Between My Headphones: The Land of (fa la la la) LA I'm inspired

Ok so last night BLEW! Just one of the many pitfalls of being single in this new era of technology but I guess one of the cool parts of 2009 is that I can put on blast or praise someone via this blog. In my action packed weekend I spent a lot of time talking about my adventures on Saturday & Sunday & although everything went so well on those days my favorite & probably one of my favourite days all year was on Friday. Now for the upside of being a single chick in the Land of LA. I hung out with this sweet, sweet guy for a second time. The first time we hung out we played records all night... VINYL!!! Who does that anymore?!?!? It reminded me of the Sundays I had growing up when my dad would take a dip in the pool in the morning grab his towel come back into the house & sit on his towel on the floor for hours playing his records.

He'd play thee widest range of records from Haitian standards like Tabou Combo to Patsy Cline to Stevie Wonder to Gato Barbieri to Redd Foxx comedy albums to Charles Aznavour to Oscar De Leon to Roger Whitaker & Earth, Wind & Fire. My brother & I didn't dare speak to him during this time, for hours it was just him & his music a world he so gladly wanted to reside in for just those few hours on a Sunday & we all respected that, hell we were being entertained also by the vast array of recorded brilliance. I definitely inherited this ability from my father to live between my headphones. To hear the popping sounds of the vinyl on this guy's speakers as we kept the volume low in order not to wake anyone because it was late was a sense memory I greatly missed. He introduced me to an incredible country crooner Ray Price. I adore musical discoveries & learning about someone I would have not had the opportunity to know about.

The whole night I was mesmerized by him & kept referring to him as this old soul. He was 27 at the time & I was just in awe of how much musical knowledge he had & that he still played records I mean in this day of texting to start & cancel flipping dates I mean really... WHO DOES THAT ANYMORE?!?!?!? He was a perfect gentleman the whole night, it was really sweet. Cut to Friday night I went to his new place he made me a drink & asked me all sorts of questions about who I am & where I'm from & what I want from life... that was cool. Living my life publicly online I have so many people that think they know me & I share blood with people who have absolutely NO CLUE who I am so it was really nice to have someone ask & gauge by their expression whether they gave a hoot or not as I peeled away the layers of myself. He asked me all these questions as we stood in the kitchen, he had a red KitchenAid food processor the same one I have & exclaimed Sur La Table was one of his favorite stores & that he had mad skills in the kitchen that was pretty cute also. I asked him to show me around his new place & he gladly accommodated.

When we got to his room there were Blackbirds he stenciled all over his walls, a futon mattress on the floor smack dab in the middle of the room, a closet full of bits & pieces of motorcycle parts, a massive desk with every gadget known to man, a big screen TV & a wall of books loaded with the classics. I sat at his desk facing the Blackbirds & the books trying to absorb every piece of this space I was in. John Steinbeck, Ayn Rand, Ray Bradbury, Chuck Palahniuk I mean the lists of books can go on & on & I could smell them from across the room as if I were in the library that's how many times these books had been open & shut shaping this young man's perspective about life, loss & love. I was in absolute awe & wasn't hiding this fact. He asked me what I liked to read & I told him although it was something I have always wanted to do when I was younger, aside from reading poetry, I never built up the confidence to read, I mean to lose yourself in a book is a very intimate experience & I still kick myself for never trying. I let my ADHD get the best of me. I asked what he was reading & sure enough he pulled a dog earred riddled book from his satchel... a book by one of his favorites Ray Bradbury, he opened it took a whiff of the book, flipped the pages, closed it & then held it near his heart. A sentiment I understood just by watching him do it but never personally experienced.

Now it was my turn to interview him. He's from the Midwest, Minnesota the home of Prince. Attended art school at Cal Arts, by trade he sketches & designs rugs for high end clientele & on the weekends he fixes & builds motorcycles. Sitting on his dining room table was this huge old engine he used for practice this thing was loaded with carbon deposits & high speed glazing... some of the spark plugs were removed as if he were piecing together pieces of the puzzle to understand how to make his engine better for when it came time to & he was confident enough in what he did to this old engine he can go off to soup up his baby that was waiting for his care. I thought that was pretty damn cool too! Even though motorcycles scare the crap out of me & I've lost 4 people to accidents on those things. It was another thing I could identify with even though I didn't understand. Then he said his real passion was music... he's a musician *tire screeches* ERRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR HOLD UP?!?!? Besides being passionate about books, art, vinyl records & motorcycles there's still room for you to make music?!?!?

His G4 was playing his itunes the entire time so I asked did he have anything on his itunes? He said yes. I asked "can you play something". He got all coy & humble & was like it's on shuffle, something will come up... I was insistent "NO, I want to hear something of YOURS"... again he gets all modest "don't worry something will pop up" he says. I was like screw that I start typing a K in the search of his itunes, he pops over & was like "fine" he finished typing his name & literally HUNDREDS of songs popped up... he was like the White Tupac there were so many! I had one of those cartoon moments when my eyeballs leapt from my eye sockets & then he played a song called the "Twelfth of Never" this old Johnny Mathis song my Mom loved & a cover from Jeff Buckley that I absolutely adored from his Live At Sin-e album. It took everything in my power to not burst into tears, the haunting sound of his voice was so reminiscent of one of my very favorite artists of all time & a live version of Jeff Buckley's Elton John cover We All Fall In Love Sometimes that I listen to every other day... it's my therapy

Hell I LOVE a lot of music & have a hard time listing who my favorite artists are in order not to leave anyone out but I ALWAYS name Jeff Buckley as one of them, hey it's even on the profile description to this blog, he Chris Cornell & Stevie Wonder keep me sane... ok rambling again.

You can tell in his stylings that Jeff Buckley is a HUGE influence on him but as we went through more & more of his library his voice changed & adapted to whatever mood he was in or what his song was about & what inspired him at that exact moment. At one point he played one of his live songs & I was like "WHOAH you can totally tell your eyes are closed here & you're standing in a room of strangers with your eyes closed baring your soul.. singing, how freaking ballsy is that?" Again with great humility he brushed this off as no biggie. We must of went through 50 or 60 songs every one of them as fantastic as whatever preceded it. He played the guitar, the piano, the flippin' violin & wrote & arranged every single one of his songs & recorded them in his bedroom, hence the mattress on the floor... he needs the space for his creativity to flow. At one point I just grabbed his head my fingers ran between his vaguely salt & pepper curls & said "all of this is in your head", he was like "what do you mean?" I replied "All this passion & respect for literature, art, music & flipping engines are in THAT head?!?!?" He laughed & replied "yeah".

I stayed there until 3 soaking every ounce of this Man's creativity in. His birthday was the week before he's now 28, he made it past Saturn's return & I see nothing but greatness in his future. Before I left I excused myself to the bathroom, there was a book of haikus in there, I flipped through it took a whiff & placed it against my heart... hell I guess I can do that too... they're 3 line phrases of 5 then 7 then 5 syllables my ADHD behind can handle that!!! We exchanged blog addresses. I thanked him profusely for sharing his gifts with me he walked me to my car & we hugged.

The whole way I drove home a little past 3 am I was so happy to be this single chick that gets to experience meeting someone like that only in the Land of LA... yeah this place has it's perks & that's definitely the best part of it. All these young, brilliant & ballsy people all within this creatively palpable radius it was such a treat & an experience I will never forget. We're all just trying to make a difference it's the getting there part that's super difficult but man when we reach our destination... finally I wouldn't exchange a single experience I have had for the world... BELIEVE THAT! Sure enough when I got home & checked out his blog he submits a haiku a day... *swoon* this boy is good, he is damn good! Check out http://kenchristianson.com/. Thank you Ken Christianson for sharing. If any of you lasted this long please check out his MySpace & get the chills for yourself

Worth Repeating: Still On A Plane Waiting For The Dive.

I would like to once again thank Sean Lennon & his Friendly Fire album for getting me through this evening. I had a date cancel by text message tonight. I LOATHE TEXT MESSAGES!!!! They're so impersonal & another trick people are using nowadays to feel connected to one another but without having to risk ANYTHING in order not to get hurt. I feel like I live in this world where everyone is feeling safer being an arms length apart. I don't like them! Do I need to buy airtime for people to understand this?!?!? Listen, I know I'm not old fashioned but I KNOW I deserve the respect to be given a proper phone call a chance to hear your sincerity & a chance for you to hear that I'm ok with this cancellation.

Damn.. I keep holding up these standards in the land of LA no one is even trying to reach... bummer BUT thanks to music I am always inspired to hold on. The video for this is stun-NING but the embedding is disabled so please look it up on youtube if you've never seen it click this. I wish Sean wasn't treated like John Lennon's untalented bastard son trying to ride his coattails! He is so talented & under-appreciated! Well that's enough of my ranting for the night, this is not the tone I want to set on this blog but I had to just let it out, I'll just listen to this on repeat until I fall asleep. Sweet, sweet lullabies.


Lyrics:
Love is like an aero plane
You jump and then you pray
The lucky ones remain
In the clouds for days
If life is just a stage
Let's put on the best show
And let everyone know

[chorus]
Cause if I have to die tonight
I'd rather be with you
Cut the parachute before the dive
Baby don't you cry
You have to bring me down
We had some fun before we hit the ground

Love is like a hurricane
You know it's on the way
You think you can be brave
Underneath the waves
If life is just a dream
Which of us is dreaming
And who will wake up screaming

Cause if I have to die tonight
I'd rather be with you
Cut the parachute before the dive
Baby don't you cry
You have to bring me down
We had some fun before we hit the ground

Cause if I have to die tonight
I'd rather be with you
Cut the parachute before the dive
Baby don't you cry
You have to bring me down
We had some fun before we hit the ground

Cause if I have to die tonight
I'd rather it was you
Cut the parachute before the dive
Baby don't you cry
You have to bring me down
We had some fun before we hit the ground

Let Me Cater To You: Starstruckartf*ck... 1 Vs 100 Part Deux

I LOVE my business cards & the sassy stiletto card holder I carry them in. Sorry had to cover my digits there! SO my homeslice Chef Lovejoy hooked a sister up... AGAIN (love you Boo) & passed over my 411 to a group that needed a caterer for their monthly Film meets Art meets Music meets Food & Booze in this FAB Artist loft in Downtown they aptly called MVSEVM, Marcel from 50 Films produces this event along with the raddest, baddest 6 ft Amazon sex Goddess chick Corrine Costello. When I was hired I was told that it was for 50 guests they would have already had dinner & they just wanted some morsels for them to nosh on.

Uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuum SIKE-L-BERRY!!! 100 peeps showed up & they were FAMISHED!!! I figured they we were wasted the night before on Halloween probably rolled out of bed & came straight to this spot for more booze & food to wipe out the booze of the night before.

As promised I made the Roasted Garlic & Tomato Bisque with Basil Shots & Mini Grilled Cheese. I was 16 the first time I ever had a grilled cheese sandwich & tomato soup. It was after Hurricane Andrew & I was staying with my BEST friend Erin Une, her sister Melanie & the best mom EVER Anita, may she rest in peace. You see my Mom cooked EVERYDAY! We never had anything like that in the house, so imagine how brilliant that first bite of 5 minute to make yumminess was & I was old enough to REALLY appreciate it & describe in full detail how that tasted... it's a time I will NEVER forget & I can't thank the Une family enough for sharing their home with me. For years I have wanted to share that feeling with everyone so I thought hell let's doll it up & make it trendy by sticking it in a shot glass & everyone can have a food memory of their first bite of one of the greatest comfort foods of all time!

Sour cream topping
I grilled some sourdough baguettes on my trusted MASSIVE George Foreman grill... that thing has saved me on SO many events!!!


Sun-Dried Tomato Quesadillas
Jambalaya Martini.
Because the budget wasn't very high I wanted to make cheap & simple stick to your ribs comforting food that not only soaks up all the booze but made guests actually feel like they ate something, I mean how many more canapes, crabcakes, crudite & tuna tartare cones can a person take at a party anyways? I also had a shrimp ceviche which was gone before I took a picture of it. Over the course of the night I made about 60 of these Jambalayas & I swear only 2 of them had about 2 bites left in them. All 58 of the others were MOPPED up... It was thee BEST feeling! I am so in LOVE with doing this... feeding people!


Extras for whomever wanted seconds... it was GONE in 60 seconds.
Atmosphere
My girlfriend Carolyn what a FANTASTIC surprise it was to see her!
Aside from my Mother, my Uncle Lesly, some Cousins & my Grandmother Olga when she was alive (boy do I miss her!) I'm not one who is particularly very close with my family, I used to get bummed about this... but I will say what I have managed to thrive on, the constant source I have always been able to depend on the kindness of strangers, of course this is something that some members of my family are at odds with me about... thhhhhhhhhhhhhppppppppppppppffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff! Anywho, every time I cater an event I ALWAYS have someone willing & able to help me. This time it was this sweet, sweet angel Chrissy that stepped up to the plate.
She stood beside me ALL night cleaning all the glassware so I can keep refilling, helped with garnishing the bisque's with the grilled cheese, cleaned the entire kitchen so I wouldn't have to, kept the scragglers away from my kitchen like a bouncer would & was just this constant source of moral support that I SO needed. The last 3 parties I catered I had Mimi be my SUPER MIMI so I got used to it & this rockstar brought it all back into perspective for me on what Single Serving is all about. I spent the whole 2 hours professing my love to her & we managed to knock out of the park enough apps for 100 people!!!!

It's when I meet people like Chrissy or I'm surrounded with thee greatest friends a broad could ever ask for my soul thrives. So today I dedicate this blog to you Chrissy... THANK YOU for bringing it ALL back!
One of the 4 performers... she was amazing, reminded me of a sassy Patsy Cline

DAGNABBIT I uploaded an upside down one AGAIN!!!! This was the awesome Artist featured doing what he does best & rubbing his belly after woofing down Mama's Jambalaya




Super cool rooftop after party!

Field Trippin': HAPPY 35th Birthday Kitty!!!

I WANNA beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee-EEE Anarch-KITTY!!!
Ok I had a HARD time picking which chapter title this one gets... it was between How I Roll, because hell I'm a nut for the cat & this is how I roll. How We Do because she's a year older than me & still looks fabulous & this is how we do. TERRIBLE! because I'm 30freaking4 years old & I am still fascinated by this damn thing but because the fabulous EDB came with me & is just as old & ridiculous about it as me & is SO not terrible so I am titling this Field Trippin'. EDB & I cruised to Culver City to Royal/T Cafe & Gallery for their Three Apple Event celebrating the Kitty we all adore's 35th Birthday!
EDB taking a picture of me taking a picture of her we're so avant garde
They were passing out gift bags to the first 100 Kitty Heads, I went to bed by 1 am & only had 4 drinks on Halloween so I was up to be fresh & ready for my gift bag. We woke up at 7, didn't anticipate the fanatics that would show up & cop a squat at at 4 am.... HATERS!!!
Freak like me
Us in the back of the line behind 500 people :-(
How cute, doesn't she look like a sexy Hello Kitty candy striper?
We were worried because we were behind 500 people we weren't going to get our ears, I was starting to plot either beating up the boys or flirting with the boys who got one before me & so didn't appreciate it.... whatever's clever Mate I can do both! I walked to the front of the line & got us 2 ears & walked back with the peeps who were passing them out & YAY everyone gets one... yes I'm gay as in happy!
So EDB goes off on a kitty recon mission because the 93 degree heat was kicking our cans... it's NOVEMBER FLIPPIN' FIRST... 93 FREAKIN' DEGREES?!?!?!?!?!?! This blows!!!! Once again we won't have a Fall it will go straight to Winter for like 2 weeks & I'll freeze my nips off... it's amazing what I complain about, huh? She calls me to tell me they formed a second line for people that want to go to the gallery only & not the store selling one of a kind collectibles. I haul tail over there, sure enough EDB got us from 501 & 502 to like 21 & 22 in line... SWEET! That line started to get crazy & people wanted to know which line was for the brunch? The wait for the brunch was an hour & they turned the line we were now standing in to the brunch line. Because EDB & I are dorks we already own a HK sandwich maker & HK waffle maker no need to do the brunch we have EVERY Kitty kitchen gadget already so we're GOLDEN!

EDB decides she's over it goes & talks to the door girl & was like we don't want to go to the store or do the brunch (let's face it we have enough HK crap) we just want to walk around the gallery... the chick says "walk right in "MANOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOUUUUUUUSCHKA, get over here!" EDB screams. Now as if it weren't perfect enough the parking Gods smiled on us & we found free parking around the corner mere feet away we no longer had to wait in a ridonkulous line... YAY... we walked right into this....

Up, up & away in my beautiful balloon
I wanted this phone & my own phone line in Jr. High SOOOOOOOOO bad... lucky White girls... HA!
Kimora Lee Simmons designed these *swoon*




Tea Party brunch
DAGNABIT... I forgot to flip this one
DJ Kitty on the 1's & 2's
I want this tattoo... Hail Kitty

PINK pumpkins!!!!!! I'm tickled pink
Rollin' wit my homie
Lady Gag Gag!!! I don't buy this chick at all... all gimmick, no substance & she's absolutely ridiculous!
I'm actually a tad jealous of the Lady Gag Gag for this.. ok fine I'm INSANELY jealous over this!
Jem was TRULY outrageous, truly, truly, truly outrageous... this chick is just a HACK running the biggest con of '09 since Bernie Madoff!
Is her 15 minutes up yet?
Rice cooker!!! Mine is cuter though.. HA
I love this almost as much as I love the Lobster grab tank at Happy Ending, this sports bar in my hood where for $2 if you grab a lobster it's yours & they cook it... it's more fun than darts if you ask me
I wanted to buy this SO bad
Bling, Bling Kitty
More crap I don't need but COVET!

Check all the icons... Carmen Miranda Kitty, Boy George Kitty, Captain Mc Douchy Douche Douchebag Kitty aka Kanye, Frida Kitty, Pamela Anderson/Baywatch Kitty, Bjork Kitty, Cleopatra Kitty, Little Kim Kitty or is that Patra? Damn Black people look alike... HA! Marie Antoinette Kitty, Tron Kitty, Flavor Flav Kitty, Cyndi Lauper Kitty, Devo Kitty, KARL LAGERFELD kitty... SO COOL! Who else do you see?
FEROSH Kitty... Christian Siriano would LOVE this!
Mona Kitty


Now who's grandmother didn't have a velvet Elvis painting in her livingroom... FIERCE!
Dia de los Muerto Kitty
Buddha Kitty! NMRK



The time had come for us to skidattle... our stomachs were cussing us out! On our way out we peeped the cupcake selection... yum again NO LINE for this one. EDB treated & got a strawberry cupcake & got me a red velvet. Because of the heat we got 2 SUPER sweet Ginger Lemonades... I swear I didn't drink lemonade ALL summer but from October 24th-Novemver 2nd that's all I've been drinking... it's just too God blessed HAWT out here... terrible!
Checked out the Kitty's apartment on our way out.. I swear this would have been my dream home when I was 12... or 34... SHUT UP!!!



To that Cat Mobile we go... around the corner!!! We got our booty & jetted for our next spot... Father's Office
LATER... suckaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhs!
All that Kitty love, crazy kids!
Waiting for F.O. to open we ate our dessert first. Still had 30 minutes to kill so I took EDB to this RAD kitchen supply & gourmet food store called Surfas... it was all cupcake liners & jimmies for my cupcake goddess EDB I LOVE that place. If ever in Culver City that is a MUST stop spot to see!
EDB ordered a Duck Prosciutto salad
NOW I have been on a 3 month long burger crawl (blog about that to come next week) supposedly... I saved thee best for last. Word on the streets & even on Food Network's Best Thing I Ever Ate was the burger at Father's Office is the shiz-NIT! There's a trend quickly spreading around (Hel)LA of these spots that won't allow you to make substitutions & alter your meal in any way. NOW when I went to Animal for my birthday & saw how packed it was & how these cats are making very unconventional American cuisine trendy I found that it was ballsy & kind of charming that they were like "screw you this is how we do & even though the economy is craptastic you will STILL wait in line, pay a ridiculous amount of money & eat what we serve you... NO EXCEPTIONS!!!" BEAT!

Of course nothing I ordered that night had my vile nemesis the dreaded cooked or carmelized onion! I CAN'T STAND those things. I like my onions raw & yes I do cook with onions but I chop them super small so I don't know they're in there... SO GROSS!!!! At first I didn't like them because of the noise your mouth makes when you chew on one... the ear is WAY to close to the jaw I tell ya. My Mom would always cook with these big HONKING pieces of onions & slap them on EVERYTHING ruining my meals....

UUUUUUUUUUUUGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHH! I'm not a fan of char tasting things either so carmelizing onions then deglazing them off a pan they're burnt to makes me want to hurl! I'll still make it for my guests & some recipes but I want that crap NO where near MY plate!

Well wouldn't you know F.O. has only ONE damn burger loaded with my arch nemesis & they don't modify anything so either I get this coveted burger or F.O. gives me a big fat F.U. "order something else then" I sucked it up & ordered the damn burger. Unlike Animal I didn't find this quality from F.O. charming & I will explain in FULL detail later I promise in my blog about the burger crawl NEXT week. Here's my damn burger
All those nasty ass onions I had to put on EDB's plate!
Nasty ass onion juice ruin-ING my fries!
More nasty ass onions!!!! I had to drink 3 glasses of water & I swear I never took so long to eat a burger in my ENTIRE life!!!

Look I GET it Chefs work REALLY hard to get these flavor profiles together but to deny someone due to an allergic reaction or dietary restriction or the fact that cooked onions are DANG nas-TY is just cruel!!! Can't wait for you to see how they fared on my burger list