Thirty Day LA

A common refrain heard among people in my age group:

“Wow, 2008, damn I’m old.”

Which isn’t necessarily true or false, but it illustrates the mindset of those of us approaching our thirties. We start to question who we are and what we’ve accomplished. For the majority of us – not much. We probably landed a decent paying job, starting saving for retirement, moved closer to marriage. Maybe we’ve found a career track we can stick with, or a city to live in that suits our tastes. For those lucky ones (or unlucky, depending on how you look at it), they might have gotten engaged or even married. But for the rest of us still muddling around in what is supposed to be the prime of our lives, a sort of paralysis sets in. The older we get, the more we define ourselves by the things we haven’t accomplished. And that is precisely what is expressed when we say, “Damn I’m old.”

Normally at the end of each year, I like to do some retrospective introspection. More often that not, I end up depressed. This year, I didn’t spend too much time thinking back on my life. Some of it sucked, some of it was great. I did get to travel all over the world, mostly thanks to my sister and her three wedding ceremonies – one at home, one in Pittsburgh, and one in Taiwan. I went to Hawaii with good friends and ran a half marathon. However, I spent most of last year at work, and between falling asleep at my desk, taking two-hour lunch breaks, and damaging my liver with weekly binge drinking, it felt like a giant waste of time. Originally, I had planned on quitting work and traveling abroad for a couple months before starting film school. Before I could commit career suicide, my former boss presented me the opportunity to continue working remotely while attending school. This would provide me the means to eat and live, something I had grown accustomed to. The most practical choice was to take the offer. After I accepted, I started to look back on my past three years of work differently. I had grown as close as family with some of my coworkers, honed my basketball game in lunchtime pickup games twice a week, and improved my people skills, slightly. I was also able to start this blog, which in turn helped me get into film school, and hopefully that will enable me to devote the rest of my life to exploring LA and the world. But in the meantime, since I couldn’t quit work before school started, I would only have one week of vacation to travel.

So in the beginning of December, I traveled to Belize with a group of high school friends. I will post the recap of our adventures in the following posts. It was one of the best vacations in my young life. Unfortunately, I feel just as mentally unprepared and even more financially unstable for film school than ever before.

Due to the fact that I will be working and attending school full-time, I don’t know if I will have the time to find contributors for 30 Day LA in the coming years. In all honesty, the success of the project resided more in the experiences of the individual contributors than what happened to be recorded in these pages. I am happy that they were able to take part in 30 Day LA, as much as I am grateful for the readers that happened to wander by. I grew up a lot during my initial month on this project, but it opened my eyes to how much more time and experience I had ahead of me.

One of the core reasons why I sometimes find myself disappointed with the direction of my life is my lack of focus. Consistency has never been my strong suit. However, as with every New Year, a foolish resolution is in order. For 2008, I resolve to become more consistent and focused. So for my first attempt at consistency, I will keep alive my tradition over the past two years of saying peace out to the year.

Peace out 2007. Will youthful wisdom find us all in 2008.

Posted by CaptainMelo at 6:27 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

It’s been a year since I started my first 30 Day LA adventure. At the time, I was aimless and lost, meandering about in a city that didn’t feel like home. I had a steady job that I didn’t really want along with a waning interest in my usual nighttime distractions. It all felt rather pointless. So I decided one day that I would attempt to renew my connection to the city by doing something new every day for a month. A short 30 days later, I emerged completely broke. However, instead of being trapped within my notions of how LA is painfully fake and meaningless, I realized there was a wealth of worthwhile discoveries lying before me - restaurants, bars, museums, and people who had once shared a similar disillusionment as I did. The difference was that they had eventually figured out their own niche, small or big, from which to carve their life from. And that’s what I needed to hear - that there was actually a way to navigate through life in LA, but the map was up to me to draw.

But I was still lost. I still had the same unfulfilling job, the same mindset of insecurity. A month, no matter how memorable, can’t cure several years’ worth of missed opportunities. I’m a very restless person, and I knew that taking whatever handouts came my way wasn’t going to satisfy me. I would have to stop settling and catch something more on my own. So I did what one of the people I met on my 30 days told me to do – I took a risk. A few rejections later, I figured it didn’t pay off. No matter, I just had to keep trying. I thought about moving out of LA to either Seattle, Chicago, or New York. I went to visit Chicago and came this close to falling in love with the city, but something held me back. It was this strange feeling that I never thought I would have - I had come to think of LA as home. When I got back from Chicago, I tried to list the pro’s and con’s of each city, but it came down to the irrational idea that I wasn’t ready to leave. This after telling a friend that she should move to Chicago for law school instead of staying in LA just because it’s always been home. Then, a few weeks later, a letter came in the mail. I was in denial for the next two days, not ready to believe that the risk I had taken a few months ago had actually paid off. So the decision had been made for me – I would be staying in LA, at least for the next 3 years. After several failed rounds of applications, I had finally gotten accepted into film school.

I’m pretty sure that 30 Day LA was one of the biggest reasons why I got accepted. At the end of my undistinguishing phone interview with one of the professors on the admissions committee, he asked me about 30 Day LA, which I had written about it in my personal statement. He seemed genuinely interested when I talked about my most outlandish experience (which wasn’t all that outlandish). So while I started this whole experiment to pull myself out of a long mental funk, it ended up helping me distinguish myself from a big pool of talented and equally deserving candidates.

The main thing that had changed between the time I started 30 Day LA and getting accepted into film school was my perspective. I now saw LA as a place to explore as opposed to this giant city in which I was trapped. Once I broke free from that mindset, I understood that if I felt bored or unfulfilled, it was on me, not anyone or anything else.

Now that I know my life is going to change drastically, I’m able to look at everything through a different lens. My boring job was actually like a 3 year vacation that I got to enjoy with a group of crazed alcoholic coworkers. It afforded me the luxury of free time that I could spend on photography or writing. I had carved out a decent life for myself, and I hadn’t even realized it.

As far as the blog – it will continue on. J.Bean is finishing up her 30 Day San Diego adventure. We have a new contributor who just moved to LA taking over the reigns in September. The 30 Date experiment will continue as well, a little slower than originally anticipated, but updates are soon to come. To commemorate my one year anniversary of 30 Day LA, I tried to ride my bike to work everyday. While I didn’t completely accomplish my goal, I did manage to cut my gasoline bill in half this month. All in all, a busy and productive year for both myself and this little website.

Despite everything, I’m still pretty worried – worried about paying for school, meeting new friends, proving myself in the classroom. And that’s not even mentioning the lifetime of struggles and hard work that will follow without any guarantee of success. I recently went home and visited a family friend who’s good with numbers. He calculated that it’s going to cost me at least a half million dollars in lost wages, debt, and investments in order to get my new career going. I scratched my head, plunged into a whirlwind of anxiety. A half million dollars. Not too bad, he said, interrupting my thoughts. It’s a chance to pursue my dream. A few years ago I would have deemed this kind of thinking foolish and reckless. But now, I figure it’s all a matter of perspective.

Recently I celebrated a birthday. Birthdays usually get me in a foul mood because I start reflecting on my past. I had picked a restaurant that I had never been to, a habit that still remains from a year ago. Looking at my friends across the dinner table, I thought about how much things change but also remain the same. My friends still call me angry and bitter. And perhaps I will carry some of that anger and bitterness with me for the rest of my life, but at least now I know that I’ll be able to find reasons not to be. I smiled, something that used to happen so rarely that it would shock people, as we all raised our glasses in unison. A toast to another year gone, and also to new beginnings.

Posted by CaptainMelo at 6:28 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

When a relationship gets old, it’s incredibly frustrating. All your feelings of excitement and happiness are replaced by a dull agony. There are no surprises anymore, nothing to look forward to. You used to have such high hopes. Now it’s become just another part of your daily ritual. But you can’t leave it, you’ve already spent so much effort on it. Against all reason, you hope that somehow your relationship will magically refresh itself. Which inevitably leads to you asking yourself, “Why can’t it be the way it used to be?”

Well, things can’t ever go back to the way they used to be. Things change, and we have to move on. But that doesn’t mean we have to just give up. If the relationship is going to change for the better, it’s up to us, not the other party or by chance. But how do you do it? You get up off your lazy ass, make a plan to fix it, and follow it step-by-step. It’s not easy, obviously, and in the end it still might not work out. But knowing that you are actively doing something about it makes all the difference.

J.Bean has fallen out of love with her hometown of San Diego, California. She feels suffocated. She can’t go anywhere without seeing the same people over and over again. For one of the largest cities in the United States, San Diego feels like such a small town to her. So instead of letting her relationship with SD wither and die, she has decided she is going to try to fall in love with it all over again. Over the month of August, she will take on the 30 Day experiment, which will include activities like speed-dating, midnight kayaking, and performing in a slam poetry competition. If anything, these experiences will help her gain perspective towards her relationship with San Diego. Then she can decide where to go from there.

We have no way of telling what’s best for us. The choices we make and even the things we want might ultimately cause our undoing. It’s difficult to filter out all the noise, whether it’s from other people or our own uncertainties. But we do have a fighting chance to succeed, in love and life, if we choose to take it. In J.Bean’s case, she’s going to take a chance. She’s going to discover, on her own, if San Diego is still the right place for her. If it’s not, at least she’ll have fought for it. But if she finds over the next month that San Diego might hold more adventures for her than she ever thought possible, she might just fall in love all over again. And all we really need is love.

Posted by CaptainMelo at 7:18 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I was hoping that this next entry would be Track 1 to my mix, but there seems to be a long prelude before the music can begin. And just when the beat picks up, it slows down once again and the prelude continues. So instead of making this entry the beginning of this 30 Date LA project, I thought I'd give a bit of a synposis of what the pre-30 Date LA journey has been like...

Continue reading "The Prelude" »

Posted by Mixtape at 1:38 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I won't lie: life has treated me well. Life has given me a lot of things: a close-knit family, good friends, financial independence, and priceless memories. I can't really ask more out of life, and that's that.

Then I was presented with the 30 Date LA project, and it got me thinking...

Continue reading "Before you push play..." »

Posted by Mixtape at 8:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Starting now, 30 Day LA is going to cover some new territory: dating.

Say what, you say?

While Kwongdzu figures out the logistics in tackling 30 Day LA between battling polar bears, piloting a helicopter ambulance, and holding down a day job, we are moving on and plunging into the scary abyss of dating in LA.

Now we all know that LA is full of gorgeous women. In fact, you could probably take an average looking girl by LA standards, transport her to a non-beach town somewhere in the US, and she'd be lining up the guys and knocking them over like dominoes. While LA may be a great singles scene for those guys who are famous, rich, or ridiculously good looking, it's a different story for normal guys. These normal guys know there's no way the beautifully flighty LA girls would give them a chance, and they can't seem to find any normal girls they could enjoy being boring and unattractive with and not have to go broke trying to keep her around. For normal guys in LA, dating is a difficult proposition, one that seems as faint as a Hollywood dream.

So here's the idea:
3 normal single guys living in LA.
10 dates each, over the span of 3 months.
30 Date LA.

Over the next few months, three new contributors will be telling their stories of navigating the dating scene in LA. Their ultimate goal: to have at least one successful date that will (hopefully) lead to many more. Sounds easy right? That's what we're here to see.

For those seasoned dating professionals out there, feel free to offer some advice to our new contributors. I'm sure they will appreciate the help. And no, reading the book "The Game" does not make you a seasoned professional, so stop talking about it.

First up on deck is Mixtape. He has a reputation as a hound, as he's constantly surrounded by an ever-changing contingent of women. However, as far as dating experience goes, he falls under the category of normal guy. He hopes that undertaking this project will force him to take advantage of the numerous dating opportunities that present themselves to him. Mixtape, take it away.

Posted by CaptainMelo at 6:35 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Happy New Year!

I remember when New Years used to be a big deal. My friends and I would bundle up and carpool over to the BART station with expectations of an eventful night in San Francisco. Anything could happen – we could set off a firecracker on someone’s car, one of us could pass out drunk in the middle of the street, or our incurable worries could fade away as the sky exploded with light – and it did. However, with each passing New Years Eve, things seemed to get less exciting, even if I did manage to make it out to a club and get trashed. This year, I spent a very low-key evening with my high school buddies, playing poker and videogames. Lame, maybe so, but it felt like a natural progression for our celebrations.

The best part of New Years is all the resolutions. Well, more like taking perverse and petty pleasure in watching everyone’s resolutions get broken. Yeah I’m being a pessimist, but I think it’s pretty much accepted that 99% of resolutions get broken within a month. You have January gym rats who turn into February fatties, disgruntled suits who promise themselves to find a better job but don't, and couples who know they should break up but end up settling. If I ever had any personal goals, I made sure not to call them “resolutions” so I might actually accomplish them.

This year, however, I’m going to call them resolutions. I think I still have some overconfidence left over from my 30 Day LA adventures in August. Over the holidays, I was feeling pretty shitty about life in general, but then I thought about the stuff I did in 2006. After I started this blog, I wrote a screenplay (yeah I’m one of those losers), took a couple photography classes, got a promotion at work, and applied for film school. When I think about it, I did manage to accomplish quite a bit, and I realized that maybe resolutions aren’t all that impossible to achieve. So it’s a new year, and with it comes a renewed sense of hope. Yeah, I guess I'm a sucker too. Time to get cracking on my delusions of grandeur, starting with 30 Day LA.

If you happen to be one of the few readers left, you’re might be wondering what the hell is going on with 30 Day LA. We’re going to continue on with a new contributor every month in 2007. The Plastic Highway did manage to complete his 30 Day LA adventures, but then he had the full weight of grad school dropped on his ass. Hopefully sometime in the future he’ll be able to fill us in on the rest of his experiences. In the meantime, 30 Day LA is moving onto a new season of production with Kwongdzu at the helm.

Kwongdzu is a long-time resident of LA who has plenty of experience in the Hollywood scene, and she’s going to bring a fresh insider’s perspective. She’ll fill you in with her big plans soon.

A friend once said that every year deserves a proper peace out. I hope everyone had tons of reasons to celebrate their past year. I know had at least 30 days that I’ll always remember. So Peace Out, 2006. May all your dreams, and even resolutions, come true in 2007.

Posted by CaptainMelo at 8:19 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

While my original goal for Thirty Day LA was to try something new every day, what I really ended up doing was just going to a bunch of new places. While I had some fun experiences, I didn't get to utilize Thirty Day LA to its fullest potential. So even though the thirty days are up for me, the adventure isn't going to end here. Now it's time for Thirty Day LA, part 2.

Enter The Plastic Highway.

First, an introduction. The Plastic Highway is a typical mid-twenties kid you'd find in LA: indie music advocate, Apple fanatic, lazy man-child who's not ready to grow up. He doesn't take much risk and leads a quiet life. He's shy and self-conscious, driven more out of insecurity than ambition. This summer he has a health-care internship where he feels the full weight of working life stagnancy. He's already dreading the transition to post-collegiate life. But where others limp into the real world and lose their way for several years, The Plastic Highway is determined to get a head start. He's ready to shake things up not just for himself, but for the city as well.

The Plastic Highway is going to take Thirty Day LA to a new level. Instead of only going to new places, he has the goal of pushing aside his usual fears and insecurities to become a new person for thirty days. Last night he attempted to tackle his self-consciousness by dressing up and going to a fancy restaurant by himself. Today, he's going to ask his boss for a pay raise of 100%. He has some even bigger stunts planned, including several public outdoor performances. I'll let him tell you exactly what he's got in store, but his ideas are very ambitious and highly interactive. So be ready when he calls on you to take part in this new phase of Thirty Day LA.

I am actually more excited now listening to his enthusiasm as he tells me his big, ambitious plans than I was when I started my adventure. He's going to be a force, and I hope some of you get to catch him in action. In a few days, he'll be ready with his first post.

But before that all happens, I wanted to take the time right now to say Peace Out Thirty Day LA. I'm glad to see that the adventure will continue on. Ultimately, I'll carry my thirty days with me for the rest of my life knowing that someone else will be able to do the same.

Signing Off,
Captain Melo

Posted by CaptainMelo at 11:25 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Happiness is not achieved by the conscious pursuit of happiness; it is generally the by-product of other activities. -- Aldous Huxley, Vendeta for the Western World, 1945

We live in difficult, cynical times. Flooded by images of war, firecrotches, wanton adultery, fake celebrity babies, and angry minorities, it’s very easy to get caught up in the unhappiness of it all. As bad as it is now, I wonder if for me, this is as good as it gets. I have a decent-paying job, good health, and plenty of free time. I could be off fighting in a war or be unemployed or in jail. Even worse, I could be married with three annoying kids, an unstimulated wife, and a 30-year mortgage. So while I didn’t make any progress over this past month towards the inevitable hell that awaits me, I did gain something far more valuable: a sense of optimism.

I’ve spent far too long cruising through my narrow lanes of unhappiness. It’s not because I’m depressed all the time or I like being unhappy, it’s because I’m idle. I haven’t made any decisions with my life. When people ask me what I want to do with myself, I can only give them a vague answer about wanting to do everything. But then I never take any risks and end up disappointed with the depth of my accomplishments.

Last night I went on another Griffith Park night hike where I had a great conversation with my new friend Frank. He told me the story of his life. After starting off as a candy-seller in Mexico, he’s now a business owner with a million-dollar house in the mountains and two grandchildren. When he looks back on his life, he gets scared to think that he might have not taken the risks that he did. He wants to go back and tell his younger self to not even think about letting those opportunities pass him by. So now, into his late 60's, the world is his, yet he is centered at home with family and friends. His story gave me hope. If I take risks and make decisions and enjoy the ride, I might be able to look back on my life one day and feel very fortunate as well.

As a typical post-grad dealing with quarter-life crisis, self-doubt creeps into all my thoughts. I constantly question if what I’m doing will help me reach that vague, indeterminate goal of happiness. But in the process of Thirty Day LA, I have established a new mindset from which to build upon. Happiness is not an end result, but merely a part of the journey. I just have to keep moving forward. So with this adventure I have found my home. I have achieved my goal of getting to know the city a little better. Now I’m ready to tackle everything that lies ahead.

When I started this blog, I hoped that the activities I did would not only produce happiness in my own life, but also inspire others as well. I am glad to hear that some of those who read this blog have started doing more things on their own, found new outings to try out, and have even been reminded of other writing that stuck with them over the years. But ultimately, I hoped that this blog wouldn't end with me and my thirty days. I hoped it would become another thirty day adventure, possibly in a different city, maybe still in LA, or even in another country.

So here's what next: I'm asking you, the random blog-loving internet reader, for your help. I’m asking for you to continue this Thirty Day blog as Thirty Day Chicago, or Thirty Day LA 2.0, or Thirty Day Random European City. If you have ever felt uninspired or that your life is stagnant, if you ever felt like going on a month-long vacation within your own city, or if you just want to spend a lot of money and have a lot of fun, please contact me. I’ll hand over the blog to you and it’ll be yours to do as you please. If you have any questions about how to get started or what insights I’ve gained from this experience, I’ll be happy to share. And whenever you feel ready, you can embark on a memorable thirty day journey to rediscover the city you live in. When you're done, the entire world will be yours to continue exploring for the rest of your life.

Posted by CaptainMelo at 10:28 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Now that Thirty Day LA is over, I still don’t know how I really feel about the whole thing. I thought I might feel anything from relief to sadness, but I guess I’m just too tired to fully process the experience. I have so many thoughts swirling around on not just what I did, but how I feel and what I’ve learned of the city itself. It was a long month that somehow seemed to fly by.

It was just a month ago that I was at the Getty Museum’s Off the 405 event. Sitting at the table next to the long rectangular fountain pool surrounded by music, art, and architecture, I felt my usual uptightness flow away with each swig of alcohol. The scene was lively: a crowd of people encircling the dancers in front of the DJ stage, families engaged in their own conversations over the music at the tables, exhibit-goers passing by in their Sunday best on a Friday night. Normally I’m rather laconic, but when I’ve had a couple drinks in me, I get an overwhelming urge to talk to people. While the rest of our group was off doing their own thing, my fellow alcoholic friend Lefty and I drank vodka tonics and discussed our disillusionment with the city. We both felt like LA had nothing left to offer for us. Lefty hoped to save enough to move out to New York by the end of the year, and if I didn’t get past the interview round this time for AFI Conservatory, I’d get out of LA as well.

Feeling lonely, unhappy, and uninspired, I took on Thirty Day LA in an attempt to shake up my dissatisfaction with my life in the city. I went to my first karaoke dive bar, then I went to my first jazz festival, then on a fishing boat for the first time. I blew half of my budget for the month in one night of partying in Hollywood. Nevertheless, I got excited. I had one too many drunken excursions, starting off well in my hipster tour of Silver Lake but ending badly in downing rum after drinking beer at Father’s Office. I made my first bike commute to work, which was the best combination of no-cost, outdoor-exercising, scenery-watching, planet-saving, fun-filled activity that I did the entire thirty days, and it was something so completely simple. My spirits were high as I went to a couple farmers markets and attended a free Shakespeare production. Then I attended a tofu festival and a hard-rock concert which weren’t as thrilling. I indulged my loneliness in three days of going out by myself: to a bar, to a restaurant, to an outdoor concert at the pier, which somehow made me feel slightly less lonely. I joined a massive midnight bicycle ride through the streets of Hollywood. By then, I was running on mostly fumes. On four hours of sleep a night, I went on a karaoke dive bar tour, a birthday rich bitch beach tour, then a jazz club, a Griffith Park night hike, a Santa Monica bike tour, and a Jurassic 5 beach concert. Short on cash and sleep, I was losing energy and motivation going into the last week. But I cured that by proceeding to drink two nights in a row: first at a bar where I saw Leanne Tweeden, then at another karaoke dive bar where I drove everyone out with my obscene rapping.

On the day before my last day of Thirty Day LA, I sat at Don Antonio’s over a plate of $1 tacos with WrathOfDrunkenness. We talked about plans for the evolution of this blog in the upcoming months, but my mind was more on my last day of Thirty Day LA. I had absolutely nothing planned for it. One thing I learned over my activities was that when I planned things out beforehand they worked out the best. Before my adventure started, I had grown too accustomed to doing things last minute and having them work out. I felt like I needed to start planning, which would help me move forward with my life as well. I was concerned that I was already reverting back to my old ways.

But like usual, things somehow worked out. I went on Ticketmaster Thursday morning and amazingly was able to purchase two tickets to the Red Hot Chili Peppers concert at the Forum in Inglewood that very night. I emailed Lefty to go with me on my last Thirty Day LA outing since he was there at the first one. Despite being tired and withdrawn from work, he said he’d go.

The Red Hot Chili Peppers are one of my favorite bands. I don’t know all that many bands, being so musically-uneducated and so completely far away from the indie music scene that dominates this city, but I don’t care, the Chili Peppers are awesome.

If you let go and let this music take you by the hand it will take you flying through skies of sound. It will zoom you up well above outer space and it will show you around planes of existence that do not share the laws and conditions of this reality. And when it brings you down to earth it will dig deep into that shit. It will also teach you to fall back without landing on your ass and to fall forward without falling on your face. Let go and you can be two places at once, you can be as big as the whole universe and as small as an atom simultaneously. You can unite with a star or a plant. You are everything you see around you and the ideas in this music may get you to start realizing what a great power that can be. – John Frusciante, March 2006

Before the concert, Lefty and I hung out in the parking lot next to my car drinking 32 ounce Miller High Lifes, the champagne of beers. They were disgusting but effective. The concert was supposed to start at 7:30PM, but it was already 8:30PM and people were still driving in. LA people are late to everything, including concerts. Even though my perspective had changed to a degree over the past thirty (or so) days, we once again talked about our disillusionment with LA. I am starting to understand that my disillusionment is something that will always be a part of me, regardless of whether I live in LA or not.

After we finished our beers, we tried to get inside to the concert. The Forum is old and poorly designed, so it took us almost an hour of walking around to pick up our tickets from will call and find our seats. We completely missed Mars Volta. After downing a couple shots and drinks, we were good and hyped. The lights went down, the crowd erupted, and the spotlight shone on Flea, shirtless as always, then Chad Smith, then John Frusciante, then Kiedis. Flea started it off with a bass funk riff and the show began.

The Red Hot Chili Peppers concert:

• I didn’t recognize half of the songs as they played a lot of stuff off their new Stadium Arcadium album
  
• All the songs I did know I had at one point known how to play on guitar
  
• For the encore, they played my favorite RHCP song Soul To Squeeze, which I once performed with GuitarHero when he was on the guitar and vocals and I was on bass. I called GuitarHero and left a message by holding up the phone, but all he ended up hearing was me singing the whole time
  
• The best part of the show was after Kiedis and the drummer Chad Smith ran off, when John Frusciante and Flea remained on stage and spent ten euphoric minutes jamming amazing riffs before they exited
  
• And as quickly as we got hyped when they came on stage, our high came down as the lights came up
  

It was a great way for me to end Thirty Day LA. If only everything in LA could feel like such pure, simple joy. As we idled in the parking lot of the Forum waiting for the line of cars to exit, I finally understood why I am so disillusioned with the city. It’s not because of the people or the fakeness or the lifestyle. It’s because the city is so huge and I want to take part in all of it, but I can’t. The mental blocks that limit me within the confines of my comfort zone are like the traffic jams that keep me on the Westside. I always wish I was doing something else in someplace cooler and more exciting. But this time, sitting in traffic with Lefty as things seemed to come full circle, I didn’t wish I was anywhere else. I wasn’t sad that the concert was over, nor did I dread having to work the next day. After a memorable thirty days I realized I still had a whole city left to explore, but I no longer needed to be in a rush to find my place. I would find it eventually. On my final day of Thirty Day LA, in a continually changing city with more to offer than I could ever hope to take advantage of, in a place where love and heartbreak seem just a moment away, in the capital of American culture that promises millions of dreams fulfilled, I realized that I had finally found my home, for better or worse. And it only took me seven years to figure it out.

Posted by CaptainMelo at 12:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (1)

This has nothing to do with 30 Day LA, but I just thought I'd share why I call myself Captain Melo. First, a little background info on me. I really like basketball. Before I started on this reinventing myself by doing new things everyday fad, I played basketball almost every day. I don't talk write about basketball because it's not something new when I do it all the time. But I spend a lot of time watching basketball, reading about basketball, and playing basketball. I'm addicted. I even like the Clippers. There's several basketball players I enjoy watching and rooting for. Unfortunately, Carmelo Anthony is not one of them, despite the fact that he is my NBA doppleganger.

Carmelo Anthony has just been named a co-captain of Team USA Basketball for the 2006 FIBA World Championships, along with LeBron James and Dwyane Wade. If I were 6 foot 8 and 230 pounds and vaguely black looking, the professional basketball player I would most resemble is Carmelo Anthony. From his ball-hogging, reckless slashing, shaky jump-shooting ways right down to how he looks like a chubby eighteen year old girl with a faint trace of facial hair.

From now on, I will talk as though I’m actually Carmelo Anthony, just poor and short. By the way, if I blew that layup it’s because that monstrous Neanderthal-looking Chinaman scared the shit out of me.

Posted by CaptainMelo at 3:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

My first post and my first step into embracing my attention-whore ways. I created this blog in order to document 30 Day LA, my attempt to do something new, interesting, and exciting every day for the next 30 days. It's going to require a lot of planning (which I suck at) and tons of motivation (which I have precious little of). Because of work, I probably won't have enough time to post every day, so I'll try to update my adventures at least once every 2-3 days.

Right now I’m in the Santa Monica Public Library, 25 minutes before closing time. I have a special fondness for libraries, having spent most of my childhood afternoons in them while waiting for my parents to pick me up to go home. The Santa Monica Library is one of the more impressive libraries I’ve been to. The two-story complex spans an entire city block, and the design feels very open, with endless windows surrounding a central courtyard. Inside, there's great lighting, free city wireless, and study rooms galore. After this month, whenever I need to go out and get some writing done, I’m coming here. That way I don’t have to pay $4 for a drink at some coffee shop. The library closes at 9PM, which isn’t ideal for all the nocturnal screenwriters of LA, making it ideal for me.

I’m on day 5 of my adventure. I’ll recap my previous four days in my next post. I reserved today for starting this blog and checking out this library. My goal for Thirty Day LA is to break out of my daily routine and to explore the city that is still a stranger to me after 8 years of living here. When I first moved here from the San Francisco Bay Area, I hated LA. There were too many gorgeous people I would never be like, expensive cars I would never drive, and palatial mansions I would never own.

Me: Fuck you, LA. You suck.
LA: Get the hell out then, loser.

After a while, LA grew on me. One thing I always liked was the abundance of things to do. I can eat any kind of food I want at any time of the day, party with all sorts of interesting people, and run or play ball outdoors all year long. The other day, after another boring outing, instead of saying "All right everyone, I'm going back to my shitty apartment in this godforsaken void of plastic nihilism," I simply said, "I'm going home." Guess I'm starting to feel like I fit in here.

Me: LA, you are kind of cool.
LA: What are you still doing here? Get the hell out already. Loser.

There isn't a simple way to describe LA that can accurately encompass all that it stands for. LA is always changing and moving, like how one day it was cool to cruise down Sunset bumping trance music and go party at Miyagi's, and then suddenly the next day it was really pathetic. For a while, I didn't know where I fit in and how to make sense of the city. But I realized that instead of trying to dig a niche for myself but getting swept aside, I could just flow with it and see where the city takes me.

I live in the land of the exciting, so I'm going to take advantage of it. I look forward to having new experiences, meeting some new friends, and exploring this city I call home.

Posted by CaptainMelo at 8:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

30 Day LA documents the attempt of an ordinary working stiff to do something new every day for 30 days in the greater Los Angeles area. Through these daily adventures, 30 Day LA aims to explore and understand the ever-changing landscape of the city and rouse others to start a 30 day adventure of their own.

After three years of working full time in LA and nothing interesting to show for it, I decided I needed a change. Inspired by two self-made pale white dudes, Steve Pavlina and Morgan Spurlock, I concocted a plan to make up for all the times I stayed in after work and on the weekends. For the next thirty days I would do something new everyday in order to explore and discover LA, a place that feels like I stranger even though I call it home. I set some guidelines for my adventures:

• Maintain current responsibilities (working full time; writing, cooking, and running 3x a week).
• Keep a budget and do as much as possible on the cheap.
• Activities planned by or for others (birthdays, hangouts, etc) qualify as something new
• Incorporate new activities into regular routine
• Do a wide range of activities including sports, music, partying, culture, art, food, etc.

I'm hoping that by the end of the month, I might just get to know LA a little better and be inspired to continue on the adventure through the rest of my life.

Posted by CaptainMelo at 10:22 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)