Thursday, March 20, 2008

SWEET DREAMS ARE MADE OF...

I had the best dream lastnight. It was that this boy that I was obsessed
with when I was younger found me while I was on a cruise ship with my bf
and told me that he's single now and he'd love to hang out... and my bf
said it was ok. I haven't really thought of this person *in that way* in
like, nearly 10 years, and so seeing him was enough of a treat, but
having his affection -- finally, after all these years, was too much to
handle.

In my dream I kept on pinching myself -- LITERALLY pinching myself to
see if I was dreaming, thinking "this is too good to be true!" and in my
dream, I didn't feel the pinches and knew that it actually was... too
good to be true. I started hitting my arm, trying as hard as I could to
prove to myself that I wasn't dreaming, and the boy was like "what are
you doing?!" leaving me to explain my actions.

I never felt compelled to pinch myself in a dream before, and never
thought people actually did it. I never even thought I could dream so
lucidly, as to be confused between dreams and reality. I don't think
anything is lacking in my life (except for money), and my interactions
with this boy were G-rated, and all infront of my boyfriend in my dream
(simple pecks on the mouth)... but my God, was I happier in that dream
than I have been in a while. I think a lot of it has to do with that boy
being a manifestation of an extremely care-free and blissful time in my
life. God, I was the happiest person in the world when I was 19. I
barely drank, I think the amount of time I smoked weed I could count on
one hand, and I listened to music with the unbiased ears of a newborn.
Infact, losing that boy's attention is part of why I jumped into a
confused downward spiral of trying to forget things that upset me with
drinking... or trying to relive them with careless inhibition. I don't
fault the boy. It certainly wasn't his fault at all. I had this
obsessive crush and I probably got too creepy for him, which I guess can
happen.

I just really wonder why he was in my dream. What was the symbolism? Why
did I insist on proving to myself that it was a dream, instead of just
enjoying that moment.

Wednesday, March 19, 2008

JEWNO!

Thank you to Chris Black, the #1 Southern Jew Lover, for this one:

MUUUUUUUSE

Anyone reading this blog would know that i'm kind of a Muse superfan and have been since 1999. Like, super fan. Like, I've seen them play a bagillion times and think Matt Bellamy is a genius and own all their albums and a bunch of b-sides, and one time a kid came up to me at a party cos he saw a photo of me in spin in 2003 wearing a muse shirt i bought off the internet for like $40 and me and craig nicholls from the vines used to freak out over muse together and it was really the only thing that bonded our shallow friendship. MUSE.

Anyway, I actually bought the Hullabaloo DVD a few years ago at Amoeba records and fucking loved it. I still sometimes watch it. And now Muse are coming out with a new DVD called HAARP (out April 1) that was filmed last June over two days at whembly arena... AND I'M NOT MAD. No, only muse could release DVDs a couple years apart and the event feels as good as the first time.

Here's some previews... I'm glad to see that they've toned down a bit... or not:



Tuesday, March 18, 2008

COMPLIMENT EACH OTHER

The PlayRadioPlay album, Texas, is out today. I'm currently downloading the album on iTunes, and i think it'll surprise people... at least based on what I heard while I was still in IDJ offices. PRP! was always on IDJ, but ST released the EP... so it's all family.

While we were all still there, me, Alex Shenitsky, Joanna Noyes, Kanani Yates, and Eric Speck made this video to one of the PRP songs... it goes with what the actual video was:


I've been having some really tripped out dreams lately. The other day i had a dream i was eddie murphy's teenaged/20-something daughter and having an illicit affair with him. Last night I had a dream that my mom called me from the Knitting Factory where she was at a secret show for Franz Ferdinand, The Killers, and My Chemical Romance... and I couldn't make it or something.

My dream then seiged into me at a furniture shop with Rob Stevenson, buying couches for our new Stolen Transmission offices. We were trying out a bunch of them and he was saying stuff to me about how we got fucked with our JV deal with IDJ and now we can only afford the floor samples. We then ended up in the part of the store that was actually someone's house getting restrored. The construction workers were putting in all new things, but what surprised me the most was that it took 3 workers (plus a pulley) to install a tiny flower pot with tiny fake flowers.

Sometimes I wonder if my dreams are trying to tell me something.

In addition to my new writing job for Almack's Dance Hall, my dad is going to teach me how to get into the whole eBay thing. He started, sort of accidentally, a couple years ago, working day and night because he can sometimes get a bit obsessive, and now he can afford to take my mom away on incredible vacations every other month, which is nice because of the heartattack she had last year. Her doctors told me it was fairly serious, and that kind of caused me to lose my mind for a breif period of time, which caused my work and relationships to suffer as I felt personally responsible for her ill-health (Jewish Guilt, obviously).

Ugh, I just found out that my friend Max's father passed away. I sent condolences and called his girlfriend to see if there's anything I can do. This is so sad. I'm going to go. bye.

Sunday, March 16, 2008

OFF THE MARKET!

Congratulations to the lovely Jessica Parker and Jesse Johnson!

THEY GOT ENGAGED!

I could be wrong, but I think i was there when they met? If I did the introduction, i'd like to have commission of their absolute adorableness.



I'm so happy for these two love birds. You gotta check out Jessica's blog... it basically chronicles her adventures in love. It's like reading Go Ask Alice, only the exact opposite.

Wednesday, March 12, 2008

I NEED A PLACE TO STAY IN AUSTIN ON THURSDAY & FRIDAY NIGHT

AND...

I AM FUCKING IN LOVE WITH JASON CASTRO

Jason Castro is unlike any boy i have ever loved. His hair hasnt been washed in ages, but not in the same way that boys i typically like dont wash their hair -- which is just let that shit get so greasy that it's gonna get processed and turned into a fossil fuel. He's got those dumb dreadlocks. They're so fucking horrible... BUT OH MY GOD, DO I LOVE HIM.



When Jason Castro wears suit jackets, it's not in the retro-nazi way that Interpol do, or in the ironic prep-boy way, it's in the I'm-about-to-meet-my-girlfriend's-parent's-and-I-want-to-try-to-impress-them,-and-these-dreads-are-so-cool,-arent-they? kind of way. My boyfriend has never met my dad, so he's not like the boys i typically love.



Even after hearing his really dumb story about how shitty of a weave he has, and how those things grossly can rip out of his head, i watched this following video of him performing "Hallelujah" and melted into to my seat. You know that genius line in "Superbad," when that kid goes like "have you ever looked into his eyes? it's like the first time ever hearing the beatles." IT WAS LIKE THAT! Watching his performance, i swear there were heart shapes flying from my eyes straight to the tv. i want to lay on some grass field with him as he hands me little flowers. I want to trade in my black clothes and wear nothing but flowery bullshit and get rid of my JPG perfume and buy a ton of patchoulie oil.

UGH.

Watch this:


AND THEN WHAT ABOUT THIS?!!?1 His performance of "If I Fell"!!!! JASON CASTRO, I LOVE YOU EVEN THOUGH SIMON COWELL DIDNT. I want to go back to college and get a bachelor's degree just so I can meet someone like Jason Castro and hang out in his dorm room as he plays me his shitty music and make me listen to his Seal covers:



Listen to his voice, he totally has this like, old school non-english speaker accent going on with his vocal delivery. I'm talking Julio Iglasias and Claud Francois. The shit I grew up listening to (while all you ppl with your hip parents got raised on the Beatles, my parents only listened to Arabic and French music, and my mom loved Julio). Dude just needs to cover "to all the girls i've loved before" and he'll have the latin vote AND the college vote AND my vote.

By the way, I love that other dude from Australia. He's totally got the auto-erotic asphyxiation thing going on. If i had to choose between him and spitzer, i'd choose him. yum.

BUT HE'S NOT AS GOOD AS MY BABY JASON CASTRO!!!!!

Sunday, March 9, 2008

LOST FANS, LETS TALK

For anyone that is as obsessed with LOST as I am, here's a theory i have:

We all know that mental time travel is possible, because of what Desmond has been going through. We also know that Ben gets off the island (because of his interactions with Sayid off the island). So my theory is that Ben is Ben's man on the boat.

I think that he gets captured in the future, and is able to jump through time and knows what's going on and is trying to make it all stop. He's trying to change the future, but he's probably not going to be able to.

I also think that Daniel Faraday is Jacob stuck in a time travel warp thing... he was exposed to radiation for a prolong period of time when doing those experiements with the rat.

Let's discuss.

Friday, March 7, 2008

I GO OUT!

So a few weeks ago, I was sitting around my apt, looking at old photos from shows I used to go to and telling Karen how much I miss going out to shows every night and loving the bands. Ever since starting Stolen Transmission, whenever I went to a show it was to see a band I was scouting. So I was stuck at the show thinking "is this band going to sell? what's their fan base? how would i market them?" Its like fucking homework all over again. I missed standing up front and not giving a shit and wondering what the band is doing later so that I could party with them and dance.

Then, ironically, my friend Dan from Universal hit me up asking if i wanted to write a blog for the universal website where I had to see a band every night and write about it. Literally, like, the next day this happened. The best part is that I dont have to write about bands on universal at all... but they would prefer that i made universal bands priority over who i saw that night, but it's not mandatory.

The ironic part is that Stolen Transmission used to go through universal before ties were severed in december leaving me income-less.... But now, i have an income again (a smaller one than before, but enough to barely pay rent until Stolen Transmission finds a new home)... AND I GET TO GO TO SHOWS!

So, i'm out every night and reviewing shows. Here's the website: ALMACK'S DANCE HALL.

Please book mark it!

Also, I'm DJing at SXSW!

Wednesday, March 5, 2008

WHY I CANT SLEEP AT NIGHT

This article was posted on boingboing.net 11 days ago. I have been having a hardtime sleeping ever since. Why aren't any of the canidates addressing global warming enough?????? THIS IS FUCKING INSANE.

The article is old, but it's all very real.

Now the Pentagon tells Bush: climate change will destroy us
· Secret report warns of rioting and nuclear war
· Britain will be 'Siberian' in less than 20 years
· Threat to the world is greater than terrorism
Mark Townsend and Paul Harris in New York
The Observer,
Sunday February 22 2004
Article history
Climate change over the next 20 years could result in a global catastrophe costing millions of lives in wars and natural disasters..

A secret report, suppressed by US defence chiefs and obtained by The Observer, warns that major European cities will be sunk beneath rising seas as Britain is plunged into a 'Siberian' climate by 2020. Nuclear conflict, mega-droughts, famine and widespread rioting will erupt across the world.

The document predicts that abrupt climate change could bring the planet to the edge of anarchy as countries develop a nuclear threat to defend and secure dwindling food, water and energy supplies. The threat to global stability vastly eclipses that of terrorism, say the few experts privy to its contents.

'Disruption and conflict will be endemic features of life,' concludes the Pentagon analysis. 'Once again, warfare would define human life.'

The findings will prove humiliating to the Bush administration, which has repeatedly denied that climate change even exists. Experts said that they will also make unsettling reading for a President who has insisted national defence is a priority.

The report was commissioned by influential Pentagon defence adviser Andrew Marshall, who has held considerable sway on US military thinking over the past three decades. He was the man behind a sweeping recent review aimed at transforming the American military under Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.

Climate change 'should be elevated beyond a scientific debate to a US national security concern', say the authors, Peter Schwartz, CIA consultant and former head of planning at Royal Dutch/Shell Group, and Doug Randall of the California-based Global Business Network.

An imminent scenario of catastrophic climate change is 'plausible and would challenge United States national security in ways that should be considered immediately', they conclude. As early as next year widespread flooding by a rise in sea levels will create major upheaval for millions.

Last week the Bush administration came under heavy fire from a large body of respected scientists who claimed that it cherry-picked science to suit its policy agenda and suppressed studies that it did not like. Jeremy Symons, a former whistleblower at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), said that suppression of the report for four months was a further example of the White House trying to bury the threat of climate change.

Senior climatologists, however, believe that their verdicts could prove the catalyst in forcing Bush to accept climate change as a real and happening phenomenon. They also hope it will convince the United States to sign up to global treaties to reduce the rate of climatic change.

A group of eminent UK scientists recently visited the White House to voice their fears over global warming, part of an intensifying drive to get the US to treat the issue seriously. Sources have told The Observer that American officials appeared extremely sensitive about the issue when faced with complaints that America's public stance appeared increasingly out of touch.

One even alleged that the White House had written to complain about some of the comments attributed to Professor Sir David King, Tony Blair's chief scientific adviser, after he branded the President's position on the issue as indefensible.

Among those scientists present at the White House talks were Professor John Schellnhuber, former chief environmental adviser to the German government and head of the UK's leading group of climate scientists at the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research. He said that the Pentagon's internal fears should prove the 'tipping point' in persuading Bush to accept climatic change.

Sir John Houghton, former chief executive of the Meteorological Office - and the first senior figure to liken the threat of climate change to that of terrorism - said: 'If the Pentagon is sending out that sort of message, then this is an important document indeed.'

Bob Watson, chief scientist for the World Bank and former chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, added that the Pentagon's dire warnings could no longer be ignored.

'Can Bush ignore the Pentagon? It's going be hard to blow off this sort of document. Its hugely embarrassing. After all, Bush's single highest priority is national defence. The Pentagon is no wacko, liberal group, generally speaking it is conservative. If climate change is a threat to national security and the economy, then he has to act. There are two groups the Bush Administration tend to listen to, the oil lobby and the Pentagon,' added Watson.

'You've got a President who says global warming is a hoax, and across the Potomac river you've got a Pentagon preparing for climate wars. It's pretty scary when Bush starts to ignore his own government on this issue,' said Rob Gueterbock of Greenpeace.

Already, according to Randall and Schwartz, the planet is carrying a higher population than it can sustain. By 2020 'catastrophic' shortages of water and energy supply will become increasingly harder to overcome, plunging the planet into war. They warn that 8,200 years ago climatic conditions brought widespread crop failure, famine, disease and mass migration of populations that could soon be repeated.

Randall told The Observer that the potential ramifications of rapid climate change would create global chaos. 'This is depressing stuff,' he said. 'It is a national security threat that is unique because there is no enemy to point your guns at and we have no control over the threat.'

Randall added that it was already possibly too late to prevent a disaster happening. 'We don't know exactly where we are in the process. It could start tomorrow and we would not know for another five years,' he said.

'The consequences for some nations of the climate change are unbelievable. It seems obvious that cutting the use of fossil fuels would be worthwhile.'

So dramatic are the report's scenarios, Watson said, that they may prove vital in the US elections. Democratic frontrunner John Kerry is known to accept climate change as a real problem. Scientists disillusioned with Bush's stance are threatening to make sure Kerry uses the Pentagon report in his campaign.

The fact that Marshall is behind its scathing findings will aid Kerry's cause. Marshall, 82, is a Pentagon legend who heads a secretive think-tank dedicated to weighing risks to national security called the Office of Net Assessment. Dubbed 'Yoda' by Pentagon insiders who respect his vast experience, he is credited with being behind the Department of Defence's push on ballistic-missile defence.

Symons, who left the EPA in protest at political interference, said that the suppression of the report was a further instance of the White House trying to bury evidence of climate change. 'It is yet another example of why this government should stop burying its head in the sand on this issue.'

Symons said the Bush administration's close links to high-powered energy and oil companies was vital in understanding why climate change was received sceptically in the Oval Office. 'This administration is ignoring the evidence in order to placate a handful of large energy and oil companies,' he added.

Saturday, March 1, 2008

GOING TO THE CHAPEL

Anyone who reads this blog is probably inclined to think: this girl is all sass and no class. Well, you'd be mostly right, but sometimes I can class it up. Sometimes.

I went to an engagement party on 5th Avenue at some fancy schmancy hotel at some fancy schmancy members only club called Doubles. It was for my dear old friend Chris Kelly and his fiance Leah. At one point in his life, when he was 17/18 years old, Chris was being poised to be former Island/DefJam head Lyor Cohen's protege. He would come into the office every day after school and try to figure out how to save the music industry. Lyor had him on speed dial. There were stories about how a teenaged Chris would have one of the conference rooms set up with graphs and pie charts and numerical equations... there were rumors that he had thought of iTunes years before it existed. After about a year, Chris decided that he wanted to become a brain surgeon and a couple years later he was teaching biology to pre-med students at Columbia University (coincedently he taught one of my oldest friends ... which lead her to say "you know that guy!?") and writing cookbooks. In about 5 years he will be doing surgery on people's brains (if he isn't doing so already). I met my current partner, former Island/DefJam exec and Stolen Transmission co-founder Rob Stevenson through Chris when he was an intern. I met Chris on AOL in 1998 when we bonded over Placebo. He was 14 and I was 18. He told me he was 18. I really didnt have any reason to not believe him.

Anyway, last night, Lyor was there... along with about 300 other people to celebrate Chris' engagement to this wonderful woman Leah. And as a surprise Leah hired the Kingsmen -- an a capella group from Columbia University. Dressed as your typical ivy leaguers in kahki pants, navy blazer, and university tie, the group got up infront of the crowd and performed The Beatles' "She Loves You," The Beach Boys' "God Only Knows," and Billy Joel's "Uptown Girl." Now, incase you caught it... the Kingsmen is also the name of the classic band whose biggest hit was "Louie Louie". I dont know if anyone caught that.

INVISIBLE ROCK BAND

Things at the Hanger Bar got a bit interesting last night when we decided to start our invisible rock band....






Here are some more photos

I had a dream/nightmare last night in which I was in LA, enjoying myself living somewhat like a vagabond but strangely at a really nice hotel with my brother Albert. I remember buying oldschool rollerskates, cute platform sandles, and giving myself a hideous haircut (which i've done in real life). Then, I realized that it was 4pm on monday and I was a 5 hour flight from NYC and therefore missing my own book release party. Devastated, I attempted to hang myself. Not fun.