first of all, it's been a week since this happened. i'm gonna do my best to recapture everything, but excuse me if i don't. i'm sitting in an internet cafe that has the a.c. on full blast and i'm fucking freezing. i've also been dealing with trying to get last minute plane tickets and arguing with my mom on the phone. it's safe to say i'm a little frustrated right now, but i gotta finish this. when i left filter, i came to the internet cafe where i always write these. about a half hour into it my phone rang. it was my friend tim ervon. he's an editor for dark horse comics and had just flown into town for a manga convention. he arrived a couple days early so he could see l.a. we agreed to meet at my house. i cut my confessions short and made my way over there. when i pulled into my driveway, tim was there waiting for me, looking as daper as ever. it was good to see him. we shook hands and i gave him the grand tour. we settled in my room with a couple beers and my phone rang. it was ikey from mars volta. he was returning my call from earlier. i wanted him to do a dj set at one of our thursdays, fucking awesome. he agreed and tim patiently waited as i spent the next 20 min shooting the shit. i was preparing for my trip the next day to seattle as tim and i debated music and comic books. i don't know if there's anyone else in the world i can get so in depth on both subjects with. it's refreshing. i usually spend my time throwing out obscure super hero references to a world that doesn't care and doesn't get it. i can't say that tim gets all of them either, but at least he has an appreciation. after i threw my clothes in the laundry, we headed over to the bright spot (possibly the best diner in l.a.) for some hot dinner action. the debate continued and eventually turned into theory. i've got a dream of someday meshing both music and comics into one. maybe by creating a label that is both an imprint of a comic publisher and a record label. market it to both worlds. expose the kids to the magic of comic books. that's my dream anyway. we talked about how we could make it a reality. the first time i met tim, i was working door at the rock club i worked at in seattle, graceland. i was sitting there, inking one of the pages of my first comic. tim drove up from portland to see a show. when he and his then wife, shawna walked in, they took a look and walked on by. a few minutes later, he dropped in front of me a dark horse comics business card. it was like a dream come true, but a dream i knew would happen one day. i took a 'break' and the three of us went upstairs to my apartment, where i showed them the portforlio and a two hour conversation ensued pertaining to a lot of the same subjects tim and i talked about that night at the bright spot, but in the very early stages. we stopped back by my house before going to the beauty bar for fucking awesome to get ready. we both put on black blazers and i told tim how i was a little worried about tonight's unexpected competition. tokio, the bar right next to ours was debuting a night very similar to ours. which i thought was weird since it's also owned by the same guy that owns the beuaty bar. oh why, oh why would someone want to sabotage their own nights? at least that's how it seemed. we arrived at the beauty bar. as usual, the early hours are slow. i bought tim a drink and began dj'ing as steve and our guest for the night, jeppe from junior senior, showed up. my suspicions were correct. the debut of the night next door greatly effected ours, at least until around 12:30 when it finally filled up, which is unusually late for us. it's safe to say i was more than a little pissed, but that's how it goes in the endless battle of being a promoter. everybody has their wins and everyone's gonna have an off night. the competition is fierce and everyone wants to be number one. it's a popularity contest, plain and simple, but the thing about last thursday was that it seemed so calculated. my theory when doing shows, nights, whatever is to have fun and build community, period. my partners and i work really hard to do events that are exciting and don't support any pretentious ideas. i never want anyone who is cool to ever feel like their not cool enough to show up. i never want anyone to feel like their too ugly or too poor or whatever, and this town is full of that bullshit. no one ever really seems to have much interest for other's and they certainly don't look to the long term. it's all about now and how much money they can make now and how fucking hot they can be now. it's a virus eating through the city and slowly decaying it. it's makes me so infurated sometimes that i question my motivations for even moving here in the first place. but then i take a step back, look at how much change is possible and revel in thoughts of fighting the norm. people need to be shown that there is a different way. it may not last forever, but at least i'll leave this town knowing that i did my best. you have to understand that i've been raised on marvel comic book morals. i try to see right and wrong the way spider-man would. i try to heed by the "with great power comes great responsibity" concept that is the backbone behind peter parker. that, combined with growing up in the punk scene, really puts a strain on any sort of capitalist or selfish thinking. i've been learning to bend the rules, but keeping the essence of those morals with me is very important, especially as i partake in the next title of my life, frankie: the entrepanuer. still, i'm fiercely competetive. you gotta have that drive in this business, and as much as i think the promoter of that other night is a good person, you don't fuck with my nights. i took the anger i stored up from the first few hours of that night and came up with a whole new marketing campaign for thursday nights. i will kill a motherfucker. i stayed up until six in the morning, before having to wake up at 9am to drive to seattle, making a flyer for this thursday. that was only step one. it was only a show of my determination and will. it is a monster you do not want to turn on. once things finally got going thursday night, it turned out alright. i got wasted, tim got wasted, there were buddies all around. kato kaland (you know from the OJ case) showed up and when tim and i went outside to have a smoke i ran into one of my local favorite's, kelly osborne. hadn't seen her in a while. she used to come all the time. i walked up and asked, "where you been?" she replied, "rehab." i said, "how was that?" and she was like, "it sucked. what do you think?" i tried to make it up to her and her friend by throwing out one of my awesome obscure super hero comic references while her and her friend looked on in amazement and confusion. i looked over to tim mid sentence and he only had a half smile on his face. it was quite a moment. lila kept asking me to dance, and even though i was too busy to, i appreciated the invitation (i'll see what i can do about the def lepard request). it was a strange mix with a myriad of out of towners, random celebrities and what was left over from the fashion show at tokio. as the dancing heated up and the drinks settled in, my temper cooled, and all in all, i had a fun night. i turned down the invitation to go to a party and after getting paid, tim and i went back to my house. he took the top bunk, i took the bottom. we exchanged a few more stories as i stared at the blank piece of paper in front of me. i was up all night drawing that damn flyer, but i did it. i woke up at 9 am, cleaned my room packed my bag and said my goodbyes to tim. i gave him the key to my house so he could stay in my room while i was gone. i drove over to kelly brook's house and picked her up. she was coming along for the drive up. she threw her bags in the back. we were both excited to get on the road, but i had to run a few errands before we could leave. 1. had to drop the flyer off to steve & pay him. 2. while i was at his house, i had to take care of all the last minute computer stuff, which included unsuccessfully trying to book a flight to indiana. 3 & 4. coffee & gas. by the time we got on the road, it was 11am. traffic was surprisingly clear and as we headed over the grapevine we shared nervous and exclamatory feelings and expectations about returning back to seattle for the first time since leaving. what we didn't know, though, was what surprises awaited us only two hours north in bakersfield, ca....
6/3/04