, former Blink-182 drummer Travis Barker and celebrity DJ AM were critically injured in a fiery Learjet crash that killed four people, authorities said Saturday.

I hope things aren't as bad as they sound. I dig Blink 182, am OK with +44, and really liked Boxcar Racer. I hope they pull through. I hope my memory of seeing Blink in the Bay Area with Travis spinning upside down in his drum kit isn't marred by remembering that he died in a plane crash.

I hold my breath but sip air quietly on the sly. Much like when Lady Di was killed, it is strange and coincidental that everyone but the famous people are being reported dead.

Fingers crossed.

you're showing your gray

2008-09-14T18:04:00.000-07:00

Is it normal to start sweating profusely while cleaning your kitchen floor? I have a birthday coming up. I'll be 34. I don't feel like I'm in my mid-30's but apparently my body sometimes thinks so.

I'd like to think I don't look like I'm in my mid-30's and that nobody thinks so, too.

I'm not much for working out, but I do exercise through activity and am in fairly good shape, I think. I probably can't run as fast or as far as I could when I was 16; but I don't need to rest going up a flight of stairs, either. I'm still confident enough to lift heavy objects over my head, and I'm not afraid of a long hike or bike ride. I have a few creaks, but they're the same ones I've always had. So all in all, not too terrible, I think.

As the song goes, another day older and deeper in debt (except without the debt part). Let's see what we get this year.

rest in peace

2008-09-13T19:39:00.001-07:00

Writer David Foster Wallace found dead

David Foster Wallace, the novelist, essayist and humorist best known for his 1996 tome "Infinite Jest," was found dead last night at his home in Claremont, according to the Claremont Police Department. He was 46.

Jackie Morales, a records clerk at the Claremont Police Department, said Wallace's wife called police at 9:30 p.m. Friday saying she had returned home to find her husband had hanged himself.

This saddens me. I'm looking at the spine of Infinite Jest right now, and as much as I struggled through it, I also loved the ride it took me on. Why do so many authors commit suicide? John Kennedy O'Toole (asphyxiation), Ernest Hemingway (shotgun), Hunter S. Thompson (gunshot), Virginia Woolf (drowned), and on and on. Why does the introspection of writing often lead down such a dark path. Too soon, David Foster.

2008-09-02T23:52:00.000-07:00

It finally happened. I was able, correctly, to use one of my favorite quotes in a sentence. It was even apropos.

So what if I got it off of Billy the Kid from Young Guns?

"There's many a twist twixt a cup and a lip!"

then and now

2008-08-31T16:21:00.000-07:00

That's the greatest age difference that you've dated? I ask this question rhetorically, as there aren't a statistically significant number of people reading this. I wonder why I say that like I care?

But I digress.

Age, has been said many times before, is just a number, and nothing seems to proved that more than the people that we align our lives with. Generally speaking, I usually find myself drawn to/drawn by people around my own age. In the past, this was likely due to the fact that there were vast differences between ages when I was younger. I mean, consider a fifteen year old compared to a 10 year old. Gross! But a 30 year old and a 25 year old? Not that big of a deal.

In my dating "career" I've been with someone as much as 10 years younger than me and, more recently, 8 years older. I'm not sure that I have a point other to illuminate the fact that even with a nearly 20-year wide window, I still haven't found what I'm looking for.

fun facts, courtesy of mom

2008-08-27T14:07:00.000-07:00

How do you spell "supercede"? Probably like I just did with a "c", and like me, you would be wrong! Apparently, "supercede" is the most commonly misspelled word today, and it is often found uncorrected in any number of books or reading materials.

Of course, the argument could be made that if society at large seems to agree on a common spelling then that should make it correct...but technically, the correct usage is: supersede.

And now you know.
And knowing is (say it with me) HALF THE BATTLE!

david kleeman's concert calendar, brought to you by pabst blue ribbon

2008-08-27T12:00:00.000-07:00

Places I'm going:

.: Monsters are Waiting @ the Getty - 08.29
.: The Melvins @ the Troubadour - 08.30
.: Nine Inch Nails @ the Fabulous Forum (it will always be the "Fabulous Forum" to me...go Lakers!) - 09.06
.: Does It Offend You, Yeah? @ the Troubadour - 09.22
.: The Kings of Leon @ the Nokia Theater - 10.15
.: Dr. Jack Daniels @ a bar near you - almost every night

love lorn, lost, seeking same for fun and more?

2008-08-27T03:22:00.000-07:00

I'm not even really sure what I'm saying. Sometimes in Life you meet people. You go out with them or you don't. You have a connection or you don't. Sometimes they are engaged, or have a boyfriend, or are just passing through your life. Other times they don't.

It comes in waves with me. Long periods of time spent with one of those people followed by loss and long periods of downward spirals with loose moral character and questionable behaviour (but a hell of a lot of fun! [can you tell which period I'm in now?])...until the time when I meet one of those people that makes me want to be the best version of myself again.

Still haven't found the one to motivate me out of my spiral, yet. Even better, the one to pull me out of my spiral for the last time. I thought I might have, but she was engaged, or had a boyfriend, or was just passing through my life. Which, somehow, is sadder than if she had never existed. Perhaps it's the loss of possibility?

how deep doth the rabbit hole go?

2008-08-25T08:01:00.000-07:00

Up all night with a woman who's not my wife. Or my girlfriend for that matter. Or anything other than just my friend, if truth be told. Every now and again I think it's important to beat the night. To prove your independence and your power of will. You're having a good time, and your body can't stop you.

And when you stumble out into the dawn, the joggers get the full hilt of your laughter sword.

unrequited revisions

2008-08-24T12:16:00.000-07:00

The sad things about updating your website are that:

.: you only have two people actually reading, and neither one of them cares
.: "updating" actually means "cleaning up"
.: "cleaning up" means spending hours tweaking code so that things look exactly like they did before you started. Except, you know, cleaner

So yeah, I changed things around a little bit.

i've got this sewn up

2008-08-23T18:56:00.000-07:00

Women that get to know me (as much as I allow that to be possible) often describe me as a "man's-man". I can fix anything, I build stuff, I drive a truck, have a deep voice, and strike an imposing figure with my smoldering good looks and chiseled jaw (OK, maybe not the last one).

Even so, I have a hard-time reconciling the moniker on days like today. Days where I hemmed two pairs of pants and patched some jeans. By myself. Using a sewing machine.

sigh

Using my sewing machine.

hot love

2008-08-23T15:25:00.001-07:00

Is it just me, or is it a little odd that the only way to definitively tell if an iron is still hot is to actually touch it?

There's a metaphor for love in there somewhere, I'm sure of it.

flush your shame

2008-08-09T17:23:00.001-07:00

What is that thing where guys don't flush the urinal? I'm almost positive that I've written about this before, but it's clearly still a problem, and therefore bears repeating: flush the damn urinal. No one, especially me, wants to see your discarded bodily fluid sitting in a perfectly formed porcelain cup.

I just find the behaviour odd. Why would you want to leave that behind? Is it machismo? Is it marking your territory? Is it germaphobia in touching the flush-handle? I just don't get it. Guys (almost) always flush the toilet itself. They don't (often) leave drowning coils of crap laying around on display...I'm not saying never on that one, though...but for some reason the urinal remains consistently un-flushed.

I just think it's weird.

zen and the art of text msgs

2008-08-03T11:54:00.001-07:00

My last three sent text messages speak to a higher level of understanding. Observe:

The marine layer has burned off and the sun is shining. Cigarette haze and broken dreams are all that remain. See you soon. Hey! Just thinking of you. I suspect ur going with God right now as I sink into more sin. Ur busy with bdays tonight right? Cause if you weren't... PS it's not YOUR birthday is it? Cause if so, I need to run out and get you a pony. Enjoy the mutt today. I always suspected that god put me second fiddle to man's best friend. So I believe it goes: canines, Dave (a different breed of dog), and rats, yes?

Who IS this Dave-guy anyway?

it's like they're watching me

2008-08-03T09:24:00.000-07:00

Why didn't any of you SOB's tell me how incredibly awesome Californication is? Granted, I get a cheap thrill out of the fact that it's filmed in my neighborhood ("There's my market!", "That's the house around the corner!", "The canals!"), and now I know what they're filming when I round the corner leaving my driveway and plow straight into a craft-services table... but it also happens to be an awesome show.

I've decided to model the remainder of my life on David Duchovny's character. A modern-day Bukowski with better hair and comic timing. Not that Bukowski isn't fucking hilarious, because he is. He's just not groomed for primetime on Showtime.

to do

2008-07-25T13:22:00.001-07:00

Dave's Life Schedule for the Last Month:

1. Work at least 10 hours...but more like 12
2. Stop by local dive-bar on way home because you "need" it
3. Play pool. Poorly
4. Leave just before last-call so that you're not one of "those" people
5. Possibly Wash
6. Rinse
7. Repeat

petrol is pricey

2008-06-15T22:02:00.000-07:00

Wow. Go here and take a look at my post from 02.23.2003. Or better, yet, I'll just re-create it here:

I just spent $27 on a tank-full of regular 87 octane gas. Thank you, President Bush.

ah-HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

If I may, I'd like to update it for the present day, a mere 5 years later:

I just spent $75 on a tank-full of regular 87 octane gas. Fuck YOU, President Bush.

And because I'm a dork, that equates to:
.: $48 increase in just over 5 years
.: roughly $9.00 per year
.: $0.75 per month! (accounting exactly for the 64 months it's been since that first post)

Imagine if your precious Big Mac (which I think is about $3.50USD these days) rose $0.75 every month, America. That baby would be $8 by Christmas! [OK, so that's not a strictly fair analogy...but it IS exciting and inflammatory, right? Just like Fox News!]

hard-boiled wonderland

2008-06-14T23:56:00.000-07:00

Every 6 months or so I get an over-whelming craving for a hard-boiled egg. I don't know why, it's just one of those things. Well, actually this time I do know why. I was reading Bukowski and he said:

I finished my beer, got up and found a bottle of vodka, one of scotch and sat down again. I mixed them with water; I smoked cigars, and ate beef jerky, chips, and hard-boiled eggs.

What? Doesn't that make you want a hard-boiled egg?

At any rate, I never remember how long to boil the things so I always have to look it up. One "recipe" (it's boiling water for chrissakes) said to add salt to the water towards the end of the cooking process, which will apparently help the egg to be easier to peel. To which I say:

what the fuck? Who the hell has trouble peeling a hard-boiled egg?!

I hate you, rockstar

2008-06-14T21:32:00.000-07:00

As you know, LA is the center off all that is good and holy. It is also, coincidentally, fairly close to the center of all that is terrible and sinful. The number one reason for this high ranking is the fact that LA is, without exception, a car town. A massive, massive car town.

People who complain that there is no public-transit in LA are wrong. There's a pretty well-developed bus system and even a slightly convenient metro that no one I've ever met has been on [TANGENT: the LA Metro gets a bad-rap from the NoCal San Francisco crowd because they have their very popular BART rail-system. Well the LA Metro may be pretty small, but the BART ain't no picnic, either. The damn thing doesn't even go all the way around the bay! But I digress...].

So we have the buses and the metro, but the problem isn't the system's themselves, it's that LA is so damn big! Taking the bus to work would be, for me, close to 2 hours...where it takes me 35-40 minutes to drive and 55 to ride my bike. Nuts to that! And, now that gas is so expensive ($4.60 at my local station you mid-western bastards!), the $75 I pay to fill up my tank every other week is really starting to hurt.

And SO, to bring it full circle, to watch a guy walk slowly by while carrying a walker as I sat stuck in traffic...well that was just pretty lame.

2008-05-29T23:46:00.000-07:00

As in relationships, as in life, communication is key. So many hardships, break-ups, hurt feelings, deaths, and basic misunderstandings come from just. not. communicating effectively. Therefore, and on that note...what the fuck?:
This "helpful" sign is in the already bewildering and slight horrible parking lot of the Whole Foods in Hollywood. And the great thing is, there's half a dozen of them.

I stared at this sign for a good full minute trying to understand it. "I can go right which is not actually right, or I can go left which is not actually left?" I took this picture, examined it later, and still am at a loss.

Is it a question? Is it asking me to tell it which is what?

Is it a philosophical statement? Whichever way you turn, you are where you are. Life is a highway. I want to ride it. All night long.

Is it The Scarecrow's stand-in? (...I'm a little ridiculously proud of that one)

2008-05-27T14:02:00.000-07:00

What are we doing in America? I mean, haven't we messed up the world-stage enough in the last decade or so? Look, we had a good run. We did some good stuff. Stopping the Nazis was pretty big, giving Einstein a safe haven was a crown jewel, ending slavery was a good one...but now look at what we're doing: With the exception of The Office, none of these British shows that get ported over to the US market are ever any good!

Seriously.

Look at these:
.: Who's Line Is It Anyway? - Funny, but not as funny.
.: Coupling - Disaster
.: Iron Chef - This show is "ok", but it's the god-damned Bobby Flay Hour almost every episode. Don't get me wrong, I love Flay, but show me some ol' skool Morimoto for chrissakes. Oh, and the dubbing in the original is hilarious.
.: Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares - The stress from the whole thing came from the fact that they were already way in debt and were about to go under. In the US version of this great show, suddenly Ramsay's "design team" swoops in, throws money all over the place, and gives the restaurant a complete makeover. The only "stress" comes from all these American douchebags yelling at each other. Bleh.
.: Top Gear - There has been a long-rumored US-version of this brilliant show apparently in the works for some time now. I beseech, to all that is good and holy, please don't fuck this one up, too, America.

I believe that children are our future.

2008-05-26T21:13:00.000-07:00

My Memorial Day Weekend, in Quantities

(1) badly sliced thumb that now has an interesting chunk taken out of it
(1) canceled-at-the-last-minute trip to Seattle
(2) missed BBQ's due to,
(4) days of being sick
(3) rolls of toilet paper as Kleenex substitute
(a billion) hours of playing GTA IV

2008-05-15T10:17:00.000-07:00

LA is selling a lot of BMW's, lately. 3 people at work have gotten BMW's within the last 6 months. On my way in this morning, I saw one new 3-series and two brand new 5-series (series's? serieses? serii?)...one of which that had made the exceedingly poor decision of replacing the standard blue and white BMW badge with a custom pink and white one.

See? Because it's a girl driving! So, it's pink. Get it? Girl power! Because girls like pink! Oh, it's so cheeky!

What ever happened to the good ol' Trans AM?

2008-05-12T23:45:00.000-07:00

You forget that you're a dork (and even start to think that you're actually kind of cool and always have been), until you're explaining in great and thorough detail who Colonel Nick Fury is and his relationship to Iron Man on the way back to the parking structure.