Thomas Wolfe said (maybe I’m paraphrasing) that you can’t bring candy and gum into the Troubadour again. That’s because they sell it inside. My emphasis is on sweet, sweet Haim. They’re as good as Mean Mister Mustard, and I can’t fawn enough. These girls have a precocious talent for rock. Guitars hang off their shoulders as if to say, “We’re not anyone’s opening act.” Maybe they won’t be for long.

Following the bold and unapologetic opener “Figure It Out”, Haim plays selections from their myspace page and a few from the Haim conservatory. “The Wire” is the pièce de résistance, a tough pop song fed by precision dynamics and driven entirely by Danielle’s upstrokes and guitar accents. I may as well talk about gourmet food. We’ll wait for them to finish up their record with former Blondie/The Knack producer Mike Chapman later this year.

Mama Haim actually won “The Gong Show” back in the day, so maybe this is where they get their stage banter. EXAMPLE OF BANTER: Alana says to Este, “You got it.” Este points a finger gun at Alana and says, “You got it, Toyota”. Alana doesn’t get Twitter. “MySpacian” is a modifier.

Danielle sports a striped French sailor shirt and little denim shorts over full-length black stockings. Bass-playing Este wears the white cotton dress, thin black nylon tights and combat boots in the family. However, youngest sibling Alana, Alex Fischel and drummer Stephen dress too conservatively. I don’t give a damn. To Melrose with you!

DONNA HAIM (”MAMA HAIM”, Mama and founding member of ROCKING HAIM, their family band.)

So when did you realize the girls wanted to go on their own?

»continue reading Haim at the Troubadour

iPHOTO by the author.

6:20p

Conor Oberst and the Mystic Valley Band. A good place to fellowship with losanjealous.

6:40p

Free cigarettes.

6:50p

Franz Ferdinand. Damn, what a band to watch as the sun goes down. Jeanette shows off her Mr. T doll.

7:25p

After sunset, lasers point into the sky to form a pyramid, its apex miles high. All manners of light, fire and psychedelic projection give Coachella a fairy tale, theme park atmosphere.

7:45p

While V eats a steak sandwich, I smoke and we watch Leonard Cohen from far away, the low power talking from “The Future” what we take with us:

»continue reading Friday at Coachella: MFV Final Chunk

9a

V’s house.

11:30a

Made it to Palm Springs ahead of schedule. Scarf down some damn good eats at Panera Bread.

12:15p

Back on the 111.

1:30p

Coachella! Unfortunately, Coachella parking is not anywhere nearby. We lose the cars in lot Pink Five with a long and winding road before us.

1:50p

Sunscreen protects us. V gets the tickets and bracelets. We get in the frisking line.

2:30p

A false frisk line pathology: if you follow the stampede to a new line, thinking a new checkpoint is legitimate, you get to the front of a false line, are told something like “aw, we’re just bullshitting”, and have to go to the back of the real line. This happens several times.

2:50p

Once in, We Are Scientists on the main stage flies frantic and harmonic. I’m into the installation art to the right, the pallets and water wheels, a ring of bamboo that shoot fire, a gigantic hand, a monster. On a tent-less stage sequestered with the wood, dance tracks on a Mac energize shower elves to spray mist onto a grateful throng of dancers.

»continue reading Friday at Coachella: MFV Chunk One

I’m happy to report the smashing success of The Bird and The Bee, Haim, The Damn Sons, and [Post-foetus] at the Tricot Showroom. The Fire Marshall almost shut it down, but FMLY came to the rescue. Out of respect to FMLY members Cameron Rath and Cody Silberfein, I wave my awkward pre-show experience walking up and down the winding staircase, wristbands, everybody wait outside, form two lines on the side, keep this middle area clear, one hour delay thing to just say thank you. Fuck the paddy wagon, rock the house.

I learned about FMLY that evening, described by Gray on the staircase as “a music collective, an art collective, basically throws shows, dedicates itself to bringing music back into prominence and is for the people.” Anonymous people found this show through your own Losanjealous, LA Weekly, KCRW, The Onion, Santa Monica something or other, The Bird and The Bee MySpace page, and THEFMLY.COM. The mostly under 21 audience came to honor their local band favorites, not necessarily The Bird and The Bee. Elijah said of Haim, “They’re very good. They’re like a girl pop band with testicles.” Most people to whom I spoke said that they’re REALLY good. Someone else said he did not know much about the Bird and The Bee, that he had one of their albums, “the, um, laser one” (Ray Guns Are Not Just The Future), and he was there to support [Post-foetus]. “I don’t really know them that well. I don’t really know them,” said another.

The next thing I knew, I was striking up a rapport with Serena of Serena Interiors. We discussed her Eastern positive outlook, meditation, new journeys… and then we were friends. This is something that happens at FMLY events, but how was I to know.

Inside, I appreciated the large loft Tricot: loud as hell, bricks for walls, open bar left, juice cage right, and up front, everyone around a ground level stage. The Tricot slowly filled with people. I tried to find out the name of the first band. No one knew it was [Post-foetus]. I noticed a Macbook Pro running noises and keyboard drops, a cellist with three guitar pedals near her chair, drums, two guitarists, a bassist, and front man Will Wiesenfeld. This singer, writer and recordist performed syncopated hand claps while uttering primal screams and chants over the six piece accompaniment.

I caught up with him after his set:

»continue reading The Bird and The Bee, Haim, The Damn Sons, and [Post-foetus] at the Tricot Showroom, March 14, 2009

HBO’s Rome is a richly layered, gloriously appointed drama set in antiquity, boasting a Cecil B. DeMille exactitude tradition, filmed in Italy, and upholding the historical context of its setting. When in HBO’s Rome, revenge is laudable, something like underwear is optional, and gods, dirt, graffiti, slaves and blood are everywhere. How respectfully did HBO add a sense of the real?

If you’ve watched the series (both seasons are now available on DVD), you’d remember Lucius Vorenus and Titus Pullo (Kevin McKidd and Ray Stevenpon) and the upstairs-downstairs bifurcations in the narrative that drove these two centurions through the downfall of the Republic to the rise of the dread Roman Empire. You’d also remember commendatory performances, resplendent cityscapes, a male slave with a bloated and gaudily decorated phallus (a single, unforgettable moment in which Atia of the Julii attempts to placate one of her enemies with the gift of big love), clay jars filled with ash, swagger, fire, aqueducts, death by garroting, fruits and meat hanging from hooks, smoke stains on the hearthstone, and sadistic and violent acts of pater familias.

Last Thursday, The Getty welcomed us to the Second Annual Villa Council Lecture made possible by the Villa Council, one of a triumvirate who rose to take bows (and rightly) for making this possible. At stake, nothing short of pushing the craft and creating glimpses of historical fiction from the point of view of the entertainment industry. Jonathan Stamp, historical consultant for Rome, geeky, gawky, spirited and British, took his seat next to Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, author and commentator Patt Morrison for a go-round on whether accurate portrayals are even possible in Hollywood.

»continue reading Veni, Vidi, Veracity: HBO at the Getty Villa

“There is no hidden space program,” says Mayor Villaraigosa. But there is. We have uncovered photographic evidence of a secret space program hidden from us by the retirees and grumpy sea captains of Admiralty Park.

People’s Exhibit A: Suspicious Dumpster

This “dumpster” was discovered on a post-New Year’s walk down Admiralty Way.

Carefully concealed from street view, the metallic box bears the official stencil of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and no doubt shields a self-funded odyssey to the stars. There is much speculation that this very container is a working component of some unfathomably expensive space yacht affordable only to the local resident. The technology for self-funded flight exists in ever-increasing quantity, as does the drive to claim space for private use. Since the Ansari x-prize was taken by Scaled Composites in 2004, the latest challenge has been the Google Lunar X Prize, a 30 million dollar international competition to land an autonomous robot explorer on the moon no later than December 14, 2014, an autonomous robot that perhaps is like the fully functional “See-Threepio Jones” model now lining the sidewalks of Admiralty Park.

People’s Exhibit B: See-Threepio Jones

These “hydrantesque” golden automatons are denizens of the famous five star restaurant community, their silent and strangely complex mechanisms intelligible only to themselves and to their star-chambered constructors who have 30 million dollars to lavish on such advancements. Perhaps in 2009, we will see the endless seaside condominiums break open like voluminous, cement eggshells to let fly the first wave of Del Rey explorer fleets captained by these multifunctional, golden artificial men.

People’s Exhibit C: Spacecraft

»continue reading Secrets of the Hidden Space Program

They most certainly puppet up, sometimes they puppet out, sometimes they pup themselves into hoopy, poopy pieces of no-fun. It’s a hybridization of Whose Line Is It Anyway? and The Muppet Show, and once the shock wears off, it goes to hell but it comes back.

Not discounting the probable fiddly-bits of improv theater, anything, and I mean anything, can come from a drunken crowd of grown-up REM fans. Once host and creative director Patrick Bristow welcomes us, it’s time to get things started on the most sensational inspirational celebrational Puppetupational Puppet Up. Eight of Henson Alternative’s (HA!) master manipulators hold the funny-looking little buggers above their heads and commence zig-zagging before a camera mounted at the headline. Simultaneously, the “Muppet Show Effect” projects onto four screens throughout the theater. My eyes roam between the magic and the magicians, preferring the magic.

So here’s the thinking. Mr. Bristow gives the audience a scenario to fill in like a Madlib. “I need a person doing something.” A dentist! A guy licking his balls! A genie sitting in a bathtub! “Okay, and now I need a place where this happens.” Kuwait! Denny’s! My dick! “So, are you ready to watch a lost episode of 21 Jump Street featuring a guy licking his balls that takes place on my dick?” Yeah! Wooo! “Okay, Puppet Up!” And so begins an advance, stage-left, upon a massive, rectangular armoire filled with beautiful creatures. Sometimes they go two at a time, sometimes all eight of them suit up, or “Puppet Up”, for their improv routine. Once the lights dim, the troupe puppet-trates.

Sometimes they really do puppet up. »continue reading Puppet Up! Uncensored

The whole Remix Hotel thing is designed to level the playing field between the paid professional and the starving artist. For a weekend, no one is unreachable, not even Rick Ross, who reminisced about producing, among other things, Tone Loc’s “Wild Thing”, less no one know his reason for being there. Following a panel, everyone shakes hands, exchanges email and phone numbers, and talks about possibilities and new markets. The panelists get armloads of demos and make for the VIP lounge while the attendees make connections and attend Avid classes. Between panels, the various modern drummers, popular mechanics, DJs, producers, songwriters, filmmakers, and hip hop artists may visit kiosks for Avid, M-Audio, Roland, Vestax and many others.

Most bum-rushed the “A&R: New Era, New Challenges” panel. I squeezed in late to hear ASCAP seniors Jay Sloan and Alonzo “Focus One” Robinson declare that Fruity Loops isn’t enough. A good songwriter never looks for work, i.e., she’s always employed by someone sitting on that panel. Then a man from Mississippi came in. Maybe he wasn’t from Mississippi. He called out Rick Ross, interrupted the moderator, told us he was happening right now, in Mississippi, that the panel felt him. He wanted to know what to do with his imminent fame, how to proceed. The panel said, “If you’ve got Mississippi on lock, and your MySpace is on lock, and local radio knows who you are, I could call right now to confirm it!” But it was a hypothetical Mississippi on lock. Rick Ross could go fuck himself if that wasn’t clear. The man needed to know what to do were that the case, were Mississippi on lock. The answer to that is you get a kick-ass EPK, you make a top notch MySpace page, get at least 15K friends, and play at least 100 shows. Then they could get started with you. For real.

»continue reading The Remix Hotel at the SAE LA Campus

I’m getting my car washed.
I’m getting my car hand washed.
At the Millennium Car Wash Hand Wash
On the corner of Lincoln and Venice.

It’s like…

It’s like biting into a York Peppermint Patty
And getting the sensation
Of passing through a tunnel of froth
While being rinsed off by robots
And padded down with a ShamWow Super Shammy.

It’s like picking up radio signals with your braces,
And using this feat to pick up girlie girls,
And then going to Fairplex Park
And picking the winning horse.
»continue reading Millennium Car Wash Hand Wash

Photo by Sung. Full set here.

Joe Jackson performed the aesthetic masterpiece of architecture with seating to match, one with gilded archways, ornate lounges and a total freakin’ mezzanine, The Orpheum Theater, Tuesday night. I was there and Sung was there, too, and he took pictures. For those who could not attend, I am not proud to tell you that you missed a gigantic opportunity to raise your standards. JJ opened with “Steppin’ Out” just to get it out of the way. That’s what kind of show I’m about to review.

After driving a bit into scary downtown near the Fashion District, I dropped $10 to park, went halfway up Broadway and entered a voluminous space. Euclid would just shit himself to behold the interior of the Orpheum, so rigorous in its geometry that you feel like making love to someone just hunting for the right row.

I was seated in one of those little balcony snob zones where rich ladies peer at “Cosi fan tutti” through bejeweled binoculars. Had it all to myself for the opening act, a duo named after the lead singer, first name: MUTLU. Not an Elder God of Chaos Mutlu but a bearded, friendly and bone-sincere Philadelphian white male who brought along his friend, Chris. Two acoustic guitars, two vox, and R&B folk songs for about forty minutes. I couldn’t leave. He sings like a soulful angel. Mutlu’s sound and style have a Saturn return that keeps bringing up the Blues Traveler and late Grateful Dead and Traffic. Or maybe this. Dig if you will, this. MUTLU is the magical earthy tell-it-like-it-is Pennsylvanian whose working class dramas are existential codeine, who we shell-shocked rock and roll veterans nominate as our personal savior when the world runs us down. No cynicism about him, nothing pretentious, just brotherly love radiating though a layer mask of Thin Lizzy’s “Romeo and the Lonely Girl”. Do I turn his rolling papers in my hand or his words in my mind?

Round of applause, thanks everyone, and leaves. During the wait, I exchange inanities with Sung on many topics including losanjealous, the general lack of eighties band coverage on the site, and more!

Let me tell you now what kind of a show it turned into. When JJ came out, the fan’s deafening cheer startled this fifty-three year old rock dignitary, an aging Malcolm McDowell in profile, into taking a gigantic wayward step backward. If he feels worthy of the outpouring, he’s not letting us know. If he feels we’re worthy of his outpouring, well, you could argue that one, too. For an opener, as mentioned, he trashes and simultaneously reinvents “Steppin’ Out” at twice its original speed as if to firmly demonstrate his unconventional powers first-hand. I wasn’t sure I liked it. He went from here to playing a short set from his new album of this January, Rain, a collector’s item by now loaded with wry Brit humor and a loneliness magnified from his protracted stay in Berlin.
»continue reading Joe Jackson at the Orpheum

You know, I don’t quite know what to make of that hour and forty-five minutes with Mr. Unstable Musician. There were good jokes, bad jokes, wise anecdotes, preaching to the chorus, audience participation, music theory lessons, maps, and sometimes a little music. Out of nowhere, after a certain preamble — most went on for God knows how long — he said the word cool and played “Cool” from WEST SIDE STORY while Peter Erskine backed him up on drums. From the way he was tuning his flute, he was going into it, but here’s the good part: Jeff Ernstoff is a phenomenon. Do you know that song? Boy, boy, crazy bo-oy… he feathered through the introduction, the boo da BAT da boo da boo da boo DAT part, the scat element, the staccato stops and the melody like — well, it was like having your ears massaged by Jeffrey Ernstoff. Such fierce applause after his joke festivus that on the scale of mostly I’d give it a mostly worth the tongue-tied false starts, the indulgent self-referential monologues, the filler bullshit. Mostly. (They mostly come out at night mostly.)

Jeffrey Ernstoff comes to stage pushing a shopping cart and playing his Saxophone. But he is simultaneously the overhead projectionist, the therapist, his own biographer. Funny in the Ivy League way that funny is — do you know what I mean? Wrote a splendid piano ditty that got him into the WGA (worth it — I wish I had a copy). Plucks eight different horns from the shopping cart, tells this sort of knock-knock joke with the drums, jams with his peers, tells stories, does impersonations, teaches class. Lots of surprises.
»continue reading Jeffrey Ernstoff — Exactly One Hour with An Unstable American Musician

Jazz veteran Jeffrey Ernstoff will perform his opus “Exactly One Hour with an Unstable American Musician” at the Colburn School of Music, 200 S. Grand Ave., LA, on Tues 3/18, Thurs 3/20 & Fri 3/21. The program taps his repertoire from Lincoln Center, Radio City (and numerous universities), comedy venues and international settings. Ernstoff, who last toured in 1977, plays a variety of saxophones, flutes and percussion, against a brief video narrated by Sidney Poitier, and the music ranges from improvised and original inventions to Gershwin.

Alright, alright, alright. I had a pretty terrible experience at Star Trek:The Tour. I will spare you the beaming, the boldly going, the warping, the whatever. My bad experience begins by being warned against anything more powerful than an iPhone to snap up photo opportunities. So bring your own camera if you boldly go, because once you arrive, you are issued your very own USS Enterprise NCC-1701 Card to interact with various photo-ops. More about that.

Before I teabag these Ferengi, let me qualify one thing: the staff was nice. Although STAR TREK: THE TOUR is held until March 2nd, 2008, the hard-working red shirts in the exhibition hall treat it like it opened yesterday. Not sure how many staff members are going with the Tour when it wraps and travels the world, but it ain’t easy for a guy to suspend his disbelief. A more hirsute, knuckle-dragging bunch might have grown surly over the ubiquitous Vulcan salutes, the “Live Long and Prosper” shout-outs, the whole thing.

So let me walk you through the tour. I recommend $6 for “a thing with buttons on it that explains what you might encounter”, which you can rent upon arrival. It is the only money worth spending here.
»continue reading Star Trek: The Tour: The Review

The DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) Urban Challenge was held Saturday at a military training facility (read: spooky post-apocalyptic “peopleless suburb”) near Victorville. A $2 mil purse went to “Boss”, Cargenie Mellon’s robotized 2007 Chevy Tahoe, a completely autonomous aka SKYNET BATTLE ROBOT AUTONOMOUS vehicle that was the first to complete the difficult sixty mile obstacle course of stop signs, turns, intersections and race helmet humans in rollbar-reinforced obstacle cars. The program used to be ARPA before the Defense contractors started upping the ante. (I’m betting the purse was somewhat less than $2 mil in the old ARPA days.)
»continue reading The Robots of Victorville

What Dutch death metal ubermensch at Adult Swim thought this shit up! Funny ha-ha! Not to be missed.

AND YOU WILL KNOW US BY THE TRAIL OF DEAD opened and peaked and tapered off with a twenty minute set. Or was it forty minutes. I’m not knowing these guys from a hole in the wall, so take this with a grain of salt, but… eh.

Interim moments were about the Guitar Hero 3. MTV chestnuts like Living Color’s “Cult of Personality” are now party and parcel of the game. (Some GH3 god took obeisance from the crowd for getting up on stage and scoring three hundred unbroken perfect notes. Singular funny “booOOoo” from an irony-minded drunkard after the man left.) Virgin had two screens that posted text messages and photographs from crowd folk with cell access, and I think they were giving something away. Did anyone sign up for their non iPhone-having thing? Resentment at the fact that they sponsored is what I remember about their outfit.
»continue reading Dethklok National College Tour Stops at UCLA, 11/1/07

At the Fine Arts theater in Beverly Hills, George Takei (”Sulu”) and Walter Koenig (”Chekov”) joined their fan film counterparts (and hundreds of others) for the premiere of “World Enough and Time”, the best STAR TREK fan film ever made, downloadable here.

This is the story of warm and humble STAR TREK fans who quietly joined the STAR TREK universe with a bang-on homage to the first STAR TREK series. Using the original series blueprints, NEW VOYAGES rented space to build a scale model of the Enterprise NCC-1701 Bridge. James “Kirk” Cawley was a former NEXT GENERATION costumer, so he made uniforms. As for a mandate, let me quote his website: “Star Trek: New Voyages’ producers/crew feel that Kirk, Spock, McCoy and the rest should be treated as ‘classic’ characters like Willy Loman from Death of a Salesman, Gandalf from Lord of the Rings or even Hamlet, Othello or Romeo. Many actors have and can play the roles, each offering a different interpretation of said character.”

Boldly did they go. STAR TREK Fans all over the Internet volunteered what amounted to $1,000,000 of post production expenses. The results are so good, the real Sulu and Chekov beamed down to rekindle their roles.

It was an opportunity Tupac impersonator Josh Harraway could not pass up. Harraway arrived either before, with, or after the press, no doubt capitalizing on his Vulcan-sounding namesake, to secure a seat. A brief Q+A with the filmmakers and actors followed the screening of the film allowed him to ask a self-promotional question disguised as a STAR TREK question.

What follows next is a DRAMATIZATION of what happened:
»continue reading Tupac Impersonator Crashes Trek Film Festival

Hiromi comes from a school of fusion jazz and progressive rock that gets a retrofit through the power of her genius, and also through the novelty of her very existence.

First, the basics. Hiromi’s sound and style is reminiscent of eighties fusion rock bands like Weather Report, Spiro Gyra, Return to Forever, Chick Corea, Herbie Hancock, and the Yellow Jackets, and falls outside the discography of modern noise. I was most impressed when she told me she’d been playing piano for twenty-two years and cut her teeth on King Crimson’s “Frame by Frame” — meaning she was only six years old when she did. Wasn’t I getting piss drunk at The Foundry, New Haven’s premiere jazz club, when I first syncopated 7/8? Hard to believe these kids are under thirty.

Technically, Hiromi is the best living pianist in the world. Prog Rock monster Keith Emerson went to see last Thursday’s performance and had his head buried in his hands the entire time. Look upon her chops ye mighty and despair!
»continue reading Hiromi, Jazz Bakery, 4/12/07

I was given the task of seeing The Joffrey Ballet through modern eyes. And I’m not going to lie, I intended to bag on it no matter how good it was, because I don’t usually go in for ballet.

But some IDIOT at the LA Times did that for me.

So let me come to Joffrey’s defense.

“Les Presages” was their first act, and to be honest, typical of a ballet about society and villainy and all that. Nice costumes and dancing, but for my money, they could have been ice skating — I wasn’t too interested. I was, however, interested in John Gluckman, a very limber and theatrical talent who played Aquaman’s Evil Brother. (I don’t know who he was supposed to be.) He ate up the floor with unpredictable karate kicking elegance and expert timing. And my girlfriend said he had a nice body.
»continue reading Joffrey Ballet, 3/22-24/07, Music Center

Costco Warehouse No. 479 is located on 13463 Washington Blvd., Lat: 33.99116 (N 33°59.470′) (N 33°59′28.2″) (WGS 84 datum) Lon:-118.44612 (W118°26.767′) (W118°26′46.0″). It boasts a large paddle inductive and Avcon conductive EV charging station three sizes too small to accommodate the West Side Prius population, and has a large fossil fuel pump station for members (ten cents off per gallon). You can find parking by driving into oncoming flows of traffic and honking (like a jerk, if possible).

Enjoy a delicious hot dog, polish sausage, chicken Caesar or slice of pizza before you ever become a member. And once you become a member, go inside or just loiter among the shopping carts. The secret? Options.

Costco Culver City is large and inviting, too large to be appreciated by anyone or anything. Like the girls at Spearmint Rhino, the high shelves clamor for your dollars by dancing and wriggling on poles set above the promenade. Behold, jewels and history books, three pound bags of Doritos, PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN II: ELECTRIC BOOGALOO. It’s all for the taking. One minute you’re hanging nose-to-nose with a pair of socks, and the next, there’s some dude jumping out at you with a toothpick of jalapeno sausage. I told you it was different. COSTCO BURBANK? Sausage guy sucked.

Now if you’re daring, here’s something you can do. Make your way cautiously past the entrance hucksters and their digital camera devices, avoiding eye contact at all times, to the appliances. You’ll catch yourself muttering, “If only I had that 50 inch Sony HDTV, I’d use it for a computer monitor!” Try it. If you run quickly into the mirror aisle, you can watch yourself subvocalize this statement before the buzz wears off.

Eventually, you will pour into a bigger defragmented retail-run-together chamber that defies analysis.

The COSTCO CULVER CITY security personnel traverse the parking lot in golf carts and are very friendly and well-traveled. I once offered my spare cigar to a cue ball headed SECURITAS worker and he gave me a hand-rolled Perdomo of chocolate-flavored tobacco grown in Nicaragua, which he produced from his security jacket. True!

PARTING GLANCE: Costco Culver City shepherds Hollywood Video, Subway, and Starbucks No. 665 like a big ram protecting its ewes.

STANDARD DISCLAIMER: a stern look or impassive wave of the hand may fool the doorman, but you need at least a Gold Member Card to buy anything.

Whelp. That’s Costco Culver City. See it from space. OO

I wasn’t thrilled with Tuesday’s book signing of Catching the Big Fish at the Borders, two blocks south of Wilshire on the southeast corner of Westwood and Rochester. Parking under the store was not available and hunting for safe parking harbors is a foul peeve. (Not that I mind a walk through Blue Velvet territory just east of the store. Walk Glendon Avenue south of Wilshire and you’ll see what I mean.) Frankly, the signing wasn’t weird enough. Borders wasn’t the de facto Black Lodge because he was in residence. And I thought the whole experience would be much more like being in a film with one of his characters. Lynch had no time for detailed questions about his films. I had such a weighty urge for a one-on-one with him that getting his cursory autograph in was all that prevented me from screaming, “Don’t talk to me about meditation! What the fuck is the significance of the Boy in the Mask! Look, if you do well, you will see me two more times, but if you don’t answer my questions, you will see me three more times.” And then I’m seen out the store window inconspicuously two or three more times, depending.

The event was on the second level in the record store. Some poor parakeet in a cage squawked that tickets were sold out, tickets were sold out. Eh — who knew there were tickets. In the far corner of Borders, a small stage and podium (sans Bob, dwarf) was dressed at the rear of the record section where Rufus Wainwright had performed a few years ago. I’d say about five hundred people squeezed in for a glimpse, a backwards-forming shockwave of soft, hopeful misanthropes ringed out past the Country Music section to the distant bin where Combustible Edison performed in a radiator.

Yes, smart misanthropes — folks in their twenties and thirties looking to channel their inner John Merrick.

After reading aloud the introduction to Catching the Big Fish, a kind of allegory for fishing the deeper waters of the Self for better ideas by using the transcendental technique, Lynch opened the room up for questions. Most of them went exactly like this: “Hello Mr. Lynch. I like to go to book stores and ask questions, and I was just wondering…” But then a woman asked him to talk about 9/11, to which he said a flat and resounding “No.” Someone else asked him what current movies he plans to see, which mutated into, “Are you planning to see every movie that comes out?”, to which he said a flat and resounding “No.” Folks then petitioned for his ideas on creativity, meditation, casting, lighting, eating, and breathing. And he was very kind, and answered every single one like a true gentlemen.

Then he signed books. I had hoped my 2006 receipt could be used as a bookmark to pole-position past lummoxes, so I could get to him while he was fresh. The idea came to me in the form of a lie told by a staff member at Borders.

I end this writing in the embrace of a woman with puffy cheeks who represents death.