"So, did you get hit in the face with a ball yet?" one business casual fellow asked another on the interminable line for drinks at last night's Nike-sponsored celebration of "the beautiful game," soccer. Apparently that was the proof that you were really there, dude. "There" was Electronic Arts, a video gaming and graphics megalith on Lincoln Boulevard in Playa Vista, in which the sportswear giant had built a mini soccer field. Corporate teams from "the industry" (that would be the entertainment industry in case you were wondering; I was) kicked around with semi-pro teams from somewhere, maybe Brazil, while a DJ played terrible electro dance music.     "I'm really starting to hate this party," I told Linda, after fifteen minutes in the drink line. My irritability was periodically appeased by the passed appetizers, some of which were Brazilian yummies like chewy cheese balls I could eat dozens of. "There are cute boys here," she pointed out. And it was true, but most of them were playing Nascar 06 or chasing the coolers full of beer the planners dragged out when they realized the drink lines were a buzz killer. (By the way, why do men pour beer into the side of their mouth? Is that supposed to look cool? Is it to protect their capped teeth? I am so not impressed.)    Ten minutes later (yes, we were hitting the half hour mark), it became apparent that something had brought the line to a screeching halt. Three very thirsty girls were ordering drinks and then chugging them at the bar while the poor overworked bartender mixed their next round. I'm sorry, but that goes against all cardinal rules of free booze etiquette, so I'm outing them right here. If you see them coming, form one of those human wall barriers like soccer players do for a penalty kick. And be sure to cup your balls because they'll be angry.     Finally in possession of the hands-down worst caipirinha I've ever tasted, I went over to check out the action on the "field." I don't know if there were any genuine futbol superstars out there but it was kind of exciting for a minute.    I was especially impressed with the numbers on the backs of the jerseys made of little tiny skulls. How tuff; how un-industry. I took this photograph and then said to myself, I think I went to high school with that guy.      And sure enough it was Josh Oppenheimer, now a successful Hollywood screenwriter. We talked about the recent high school reunion in Westchester that I did not attend, thankfully having just moved across the country. Josh said that he had a big realization that the source of a lot of the insecurity and pain he suffered in high school was all in his neurotic Jewish head; in fact these former torturers and tyrants were actually just nice, good folk. I told him I was glad that he had made peace with it, but the fact was, many of the people in our high school were total assholes who wanted nothing more than to drag others down, and he had good reason to feel insecure. Happily, neither of us are bloated, balding alcoholics whose glory days are long over, though Josh did remind me that our varsity soccer team was county champ way back when.     After a pseudo-Brazilian carnival number performed by four uncoordinated dancers in feather headdresses ("When are they gonna break into 'Who Let the Dogs Out'?" wondered Doug, another friend who had somehow wandered into this scene), Linda and I went to the "historical" area, where vintage photographs and facts about soccer were confusingly interspersed with current Nike products and catalog imagery. The actual reason for this event had been effectively veiled until this moment. "Ooh, I want those!" said Linda, descending upon a really cute pair of off-white suede Nike soccer shoes with a red satin swoosh. We schemed about forming an LA Weekly soccer team that would naturally require us to own cute soccer shoes. Maybe it was the caipirinhas talking or just a true, sudden love of the beautiful game, but somewhere over the samba strains I definitely heard the ka-ching of Nike's cash register.

This is what I woke up to this morning.

In my inbox, in between press releases about Josh Homme's new side project called 5:15 (how many side projects can a man have? ritalin anyone?) and something about a Culver City art 'manutailer' (personally I prefer the traditional "a manufacturer who also retails") was this photo of my friend Brian Carlin having a ball in Iraq, or 'the sandbox' as he likes to call it.

I met Brian two years ago when he was 19. He moved to LA from El Paso, Texas, leaving behind his wife and three year old daughter to move to Venice with his dad and take up a job as an art director. Despite becoming a father at age 16 and quitting school to find a job, he had managed to teach himself all kinds of fancy computer programs like InDesign and Photoshop and Quark. As such, he landed himself a job at the El Paso-based monthly magazine RV World, geared towards motor home enthusiasts. When his dad invited him out to the left coast to work on some magazines in Beverly Hills (I was editing them) he was excited, starry eyed. Things between he and his wife were breaking down and he was ready for a fresh start. He hung out on the beach, marveled at the pretty girls, started exercising and did his job faster and more effectively than any other production designer I had worked with. It seemed that California was treating this wunderkind well.

Privately, I often felt proud that we had offered this talented young man a lucky escape from a hellish life of RV magazine layout with a dullard of a wife who apparently likes nothing better than watching Oprah and gorging on cheese quesadillas.

But after less than a year, it became clear that the laidback Venice lifestyle just wasn't doing it for young Brian. "I want to becaome a man," he told me. "How do I become a man here?" Hmmm. Well, part of LA's charm is that the living here is pretty easy, at least compared to other cities, especially if you are a young caucasian. Angry young white men who do feel the inner ancient warrior instinct have created their own urban rites of passage, through the subcultures of graffitti, skateboarding, surfing. But Brian didn't surf, didnt own a skateboard and certainly didn't believe in breaking the law. So he decided to go to Iraq instead.

"I leave in the morning for the sandbox," he wrote me at the end of his bootcamp training. "It hasn't really hit me yet, but I'm excited about walking into the adventure of a lifetime." A while later I got another email which read "Been in country about a month now but it really doesn't feel like it. I guess time flies when you're having fun." A few month later, he sent me this photo, humorously titled "what I wear in the showers".

Brian may be in the middle of a desert, presumably dodging bullets from day to day, knowing that many of his countrymen (his father included), are adamantly against the pointless and unjustified war he is fighting. But to him, the army provides something that fatherhood, LA, and a well-paid job didn't. I wish he hadn't gone, but when I imagine Brian still here, I see him drinking alot of beer and getting into fights on Main Street.

So Brian, I wish you safe passage through the sandbox...may you have your fun in the sun.

Posted by Caroline Ryder

I was not stoned for the High Times sponsored comedy night at the Hollywood Improv tonight. I repeat, not stoned. At first I was mostly just pissed off. After work I went to purchase a bed frame from a dude off of craigslist. Yes, I buy my furniture off craigslist, I found my house and roommate, and my first car here in LA off of craigslist. Craig— the  patron saint of the broke. It was a queen bed frame, I was looking forward to sanding it and  staining it, and it was only 50 bucks. But the dude had given me the WRONG address, and never called, until it was too late.  I wound up with a few hours to kill until Caroline met me out. I decided the best place to go was the Beverly Center. The disgusting monument was built as a pantheon to time wastage. What I didn't expect was to actually PURCHASE stuff there. Dear God in Target, I spent way too much money lolly-gagging around the Beverly Center. I hate malls, I usually want to vomit as soon as I walk in but I'm a sucker for a salesgirl who remembers my name, and showers me with thin compliments when I come out of the dressing room. I WANT to spend money and they smell it. For me shopping at the mall is like menstruating in an ocean filled with sharks. Anyway, when the time comes (way too much money later), I head to the Hollywood Improv, but only after I find my Jeep. I can't remember where I parked it and have to go floor by floor till I see it. And I'm NOT stoned.  Then, already sore from my consumer rape, I get to the comedy club, where I am again abused, taken advantage of and hurt. They make me wait. They say they don't have the table they promised they reserved for me. I'm in a bad mood by this point, though I do have some lovely tops in the car I just bought.  But the Maker's Mark, neat, is working its nimble fluidity through my brain. Remember Chris Rock's bit about no sex in the Champagne Room, well there's no pot at the High Times Comedy Show. And before I know it, I'm LAUGHING.  Hard. Host Ngalo Bealum (above) made me forget my worries, his warm up included suggestions for curing racism— "we all need to fuck til we're the same color... (beat) Hmmm... I may have to go twice," he said to cheers. "well, it WAS my idea..."  Louis Katz, first up, told how some chick asked him to take his glasses off during sex, "I feel like I'm fucking my college professor she said. I told her when I take off my glasses I feel like I'm fucking an impressionist painting." But he won me over with his poll of ass men vs. breast me, an overwhelming number of the audience were ass men, measured on the Hootin' Holerin' Scale. The general consensus is you can do more with an ass, for instance, you can slap it around. Then Doug Benson took the mic, and discussed the success of Supersize Me, and said he was going to do a film called SuperHigh Me, which would inevitably feature McDonalds. The ever energetic Greg Proops (from Whose Line Is It Anyway) poked fun at fat Hawaiians and meth heads and threw a million other jokes rapid fire at the audience, that if you were stoned you'd have missed. Drew Carey followed, he was ok...then Drew's all star Improv troupe performed a dizzying array of improv games, it was like watching the Harlem Globetrotters playing charades. I laughed my ass off. I completely recommend it.

The latest information about the HIGH TIMES COMEDY NIGHT AT THE IMPROV can be found at http://hightimescomedy.blogspot.com.

Last night I went to see Wendy & Lisa. Remember them? After Prince ended his Revolution, guitarist Wendy Melvoin and keyboardist Lisa Coleman, co-wrote a bunch of songs with him (post-Apolonia, pre-Vanity). Well, they went on to score movies and TV shows (Carnivale, and Head Cases) and still record together. Last night, they played at to a sold-out crowd at Largo, a bunch of non-ticket holders were even turned away. Luckily, I was on the list. Well, I was my friend Stuart Blumberg's anonymous "plus one." Stu's a screenwriter (Keeping the Faith, Girl Next Door) who just co-wrote a script with Wendy's wife writer/director Lisa Cholodenko (High Art, Laurel Canyon).  In fact, I had the honor of being present at the 101 diner when Stu and Lisa (Cholodenko) actually decided to co-write "something" together. Now, shooting is set for the fall and Julianne Moore is attached to star. I had witnessed a Hollywood moment. Cholodenko now a few months preganant and glowing watched from a booth, as Wendy & Lisa (Coleman, the other) jammed away, performing a song for Chris Penn, who passed away this past Tuesday. I have to admit I was distracted throughout the performance by another only-a-first-name-is-needed guest— BECK!! (sorry I don't have pics, they threatened to kick me out when I pulled out my camera). Beck looked like a cross between Tom Petty and John Lennon, in a felt hat and round gold wire frames, and a big mustache. His Yoko was there too, wife and Scientologist Marissa Ribisi (Giovanni's twin). Two other dudes were sitting with them, I didn't recognize them.  I caught this moment where Beck reached across the table and grabbed Marissa's hand, it was so sweet. At one point Beck got up ubruptly and stood next to Stu and I. I have no idea why. Moments later he returned to his seat in front of me. I tried not to stare. Really, I tried. But it was BECK. And he's dreamy.

Photo creds: Wendy & Lisa (http://www.geocities.com/tornado_lynn/BOTH.html)Beck(posted by Kid A http://www.scoutisaband.com/blog/archive/2005_06_01_archive.html)

Ahhh, the problem with me, a neophyte, blogging... I just found out an image I pulled off the Survival Research Lab site for my post "Saturday Eve of Destruction" belonged to one Mack Reed. If there was a credit posted there, it wasn't obvious, I didn't see it. In fact, I can't even find the image in the archives now. Maybe in my kerosene clouded blogging, I got it elsewhere? I do see the image though, on LAvoice.org posted with Mack's review of the show, which was an awesome, a very thorough report, you should read it here. But still Mack didn't credit his own image.  I've gone back to the original post to give him proper credit. Sorry Mack, I in no way meant to steal your image without crediting. We loved your images (now that we know they're yours) and your reporting!

So I've been thinkin' a lot about babies.

Yes, I've been grappling with the pressure and possibility of taming my wild life to make room for a family soon (not because I'm necessarily ready right now, but because if I wait too much longer I'm told I may not have a choice). Even with all the loud rock shows I go to, it's the tick tock of the ol' repro clock has been blaring in this married 30-something's ears most lately.

When (and if) I do have a kid it will be one well-frocked li'l femme/fella though.  I just know I wont be able to resist styling him/her up in groovy outfits. What fashionable gal hasn't thought about it, right?

I did a story for the Weekly a couple of years ago featuring various rock n' roll infant clothing designers and Space Baby was one of the companies that really stood out.

The line combines retro-ish images and witty slogans in a unique un-baby-ish, but not tastless way. "Hand Over the Tit and Nobody Gets Hurt" is particularly popular. They recently  got the license for goth nymph character du jour Emily the Strange (see pic) and company head Michele V just emailed to tell me that this lil number was seen on none other than Zahara Jolie-Pitt. No photos of the tyke actually wearing the tee were available though... guess the message worked. Wish they had one in my size. I'd wear it every time a doctor/parent/pal asked me when I'm gonna get pregnant.

(photo credit: 2005 SRL show by Mack Reed, see new post,  )Nothing could have prepared me for what I was going to experience on Saturday night. When was the last time you had to jump a fence for art? Or stand on a dilapidated building that was in danger of collapsing to get a good view of a performance? When was the last time you had dolls and dead fish thrown at you?  Such was my luck last night. And I mean luck. I loved every stinkin' minute of it. Steffie and I headed down to Chinatown (to the awesome Chung King Road) to catch the latest Survival Research Labs show at Fringe gallery. Well, it actually took place in a parking lot nearby. There were some robots (one armored with a REAL decayed petrified pit bull) in the gallery, with TV screens that showed previous SRL shows, but they didn't hold a flame thrower to what being there is really like. When Steffie suggested we try to get on the balcony of the abandoned building above the roped off parking lot, I half-heartedly agreed to humor her. But racing down dark alleys, past others who had a similar notion, gave me such giddy satisfaction that when faced with the 8 foot chain link fence, I didn't hesitate for a second to climb it in my new boots. We nestled in to the perfect spot, and all of us who made it on to the creaking balcony weighed the very real possibility of it breaking and our bones along with it. But unanimously we decided it was ok, enabling each other like kids trading candy bars at fat camp. Then all hell broke loose. Below us, robots crawled across the lot, one with huge pinchers lunged toward the crowd, stopped only by the wooden barricades. Screams rose from the crowd. The machines fought each other with ferocious intent, all the while a noise that sounded like it came straight from the pit of hell raged on. (If you've ever been to a County Fair, you might think it sounds like a tractor pull.) It was dark. A giant dragon-dinosaur thing stabbed the head of a robot man, Leaf man, writing at his desk and we watched from our perch like Roman emperors at a gladiator show, delighting in the carnage, reveling in the wreckage (which by the way I think I'm going to name my memoirs that, "Reveling in the Wreckage").  These robots carrying red hot irons broke through the barricade threatened to singe the crowd. Then came what we thought could only be gasoline, spraying up on us, the flame throwers menaced us, but they turned and lit the dinosaur thing-y's head a blaze, explosions, smoke, destruction. Fish heads were tossed at us and little white dolls, that had been strewn about soaked in parking lot grime, flew up over the rail. We each caught one. I hope Steffie blogs about this, because we took pics with her camera and she has a lot more to add to the story. So, I'll end my tale here. I have never had more fun feeling like I was in mortal danger in my whole life. The whole experience made me think about the banality of war and its casualities, and examine that morbid curiosity that built Roman coliseums....

Is it Sunday already? Well, I attended the Photo LA opening reception last week. It was hosted by Diane Keaton but I didn't see "Miss-I'm-Gonna-Milk-This Annie Hall-Look-Til-I-Die" anywhere. I'm sort of grateful. The Santa Monica Civic Center was turned into the Beverly Center for art, maybe worse, it may have even been Costco (if super-rich people shopped at Costco) this weekend for a gallery extravaganza, art houses from all over the world came to hawk their goods. The commerce outweighed the art at every turn. If you listened close you could hear cash registers cha-chinging to a measured beat, like that Pink Floyd song. As I slid into gallery nook after gallery nook, I was acosted each time by pushy workers, who like Rodeo Drive shopgirls working on commission, tried to strike up banal conversations about the photographs. The sad thing was, I saw a few galleries even sold prints of the same photos (see the Kim Zwarts print above) and it reminded me of the Gap, or shopping on Melrose. There were a handful of safe bets, like the boring little black cocktail dress, can you go wrong with a Dorothea Lange or Walker Evans? But it wasn't all bad. I actually saw some images I liked. This one below is by a woman named Lalla Essaydi, it captures a preparation ceremony for a Muslim wedding. The women have writen all over their gowns and burquas in sepia ink, at their feet lay eggs covered in arabic letters, some are cracked open. Something about the women standing before the broken shells caught my eye, these women will walk on eggshells for the rest of their lives. The eggshells also mirror the women themselves, their eyes peer out from their burquas, their new shells. So though it was sad to see some great art reduced to such a dirty commodity, it could be a good chance for an emerging talent to have their work seen. Photo LA was like picking through any sale rack, you can find some gems if you know where to look.

    Quelle bummer! On Friday night I'd just enjoyed a lovely meal with a group of friends at the Sunset Junction French bistro Cafe Stella (I had the duck; I recommend it), and we were in high spirits, all set to continue the froggy revelry at El Cid, where the faux French pop band Nous Non Plus was scheduled to play at 11pm. But when the eight of us arrived a few minutes past 11, some holding tickets, some (like moi) on the guest list, we came up against a depressingly long line of frustrated would-be concert goers who had been waiting too long in the unseasonably cold night. They told us that the one line was the line for everyone, ticket holders or not, and when we walked up to the front to check out the situation for ourselves (as is my inclination as an inquisitive, i.e. pushy, journalist), some of said line waiters became very angry, mumbling threats about burning us with cigarettes (I'm not kidding).     Among my party was Pink Frankenstein, producer of the Bardot-A-Go-Go events in San Francisco and director of the French '60s pop documentary of the same name, and he tried mightily to wield his honorary French medal of honor or whatever doing all that tres Francais stuff gets him, but they would only let him in sans us. The bouncers told us that the venue was at capacity (which is 130), and that we would be let in on a one-in, one-out basis. But when a group of six left, nobody was let in. And El Cid's courtyard, which was in clear, taunting sight of the line-waiters, was virtually empty. Around this time the angry masses started descending the steps, making threatening remarks about "no way in hell anybody gettin' in before me."  And then the bouncers made the announcement that nobody would be let in for the rest of the night, it was over, finis, and we should all just go home. Huh?    With bad vibes emanating from almost all directions, we did decide that the best option was, unfortunately, to hit le road. So, with a couple other friends who'd also been turned away, we walked next door to the appropriately named MALO where we made a swift switcheroo to Margaritas and the Buzzcocks. I'd love to claim that the story I wrote about Nous Non Plus in the current issue of the Weekly was responsible for the mass turnout, but I can't really take credit for the fact that the band is somewhat shockingly in the #6 position on the CMJ charts and is getting play on Indie 103.1.     According to the Fold event producer Scott Sterling, the promoter of the show, "The root of the problem was that we had miscounted how many walk-up customers we could allow in. I had left word with the door staff that anyone who had advance tickets would get in. That for some reason didn't happen." He also said that those who stuck it out for 20-30 minutes did eventually get in. And if you want to know what he's gonna do about it now, Sterling is offering refunds to anyone with a ticket who was denied entrance and allowing them to come to the Nous Non Plus show at Tangier next Sunday for free. It sucked, but what's a good French band without a little scandale? I said it once and I'll say it again: Vive Le Rock!

It took a lot to get me out of the house last night in the rain. It took Viggo Mortensen. I was supposed to go with Steffie to Track 16, Bergamot Station in Santa Monica to see the opening of Viggo Mortensen and Georg Gudni's new show called "The Nature of Landscape and Independent Perception" Steffie, however, bailed and for a fleeting moment I thought that meant I was off the hook. I thought it meant I could stay in and be my loser self and sand things with my new sander while listening to random Internet radio shows like Mountain Apple Radio: Sounds of Hawaii or David Byrne's Playlist. But then, suddenly I got all Helen Reddy about going out by myself. So I dressed up and headed over to Santa Monica, my pretentious neighboring town, arriving an hour before the gallery closed. It was easy to spot the Santa Monicans because I have a sword that turns blue when they approach. (if you got that then you're a big LOTR loser too).  The parking lot was rank with them as they spilled out of the gallery, heading for their SUVS, their expensive shoes clicking like cloven hooves on the inky pavement. Still, I found a fair number of people milling about inside. I grabbed a Grolsch and joined in on the milling, starting off near Georg Gudni's large abstract landscape paintings. Just horizons, wide expansive horizons, but they make you fill in the space that's missing with your memories, the empty mist that blurs the horizon above reminds me of being on a lake, I was 14 or 15, in a small rowboat, I was with my first boyfriend and it was a heavily-clouded day and this mist crept in and suddenly we were surrounded by a fog as thick as lentil soup (as they say in some parts of this country I am sure). The world had disappeared around us. He stole a kiss, just a kiss, and I didn't ask for it back. Ah, young love.I don't know what the painting meant to anybody else and I didn't care. That's exactly what that painting was—that memory. I wish I could afford that painting. Not all of Gudni's landscapes recalled an event that happened in my life specifically, but they all stirred some kind of feeling, some take on isolation, it seemed to me, a happy isolation, an isolation filled with regret, another self-imposed and retrospective.

It was so perfect that Mortensen's photographs were paired with those paintings. His photos were canvases colored with light, with slow shutter speeds and photographic tricks I won't pretend to know about. I thought of them as Rorschach tests, it's what you see in them that reflects your memories and thoughts.  The one with a bunch of white wispy circles (not pictured) reminded me of the smoke rings my Gramps used to make when exhaling his cigarillo.  Nestled in the back at the end of Mortensen's wing, you'll find a wall filled with square framed fish eye photos. They look like snow globes. And the thing about snow globes is they seem to magically capture some moment (usually with snow or glitter fanfare). These photos did the same thing, finding a bleached jaw of an animal in a desert —a frozen moment of discovery (not pictured).  Or  below, running through the woods right before your mother calls you in for dinner—a frozen moment of independence. That's what I see. You should go and see what memories they stir in you.

The show runs until Feb. 18Th. I wound up gallery hopping but nothing spoke to me as deeply, but there is some pretty cool shit over at Bergamot right now. I'm glad it's so close. I guess Santa Monica can be pretty cool. Sometimes...

(for more on Viggo, check out Seven McDonald's piece about a fairy queen obsessed with him in this week's LA Weekly).