postcard number one

hi how are you why yes i am very good thank you america has been very busy but very fun as expected and also slightly traumatic as expected in dealing with all my crap but hopefully liberating especially for the people that have had to deal with it. i landed on a thursday which was also a thursday in new zealand so it's like i got two thursdays but i have to exchange one for a monday when i go back plus I spent half of two thursdays on a plane so it's not that enviable.

landed in la and ate at my favorite cuban place with my gracious LA host marisol, but versailles wasn't everything i remembered it to be, but it was still pretty ok. went back to her/their (for it also belongs to her husband and my other gracious LA host jj) pad to drop shit off, make plans, take a shower, and take a nap.

there were also donuts along the way, can't remember when.

that night went to the arclight with jj and marisol to see idiocracy, the new mike judge movie, half of which is one of the funniest movies i've ever seen and half of which is a nearly-laughter free zone. but half a "funniest movie I've ever seen" is still really really worth seeing. i also saw my friend randy riggs, who is living the dream in los angeles as a usc film school graduate. wanted him to come hang out on friday but he was at a color grading session for a car commercial he directed. see? living the dream. at least we got to eat grilled veggies and drink ludicrously sized beers at a trendy bar afterwards. but not too trendy, I suppose: they let me in.

then there was sleep.

then, eventually, waking, and with my great powers of persuasion convinced jj that hanging out with me all day was more interesting than work. there was a SIM card for my phone acquired along the way (e-me if you need the # for some reason), and breakfast at a local diner (local being Echo Park, which also has some cool features like lotus blossoms), and a trip by spiritual bookstore The Bodhi Tree (purchases: yet another book on Taoism, HAGAKURE (aka that book Ghost Dog quotes from in the movie THE GHOST DOG), an issue of Psychology Today) and to the record store Seaplane (purchases: Eric Bachmann, Mission of Burma, Nouvelle Vague), and to the store Giant Robot (purchases: cool Giant Robot hoodie with throwing stars, issue of Cometbus, issue of Giant Robot). Also walked around Echo Park and ate at a raw food restaurant, including crackers with kim chee salsa and a raw pizza (some kind of heavy unleavened grain base, a couple pastes of pesto and marinara, almond cheese, and a silly but wonderful amount of cilantro). got to tell the waitress, a friend of jj's, my egg story AND my jell-o story.

supposed to meet up with a couple other friends but things got all ascrewy, so jj and marisol and i went to see THE US VS. JOHN LENNON once again at the arclight, because that's what we do. it was a pretty good documentary despite some crap technical aspects (some frightening compositing in some of the scenes - all the interviews were shot against green-screen) and its total one-sidedness in the Yoko vs. "old wife and child you wouldn't know existed if you were an alien and saw this doco; for that matter, you wouldn't really know the Beatles broke up either". still inspiring and saddening by measures.

then we had MEXICAN FOOD, which is really one of the main reasons I came to America. (sorry, friends and family and barbeque restaurants. no offense intended.) I think the restaurant might have been called La Panadilla but I am not sure. It was fantastic. There was sangria and fresh guacamole and then things went all a-crazy and the carne asada and shrimp showed.

and then there was a food coma blur and jj and marisol rolled my newly spherical shape home. and then there was more but now i am sleepy! so sorry. i can only tell you so many things at one time anyway. right? right.