Thirty Day LA

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.

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I hoped that by taking on Thirty Day LA, not only would I have some memorable experiences but I would also get some useful ideas for things to do that others might find useful. By request, here are my top ten free summertime activities in LA.

• Getty Museum Off the 405: free music, cash bar, great atmosphere. Get there early to pick out a table in front of the DJ stage
• Griffith Park Night hike: every Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday nights starting at 7PM sharp in the upper merry-go-round parking lot. Bring water and hiking shoes.
• Outdoor activities: Shakespeare by the Sea performances, Burbank’s Dancing in the Streets on Thursday nights, Dance Downtown on Friday nights
• Bike to work: Map out your trail with Google Maps or Google Earth, get some buddies to bikepool, and check out the bike-commuting website Roll With It
• Midnight Ridazz: Every second Friday of the month a gang of bikers in the hundreds take over the streets in a safe but thrilling 15 mile ride
• Hammer Museum: Modern art exhibits and music performances in the courtyard at night, free during the summer only
• Nike training runs: starting at 6:30PM every night of the week in different locations throughout LA, these 3 and 5 mile group runs are great for staying in shape, meeting people, and exploring LA by foot
• Karaoke dive bars: if you BYOFlask, you can have fun belting out tunes in your best drunken voice for free all night in any of these places: Backstage, Tattle Tale Room, Gas Lite, Liquid Kitty (Mondays), The Hideout (Tuesdays)
• Music Festivals: Sunset Junction now charges $15 admission, but there are other free music festivals: performances at The Grove, Central Avenue Jazz Festival, Santa Monica Pier Twilight Dance series, Grand Performances, Henry Mancini Institute concerts, Culver City Summer Sunset Music Festival
• Go to the beach: bike to Malibu, surf at Zuma Beach, hike in Santa Monica, get burnt at Paradise Cove, play volleyball/Frisbee/football in Manhattan Beach, run in Hermosa, catch the sunset at El Matador, have a bonfire at Dockweiler, do a midnight swim at Playa Del Rey.

Yes, there is some overlap with my other list Top Ten Things to Do By Yourself in LA, but there they are. I know summer is almost officially over, but the great thing about LA is that it feels like it never ends.

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One thing I should have done more of was set goals for myself on each of my Thirty Day LA outings. Since I didn’t have many more opportunities, when I went to do my new thing of the day on Tuesday night I thought about what goal I would try to pursue that night.

I went with GuitarHero and ObligatedGirl to karaoke Tuesdays at The Hideout in Santa Monica, which is about twenty yards from the beach. Yeah I do love me the karaoke, but I don't really like to sing. I’ve never sang in front of people completely sober, especially not in front of a crowd of white people who danced and sang country and honky-tonk like they were doing at the Hideout. Then I realized my opportunity. I did a trial run of just getting on stage first. ObligatedGirl and I pretended to do backup for GuitarHero on a Queen song but just stood there in the background. The KJ was really into GuitarHero’s singing, as was a loud drunk girl that we were talking to earlier. Four songs later and it was my turn. I conformed to the environment and chose No Rain by Blind Melon. I felt rather uncomfortable and stood there with one hand in my pocket while ObligatedGirl and GuitarHero made it a point to stand off the stage and behind me. When the song started and I sang the first word, the big group of people near the front of the stage me started screaming the song along with me. They did some crazy dancing/ hopping all over the place, closing their eyes with each pained yell of the song. I looked back at my friends and they were getting into it too. By the end, I seriously thought that I had become a rock star. The group cheered as I smiled sheepishly and shuffled my way back to the couch. I felt emboldened and knew that I had to sing one more song. I put it in the queue, which was actually a bunch of napkins, and waited my turn. Then the KJ announced that it was the last song of the night, and it was for me. Where before I was nervous, this time I was ready to go all out.

I got back on stage. The song title popped up on the screen - Nuthin’ But a G Thang by Snoop and Dre. I said into the mic that I was going to bring the streets to the Hideout and dedicated the song to all the people there who had some G in them too. The KJ cheered. The song started and the lyrics were from the radio-edited version, so I ignored them and rapped as many motherfuckers as I could. ObligatedGirl and GuitarHero would yell the last word of every phrase loudly and left me to fill in the rest. I tried to change lower my voice when Dre’s part came on and tried to sound sleazy and whiny when it was Snoop’s turn. When I finished, GuitarHero cheered into his mic, and I looked up and saw that there were only two people left in the whole place. It was great. I had not only accomplished my goal of becoming a rockstar, I had also helped the establishment get people out the door so all the workers could go home and sleep. I was feeling quite proud of myself. Unfortunately, the rich white beach-dwellers didn't seem ready to rock out to music from C-O-M-P-T-O-N and Long Beach yet. Maybe someday.

The Hideout
112 W. Channel Road
Santa Monica, CA 90402
Google Maps link
Karaoke starts at Tues 9PM, $2 off all drinks

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This past weekend, I didn’t have any exciting events planned for myself. I’ve been drinking too much and spending too much money, so I thought I’d get back to the basics: get some sun, exercise, and relax.

Saturday, August 26, 2006

I took a bike tour of Santa Monica with StimpPimp. We met up at the cusp of Brentwood, at Federal and Wilshire, and rode four miles on San Vicente to The Steps on Channel Road in Santa Monica. The Steps are two sets of stairs, one wooden and one concrete, that connect the lower part of Channel Road to the higher part of Adelaide Drive in an expensive neighborhood of Santa Monica. Usually the Steps are packed with middle-aged people getting into shape and young people in phenomenal shape. I went once at 6:30AM on a weekday and it wasn’t as crowded as it usually was on the weekends. We ran up the wooden ones and walked down the concrete ones. StimpPimp counted 84 steps on the top half of the wooden steps. The hardest part was to keep running while trying to pass the walkers. The Steps are very narrow and sometimes there’s a bottleneck of people who are trying to pass the walkers either on the way up or the way down. We endured four rounds before we succumbed to the desire to rest our burning legs and lungs. Later we grabbed lunch at Panera Bread. We both got the Frontega Chicken Panini which was kind of greasy and unhealthy considering we had just worked out, but it was irresistibly delicious. Then we went our separate ways to our respective apartments.

Later that night I drove around looking for a late night spot to chill at, found nothing, and ended up going to the donut store across the street from my apartment and hung out there with my laptop until 3:30AM. Another place that I’ve driven by countless times but had never gone in before. I hope to exhaust every donut shop, coffee shop, sandwich shop, bakery, bar, and restaurant in my neighborhood of West LA by the time I’m eighty.

Sunday, August 27, 2006

GuitarHero, StimpPimp and I went to the Rock the Beach event in Venice Beach. We didn’t pick up trash like those treehugging volunteers did, we were just there for the music. First up was Johnny Lang, a blues rocker who looks surprisingly young and made ugly John Mayer faces the whole time. StimpPimp enjoyed the Lang but GuitarHero thought his stuff was too simple and repetitive. I had no opinion because I am musically uneducated. Next up was the real reason why we were there, Jurassic 5. Once they hit the stage, the crowd suddenly became twice as packed. They played a bunch of their old school songs and were awesome like usual. Akil said Motherfuck George Bush to a chorus of cheers while a little ten year old boy was dancing his ass off on stage. Chali 2na is a hugely charismatic stage performer. I guess it helps that he’s like 6 foot 5. After the show we went boogie boarding. I tried to body surf for a while too but didn’t fare that well. When walking to the car through the shop areas and the small Venice streets, I had my shirt off, which is something I never do. I have a very pronounced farmer's tan, making me ridiculously sexy when my nipples are exposed, and thus I am not a big fan of self-nudity. But no one cared, except for the dog that tried to bite my feet thinking that I had socks on.

At night, when I realized the weekend was over already, I was disappointed. I said “Motherfucker!” and went to bed, thinking about the upcoming completion of Thirty Day LA.

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Harvelle’s and the Blues

On Wednesday, I went with GuitarHero to Harvelle’s in Santa Monica. The place was extremely loud and extremely dark. The band playing was Ass-Pocket-Of-Whiskey. GuitarHero spotted the influences of the two lead guitarists/singers: the white guy was the controlled smoothness of Stevie Ray Vaughan, the black guy was funky wildness of Jimi Hendrix. Their soloing was quite impressive and varied. They made it look so easy, but I knew if I went home and tried it, my solos would sound like a squealing monkey. While watching a bunch of tiny white girls dance with their boyfriends in the front, I noticed the cute waitress and how she had the speed-walking thing down, handling the entire room with ease. We didn’t even ask for it, but she gave us each a plate of sausage and waffles. Apparently the food comes with the $6 cover, but it was cool nonetheless. We also ordered the $5 swamp juice: pineapple, cranberry, blue cacao, and Parrot Bay. Very sweet but pretty strong as well. I got slightly buzzed on swamp juice and talked to the waitress, who said that the best night to go there is Sunday. She only works on Wednesdays and Saturdays though. Guess one of these days I’ll have to spend an entire weekend at Harvelle’s.

Griffith Park Night Hike

On Thursday, I drove an hour and a half through LA traffic for the Griffith park night hike. It’s a free hike sponsored by the Sierra Club held every Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday at 7PM sharp. I got there late and missed the announcement that if you are a first-timer at the Griffith Park night hikes to go on nothing higher than a level 3 hike. There was a big group of about 200 people who broke off into smaller groups for their respective hikes. I followed a group of people and asked a guy what level hike they were on, and he wasn’t sure. Then he said found out it was level 4 and he didn’t want to go with them because they stopped too much. So he started running uphill, and I thought, all right, might as well run too. We barged up the trail past all the level 4 hikers, a couple of whom yelled at us to stop running. Undeterred, we ran past the group and just ahead of them was the level 4-plus group of about 15 people. The guy stopped running and joined up with his friend. He introduced himself as Gabriel, and his friend's name was Frank. Frank had introduced Gabriel to the Griffith Park night hikes. Gabriel had just been going for a couple months, while Frank had been going on the hikes every week for five years. Gabriel looked no older than 30 while Frank looked like he was around 50. I figured Frank must be in awesome shape if he went hiking every week. I was right, as Gabriel and Frank were the fastest hikers in our group.

At first I thought the hike was kind of weak, but the view of the sparkling city lights of Glendale and downtown LA was worth it. The red smog layer sat on top of a clean blue layer of sky as the sun was getting ready to set. Then we hit a steep hill and by the time I reached the top, I was breathing hard and covered in sweat. Our hike leader was a stocky guy named Andy with dyed red hair and booty shorts. We hiked up a little higher until we hit the bigger paved road, then went into a small trail that I wouldn’t have been able to see even if it was daytime. The sun had just set, and Andy told us that we were about to start our climb. Here I really struggled, since I was the only one without hiking boots. Everytime I slipped I had to put my hand down, and I would get stabbed by these tiny spiky needle things that I couldn’t even see. We climbed to a radio tower and stopped briefly to rest. Everyone was in good spirits, joking and laughing about possible death and needing a helicopter to rescue us. A few of the dudes climbed the rock instead of using a big pipe as a handhold. I tried climbing the rock but got stung by the damn needles again. By the time we hit the top, it was completely dark. As we hiked back down, I talked to Susie, who had also been going on the hikes for a couple months with her sister, who had problems with her night vision because of Lasik surgery. We found about the hike from the same source: Los Angeles Magazine. I don’t really like the lack of depth in the articles of that magazine but it does uncover a few gems once in a while. At the end of the hike, I talked to Frank and Gabriel again. Frank said he was glad I enjoyed the hike and he’d look for me next time.

While LA is extremely diverse, it's also very segregated between the Westsiders, the Eastsiders, the hipsters, the Chicanos, the Asians, the rich white people, the ghetto black people, the lifers, and the recently adopted. But at the night hikes at Griffith park, the walls come down. People come from all different backgrounds and neighborhoods to form their own kind of community. You hike in darkness with reckless abandon, knowing that if you slip and fall, you'll be helped back up because you're with friends. I'm definitely going back.

Late Night Driving Tour of Torrance

My high school friend PimpFace just recently bought a townhouse in Torrance. He’s the first of my friends to buy a house, so I thought I’d visit him and give him a housewarming present. His townhouse is very new and on a quiet street. He gave me a tour of the place and I was impressed. Big kitchen with granite countertops, built-in surround sound system, a huge balcony, hardwood floors, and decent sized rooms. The kid is younger than me, and I wonder how many decades down the road it will be until I can afford a place like the one he just bought.

After hanging out and watching TV, we decided we needed some late night grub. Knowing that Torrance is full of Asian people, he wanted to find an Asian restaurant that was open. We drove around for almost an hour and saw that Torrance has every American restaurant you could ever want. But we still couldn’t find an Asian place that was still open at 12:30AM. The Korean BBQ places were even closed. I was on a mission to find someplace still open other than In-N-Out, even though we were no longer hungry and ready to go to sleep. Finally at 1AM, after combing the streets of Sepulveda, Hawthorne, Crenshaw, and Western, we gave our search. I dropped PimpFace back off at his deluxe townhouse and headed home. As I made a turn back onto Hawthorne, I looked to my left and saw a small Japanese restaurant still open with a few customers inside. What a fucker. So if you’re ever in Torrance with a late-night Asian food craving on a slow Friday night, go to Yamabuki Restaurant & Bar two blocks north of Hawthorne and PCH.

Harvelle’s
1432 4th Street
Santa Monica, CA 90401
Google Maps link
Cost: $6 cover, $3 shots, $5 swamp juice, $6 drinks

Yamabuki Restaurant & Bar
23863 Hawthorne Blvd
Torrance, CA
(310) 791-0388
Open until at least 1AM

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Saturday:

I went to the Central Avenue Jazz Festival in Downtown LA next to the historic Hotel Dunbar, where. I saw one of the kids in the mentoring program I did. He was there hanging out with his friend. He’s everyone’s favorite kid in the program because of his wide-eyed interest in everything, his willingness to ask any kind of question to anyone, and his general enthusiasm. Our mentoring program ended a few months ago, so it was nice seeing him again.

To my surprise, I saw that one of the Jazz Festival acts was the Gerald Wilson Orchestra. Gerald Wilson is a professor of ethnomusicology at UCLA, and I had the pleasure of taking his History of Jazz class. He’s over eighty years old, and he’s played with many famous jazz musicians, including Count Basie and Duke Ellington. Every day, before class started, he would say that he hoped we all had a wonderful day since the last time he saw us. At the end of every class, he would tell us to have a wonderful rest of the day. And at end of the very last day of class, while some students were eagerly packing up and heading out, he told us that he was very happy to have the privilege of teaching us about jazz, and that he wanted us to know that every day is a new opportunity to have something great happen in our lives, and he wished the best for all of us, not just for the rest of the day, but for the rest of our lives. I was inspired. Guess it only took me six years to take his advice, but it was great to see him on the second day of my adventure, as his final words in class came back to me as I watched him conduct his orchestra by punching the air while dancing and bobbing to the music.

Later that night, I went with GuitarHero and WorkoutHound to Royce Hall for the Henry Mancini Institute Tribute to American Film Music. The orchestra was made up of talented aspiring musicians from colleges around the country, and their skill exceeded my expectations. They were awesome. In the middle of one of the songs by the legendary Johnny Mandel, I had a flashback to the time I attended a Mozart concert in Prague. I was extremely tired from walking around all day, so I passed out in the middle of one of the songs. I was disappointed that I fell asleep because Mozart was my favorite composer from ten years of playing the piano, and the acoustics of the concert hall and the orchestra itself were amazing. However, it was the most soothing and relaxing nap I’ve ever had in my life. I was kind of tired in Royce Hall, but luckily I stayed away through the whole thing. I have a couple of new film composers I need to check out: Victor Young and Johnny Mandel.

Wow, another night of music. If I went to only music concerts for the rest of my thirty days, I don’t think I would complain at all.

Continue reading "Saturday to Tuesday" »

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Normally, I’m not inclined to do anything spontaneous. I will think the hell out of something before doing it, list all the reasons why I shouldn’t do it, and then end up not doing it because the opportunity has already passed. But this time, I was feeling slightly bored and so I said to myself, stop thinking and just do it.

Just Do It was one of the slogans that dominated television airwaves when I was growing up. Say No To Drugs was another one. I was always confused by the contradictory messages. I blame the advertising industry for my indecisive nature.

Last week, my friend ShopGirl sent out an email to go to the Getty Museum for their Off the 405 Event on Friday, which featured DJ’s spinning outdoors for night of dancing and fun. After much self-debate, I said I would go. My other friend Lefty said he was also going. He happens to work with ShopGirl at a big ad agency (IRONY ALERT). Anyway, with Lefty going, I knew it would be an excellent night filled with alcohol.

I got out of work early that day because my manager unwisely left me in charge, so I just went home. ShopGirl said she was off early too, so we went to our favorite store, Trader Joe’s, and bought food and snacks for everyone and headed off to the Getty to stake out a table. We hung out, snacked, checked out the views, and waited for everyone to show up. I told ShopGirl about my plan to do something new everyday for thirty days. She endorsed the plan. When Lefty got there, we headed straight for the cash bar. I told him about my plan, but he had already begun filling his liver with toxins, so I quickly joined in. I spent the rest of the night mostly hanging out, watching my roommate LazyBoy dance in the crowd and talking to ShopGirl’s and Lefty’s friends.

My plan was in motion. I had told two people about it already, so there was no way I could back out of it. I went home after the Getty and called up my high school buddy’s girlfriend’s best friend, ObligatedGirl, who we had all hung out with in New York. She was back in LA, so along with my roommates LazyBoy and GuitarHero, we decided to check out a karaoke Dive Bar in Culver City called Backstage.

From the outside, Backstage looks like a typical seedy dive bar, except that it’s the only bar in the neighborhood, on the backside of Sony Pictures Studios. We went in, and the place was packed full of screeching, drunken yuppies. It took me about half an hour to get a drink, but at least the drinks were cheap. I sat down at the table with my friends and watched the performances. Two really drunk guys butchered Bohemian Rhapsody, an older black woman belted out At Last, and a tall skinny black guy sang Kiss and Say Goodbye. GuitarHero put in a song for LazyBoy to sing, but we didn’t wait around long enough to hear his name get called. We left when a tall, thick Asian girl threw herself all over the KJ and went up to sing and tried really hard to be alluring.

I might go back to the place another time, as long as I get roaring drunk first so I won't have any qualms humiliating myself in front of a hostile audience. I might have to go by myself though, because my friends didn’t seem to like the place too much. Oh well.

We went back to our apartment, and LazyBoy introduced ObligatedGirl to the video game Guitar Hero, which I am actually better at than my roommate GuitarHero. He is awesome at real guitar, so it’s not much of an accomplishment on my part. While they were playing, I researched more events and almost persuaded ObligatedGirl to do a team triathlon with me and GuitarHero. She said she’d think about it.

The first night of my adventure, and it was a night of music. Many more to come.

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