floorpie

Last night, I went to the MOCA in West Hollywood to see the Mark Rothko exhibit.

When I used to live in NoCal I would go to the SF MOMA at least every other month, but since I’ve moved to LA I haven’t done the same for some reason. Part of, I think, is that I only have a passing admiration for “high art”. Renaissance stuff, the “classics”, all of that… I just don’t find it all that interesting. So, the painting looks like what it is. Got it. Technically very impressive, but in today’s digital age I’m not enamored with what could also have been a Polaroid.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m extremely impressed by the workmanship of the Mona Lisa, it just doesn’t excite me.

SO, because of this, LA’s most well-known museum, The Getty, is a fairly boring place to me. I like going there to hang out on the grounds, but walking around looking at endless paintings of women in period dress makes me sleepy.

As for the LACMA, it’s a bit hit or miss for what inspires me.

And then there’s the MOCA, which I’ve not had any experience with (presumably because of my times with the other two museums); but seeing some Mark Rothkos in person (for free no less) was something I didn’t want to pass up. And it didn’t disappoint. Totally inspiring and reminded me why I used to like to do this kind of thing. I’ll be back.

Friday night I had an invite to the opening of J restaurant|lounge in downtown L.A. The newest hip spot near the Staples Center and hopefully part of the revival of downtown.

It was awesome.

Two floors, DJ’s, a restaurant downstairs, and a bar/lounge/dance floor/smoking lounge upstairs… and bewilderingly small bathrooms.

Speaking of bewildering, there was this acrobatic act at the beginning of the night between two gymnasts that were obviously banging each other. It was, admittedly, fairly impressive in an athletic sense, but, I’m not sure how it related to the place at all. Plus, because of how strenuous the routine was, the guy only lasted about 10 minutes before I’m sure he was worn out. There was no repeat performance and there were no similar acts that progressed through the night. It was like riding on a crowded bus, calmly watching someone faint, and then continuing on to the next stop.

I think I’ve finally figured out the point of myspace. If you’re a hott chick, it’s to get attention. If you’re a hott band, it’s to get attention.

Both viable and noble reasons.

But if you’re not a hott chick or a hott band, and are instead just a dork like, oh I dunno, me, what’s the point?

To re-connect with friends? Please. Any friends you don’t e-mail already you could certainly find playing a little 6-degrees of separation with the friends you do keep in contact with.

To find love? Well, you may find lust (*nods knowingly*), but love? Mom says to meet girls at the grocery store and I think you have a better chance shopping for mangoes (is that a double entendre?) than asking to be “friends”.

Not friends, not love, certainly not career, so what? I think I figured it out:

Myspace is the baseball cards of the 21st century. Basically, after you’ve gathered a few friends, you go browsing through their friends. You see someone interesting (read: super hot). You go to their profile, look around, and then hell, ask to be their friend. You don’t talk, you don’t send messages, you don’t do anything.

Repeat a dozen times.

Meanwhile, people are doing the same thing elsewhere and requesting to be your friends.

It’s just like trading cards. Keep the ones you want, get rid of the ones you don’t. Watch out for fakes, and try to get complete sets.

For instance, I’m currently trying to get the entire Pornstar Series. I’ve already got some heavy hitters that I’m pretty pleased with, but now I need to round out some minor league players to get a high-value collection.

When I get back from lunch I empty my change out into a small compartment in my desk drawer. Today, as I was culling quarters for laundry ($10.50!) I realized that this was one of my things, the putting of my change into a compartment in my desk. Do other people do this? When I die suddenly in an unexpected stapler accident, will my co-workers shake their heads sadly when they come upon my stash and say in a whisper, “Ah look… that’s so Dave *sniff*”?

Many people (most people?) keep their change on them, recognizing it as viable currency, in case of need. Parking meter? I’m not your guy. To me, change is something that should be disposed of as quickly as possible.

My Dad always has change on him. When he comes home (at least as memory serves) he puts what he has in his pocket on his dresser next to his wallet. In the morning, he sweeps this same pile back into his palm and then into his pocket, ready for use. When I was growing up, he would periodically dump some change into an Apollo (or Mercury) capsule-shaped piggy bank I had… presumably when his additions to his change pile out-distanced his subtractions.

I have another compartment in my apartment. A small wooden box (that looks like it probably has weed in it) that I immediately empty into any change I might have accrued during the night. When it fills up, I dump the contents on to my bed, sort out the quarters (again for the laundry), and then carry the remainder in a double-layer of grocery bags, take it to the market, and have the Coinstar machine spit out a piece of paper representing about $30.

Do other people actually use this stuff, or do we all have coin stashes?

I weighed myself this morning and was pleased to find that I’d lost 6 pounds… of course, the fact that I did so by puking my brains out all day yesterday is hardly the point. The real point is this: bulimia works! I mean, Kate Moss and Nicole Richie are really on to something here… though I think I need to supplement the puking with lines of cocaine for maximum effect.

I’m not exactly sure what happened yesterday, but when I crashed drunkenly into bed the night before, I never thought that I would wake up in the morning all ready to spend the next 8 or so hours lying on my bathroom floor waiting for the inevitable Porcelain Session ™ to strike every few hours.

It was awesome awful.

I’m fairly certain that it wasn’t from the drinking; as, even though I was trying to keep up with the semi-pro Thai Singer, we didn’t really drink that much, and she made a huge and amazing dinner that I’m sure would have dulled some of the alcohol’s effectiveness. I’m chalking it up to karma.

This, by the way, breaks my 20 year streak of not throwing up… the last time being when I was 12 or 13 after eating under-cooked french fries at Disneyland, going on The Teacups, and then being stuck in stop and go traffic on the 10 in the back of a hot car and heading back to the Inland Empire. At the onset of which my best friend whipped around from the front seat and yelled, “RAAAALPH!” and then laughed and laughed and laughed.

.: Artist savant Stephen Wiltshire draws an astonishingly accurate panorama of Rome... from memory... after only one look
.: And then again of Tokyo (links via kottke)

It should come as no surprise to regular floorpie readers (Hi Mom! Hi Dad!) that I have trouble sleeping. Be it insomnia that keeps me up at night, or just the simple fact that I don’t really go into a deep, deep sleep, for the last several years I haven’t really had what I could be described as a truly restful slumber.

Because of this, I don’t really dream that much… or, more correctly, I at least don’t remember my dreams that much (I heard somewhere that you dream every night, whether you remember them or not. I would argue that if I don’t get that much deep REM sleep, I at least probably don’t dream all that long making the stories all that more… forgettable. Case in point:)

This morning, while in the shower… in fact, some 6 minutes ago because as I write this I’m sitting on my couch in a towel… I remembered that in my dream last night I had cleaned out the inside of my ear, Q-tip style, with my keys and that it had been a “good one”.

And that’s it.

Ignore the details that I apparently regularly clean my ears with my keys and that I ever think of the result as “good ones”, and focus on the fact that this is the ONLY thing I remember from my dream last night. Sad.

Then, it struck me: maybe it wasn’t that this was the only detail I remember; maybe this was my entire dream. Even sadder.

And in what is a proud day for all of us original St. Lous-ites, the (technically) hometown has been named the most dangerous city in the U.S.

A surge in violence made St. Louis the most dangerous city in the country, leading a trend of violent crimes rising much faster in the Midwest than in the rest of nation, according to an annual list.

The city has long fared poorly in the rankings of the safest and most dangerous American cities compiled by Morgan Quitno Press. Violent crime surged nearly 20 percent in St. Louis from 2004 to last year, when the rate of such crimes rose most dramatically in the Midwest, according to FBI figures released in June.

“It’s just sad the way this city is,” resident Sam Dawson said. “On the news you hear killings, someone’s been shot.”

sigh

Last minute Halloween costume

.: wear all black – CHECK
.: gel-up hair – CHECK
.: wear eye make-up for that smokey devil may care, late night, out of bed look – CHECK

Knitta please!

I have never knitted in my life.

I have never, to the best of my knowledge, so much as held a knitting needle… though I am a big fan of playing with yarn.

I have, however, participated in the wanton destruction of public property for the purposes of amusement and social statement, and this is kinda like that, just with the awesome power of knitting.

These street thugs, these hooligans, these vandals, these artists tag public structures with knitting the same way grafitti artists do so with paint.. and it’s pretty cool.

This is my favorite new ad. I got a print version in some junk mail recently, and I’ve been obsessed ever since. Not because of the product, which I understand is actually rather useful, but because of the pitch(wo)men.

OK, the elvish gentlemen in the center is the inventor. Check.

The woman is Robin Hartl whom astute observers (where “astute” means “people who watch a lot of PBS”) will recognize as the long time co-host to super-pimp Dean Johnson of Hometime. She has obivous street cred in that she actually participated in major home repair/renovations week after week. Check.

Which brings us to the last guy on the right. That, obviously, is the lovable Al Borland character (Richard Karn) from TV’s Home Improvement… and more recently the host of The Family Feud. He also has street cred as he actually participated in major home repair/renovations week after week… IN THE LAND OF MAKE BELIEVE.

HI-larious.