man. i’ve been meaning to update this but i’ve been pretty busy. anyway, the most kickass thing that happened in LA was probably at The Standard, which is a hotel in downtown LA on sunday afternoon. carlos told us to check it out, so he put us on some VIP list. apparently it’s a bitch to get up in this place. we make it up though with carlos’ friend jill, and as soon as you step out of the elevator onto the rooftop of this hotel your jaw just drops to the floor. it looks like where someone would shoot a music video. you have a great view of everything in the city, it’s a huge rooftop with a big pool and two bars, it has half a dozen canopied waterbeds, and everyone is beautiful. not a single woman there was less than a 9. words can hardly even describe. so i’m with geo, mark, eric, kevork, and jill. we get some drinks which are overpriced as hell but i didn’t care at all. the pool was almost full, lots of people were swimming. everyone struts so hard in LA, especially in this place. women and especially dudes walking around with this total “DUDE, CHECK ME OUT” subtext. the combination of these factors made me not give a damn about ANYTHING:

– flawless weather
– pool
– drinks
– most gorgeous women i’ve ever seen, many of them topless
– everyone is actually cool as shit

no one i came with brought their trunks, except for jill and eric. we jump in the pool and eric notices this hot asian chick at the other end of the pool with her top off. wow. he says she’s a pornstar, but i don’t recognize her. she had a really distinct tattoo though, a circular tribal kind of thing at the top of her right arm. as i’m trying to inconspicuously look over there, i notice the people chillin around her. another porn star that i definitely recognize, but i couldn’t recall her name. and in between both of them, this big ass friendly looking black dude who i also recognized in porn. at this point i’m like holy shit.

now, this is why jill rules. she overhears eric and i talking, and is like “really? kick ass!” and swims over to that end of the pool. at that moment, jill was my hero. i followed her and chilled over there for a bit, amongst a half a dozen half naked probably porn stars. talked to the porn star i recognized, just said what’s up and introduced myself as confidently as possible. she was incredibly cool, introduced herself as ashley. i said i recognized her, trying to insinuate that i knew what she did, without being rude. she said her stage name is Kaylani. fuck, that’s it! i remembered the name then. here’s a pic:

i talked to the girl with the circular tattoo, but she didn’t tell me what her stage name was. spoke with big ass black pimp as well, he introduced himself as marcus. he was fucking cool, we talked about shit for a minute. he told me about porn. about how everything is really dramatic and it’s still very work-like, but at the end of the day he just fucks women all day so he can’t complain.

i was real shocked by how down to earth and cool everyone was. i don’t know why, but for some reason i assumed that porn stars were these people that were constantly barraged by annoying retards like myself and didn’t have much interest in meeting new people. i kind of expected them to carry this “excuse me, i have enough friends, thanks” attitude, but it wasn’t like that at all.

by the end of that evening, i had worked up a $90 bartab, swam a few times, played a heated game of foosball up there on the roof, and danced to some fairly kick ass dj while taking in the view of downtown LA. this was one of those moments where i’m like, why the fuck do i not live here. carlos is trying to get people from dc to move out there. when the whole crew was chillin he was trying to get everyone to move to LA. it’s damn tempting.

so, what else? that really felt like the most important thing that i had to write about, not that i have any fear of ever forgetting that. i hung out with amanda the newfound pornstar on saturday, the day before the standard. i was with kevork in santa monica and she called me up and told me to drop by her place. i wasn’t sure what to expect because i knew that she was pissed at me making the thread about her on somethingawful. turns out she wasn’t pissed at all, so we hung out at her place for an hour or two before leaving to get lunch. she offered us straight vodka at 1pm. being on vacation in LA, we accepted.

eric didn’t win DMC. a lot of people were really, really bummed about it. oh well, he had a good run, and his title last year gave him the launching pad he needed to get all the gigs he can handle. he didn’t seem too upset about it, which made me feel a lot better. none of us brought it up after that evening. i got a ton of photos at dmc.

And the Visionaries.

i spent a fair amount of time with erica, who i met in miami last march. she lived in torrance back then, but she’s recently (last week) moved to long beach. i hadn’t really spent any time in long beach at all, even though kat lives really close to there. when i saw candyce i asked about erica, because the last night that erica was in miami we hung out all night and ended up hooking up. i figured it was kind of this, we’re drunk and on vacation thing, but maybe it wasn’t. she sent me a message on myspace which was something like ‘i hear you’re coming to la, lets finish what we started’. that was pretty forward, but also pretty awesome. so after the pool party ended we went to daddys together with everyone, this really dimly lit lounge. i was thinking, few beers, few burgers, our fuckin problems are over. and for the most part i was right, everything kicked ass. i went back to long beach with erica, and we went to roscoes (the infamous chicken & waffles place) the following morning around noon. one thing about erica which kind of weirds me out, she smokes all the time. she’s a huge head, not as much as candyce, but in the same vain. it’s kind of disorienting for me, because i don’t think i’ve ever dated anyone like that at all. i’m always the guy with the bad habit, and mine has been becoming increasingly ocassional over the years. anyway, erica is trying to come to dc sometime soon. i’m up for it. her father has worked for united for ten years so she gets free airfare anyway. and actually, for my returning flight back home to dc from lax she called her dad who hooked me up with an emergency row seat. fuckin kick ass!!

talkin to geo about the melting pot art, which will be done by the first of september. i’m making a few web banners, several magazine ads, and the cover and cd art. pretty damn kickass. this job isn’t paying well, but it’s really my first work for any kind of even semi-serious recording artist. it should be a fair bit of exposure, hopefully. plus, this kind of art is really fun to develop. i finally got around to designing a business card to promote myself. i haven’t sent it to print yet, but i think it’s pretty much done. i wanted it to be sleek, dark, simple, and easy to read. and also to incorporate some of my own photography.

i have more to write but i think i’ve exhausted my writing energy for the time being.

oh, one more thing. i got a laptop just before i left for LA, it’s a pentium 3 ibm thinkpad. i got it for a kick ass price, and i think it’ll pretty much suit my needs very well. it having wi-fi and a dvd-rom was my main criteria.

currently listening to: look at the rainbow