Like a shotgun needs an outcome, like a shotgun, I can’t be outdone

Another two days as whizzed past me too fast, yet again. Although my days have seemed productive enough, I dare not think of how little I have managed to achieve in comparison to my huge list of things to do. I did end up finishing the painting I started a few days ago, but haven’t taken any photos of it yet, so I will post that later, along with some shitty self-analysis of it, haha.

Sometime in the midst of all this cloudiness, rain and then lack of rain, and utter, torturous humidity, I’ve watched a couple of decent films, sent gifts overseas, and attained a very bright Rimmel lipstick in the shade of “shocking pink”. It’s not quite as pink as I would have liked, but it will do for now. I’m not too sure what’s come over me, in this search of a very, very bright pink lipstick – anyone that knows me even just a little bit would be expecting me to wear nothing at all or a hot fiery red instead. But all that aside, I’m just looking forward to my dinner date at some mysterious, unknown location (it’s probably not a big deal, but I love – and hate – not knowing where it is, haha), followed by some scandalous dancing with Lottie. Truth be told, it will probably be nowhere near as scandalous as our dancing the night we befriended each other, but how good the DJ set is will determine how low low low we’ll get.

Some shots from Zowie’s gig at Galatos on Saturday night – the rest can be found here:

Oh Johnny boy… I don’t know what’s happening with Cut Off Your Hands, but last year Johnny was their replacement guitarist, and now he’s paying for Zowie. Either way, always a pleasure to have an excuse to stare at him, be it through the lens or not. Although, boy he moved a lot and was hard to photographer. Especially under that harsh light his angle was at.

I’ve been completely head over heels in love and lust with the band Warpaint and their new album. This is one song I just can’t get out of my head, to the point where it’s almost irritating because I was trying to write a song, and I just kept finding myself humming this thing to myself! Lyrics from “Undertow” were also the source of my last blog entry’s title. Can’t wait to see them at the end of January, although now I’m kicking myself over not having seen them in their hometown of LA.

The other song that is currently on repeat repeat as I type this is Lykke Li’s “Get Some”. I swear the lyrics of this song are akin to those that I have written before, but am too scared to actually publicise, haha. The video is pretty awesome too, so check it out.

And last but not least, the trailer of Somewhere, which was directed by Sofia Coppola. I went and saw this at Rialto with Lottie and her sister yesterday and we all absolutely loved it. I know a lot of people have given it bad reviews, saying it’s about absolutely nothing, but they’re missing the point! It’s all in the beauty of the mundane-ness of this movie star character’s life, and how he ultimately feels like nothing. Beautiful. Here’s the trailer – which has a lovely soundtrack, just like the movie does – I highly recommend this movie.

say it anyway, I would say, wait for me

It feels like the dates of December have blurred into some form of collective humidity. November in California seems like light years ago. I’ve been too distracted in this gallivant lifestyle lately that I can’t seem to do more than three productive things in one day. But today I read somewhere whilst Christmas shopping that, “life isn’t about finding yourself, life is about creating yourself” – an anonymous quote that just rang so loud in my head I couldn’t shake it off. So I’m glad that in about 15 hours’ time I will be having a jam with a man and his guitar, to hopefully put some music to lyrics I wrote some days ago:

If walking away was so easy,
Then why can’t we all?
What is this magnetism,
What is this draw?

Just because it’s there
Doesn’t mean you should
Just because I let you,
Didn’t mean you would.

Wandering through, your unknown house,
Learning your room, like I’m learning you.

If time was so infallible,
Then why can’t we count?
The moments are inconstant
And the moon isn’t round.

Just because you see it,
Doesn’t mean it’s there.
Just because I feel it,
Doesn’t mean you care.

Feeling up your walls, looking for the light switch,
Looking for my mind, afraid that I’m your kitsch.

When we walk so close together,
Something’s gotta give.
When you can’t move any closer,
Into me you start to drift.

It’s not about any one thing or person in particular, but rather like a snowball of how I feel, how people I know feel, and how it all somehow got magically regurgitated through this mind of mine. That sentence itself was like a snowball!

I’m going through one of those periods again where I feel like I am being too much of a Jane of all trades… If we set aside my old part-time cafe job, for the first time ever, I’ve made more money through my photographic work than playing music gigs. That said, the first year of jazz school and all the undesirables I went through this year has really shaken me from the core out. I’ve spent a lot of time on the road, on the plane, in the depths of the night with black ink trawling out from my fingertips, forming words and prose that didn’t exist on any conscious level until the moment they converged with paper. It’s hard to keep up all three outlets for me, balancing time, let alone all the mental factors – bass: practising jazz, refining my technique and writing music that spawns from some mysterious corner of my mind; photography: I’ve just not found the time to set up any of the photo shoots that I’ve plotted in my head, and have mostly just done spontaneous momentous work, which I must admit is my favourite; and writing… I’ve started up a couple of large-scale writing projects which are both hovering in my mind, with only a few pages of actual physical existence. This needs to change.

These photos are from the Viper Room where The Binges and Delilah played. Oh, Jamie Burke, what can I say? His London accent was like velvet to my ears during our far-too-short exchange. More will be uploaded soon, and I’ll be working on finishing my Californian journal.

Before I forget to mention it, one of my summer hockey teams (I play in four teams over two nights) is undefeated and we are playing in the finals on Wednesday night. Yay for a free meat pack to be devoured at a barbecue on Sunday! Yes, I’m already assuming we will hands down win. Hopefully I’ll get some satisfactory goals like I did last week.

PIXXY.CO.NZ

I am so happy to announce that, after sleepless nights of battling with resizing photos, digging out old albums and trawling through then endless folders of my photos, I’m officially launching
PIXXY.CO.NZ PIXXY.CO.NZ PIXXY.CO.NZ PIXXY.CO.NZ PIXXY.CO.NZ PIXXY.CO.NZ!

Whilst in the process, I found photos that I had long forgotten about, prime examples being:

Alex Freer, Artisan Guns Hearts EP Release. I remember squinting like a mofo to get the perfect focal point. Auto-focus is useless at gigs!

Chiang Kai-Shek Memorial Hall, Taipei, 2010.

Taken on Kodak Colour Reversal film with a Nikon F3, early 2008.

I wrote full lyrics for a song the other night, of which I’m quite proud, but I’m afraid this post is just too littered with random photos to give it any justice if I were to add it to the end. Here’s a compilation of last Wednesday night:

– Sinead’s first time driving into town
– Lottie debuting a dress I’ve been harassing her to wear for months and months
– Me scrambling to shower and get dressed after some very hot and sweaty hockey games. Luckily I saw no blood that night.
– Highlight of the night: watching 5 boys fail miserably at flat tire-changing attempts in the McDonald’s carpark! We watched for about half an hour whilst pigging out, then left in fits of girly giggles.
– Charlotte’s anchor deserved to be posted on its own at the bottom!

Don’t for get to visit PIXXY.CO.NZ PIXXY.CO.NZ PIXXY.CO.NZ PIXXY.CO.NZ PIXXY.CO.NZ PIXXY.CO.NZ!

Oh, and how could I forget? Hats off to Dan Carter + Le Bron James shot 3 consecutive 3 pointers within a minute and a half against the Clippers today + my cat stole my side of the bed…

Tales of San Francisco echo through the air

I’ve been having SUCH a good time in California that I’ve hardly found the time and energy to even download my photos onto the computer, let alone post them anywhere. I’ve been in Los Angeles since last weekend, but I’m really missing San Francisco, so here’s a handful of random photos that I took.

I’ll hopefully, eventually get around to blogging all the details, but for now I’m just going to make a list of my San Francisco highlights:

– $2 Tuesdays at The Ambassador – includes shots!
– meeting and hanging out with a bunch of awesome people from all sorts of different places
– SF Museum of Modern Art
– ferry cruise around the bay which entailed going under the Golden Gate Bridge and going around Alcatraz
– CABLE CARS!!! And acting all blase on it, trying to not piss the locals off like all the other tourists, haha
– walking miles and miles instead of using my transport pass so I can see the streets and details
– staying up all night hanging out with the night shift people at the hostel
– nobody thinking I’m anywhere near underage here
– the Exploratorium being next to the Palace of Fine Arts (last photo)
– the intense customer service at Victoria’s Secret
– finding out that the hipster bars are universally the same, apparently
– and that people try to make clubs like on MTV + skanks are the same on this side of the Pacific also
– meeting someone I wish I never met because it got my hopes up about someone breaking my “golden standard”
– TOUCHING A SHARK and stingray (ref to photo)

and so many other things that my tired brain cannot think of right now. But it’s a city that I will definitely revisit as soon as I can. I just loved so many things about it.

Back to current reality though, I moved out of a hostel in Hollywood today and am now crashing at Malibu. Watch this space.

Heading to the City of Angels

1 year down, 2 to go – I can’t believe I’m 1/3 of the way through my degree already. This year has been the longest yet fastest year of my life, I swear. I also cannot believe that…

…I am going to California! Namely, Los Angeles and San Francisco. I’ve always been an impulsive person, but this is probably the biggest impulse-buy that I have ever made – I managed to get $999/return flights from Auckland to LAX and I leave on the 7th November. So far I’ve got it planned so that I spend my first day (I arrive in the afternoon that Sunday) with my sister as she has no weekend classes or activities, and I’m staying at a highly rated hostel in Hollywood. Based on my phone calls to them, they do indeed have superb service so I’m not anxious about it and I’m super excited! The other great thing about the USA Hostels chain is that (amongst other places and services offered), they have a $45 shuttle from their Hollywood hostel up to the one in San Francisco. I had been considering flying out to New York and crashing at a family friend’s place, but the flights are just far, far too expensive – a flight from LA to NY would cost almost half of what I’m paying to fly from NZ to LA, which does sort of make sense, but at the same time, urgh. I’m just going to have to go to New York next time, on a more extensive trip. Although my heart aches at the prospect of missing out this time… But the good news is, it means I’m saving all my weekends with my sister, and also any half-days of school she has. I’ll also be staying with her in her dorms at Pepperdine University – which is a promise of spectacular views and apparently a very amazing machine in the cafeteria that offers all beverages imaginable!

The other major, major thing is I have a ticket to see the Lakers vs. Bulls! It took me about three bloody hours to get a ticket last night, because Ticketmaster USA is a dickhead. For some unknown and unexplained reason, their website kept failing to sell the ticket to me. Then I rang (luckily for free, thanks to Gmail) them up and spent a couple of hours wrangling up a fake US accent and shouting down the line to their automated system. I can understand why it took several attempts to recognise me saying things like “Chicago Bulls” or “November 23rd”, but when it failed to recognise me saying “yes” or “no” – that was just too far. I ended up trying to emulate the recording’s voice in an attempt to sound, uh, more understandable? I hope when I’m thirsty in a restaurant I don’t have to try and say “water” in a US accent, because that would absolutely kill me and my dignity. I know Liv had to do it once, because us NZ kids say “war-ta” instead of “waaah-terrr”. On the other hand, I’m a little curious to see as to where people will guess I’m from, based on the fact that I look asian but certainly don’t act nor speak particularly asian-like. In fact, I can’t even put on an asian accent when speaking in English – I know white people that can do it and I can’t!

Ramblings aside – does anyone have any recommendations for food/music/sights/shopping/galleries/museums/etc in LA/San Fran or any general tips on visiting the states? Mum and friends have been trying to teach me how to tip but I don’t think I’ll ever understand completely until I have to do it in person. I’ll probably look like a moron sitting there trying to work out the smallest amount I can get away with leaving though… haha. Oh yeah, I’m also tossing up whether or not to go and see Best Coast’s gig, but the problem is, I’m apparently going to Disneyland on the day of the gig that isn’t sold out, and I think people stay at Disneyland until nighttime?

Below: miscellaneous pics from Friday, after my last assessment of the year. You won’t believe how goooood it felt. Although now I’m anxious about marks, passing, etc…
Charlotte and I had a feast at Wagamama with a voucher I had. It came to under $20 each, and we both had a big serving of noodles, edamame and lemon iced tea.

The hoodie I bought for Liv upon her request… she wanted some kind of “NZ apparel” because apparently wearing things from your hometown is big thing to do in American universities:

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