I don’t get around to watching too many movies, but I’m starting to think maybe I should Netflix more. After seeing No Country For Old Men this past Sunday, it really inspired me to push music again. Not in a sense where I feel that I can create music and develop it like a movie, but more along the lines of being inspired to create a piece of art.

There’s a lot of movies that are out there to mean something and have a special purpose. I’m not saying movies are created only to slam dance around with life messages and witty lines, but there are those that simply choose to exist as of piece of art. The Coen brothers nailed this film, and I know I may be a bit late on the running for a review of it, but I have to offer some insight that came to me while I was watching this movie.

No Country uses white space like a magazine would. It displays the visual piece, unobscured, and allows the subject to remain simple yet powerful, drawing your attention directly to it and nothing else. It leaves you focusing, silently waiting and wanting more. The capturing of the town and ambiance compared with the slow-moving plot line and camera movements completed the lazy town vibe the book could only describe in words. In this movie, the landscape and locations were the stars of the film, where the actors merely performed in a cameo role, intermingling with the plot. It just goes to show that a camera alone can tell a classic story with minimal dialog.

After reflecting on these thoughts while I watched Chigurh blow away some guy behind a shower curtain in a motel, I started to think about how other filmmakers operate out of traditional Hollywood production lines. Tarantino is a great example. He lets the actors act and lets the takes run out as long as possible, letting the actors and dialog carry the movie. His editing is a little rough around the edges and isn’t as smooth as the Coen brothers, but he defines his style very clear, like how Pete Townshend would play a guitar. His recording process is that which reminds me of how records were made back in the 50s and 60s where it was generally 1 take the whole band had to nail. And if they didn’t get the song on a take, they would redo it over and over again until they nailed it.

Acting and scene location aside, music and movies have a lot of the same capturing and production techniques. There’s multiple recorded takes for each scene or track, you get all you can out of the recording process when you can and as fast as possible on location. When recording is done, you’re locked away in a room 4x longer than your time spent recording. You’re editing, producing, and polishing what you captured, shaping it and getting it as close as possible to the vision you had when you first started the idea.

Movies are more complicated in production than music, basically and obviously due to being visually and audibly governed. Music needs to work that much harder to grab you and appeal to your senses. I respect what filmmakers do and the impact that they can create through more than 2 human senses, but a movie without a soundtrack is easily forgotten.

I was having this conversation earlier with a coworker who’s trying to find a new apartment somewhere in Los Angeles. We talked about the differences of other cities compared to L.A., and it appears based on our own comparisons that L.A. falls short on many issues.

First off is the job market. L.A. has the potential to offer lots of jobs due to it’s size and surrounding town accessibility. When you do end up in L.A., perhaps getting your foot in the door in your life career, paying 1200-1400 a month for a one-bedroom apartment doesn’t seem all that worth it. If you don’t want to live in a shit hole and pay rent to a slumlord then 1600 a month should do it. It’s very difficult for someone new to the city to get ahead financially where that person has no personal or family investment in property. And it’s not like you’re in New York getting paid 100k a year for the same job only to fork over 40k a year on an apartment, did I mention that it’s difficult to get anywhere in L.A. without a car? Ah, yes.

Traffic and mass transit. Unlike most East coast cities that were founded in the 18th and 19th century, L.A. boomed during the early 1900s when Ford looked like he would rule the world. It was all about the automobile, and what a great personal transportation machine that doesn’t run on a timed schedule, it runs when you decide to turn a key - another invention that furthered the separation of a potential social community in my opinion. That poorly thought out decision not to expand on a mass transit situation for such a booming, orange grove and farm driven area of California is stupid at best. I guess there was no thought that there would be 11 million people eventually? Traffic on the freeways has gotten incredibly bad over the last 10 years. In the highest gas taxed state where people rely primarily on cars to get around, how much wider can they make the freeways in the midst of a budget crisis? Traffic will only get worse as people come flooding in to this crowded city, and the metro rail will only get you so far.

Taxes. We’re the most taxed state. A 7.3% sales tax is the highest for a state, followed by a 7% in 3 other states. Gas tax is the highest at $0.43. So where does the money go? We’re in a state budget crisis too? Now Arnold is proposing a 1 cent sales tax increase for 3 years, making us far superior in sucking the hardest. Good game, California, good game.

Neighbors. I don’t know my neighbors, and they seem like they don’t want to know me. Sound familiar? It might if you’re in Los Angeles. I remember growing up in my parents place in the 1980s on a nice section of the San Fernando Valley south of Ventura Blvd. in the hills. Everyone on our stretch of street knew each other. The neighborhood kids all played with each other, everyone knew the family’s names in the houses. Then in the 90’s, some people moved out of the houses, other unfamiliar faces moved in, didn’t say a word to anyone and became mentally grayed out like Paperboy. The sense of any community was lost in the 90’s for whatever reason, and will never be regained with the L.A. mentality.

The people. No one in L.A. raves about how awesome the general population is. It’s very diverse and very crowded, and you’ll run into all types which might distract you long enough from the stench of douchebags. The wanna-be rockstars and gangsters on Sunset, the high-brow d-list actors and actresses in Hollywood, the stuck-up hipster snobs in Silverlake, the suburban porn stars in the San Fernando Valley… I am still amazed at how many tourists want to visit Hollywood and Highland. I lived here all my life and have only been to my Dad’s star on the walk of fame 2 maybe 3 times.

The music scene. What music scene. Exactly. The only thing L.A. is good for in my opinion is when big acts come rolling through, a venue is only an hour away at most. If you’re an upcoming band you missed your chance in the 1970s and 80’s with the Doors/glam rock/GnR movement that rocked Sunset Strip up until Nirvana crushed your lipstick rocker dreams. If you want to play anywhere cool you better be prepared to sell tickets cause there’s a line of bands forming behind you wanting to play the same place cause they think they’re better than you. If you want to catch a show and don’t have a hookup, that’ll be $20 for parking, $10 for drinks, and don’t forget about the $4/gallon money wasted on gas sitting in that traffic into Hollywood. Oh and the bars close at 2am, but that’s no excuse for a good ol’ drunk driving arrest right?

Separation of class. The rich get richer and the poor… well, who cares about the poor right? The new middle class is slowly becoming the new poor, pushed out of neighborhoods as land value increases faster than the minimum wage, where republicans and old money horde their assets behind large gates on acres of land which separate their house from the sidewalk. It’s easy to disappear in L.A. where everyone is looking out for themselves. I often wonder why the weather is such a factor for people coming to live here. What’s so bad about San Diego?

Parks. Where’s all the fucking parks in L.A.? Parks are being traded for office buildings and housing developments, preservation of community is on the bottom everyone’s list in office.

Anyways, these are only a few of the points we talked about this morning. It’s enough to make me want to keep driving north on my way home and escape this sinking state.

As my future wife and I were driving to our local government office’s Administration building this morning to pick up our marriage license, I got to thinking about the whole marriage industry; the hoops you need to jump through, the people who profit, and what you gain from it all.

In traditional means, first thing that needs to happen is the guy (usually) is the one to propose to the girl (usually). At this moment, you’re basically saying in public, “I want to go into business with you”. Of course there’s love, romance, a ceremony to invite family and friends to; all marriage really is, is a contract stating that you won’t fuck the other person over without legal cause. Romantic.

Let’s back-track a bit.

When I was a kid, it was never my dream to one day get married. I don’t think it was any guy’s dream, at least I hope not. My dream was to see a G.I. Joe make it from the top of the waterfall in my backyard all the way down to the bottom pool (I did it once and it ruled). So what’s with all these little girls that want to grow up to have a ‘Cinderella wedding’? Is it some conspiracy I don’t know about? Should I trash some Disney movies? Burn magazines? What?

My theory is that parents are to blame for subliminal pressure put on their daughters and society is to blame for the tantalizing image they entice girls with. Ya I ended that sentence with a preposition, so.

The American image of a girl in a white dress walking down the aisle with her dad to marry some guy is classic at best. I think marriages are more likely to end in divorce because of what this image represents. Dreams, passion, love, romance, everything a drama free soap opera could offer. Complacency sets in and you’re left with reality instead of ‘happily ever after’. I believe most people that have this fairy tale vision of their life end up disappointed with their reality and turn to the person they married and cast blame rather than owning up to society’s flaw.

All I know is, I’m a realist now. I was a dreamer. I did dream big, I still do, but only for things I feel I can control. Marriage is a partnership and a business of trust and happiness. And just like start-ups, 85% of marriages fail in the first 5 years.

You want my advice on marriage? Take some business classes.

Convert fractions into decimals instantly by doing a search. I’m lazy and rarely reach for the Unit Converter widget, so I just open up google and type in the fraction I need converted. Note: does not work in reverse.

It’s time now that I talk about something music related here. A band I’ve respected over the years and followed vehemently…

I own (not pirated) every Dandy Warhols release and have listened to countless Dandy songs on iTunes, and I gotta say this new record is a severe disappointment. When bought via iTunes it comes with a digital booklet that is.. in and of itself like the record, a shit sandwich.

And I gotta say they’ve been going downhill for quite a some time now, since Welcome to the Monkey House, which grew on me after a couple of listens, but at least it was a polished turd. I’ve been hesitant to buy anything new… and I had good reason. ..Earth.. came out in May, new to iTunes as of today, but wow. It’s like they’ve stopped trying or caring or maybe it’s some deep seeded joke of theirs to put shit like this out there.

The theme is campy as hell, filled with space-like jabber and sound effects to string along the album title, a thrown together concept. No songs on this record stand out in a decent way. #14 Musee D’Nougat is a 14:46 long crap fest. #3 Welcome to the Third World is Bowie-esk, with a good old school Rolling Stones’ faster Miss You loop groove/beat that’s sub-par of a straight rip off that could’ve been a little better.

None of the lyrics grabbed me in the least bit like Monkey House did. Monkey had some great wit and satire wrapped into the package that was like a big middle finger to the record industry and everyone in the industry system. I can’t say anything decent about this new record, nothing positive came from it. I hope they go back to trying on the next one.

This may seem a little short sited, but I don’t have a lot of time and I’ve neglected this site for too long.

All my life I’ve been lead to believe that dreams could be achieved, records could be broken, and anything is possible. My dad got his first record player at the age of two. Now he’s being inducted into the Radio Hall of Fame.

Back when I was five, my parents purchased my first instrument; drums. Wasn’t too difficult for a little kid to bang on stuff, I was pretty much doing that anyways with the pots and pans. We had a studio piano in the house that my brother would frequent, I tought myself how to play and found decent melodies and wrote short songs that were never recorded. When I hit thirteen I picked up my brother’s acoustic guitar and knew that this was the instrument for me.

I always thought that I would drop out of high school and be a successful musician or something. I had no idea how the music industry as we knew it would change and how the evolution of distribution would be so accessible. I always knew that the internet would be the easiest and fastest way to deliver that content, but didn’t know to what extent. I’m glad I didn’t become successful when I wanted to. I’m happy to know that I dodged a storm that could’ve sent me adrift into financial ruin.

I just want to congratulate my dad on living the dream and leading by example. He has always strived for greatness and worked hard for everything he has to offer. He is and will always be an amazing person, radio legend, and father.

Traveling to Oxnard for tasting #2. Finding the place was easy thanks to google maps, but there’s no proper exit going west bound on the 101, so we had to find our way onto the other side of the freeway by some magical mystery route.

We ended up on time and at A Gift of Taste. First impressions of the place was “wow, this is kinda ghetto”. But the cakes tasted way better than our first adventure, granted they didn’t have the pomp and frills of the last time.

So we had the Chocolate w/Mocha Chocolate mousse, Marble w/fresh strawberries, and a white cake w/raspberry-chiffon custard. All of these were pretty sick, despite the fact that they looked like something I could have made in 5 seconds, but it got the job done as far as tasting goes.

The fresh strawberry one was my favorite, but we’re also thinking about our location and time of year we’re going to be having the wedding. We’re also unsure that everyone would like strawberries, so a strawberry-chiffon custard option would most likely be our best bet.

Ultimately I felt like we weren’t getting the proper attention at their small cramped table on the side of the wall. We were more like a side-show to their plethora of decorations they had on display in their crowded store (reminded me more of Hallmark than a bakery). They forgot forks at first, the cake fell over and went everywhere after one person would attempt to cut with the side of the fork, and we were told we would be one of four wedding cakes that day. Yah, wedding cakes.

We have two other places in mind to check out, so we’re hoping to feel comfortable with the people and the taste of the cake and be done with our decision. This hasn’t been the easiest decision making process like I anticipated, but perhaps we’re making up for everything else which came together so smoothly.