8 March 2006. My fever tops 108F. My tonsils look like malformed mussels in a ruby-red tidepool. I roll into dreamland…

It’s hotter than hot this time. I’m a crumb-topped cassoulet™. I shiver. I shake. Grandma leaves the room, puttering on woolen slippers. I blink twice and find self sitting with a handful of cards. I’m playing five-card poker at the Benev Society in Chinatown. Food poker. I glance about the place. Myself. Jgold. S Irene Verbila. Mair the Intern. Pete.

Fuck this game. I splash some ice water onto my face and rise slowly. Pop the plastic on an antibiotic caplet the size of a horse suppository and dump the powder into my cold coffee. Time to dose up.

Outro: First person to find the secret poker hand hidden in one of the links above wins $6.29 voucher for Maria’s Ramada, Little Armenia. Is it worth your time?

Is it worth your time. Have you been to Maria’s Ramada? Don’t ask me this.

• Hello, Oakland Western NC2A Regionals! Big shout out to fans of Creighton and Murray State! We are Buckcherry from Los Angeles and we are here to rock your half time!

• Torrance idiot very nice. Has heart of gold, degree.

• Chris Douridas might be happy about this. Alledgedly.

• Sorry small businesses. We really, really, really need a W in Hollywood. Just think of all the Virgin Mobile parties with DJ AM on the decks.

• Juilliard senior thesps in town to audition for parts of Guy in Elevator #2 and Hot Secretary on Two and a Half Men. See them now!

• FINALLY. Hollywood to tackle and resolve difficult issue of racism in America. About time, Hollywood. Thanks, Hollywood. For being so brave.

• Count the mistakes in this new Andy Richter pilot:

  ANDY BARKER, P.I. (NBC, New!) – Andy Richter (Bob Chase on “Quintuplets”) is set to topline a new single-camera comedy pilot at the network about an accountant who winds up becoming a private investigator. “Late Night with Conan O’Brien’s” Jonathan Groff and Conan O’Brien are behind the project, which sees Richter’s character setting up a business in an office formerly belonging to a P.I., only to begin taking their cases when his business begins to fail. Amy Farrington (“The New Adventures of Old Christine”) is already on board to play Ruth Barker, the wife of Richter’s character, in the NBC Universal Television-based half-hour, which is executive produced by Groff and O’Brien with Conaco Productions’s Jeff Ross, David Kissinger and A.J. Morewitz serving as co-executive producers. Jason Ensler (“Scrubs”) will direct from a script by Groff and O’Brien.

THE SETUP
On March 18 the LA Phil kicks off Minimalist Jukebox, a two-week music festival dedicated to the minimalist genre. Walt Disney Concert Hall is the setting for feature sets by Boom Bip, Dntel, and John Tejada while LA’s own dublab soundsystem provides the soundtrack between acts. The evening culminates with a live performance by The Orb.

THE QUESTION
The event runs from 11:59pm Saturday, March 18 to 6:00am Sunday, March 19. How would you stay awake for these six hours?

To enter the contest, leave your response as a comment below along with your preferred contact email.

THE REWARD
Our favorite answer will win a pair of tickets for this show. Photographic evidence of your sleep deprivation technique may be required.

THE DEADLINE
Tuesday, March 14 at 11:59 AM, PT.

Fluffy little tickets are also available online.

Will this horrific hoof joint fit into your cup any way other than awkwardly? Hell no! But don’t let that dissuade you.

One day into it and my wireless food provider is working gangbusters. Big, pornographic burrito it gives me. I must concede: Nice job, beta program. Batting 1000. You’re feeling cocky, even, if wireless providers can feel cocky. I want to push the envelope. Who doesn’t. People who are not me, to be sure. This time I enter four keywords: “Highland” “Horror-Bone” “Glistening” “Hangover” and then a phrase, just to see what it gets me: “Robots of my Treo beta program I desire like to find a place where I can order a bowl of tripe soup also known as menudo to cure my beer blues. Alongside this I would like a bacon, egg and bean burrito but if possible it might be nice to mistakenly be delivered a bean and cheese burrito of which I will eat two bites then dissect and return to the kitchen only to await a bacon, egg and bean burrito. Back to the soup, robot I would like it glistening, I would like to scrape a human-patella-looking cow hoof alongside the gooey tripe which had best be plentiful. As such I need MENUDO CON PATAS and nothing less will suffice but perhaps most importantly I wish to be overcharged $2 for a large bowl even though my bowl is small. Can you do this I have faith in you yes? Please! Run! Fast!”

I don’t even want to get into what my thumbs felt like after keying all that shit in, but suffice it to say it wasn’t cool. Following that I drove aimlessly, sipping a to-go coffee from the pricy side of town. It took my Treo twenty minutes but I was finally returned the following:

La Abeja

Scrape the knee, the knee that won’t even fit in your bowl. Technically you’re looking at hoof, but we’ll play along. Suck the tripe, scrape the knee, get the wrong burrito, if you’re too late for a table ye shall wait. If menudo be your game, pony up the extra $0.50 for the con patas experience, amigo. Scrape it, pay up, if you’re overcharged suck it up. It was worth it, in the long run. Comfy booths. Ample cream for the coffee, which, incidentally, is also ample. Look for the upside-down ‘abierto’ sign. If you read upside-down, you’re in business.

La Abeja
3700 N Figueroa St
Highland Park
(323) 221-0474

Damn it if he/she wasn’t solid again. Thing is batting 1000. I said it.

#9: the Starbucks at Robertson and Third

Beverly Hills. Dazzling. Where the women are women and men look like prunes brought to life by necromancers. A fella could get lost in this place. There was a legend that some rednecks came out here and struck it rich. After literally striking it rich. Literally. For propriety’s sake and legal reasons I shall refer to them as “The Larchmont Mountain-Williams.” But money didn’t mend their ways and though they were rich for a while they never took showers or stopped shooting at parking cops. Doesn’t anyone raise their eyebrows at this point? Our family here doesn’t work. And they’re fictional???

That’s the story the Networks wanted you to believe.

The reality was much darker.

They were real.

And they ate each other.

I also heard the guy who played Jeb was Eichmann’s son. Another little tid-bit you didn’t hear on the Johnny Carson. But that’s our world for you, would you like a scone with that? Christ. It’s these fickle fiascos I ponder whilst gazing out the prow-shaped storefront of the ninth best Starbucks in LA at the corner of Robertson and Third. Who was this Mr. Robertson by the way? And who Mr. Third? Excuse me, Ms. Third. Don’t want to upset the lesbians, natch. But really I mean who–

I barely reach mid-“ooo” when in walks the most unbelievable piece of ass I have ever seen. She’s about 5’10”, wears these incredible goggle-like glasses that wrap completely around her eyes, cork-soled pumps, a tattered gypsy dress, and a bunch of bracelets. She reminds me of that asshole fortune teller, but there’s a difference. This girl has mind-blowing breast implants. And. . . .she’s Asian. Let me practice my Japanese: YOWZA!

It’s love. I’ve been all over the world and’ve known a lot of women. Known in the Biblical sense. As in, Thrice the cock crows thou shalt renounce me. So I have known my women. But she’s it. I gotta find out her name. I go up to the sweetmeat display case like any normal man who’s been sitting in a coffee shop for three hours. Her hotness oozes all over me. A bracelet jangles once. I can taste my teeth. She actually is looking at pastries. That’s so hot. She wants to talk. She wants to vibe. I move within the six inch perimeter of a woman that indicates I have intoxicating confidence.

“What’s your name?” I say looking at the pastries.
“Excuse me?” answers a voice steeped in whiskey and Carlton 120’s.
“What’s your name?” I say again, slowly turning my head to lock with her obscured eyes.
She laughs.
“You got pizzazz. I’m Chantal.” She extends a slender brown hand. Her fingernails look like cream stilletoes.
“Chantal,” I repeat as I hold her hand caressingly for a fifth of a second longer than the usual.

“Yeaaaaah,” she says with a rising inflection, nodding her head.

Her glasses block all qi. Her breasts look like they’re going to pop off. Is it getting hot in here? Her Sidekick rings. That J-Lo song with the snakecharmer flute. Catchy and old. The perfect ringtone. For the perfect lady. She takes her hand from mine with a fluttering motion. She says “uh huh” into the mouthpiece. Then she says “yeah yeah yeah yeah” shuffling her feet and backing out the door, recovered coffee and device in hand. I give her one last look, one last shrug, the one that says “here I am. . .for now.” She wrinkles her nose and opens her mouth in a crazy scream/smile. The one that says “You and I both rock!”

So here’s to you, Mrs. Robertson, Starbucks loves you more than De-Mar-co. Wo wo wo.

Wo wo wo.

(The above described Starbucks is actually to be found at the corner of Robertson & Beverly. Losanjealous apologizes for any confusion–ed.)
[Once again this 'editor's note' was not written by the editor--ed.]
{Neither of these notes was written by the editor. Nor this one neither–ed.}

Visit our concert calendar for a full show list, links to buy tickets and our picks.

Pick of the Week: Neko Case @ Amoeba
She told major record labels to fuck off because they wouldn’t offer her enough control of her music, was voted the “Sexiest Babe of Indie Rock” in a Playboy poll (link ~NSFW) and plays a free show Wednesday at Amoeba. How can you not love Neko?

Heads up: 3/18 Books, Califone @ Getty (second night, free w/rsvp), 3/24 Gomez @ Virgin Hollywood and Highland (free), 4/10 The Stills @ Troubadour

TUESDAY
Isobel Campbell @ Troubadour
Animal Collective @ Vanguard
Cult @ Henry Fonda
Polysics @ Knitting Factory
Rancid @ Echo
Giraffes @ Cinespace

WEDNESDAY
Neko Case @ Amoeba (free)
Goblin Cock @ Spaceland
Ben Lee @ Silent Movie Theater (two shows)
Matthew Sweet @ Hotel Cafe
AM @ Hotel Cafe

THURSDAY
She Wants Revenge @ Henry Fonda
Matisyahu @ Tower Northridge (free w/cd purchase)
Mike Stinson @ Amoeba (free)

FRIDAY
Electric Six @ Key Club
Chip Taylor and Carrie Rodriguez @ Getty (free with rsvp)
Afrirampo @ Smell

SATURDAY
Goldfrapp @ Wiltern
Oneida @ Spaceland
Scout Niblett @ Echo
Afrirampo @ Knitting Factory
Ralph’s World @ El Cid (two shows)

SUNDAY
Ozma @ Knitting Factory
Joggers, Voxtrot @ Echo

Get this list delivered to your inbox by joining our Yahoo Group.

I was referred this burrito by a new food referral service my wireless provider is piloting. You text what type of food you like and your ZIP, and up to four recommendations are then SMS relayed to your phone or Treo. In this case I entered keywords “cheap” “gigantic” “mexican” “pornographic” “carnitas” and was returned El Atacor #11 in Lincoln Heights. Here is the review, transcribed verbatim from my Treo:

EL ATACOR RESTAURANT
2622 N Figueroa St
Los Angeles, CA 90065
(323) 441-8477

This 24 hour restaurant and carry-out which we lovingly refer to as “porno burrito” is at the corner of Avenue 26 and Figueroa, right around the corner from the Lincoln Heights Metro Goldline stop. The food is wonderful and exceptionally cheap. Make sure you ask for the “Super Burrito” when you go. The other burritos are fine, but the Super Burrito is what earned this shop it’s nickname. Choose your beverage from the standing case (which includes Mexican sodas such as Jarritos, Sangria and Cidral, along with beer) and park your butt in a booth in the back to catch up on all the current Telenovelas which are showing on two tvs. Oddly, the jukebox will intermittently blare banda music, which is quirky, but annoying if you’re following along with the novella or trying to peacefully digest. Soon, someone will walk back with a burrito that will make you blush. It’s an enormous flaccid thing that’s at least 5 inches around hangs off both sides of your plate like some kind of pornographic prop. If you take a couple of these to go, you’ll feel like you’re carrying a bowling ball. One of these Super Burritos will set you back $4.99 ($5.49 now – ed) but they easily feed three. Where else can you feed three or four people at 4 am for 5 dollars?

Aside from the 4am bit I can prettymuch vouch for every other word in the review. These people know their food. Let me know if you would like to join the pilot program; I am beta testing it at present. We need a few more testers. Email: Giantdongburritos_to_phones at losanjealous for details.

File Name: pio_essay.pdf
Size: 339 KB (347,769 bytes)
Type: Adobe Acrobat 7.0 Document
Wanted For: Discontinuity

The Los Angeles Police Department is conducting its third annual essay contest for local 6th, 7th and 8th grade students. Much detailed attention is paid to contest rules and requirements but take a good look at the poster image. Zoom into the file or print the pdf and see how many inconsistencies can you find.

Answers:

• PC laptop is not compatible with Mac desktop
• LED power indicator shows laptop isn’t turned on
• Selected font face is Times but displayed font isn’t
• Selected font size is 12 but displayed font is several times larger
• Left margin not aligned with text
• Text exceeding right margin limits

Bonus Points:
Did you also notice…

• The user’s desktop is a complete trainwreck?
• User is sharing music files with someone named Jennifer?
• User may be into jumbotrons and weddings?

More info from the LAPD

Don Knott’s Berry Farm, Buena Park, 1954

Two dapper gentlemen flirt with Cecelia and Marilyn, the most popular ladies in Buena Park. They never need to be fed or paid – just repainted. Over the years these fiberglass females inspired countless Kodak moments for millions visiting Don Knott’s Berry Farm. Claude Bell, the man that built the big dinosaur in Cabazon, California sculpted them in the late 40s. They’re so masculine. They look like men in drag!

I know it’s not called Don Knotts Berry Farm. But it could’ve been if Don Knotts would’ve bought it. Just think there could’ve been the Andy Griffith Show ride; the Mr. Limpet ride and the Three’s Company ride. And, oh yeah, the Apple Dumping Gang ride would’ve fit right in with the western theme of the ghost town.

Knott’s Berry Farm started exactly as that; a berry farm in 1920. In 1928 Mrs. Knott opened a little tearoom next to their roadside berry stand. Then during the depression she began serving fried chicken dinners. Soon people were waiting in line halfway around the berry farm on Sunday afternoons to enjoy the delicious down home dinner. Walter Knott thought he’d better do something to entertain the people while they were waiting. So in 1940 he began creating a western ghost town paying tribute to the gold rush pioneers who had blazed the trails just a couple of generations before.

By the late 1940s Walter Knott’s ghost town had blossomed into a well-researched, total emersion environment of western architecture, displays, demonstrations, entertainment, merchandise, memorabilia, music, food, transportation, and costumed employees. Mrs. Knott’s famous fried chicken dinner inspired America’s first permanent theme park.

Miraculously, some of the original Ghost Town is still exists. But what ever happened to Cecelia and Marilyn?

Here’s to Don Knotts, Knott’s Berry Farm and you,

Charles Phoenix

Visit Charles’ site or join his Slide of the Week Mailing List.

At the height of my Lazy Unemployed Son-of-a-Bitch phase last year, I found myself engaged in various e-mail transactions with shady third parties across state lines, hoping to secure a (questionably legal) wireless gaming system in order to practice Dr. Mario all day, every day.

Gaming system arrives, parcel post. I’m on my fifth cup of coffee and still in my houserobe. I hook it up. A silly-looking penguin houses the wireless sensor. Thing weighs about an ounce. I set him up near the TV. Plug him in. Penguin’s eyes blaze red, I’m in business. I do not move from my position on the floor for the next seventy-two hours. The phone rings from time to time. I lose track of seasons. I’ve a beard. I am in serious need of a shower. I get up. I notice the wall wart protruding from the power strip. It’s connected to the penguin. It’s in the way. I want to move the wall wart. Move the wall wart. I want to move the wall wart. Move the wall wart, plug it in, and play me. Who’s talking here. Those aren’t the droids you’re looking for. He can go about his business. Move along.

I move the wall wart to another power outlet.

The penguin’s eyes are dull. He does not burn for me.

Around this same time I’d spent days studying an MIT grad student’s blueprints of incredibly useful creations forged from the guts of gaming systems using solder, brains and little else. I own both a soldering gun and a solder-sucker. Not a problem. Piece of cake. Time to operate. Let’s do this. Penguin I am going to give you Lasik, motherfucker. Before the week is through your eyes will shine blood-red, burn with the seething hatred of third-eye blindness, red like the walls of the Sea of Reeds in Exodus, burn burn burn, burn a hole in my couch if they must but red they will burn and goddammit you will work and I goddammit will be sitting immobile on my ass playing Dr. Mario growing a beard for the foreseeable future. Done.

The ending of this story involves three operated-on gaming systems and a fried, less-than-a-year-old widescreen Sony HDTV requiring in-house repair [photo]. Truth be told, it’s not something I’m prepared to discuss at this time. Ask me in six months.

Penguins aside, learn from my mistakes and solder with the pros at machine project this Saturday:

Saturday afternoon at 1pm – episode 11 of Dorkbot Socal, a monthly
meeting for people interested in doing weird things with electricity.
This will be our second open hack event with a special bonus soldering
demo for beginners (free, supplies will be provided). This is a nice
opportunity to get help/advice on an electronics project and socialize with
other humans while risking mild electrical shock. If you have a
specific project that you need help with, bring it along and our semi-experts
will attempt to help. If you don’t have a project and just want to
check out what other people are doing that’s cool as well. Bring your
friends, bring your projects, and bring your questions! Free!

http://dorkbot.org/dorkbotsocal/

Also of note at machine project, Saturday:

Saturday night at 8pm – episode two of “You to can play difficult
music”. Liam Mooney and Thadeus Frazier-Reed present new works which
investigate drifting deviations, genetic algorithms, and hidden forms,
using an array of simple choices to create complexity and wonder.
Volunteers will get to play an adaptation of the electronic game SIMON, fiddle
with the live performance of an innocent cellist (April Guthrie), trace
the tolerance of consumer electronics, and manipulate the very forces
of nature towards unseen ends. Participants will be sternly warned to
keep all hazardous materials away from mouth and eyes. Enjoy!

http://www.machineproject.com/difficult/mooney_frazierreed.php

Finally, for our hundred-dozen readers who dial in from Pomona, something to do after the church picnic this Sunday:

Sunday afternoon 3-5pm – Ryan Taber and Cheyenne Weaver. As part of
our ongoing show at the Pomona College Museum of Art, Ryan Taber and
Cheyenne Weaver have installed a sculpture in the process of transforming
itself from a raft, to a printing press, to a giant map cartouche.
Please join us at the Pomona College Museum of Art this Sunday, March 5th
from 3-5 pm for light snackery and to view the installation
mid-transformation. Directions >

http://www.pomona.edu/museum/information/location.shtml

Daze after L.A. rain, all goes to hell and snaps right back, StormWatch5000 with the DopperPlus9000, the (week) end begins again, day after the hump, according to the insert Calendar Weakened (Patton Oswalt’s Favorite Weekend!!!) and the big Hollywood gay day on the way, this Sun Day (and then, on the next: The Sopranos!), we wonder aloud (in blogese), in no particular odor: will one eventually tire of Jon Stewart, on the West from the EST, from his books and tapes, the mag rag covers, the daily nightly Daily show, the constant, endless self-effacing, while thinking will f-bomb fest Crash crash the big dance and take home Oscar gold?! Tune in and see! Thanks Sugar Ray dude! And take its place on the Best Buy product shelf alongside Falling Down and LA Story as the worse f-in’ flix about this town–”You see, we had to use stereotypes, in order to, you know, show that people are not just stereotypes, when they do something that breaks from the stereotype” I think he said (smugly) on Tavis Smiley or something–AND will Busta Rhymes get Biggie’d out West–stay away from Wilshire/Fairfax! Who the fuck goes to the Petersen museum anyhow?!–use Fountain, Busta! Fountain! or Olympic! To go East-West–that same West newly infiltrated by aforementioned novel Japanese lifestylemarts, wondering if the Cardinal Raj has something up his robe with the welcoming of still more immigrant traffic from East, West and South (not so much the North) to the States–Hmmm–while our jails burn with brown v. black v. power feuds, a Western (UCI) prof. gets taken for that famous Eastern (Nigerian) e-mail scam to the tune of $3 mil! , then, then we are reduced to distracting ourselves with sport like the Greeks and Romans, thinking that if the Lakers make that dreaded Western Conf. 8-spot in the playoffs, getting bounced in 4 straight to the Spurs + Eva Longoria’s BF, how many cuts to her 4’11″ pixie frame cheering in a custom bedazzl’d scrunch midriff’d T. Parker home jersey in her comp’d seat will ABC do? Every score? Every timeout? Every sponsor break?–Synergy, desperate networks, we get it–and, if so, do the Bruins take the Pacific Ten after all, even with Farmar deluding himself that his very decent college game and his awful shoulder tats are NBA material (Anyone remember Bobby Hurley?), and then Vlad and Gagne, respective titans of their rosters take off training for ‘personal reasons,’ and after all this, all this crap does it job to distract, you are left with the bottomless sadness of the senseless of the story of shooting of WESTside (Santa Monica) 10th grader on a familiar stretch of Pico at the 20′s or so, oft traversed this very correspondent by busses of the big blue variety, riding from PCH to the Rosa Parks Fwy, East to West, Vidiots to Tommy’s to Rae’s to Trader Joe’s to the RIAA (to flip the bird) and, now, the scene of a murder of a kid, for accidentally orbiting into a gang universe he did not know, you think this, this stuff is the “Crash” of LA, Haggis, the flotsam of sports and Hollywood doing not a damn thing to kevlar a stray .22 shot, and, no, it does not conform to 3rd act rabbits pulled from hats, and it does not co-star Kevin Dillon’s less talented brother, and after all this, we miss Mister Ferley and wonder where exactly the Regal Beagle was supposed to be in Santa Monica? Main Street? 4th? There! No editing, no looking back, at the C-Bean in Westwood on the bad black Thinkpad Centrino (Fuck Cupertino!), on the tapped Why-Phi, and, in fact, on the clock of the actual paying job no less, and now press Publish and time for lunch!

UPDATE: Go read this about Crash. It thoroughly eviscerates it, right down to it’s empty core.

Sporting Kenny Landreaux’s old number 44, the Dodgers’ newest acquistion from the Pacific Rim, Takashi Saito is working hard in Vero Beach to make the Opening Day line-up. With a minor league contract at age 36, Saito comes to the Dodgers as a 14-year Japanese league veteran and all star. A look at his numbers show mixed results as he moved from starter to closer, but had a good run from ’96-’99 winning at least 10 games in the stretch. In ’01, when he went 7-1 with an ERA under 2.00. He looks to be a versitile arm to plug-in for spot starts, middle relief and mop-up work for the staff. Here’s to hoping he makes the squad and then stays on Jeff Kent’s good side.