once upon a time in a land before MySpace there was one crazy FUCKED UP summer but this time it's real and not a John Cusack movie.
the old governor Gray (purr-fect name) Davis was recalled so Arnold Schwarzenegger and a cast of about 130+ other characters including Larry Flynt, Arianna Huffington, Gary Coleman, the comedian Gallagher, and even the infamous Angelyne were running for governor to replace him.
it was a fuckin' CIRCUS....entertaining but a circus nonetheless.
she received 2262 votes BTW but at the same time:
all public transportation was on strike. that might mean little to indigenous car-friendly suburbanites in their neat little boxes but that's a major ordeal in a sprawling metropolis. that entire summer you had a better chance winning a fortune playing poker with bums on skid row than setting foot on any train or bus. thank satan i was not one of those poor bastards who relied on it to get to and from work each day.
every grocery store was on strike. i could not enter for some cheap wine and a box of ice pops without splitting picketers and hearing some you're taking food out of my kid's mouth speech....to which i responded more than a few times yeah well i'm a musician. have you ever stolen music on the internet ?? blow me.
(read this like Andrew Dice Clay) you want speeches ?? i got fuckin' speeches...........
the Hollywood Hills were on FIRE....i'm talkin' on fire for months. 10s of thousands of homes were burned to the ground or seriously damaged and we were honestly considering the possibility that it might spread down to Hollywood "proper" below.
it was HOT....like Hotter Than Nun Pussy in a Sauna hot. it was so fucking hot that i used to BBQ outside every day and i would light the coals with newspaper and sunlight reflecting through a full water bottle (full-on post-nuclear war survivor style). it would only take a few seconds to light.
no matches.
no shit.
somewhere along the way there was a 72 hour blackout. it was a complete grid shutdown. my beloved best friend Mr. Air Conditioner fell into an induced coma and when he might open his eyes and breathe that next breath on his own was anyone's guess. after every cold shower or swim in the pool i sat by his bedside holding vigil each day in nothing but pink Miller Lite underwear from the 99 Cents Only store hoping, praying, weeping, DEJECTED.
the only things that worked in my apt were my laptop with a battery that lasted maybe 2 hours which was considered good at the time and my landline phone for internet because my building was not yet equipped for DSL.
OFFICE NOTE: i had signed an application assuring the phone co. i was indeed Mexican and spoke Spanish guaranteeing my phone bill would ALWAYS be $5-somethin' a month no matter what.
that's an old Hollyhood trick.
GRACIAS.
that summer i submitted a feature to one prominent print zine and another online one about a new band Kasabian. they were not really new since they'd been around since '97 or so but they had not yet released their 1st official album. that was a little more than a year away but i had received multiple demos and studio recordings from a mutual friend. the "next Oasis" accolades and various other things compartmentalizing bastards do had already begun.
i definitely was not in love with it yet. it was still WAY too cracker for my tastes. they were not the band they are now but i specifically remember choosing to approach and absorb it more like the Syd Barrett solo years rather than another band of 4 boring white guys.
at least it wasn't Creed or Filter or the Goo Goo Dolls or something like that. from the mid-90s on those were some rough ROUGH years.
and since the worthless unoriginal drones were not yet repeatedly running into walls like broken robots with fatal glitches babbling hipster this and hipster that about everything it was still welcomed to know something everyone else for the most part did not....thus the point of SHARING (and not this come-lately version where one steals another's knowledge and ideas and expects full credit for the happy ending).
of course that did not stop the (shall remain nameless) print zine editor from rejecting it with this exact phrase britpop is dead whatever that meant and the other rejection had something to do with them being unknowns.
mama always said cracker male editor is what cracker male editor does.............
[so much for vision]
well i'm pleased to report their new album released June 6th should be their 4th #1 album in the UK if those Coldplay bastards don't beat 'em to the punch. 11 years later and still going as strong as ever.
here's one of my favorite tracks Stevie from that new album 48:13.
their website is HERE
