FORTUNE · & · GLORY

Earlier this year I was listening to an interview with Judd Apatow, the creator of Freaks & Geeks, Knocked Up, Funny People, etc., and he talked about how he felt the idea that with age came wisdom was a bunch of bullshit. That, in fact, all the older people he knew were just as messed up as the young people. My friends, truer words have never been said.

I mean, I won't say I'm as stupid as I was when I was a teenager, or in my twenties or even my thirties.... But fuck man, maybe I really am! I just hide it better know. Sometimes I feel as crazy and emotional and obsessive as I was in high school. Yet again I find myself in the same catch 22. Maybe we really can't escape these patterns in our lives. We can try to control them, and perhaps even suppress them, to push them under the surface for longer and longer times, but they don't go away. They wait, until you think you're past them, until you brag to your friends about how you've really got your shit together over the last couple of years. But those patterns, they never fade. They never die.... Maybe I should just get over myself?

The real question I am asking the universe is this: WHY DO GIRLS HAVE TO BE SO BEAUTIFUL?!?!?

Me, Marie and Jeni went to the Yeah Yeah Yeahs show last night here in Oaktown. Great show. Karen Oh is a true diva. She is just a force of nature. Amazing.... Also, it was the first time I had ever been in the Fox Theatre in Oakland... Pretty cool!

One of these guys was on either side of the stage:


Here's how he looked when the lights went down:



However, the crowd was just douchebag central, or at least where we were standing... Why is it that whenever I go to a big show, some six-foot two inch white guy always stands right in front me, then bounces from left to right? Then, some gaggle of bitchy girls decided they wanted to be up front so they started shoving their way through the crowd, knowing that unlike guys, no one is going to punch them for being dicks. Some guy didn't want to let them through, and he's all, "No way, bitch!" One of the chicks tossed her drink in his face! I don't know why these chicks were even there. They looked like they belonged at Ruby Skye.

 

Well, here I am back in Oakland on a daily basis, and back to the daily grind. In the meantime, Celia and I's baby is doing well, and getting bigger everyday. Pics, of course, you can see here. 

On the weekends, I am down there hanging with what I guess I can call my family... Still sounds strange when it rolls off the tongue. A place I never thought I'd be... But it is what it is.

Anyways, some tidbits:

The Apple Store in Emeryville does not validate parking. I call BULLSHIT!

Picked up Grand Theft Auto IV again... I love killing!

I can't work some shitty job for the rest of my life. I need to start doing something... Producing art, is what I'm saying. Art I can sell.

Need to exercise more(at all).

I should learn to play piano.

I should finish my undergrad degree.

Having a child makes me want to be a better person.

 

The baby is great. This entry is not about him, however. If you want to know what is going on with him look here. Here I am going to catch up on some of the non-baby-related events of my recent life... Yup, there are some non-baby-related events!

A few weeks ago I managed to make it up to Wonder Con, the bay area's big comic event. Sorry, no pics this year! I ran into Adam at Vision Comix who, of course, admonished me for going to a comic convention six days after my son was born... Hey man, I gotta be me! What? He needs 24 hour supervision?!

While there I stopped and checked out the desk of Sal Abbananti, who I heard on my favorite, irreverent comic podcast Around Comics. I found him to be such an entertaining guy that I thought I'd check out his stuff, him being the creator of a series called Atomika. I purchased the trade paperback for $10 and handed him a $20. He looked in his cash stash, and apparently didn't have the right change, so he said just take it! I tried to give him some of the loose ones I had, but he said don't worry about it, that he came to these things mostly for the publicity. Swell guy!

Anyway, later I went to a nearby brew pub for lunch and ended up bullshitting with the guy next to me at the bar for two hours and two pints. I had planned to be out of the Con by 5, but I was pretty buzzed at that point it probably would not have been wise for me to drive. So, I went back into the convention center and walked it off for another couple of hours. There I ran into pooryorick   and her new beau... Did you meet Adam Baldwin?

...........

The weekend before last me and a bunch of friends saw Tom Jones at the Warfield. Fucking awesome! There are few people I would say this about, but his voice is pretty much as good now as it was 40 years ago. If anyone gets the chance to see him, do it!

............

Last weekend me and some friends, mostly the same friends, went to something called Death Rock Dive Bar in Oakland, at the Stork Club. It was the first time in a long time I have actually been hungover. And I don't think it was the quantity, but the quality of the booze. And I didn't order it that way! That's just what they gave me... Anyway, loud bands, I wasn't that into the music... They were definitely death rockers there, though. No sissy-lala goths listening to trance, or whatever. A lot of people there looked like they stepped out of a 45 Grave video.



 

 

I was at my place in Oakland a few days ago. As I was fetching a few things from my car one of the neighborhood kids came walking by, chugging from what looked like a liter-sized juice bottle. He crossed the street as he drained the bottle. The gutters were swollen with running water as it had been raining for days at that point. The kid, finished with his juice, tossed the bottle into the gutter. To be honest, not an unusual sight around here... But, as the water carried the container down the street, he started to yell at it, "Go granny, go! You can do it! You're doing the right thing!" He saw me watching him from across the street and said, "Lookit granny go!"

As I write, or rather, type this, I am sitting in a cafe in Sand City. If you're driving south on 1 its just before Monterey. A second ago they were playing Morrissey. Now they're playing the Stray Cats. The place is called the Ol' Factory Cafe. It's actually quite nice. They have coffee and beer, and real food. Not to mention wifi, and no bums! Of course, the price is being so far away from civilization... I'm sure I'd heard of Sand City before now, but I certainly never thought I'd spend time here. Man, not just the strange places life takes us, but the mundane places....

Well, I am down here in Watsonville waiting for the baby... Tick tick tick....

It seems I left Santa Cruz with a rubber band around my throat. I went to Oakland and stretched that rubber band so taut, that when it finally snapped back, it actually flung me back over Santa Cruz, back to Watsonville.

 

A few years back when I started up this Live Journal, I also started one up on Blogger. At first I wrote my entries for LJ, and then I would transpose the text to Blogger, and then later to MySpace. Eventually, not having any friends on Blogger, I abandoned it. Now, with the baby coming I have started it back up and retitled the account the Post Modern Baby Blog. I wanted to keep the baby blog as something separate, so I could use the journal to focus on identifying things I think suck.

OK, I know what you're thinking, "Dana, what happened to you, man!?" Believe me, I wonder myself. But as friends of mine, you are required to at least take a look. I can't promise a complete lack of preciousness, but I'm still me. There'll always be a bit of cynicism in every thing I do, or at least smart-assiness. There are no pics up there as of this evening, but some will follow in the next few days. Tonight I posted our manifesto.

And remember my young friends... Someday this may happen to you!

About a million years ago I swore to myself I would never purchase a pair of Nike tennis shoes. Other than the fact that I hated that bulgy, shiny sort of look, and of course that were so mainstream and trendy, there was the common knowledge that they were made in Chinese slave labor camps by political dissidents. We all saw that Michael Moore movie, right? Where he intereviews the Nike CEO who says, "Americans don't want to make shoes!" I bet some would jump at the chance to make them now! Fucking douchebag.

I have always preferred the look of Adidas. Sleek, streamlined, simple colors, classic lines. They never go out of style... Of course, yes, I am sure they are also made by children for a bowl of rice a day, but I'm willing to ignore that fact for the sake of looking good. That's important, right? I'm not going to change the world by being poorly dressed. When was the last time you saw a bum change the world (other than Jesus)?

Being old school, I have also always liked Converse, or Chucks as the young folk say. For many years they were the only tennis shoes you could buy made in the USA. You know where they're made now? Vietnam! VIETNAM! I lost a lot of good buddies there.... Just kidding. I'm not really that old.

What I'm really ranting about is the fact that with my advancing age I can no longer purchase shoes for style. I must now purchase them for comfort, and unfortunately, most comfortable tennis shoes are ugly as fuck. I mean, Nu-Balances? What the fuck? Adidas are comfortable as long as you don't weigh more than 120 lbs and don't attempt walk more then a block in them. That's OK, because most people who wear adidas these days spend most of there time standing in one place staring at their shoes, anyway.

A couple of nights ago I went to the Sports Authority because I wanted a good, solid pair of tennis shoes to work out in 3 or 4 times and then let collect dust in the back of my closet. I told an employee what I wanted and at first he recommended Asics, which, on sale, were $90! Plus they were really lame and sparkly. He then pointed out the Nike Pegasus, which is apparently their classic standby, and was only $70. And also bulgy, but only minimally sparkly. So, I tried them on... It was like putting my feet in a hot tub filled with pillows. They were so comfortable I didn't want to take them off. I want to wear them to bed. I want wear them in the shower. I want to spray paint them black so I can wear them to weddings and funerals. Those political prisoners really know how to make shoes. 

So, I purchased them, and felt sort of like an asshole for doing so. My knees and my back will thank me, though.

Later that night I spoke to an old girlfriend of mine. We dated many years ago and never had a lot in common. I was into what I was into, and she had very mainstream tastes. I told her about my purchase and she told me a story: When her and I were dating, back in the late '80s, she purchased herself a brand new pair of shiny Nike Pegasus'. I came over to her place and she showed them to me, proud and satisfied. I picked one up and look inside of it, and I said, "Hey, there's a note in here!". Peering deeper, "It says, 'Help! I'm being held prisoner in a Chinese slave labor camp!'"

Goodbye, fuckers!