Below are the 30 most recent journal entries recorded in Elizabeth's LiveJournal:

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Tuesday, April 3rd, 2012
10:07 am	from the sublime to the ridiculous.... I've actually been kinda busy lately, sometimes I have to push myself to leave the apartment & not just sleep but actually has a whirlwind of activity the last few days! Friday night I went up to the Ottobar in Baltimore with kisarazumama and scarydavedc and caught Japanese garage rock band Guitar Wolf who were truly brilliant. I've decided if Balzac is Japan's answer to the Misfits, then Guitar Wolf is Japan's answer to the Ramones. Have wanted to see them for years and most especially since seeing them in the crazy cult flick "Wild Zero" (where Guitar Wolf save the world from zombies). They got a huge response - the place was packed and it got pretty crazy, the entire floor was moshing, I was right up by the stage & got bowled into a number of times but stlll managed to get some pretty good pix with my micro four thirds, had some fun playing with long exposure/rear curtain sync to try and capture the feel of the show :) Flickr album here - Guitar Wolf at the Ottobar - March 30 2012 Sunday night was more Japanese culture that could not have possibly been more different - the most stylized and artificial form of Japanese dance, the Kabuki. I've been wanting to see live kabuki for many years & had been so disappointed when I missed the performances at the Warner Theatre a few years back because tickets were impossibly expensive, but this time we got lucky as Bando Kotoji's troupe was performing at Towson University in conjuction with their Asian Arts center and tickets were only $15!!! kisarazumama was wonderful enough to get me one!!! It was kind of a drive but well worth it as the dancers were amazing and OMG the costumes - sooooo beautiful!!! What a rare treat! Then last night got to attend an advance screening of the latest from creative geniuses Joss Whedon (Buffy/angel/Firefly/Serenity/Dollhouse/Toy Story 2/Avengers) and Drew Goddard (Cloverfield/Angel/Alias/Buffy/LOST) - "Cabin In The Woods". I got free tix after reading a post on the @Whedonesque twitter for kisarazumama and I so we took the metro down to the Regal Cinema at Gallery Place right after work & lined up for a few hours - am glad we got their early as seating was limited and it was in a rather small theater and many of the people in line behind us did not get in. And for a special treat, two of the cast were there to introduce the movie and give a Q&A after wards - Fran Kranz and Kristen Connolly. It's a wonderfully weird crazy brilliant roller coaster ride of a horror movie. My best advice is try and avoid all spoilersm even avoid the trailer if you can, go in knowing as little as you can for full effect, all I can say is that it is so far past "bunch of teenagers go off to a cabin in the woods and do dumb things" as you can imagine and Joss and Drew have the balls to GO THERE where others would not. Yeah, there's a reason why people say "that character was Jossed". Oh yeah, also a fantastic cameo from one of the most iconic performers in genre films of the last few decades! The Q&A afterwards was fun & I actually got to briefly meet Fran Kranz which made me really happy as he played my favorite character Topher Brink on the Whedon show Dollhouse and he was nice enough to autograoh my Dollhouse DVD for me! I hope this really helps his career as he was the best character in the movie and poor dude had to wait 3 YEARS for it to be released due to MGM's bankruptcy! Thankfully Lionsgate picked up the release and are putting it out now, hopefully they are flush with bucks from Hunger Games to do some promotion with it. I think what they are doing is very smart - lots of advance screenings to enthusiastic fanboys in cities across the USA who will give lots of word of mouth to their friends & facebook & twitter the hell out of it. I'd like to see it be a big hit, it is actually SMART and WELL WRITTEN which is more than I can say for most horror movies! And we got swag too - free posters and T shirts - YAY! Still need to see "Mirror Mirror", even if it is a mess I am nuts for Tarsem's visuals. And jazzed for the upcoming Studio Ghibili/Hayao Miyazaki festival coming to the AFI Silver Theater - yay!!! They will also be doing a Monty Python retrospective - like I keep saying, how lucky am I to have this place nearby!! Now I just want to sleep for a week!!! Current Mood: giddy (Comment on this)
Friday, March 23rd, 2012
9:20 am	bittersweet The beginning of spring is always a hard time for me, not just because the blooming pollens bury their way into my lungs and set off my asthma, but the first day of spring marks the anniversary of my father's suicide back in 1989.... Somehow its just a bit worse when something like that happens on a particular date of note on the calendar rather than an "ordinary" one and makes it that much harder to try and forget... Been battling depression of late, very stressed due to finances, things are increasingly tight with federal salaries frozen for a second year in a row while everything else goes up in cost, especially rent, gas, food, insurance.... I've had to be much more careful with spending & cut way back on going out to eat, movies etc. Trying to eat healthier and make stuff from scratch to be cheaper and avoid scary processed food (reports on hi fructose corn syrup and Jamie Oliver's demos on pink slime and chicken nuggets scared the bejeezus outta me). Bought a crock pot and have been making lots of soups and stews. How freakin' domestic of me! With the wonderful new Whole Foods just a couple blocks away there are so many tempting ingredients! Busy cleaning the closets and boxes digging out old stuff to put on ebay for some spending $, very happy when 20 year old beat up t-shirts fetch lots to collectors! I guess I shouldn't feel so bad about having all those tubs of black T shirts in storage! Stuff for sale on ebay -http://www.ebay.com/sch/sistinas My car is making lots of distressing undercarraige noises - possibly struts need replacing? I can't afford to take it in to get looked at though so trying to drive it as little as possible in the meanwhile, starting to take the metro to work instead of driving & thinking of up giving up my parking pass at work so I can go back to their transhare & get free metro fare that would cover my commute. I've been breaking out the bike I bought on Craigslist (got a great deal on a used Trek 7100!) and trying to get used to this newfangled one with lots of gears that is way more complicated than my old ten speed when I was a kid. If the car totally craps out I may just sell it cheap or donate to charity and take metro or bike most places & get a zipcar membership for anything else. Thankfully there are some zip cars parked at the metro station which is just a ten minute walk from the apartment. It would also save me $100 a month in gas and $75 in parking costs at my apartment. Speaking of the apartment, while I may bemoan the cost, I certain will never regret moving there, especially when I see how much the "old neighborhood" in Gaithersburg continues to slide downhill since we left. For shits & giggles I sometimes check the police blotter to see whats been happening on the old block, this is the scariest recent report that happened in the fancy new housing complex across the street from my old place - Suspected MS-13 gang members charged with raping girl, 17, in Gaithersburg I always wondered back during the housing bubble who would pay half a million dollars for a townhouse in such a crappy neighborhood (as well as who would be stupid enough to get an interest only loan anyway)....now the painful truth emerges, they were bought by the same people who lived in the crappy neighborhood and couldn't possibly afford them but got suckered into predatory loans they couldn't afford and now are foreclosed.... So I might be poorer but wiser, I'm very grateful that I moved and believing that you do get what you pay for...that place was much cheaper but definitely unsafe! At least I can sleep soundly at night & not worry about being to close to the windows or of somebody breaking in. Instead it is nice and peaceful and I can go down & walk by the pond & see bunnies and ducks and deer. Got a great photo yesterday while walking back from the metro of a huge red tailed hawk who swooped over me and landed in a nearby tree to pose. Off this afternoon straight from work to see The Hunger Games, looking forward to it, "may the odds be ever in your favor" Also REALLY psyched to see the Cabin in the Woods - got free tickets to an advance premier downtown on April 2nd, very psyched, especially as cast member Fran Kranz will be there for a Q&A - he played my favorite character on Joss Whedon's show 'Dollhouse', Topher Brink. Current Mood: grateful (Comment on this)
Monday, March 5th, 2012
6:46 pm	new LJ name :) I was able to pounce on an unused & deleted account and grabbed the name "sistinas" when it became available to match many other accounts of mine, all the old entries under "evb" should still direct here. Yay! Less people to be confused with! (Comment on this)
Tuesday, February 14th, 2012
8:14 am	Happy Valentine's Day! Thought this was just the cutest sentiment for the day - Poster by http://www.angryblue.com (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Monday, February 13th, 2012
11:14 pm	Yeah! What they said! my bargain murakami! (Comment on this)
Friday, December 30th, 2011
1:13 pm	always get maudlin this time of year... I always get a bit maudlin this time of year and reflect back on the past 12 months... Its been a year... a year of decompressing and readjusting following a major move out of a nightmare to much nicer surroundings, and realizing the extent of PTSD that former residence inspired when it look months to chill out and relax. Finances have been tight especially with my salary frozen for the foreseeable future and higher rent + bills than old place so drastically cut back on traveling from other years, started taking some painting commissions again (even tho it stresses me ut it is easier than getting a 2nd job) and finding stuff I can part with on ebay. If I get down about it I try to look at the big picture and look at how I have it relatively well off with a stabile job compared to some many others who are unemployed or underemployed and/or without benefits. At least I have had significantly less stress in my life aside from $$$. Definitely kept busy :) Some highlights for 2011 - Favorite movies of the year (and Yay to Montgomery Mall's theater for selling me a yearlong pass on Groupon for all the movies I could watch! I can watch a lot!): Hugo Rango The Artist Super 8 13 Assassins Cave of Forgotten Dreams Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark Detective Dee and the Phantom Flame The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo Harry Potter finale Worst movie – easy choice here, Sucker Punch. Had high hopes for it as the production art looked really cool but it was massively stupid, made Tarsem’s “Immortals” (dumb but visually groegous) look like a masterpiece by comparison. Favorite concerts of 2011: (a year of good shows!) Danzig Legacy on Halloween! Tiger Army OCtoberflame Nick 13 at the Troubadour T.S.O.L. at the Ottobar The Damned at the Black Cat Bryan Ferry at Strathmore D Generation reunion at Irving Plaza Dir En Grey at Sonar Favorite albums: Nick 13 solo Trent Reznor & Atticus Ross Girl with the Dragon Tattoo soundtrack (how cool was it to see Trent win an Oscar for Social Network???) The Foo Fighters "Wasting Light" - continually stuck in my head Janes Addiction - The Great Escape Artist Cool experiences of 2011: Got to Meet Henry Rollins after his photo slideshow at National Geographic Explorer’s Hall Henry’s 50th Birthday also at National Geographic Explorer’s Hall Seeing Davey Havok on Broadway in “American Idiot” Green Day musical Hearing Neil Gaiman speak about American Gods at the National Press Club Finally getting to meet London May! seeing Russell Brand perform at Patriot Center seeing Cirque Du Soliel "Iris" show (with music by Danny Elfman!!) Great art exhibits I saw Tim Burton at LACMA Chet Zar at Copra Nason Gallery Ray Caesar at Corey Helford Gallery Daphne Guiness collection of amazing haute couture at FIT (kicking myself I did not make it to the Met in time to see the Alexander McQueen show! At least I did get the book....) Cool things I got in 2011 – Michael Zulli Sandman painting many cool Mondo movie posters great flea market find on Marcel Breur Wassily Bauhaus chair! 4 Soom BJD dolls! (Bazael, Beryl + Migma twins) Royal Worcester Arabian “Indian Magic” porcelain (my horsie holy grail!) Audrey Kawasaki “Enrapture” and “Charlotte” prints Sylvia Ji “Tehuana” print Martin Wittfooth “Vernus” print Chris Conn Askew “Bablon” and “Queen of Diamonds” prints Mark Ryden “Yoshi” print Hot Toys Sweeney Todd and Aldo Raine! Low point of 2011 – Finding out that my dear friend Kristen took her life, I had no idea how she had struggled with a severe borderline personality disorder that I didn’t even understand until it was too late, not that I probably could have helped according to what I’ve since read up on that disease. I miss her badly, I wish I could have helped her out. I also regret that the ONE TIME a former friend who was always making up crazy stories wan't lying to me about Kristen and actually told the truth that I hadn't instantly dismissed it ala "boy who cries wolf", sigh! Current Mood: contemplative (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Thursday, December 29th, 2011
9:26 am	a good morning to be alive and well.... Every little thing we do has consequences, many times we don't even realize them without looking back in hindsight. A little over a year ago Paula and I moved out of our hellhole of an apartment with worse management and into a wonderful place much nearer to where we work. There were a few downsides in that moving itself was expensive and the rent is close to double the old dump's but we have been so glad we did it - we are no longer being continually harassed by the management and barraged with noise and feeling unsafe in a neighborhood that had slide far downhill and become full of crime and gang activity. Instead we live now in a beautiful, well kept place that makes us happy every time we enter it, with polite, quiet neighbors and friendly, helpful staff in a very safe and peaceful neighborhood filled with wonderful markets, restaurants, shopping etc. But yesterday it REALLY hit home what else I'd dodged. As I was leaving work a co-worker advised me to avoid the main road (Rt 355/Rockville Pike) as it was closed due to a major accident. So I exited out the back of the NIH campus on to Old Georgetown Road and went home that way. Then checked the news online to see what had happened. The accident was a bad one - a truck had crossed the road plowing into an oncoming bus. The truck driver was killed, the bus driver seriously injured and had to be extracted & flown via medivac to Shock Trauma. Many passengers were seriously injured & taken to local hospitals. The bus involved was the 4:20 J9 express to Lakeforest Mall. The very same bus that I took home from work nearly every day for about ten years until I moved. I often sat in the front right behind the driver as the bus would be pretty full by the time it reached NIH which was the last stop before its Gaithersburg destination and those were usually the only seats left. I spent much of the night shaking and hugging my cat, so relieved that I hadn't been on it. Its a good morning to be alive and in one piece! (Comment on this)
Sunday, September 11th, 2011
9:59 pm	10 years ago.... (a repost of what I wrote for the 5th anniversary) I was at work at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, right outside of Washington DC...one of the doctors on our floor emailed everybody & said "go to this link" and it was CNN's page where they had a photo of the first tower in flames. A co worker turned on the radio & we heard about the 2nd tower and the crash at the pentagon AND there were people calling in the radio with all kinds of crazy rumors about bombs at the state department and the FBI building and nobody really knew what was going on. I called home several times trying to wake up Judy who always sleeps thru the phone & left all these crazy messages like "get the fuck up & turn on the TV - all hell's breaking loose" - eventually she woke up & did so & said I sounded like WWIII had started. Then they abruptly shut down the government & told everybody to leave - nobody knew quite what to do and were weirded out that we had no instructions and afraid NIH could be a likely target. I got on the Metro train as I figured it would be the fastest way out towards where I lived (I'd taken a commuter bus in that wouldn't be running until the afternoon) even tho I was scared that the train might be a target too. I got on the metro & it was packed with people leaving DC, several of whom had been in buildings facing the pentagon and had seen the plane hit there and were in total shock. I'll never as long as I live forget the one woman sitting on the floor slowly rocking back & forth looking completely catatonic. Everybody was very scared, people had just abandoned their cars in DC & jumped on the train to get out of there as fast as possible. We got to Shady Grove station & I found Paula coming home from her job so that made me feel a lot better. The weirdest part was seeing the people who had no idea what was going on entering the station about to go to a meeting downtown & wondering why it was so crowded & everybody was so freaked out. I told a couple "go back, don't go downtown - the whole city is closed, I'm sure your meeting is cancelled". Got a bus home from the station, saw Pete the xerox room guy from work on the bus & somehow that made me feel better too. Went home & was sucked into nonstop CNN... later went out to the store & did strange things like buy a big black forest cake & refill a prescription of painkillers, I guess it was my wierd way of being prepared for the worst. What freaked me the most was before I got the job at NIH I had turned one down at the Pentagon because I preferred the idea of working at NIH to help people than being with warmongers. I just kept thinking that could have been me. I also used to live in NYC so I also felt a connection there. Two friends of mine lived close to that area & quickly figured the air was toxic & rented a van & put all their belongings in it & just left - they didn't know where to go but knew they had to get out...eventually they settled in Seattle. But they freaked me when they called & they were leaving & wanted to give me the passwords to edit their bands web site "just in case". I definitely had some semblance off post tramatic stress disorder afterwards. With National airport shut down many flight paths got rerouted over my apartment & I'd be lying in bed drifting off to sleep and when I'd hear a plane I'd jump. I'd get horrible chills down my spine driving by the pentagon with the huge gaping hole in it. Current Mood: contemplative (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Wednesday, August 31st, 2011
6:41 pm	the most awesomest boots ever..... I have suffered my whole life from having my wide flat mutant feet - about a size 10 EE wide with absolutely no arch. I have had horrible problems my whole life finding any shoes I liked that fit....one of the most painful memories of my childhood was trying to learn how to skate when my parents bought me girl's figure skates and could not comprehend how excruciating it was to try and skate on these narrow skates with a high built in arch that sent spasms of pain up my legs, I think my skating instructor finally convinced them to buy me a boy's pair that were flat and wide and I could skate just fine with them, at least my teacher understood, I think my parents thought I was just a drama queen and trying to get out of it. Its always been really hard to buy anything I liked, I've mostly bought unisex or guys sneakers (have a closet of Vans, T.U.K.s and Dravens) and my totally metal New Rocks. The only heels I own that fit are some platforms I got in a place on Hollywood Boulevard that caters to drag queens. I guess it was long overdue that I should eventually cave and get something wonderful that fit! Every time I've ever been to the Renn Fair I drooled over the amazing custom boots at Catskill Mountain Moccasins, every time I've seen somebody in one of their amazing pairs I have totally lusted after them. So last year I visited the Maryland Renaissance Festival and, in a fit of extravagance, I took the jump and had them measure my feet for a custom pair & started layaway...its good they let you take pretty much upwards of a year to pay them off as they cost a pretty penny yet I'll never begrudge an artist for their talent, craftsmanship and experience, for that they are worth every cent and while I was at it I splurged to get the custom trim I liked and sterling silver buttons in a tudor rose pattern....and of course being Liz they are black and purple :) I'd flipped when I saw a pair on display with the cool inset eyeballs as they reminded me of the glass eyes in some of my Axel jewelry so I went for it (apparently they are now one of only two pairs ever with the eyes) And today they arrived, they fit PERFECTLY and are very very comfortable (lined with sheepskin), with good care they could last decades. I am in love!!!! Many many thanks to Donavan at Catskill Mountain Moccasins for his amazing craftsmanship and design!!!!! ( pix below cut ) Current Mood: excited (7 Comments |Comment on this)
Friday, August 26th, 2011
3:54 pm	It's been a weird week....... ……especially considering the earthquake the other day - I was sitting at my desk at work & the whole room started shaking and there was this huge rumble and it really felt like a ginormous tracter trailer was driving overhead, it was just like that "big truck right outside" feeling except I'm way inside off the street! So everybody evacuated and sat outside on the lawn (away from anything that could potentially fall over) and I looked up the US Geological Survey on my iPad and found the epicenter down between Richmond and Charlottesville in VA. Never imagined an east coast earthquake this bad! At least I handled it OK (nerve wise), having once gone thru a worse one in Vegas, the 1992 Landers earthquake which was a 7.3 in the middle of the desert a few hundred miles away but still enough to make the whole room shake. I’m convinced your first big quake is the scariest, after that at least you can figure out what’s going on. And now Hurricane Irene is bearing down on us, promises to be a wet and wild weekend and am braced in case of no power. My flashlight broke so went out last night to buy another - Target has an empty wall of hooks where flashlights had been and then to Giant which was somewhat more of the same but AHA! We found a pink Disney Princess flashlight with pink jewels set in the side so we will be illuminated! Also got a bunch of Halloween votive candles with black arched cats & spiders on them so the lesson here is think outside the box! I am convinced the only flashlights left for sale are probably hiding at Toys Are Us but you could probably have your pick of Spiderman or Buzz Lightyear, or maybe a Batsignal! I think I'll hold out for Hello Kitty though (I still regret passing on the HK Toaster at Target) As we may be without power for a few days (I have SO much faith in Pepco!) I have a stash of food that will not require refrigeration - saltine crackers, peanut butter and pop-tarts. 3 of the 4 major food groups represented (guess that means I need chocolate) :) Money has been tight since new place is so much costlier than the old one and I’m tired of always being broke so have tentatively gone back to painting horse figurines to make some $, just got a lot of paints & primers and airbrush supplies and started taking some orders, will do my darndest to keep up on them and not fall behind but it will be really nice to have a little wiggle room in the margin. In a momentary monetary panic I sold a couple rare records from my collection (AFI test presses) and got caught up(in advance) on all the crazy but expensive bills that hit not so often but are large (car insurance, renter’s insurance, car registration renewal) & had some left over so after putting away some extra towards credit cards I managed to pick up some nice prints for my collection: Stunning Michael Zulli print put out by the Gallery Nucleus, I just wish I could afford the original! Zulli "The Persian Envoy" print ( (more below cut) ) Current Mood: exhausted (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Monday, July 18th, 2011
3:32 pm	Sideshow Toys and the Half Blood Prince..... I caved & preordered the Medicom Real action hero figure of Severus Snape that is coming out this fall thru Sideshow toys, gotta have my own Alan Rickman as he played my fav character in the movies. Thankfully they take layaway! (Being as I started reading the books after I saw the 1st movie I wonder if I would have loved the book character quite as much if I didn't always picture him in my head as Rickman). But I was afraid of missing out on this, sigh, it is an incredible likeness. He and my Medicom Sweeney Todd can sit around and glower at each other. The detail is amazing, as always! Like I keep saying, they make much better toys than when I was a kid (makes me feel not as bad about all that my mom threw out) Saw Deathly Hallows Pt 2 Friday night & enjoyed very much, its too bad a lot had to be cut though they already split it to two movies so I can't complain too much but in retrospect too bad they couldn't have done each book as a mini series like HBO is doing with Game of Thrones. REALLY enjoyed the first season of that, have always loved the books and I think the adaptation is doing it justice. Very happy to see Peter Dinklage nominated for an Emmy for his portrayal of that rascally dwarf, Tyrion Lannister, who is easily the most interesting (and intelligent) character in the series. Just got the latest George R.R. Martin book in the Song of Ice and Fire series "A Dance with Dragons" when it came out last week, am reading slowly right before bedtime to savor it and make it last! Current Mood: amused (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Friday, June 17th, 2011
3:59 pm	Mondo has done it again! Lovely new poster for Guillermo del Toro's moody ghost story "The Devil's Backbone" by Vania Zouravliov and Aaron Horkey who previously teamed up on the Dracula poster that got me addicted to their posters.... Its great to see a smaller film that is often overlooked get this sort of attention! I dearly love the work of Guillermo Del Toro - a corner of my room is beginning to look like something of a Del Toro shrine... Current Mood: cheerful (5 Comments |Comment on this)
Thursday, June 16th, 2011
10:37 pm	Short but Sweet Vacation (LA/Long Beach June 2011) I flew out from BWI to LAX last Wednesday after photographing (at least the first half) of our current director’s “going away party” as he is moving to Pittsburgh next month. Left at 3 PM to avoid beltway traffic and got to BWI in plenty of time. It was a nice uneventful Southwest flight – we didn’t even have the obligatory screaming baby onboard! – though I had to change planes in Las Vegas and wait an hour there. Met up with Jennifer once I reached LAX & picked up the rental car and off to the hotel in Hollywood which thankfully had let her check in early. Thursday was “art day”, we got to the LA County Museum of Art (LACMA) when they opened and took in the Tim Burton show. Enjoyed it much more than the one at MOMA in NYC as they had a lot more space and it wasn’t so crowded (I’ve never seen a museum as packed as MOMA was for that) so we were able to take our time & enjoy everything and really see it all. Plus a few things had been added such as the maquettes for the stop motion remake of Frankenweenie that Burton is currently working on, and some large format polaroids. Picked up a set of hatpins for my Mad Hatter chapeau in the gift shop & drooled over the $500 boxed set of all of Danny Elfman’s soundtacks that comes with its own zoetrope and must figure a way to raise the fundage for. (Thankfully I already have the big “Art of” book signed with the limited print by Burton) Wandered over to the gorgeous Japanese pavilion only to be thrilled to find out that opening THAT DAY was an exhibit of demon themed prints by my favorite Japanese Woodblock printmaker, Yoshitoshi. Sigh, they even had he one I covet most of Jigoku Dayū (Hell Courtesan). Enjoyed their amazing netsuke collection too. Afterwards we went next door to the LaBrea tar pits & the Page museum to see the fossils and bones and cheesy aged animatronic mammoths =) Then stopped at Kat Von D’s art gallery “Wonderland LA” – they still had the Kevin Llewellyn show up and I was able to get another of his limited prints, this time the one of Kat’s hands holding a human heart signed by both Kevin and K. (Paula liked my Kevin Llewllyn “Virgin Mary” print I got last time which is now framed & hanging in the foyer but gave me the “this is too disturbing” comment on this one so if I frame it I gotta find a spot for it in my room with the other stuff that is too weird….) Had a wonderful lunch at California Vegan (its gotta be good if even a carnivore like me loves it!) and pondered what to do next. We had applied for tickets to see the taping of Jimmy Kimmel that night but were still on the “pending” ticket list even though it it flipped back and forth from “sold out” to “pending” and eventually stayed at pending. We wondered if it would be worth stopping by in case we could get in. Since the hotel was just a few blocks from where they taped we dropped our stuff of there & headed up to the theater and asked the fellow outside. He said we could check and see if there was a standby line and gave us directions to where it would be around back. We found the line and asked the woman there & she told us to wait a bit. The theater was already filled but there were seats left for the guests of that night’s guests and they would be filling up the seats with studio audience members if they were not taken. In the meanwhile they gave us blue wristbands in case we could get in and told us that if we didn’t get inside we could watch them tape the concert footage in the back parking lot. Fair enough, I thought, as I didn’t think we’d even get that far. But I REALLY hoped we could get in as J.J. Abrams was one of the guests that night, with his science fiction homage to Spielberg “Super 8” opening the next night. Well a few people were let in, and then a few more, and finally the two right in front of us and then it was full. We were so close! They invited us to see the concert taping and gave us yellow wristbands for that. But when we went to enter they said we couldn’t bring our bags/cameras etc. so I told Jennifer to go ahead since she’s a big Kimmel fan and would at least get to see him come out and introduce the band and I could meet her back at the hotel. I didn’t mind missing a band I’d never heard of (Friendly Fire? Something like that) So went back and chilled & got a text from Jennifer…. While waiting for the band to play they could watch what was taping on a big screen. J.J. Abrams asked the audience if they wanted to see Super 8 and when they screamed yes he said “how about tonight? I have buses outside”. You bet!!!! I high tailed it up to Hollywood Blvd to check it out and sure enough there were several buses parked outside the theater where Kimmel taped….I texted Jenn back and said, yep, the buses are here, come around front. The studio audience was coming out the front door & getting on the buses and we took off the yellow concert wristbands and made sure the blue studio audience ones shows & filtered into the line and on the bus, I felt like a high school kid getting away with something! Once on the bus they told us they’d be taking us to the Arc Light theater for a special screening just for us and as we got off we were handed tickets, a coupon for free popcorn and rocket popcycles! Whoo hoo! So even though we missed seeing J.J. in the flesh (aside from his back half a block away when he was signing autographs) we got to a preview of Super 8 as his guests and it totally rocked, a love letter to those great films of the 80s like E.T., Stand By Me, The Goonies, CE3K and a dash of District 9 perhaps…. Absolutely brilliant, the man can do no wrong in my mind (well maybe aside from the last episode of LOST but after everything else he’s done I’m willing to forget that) Slept well aside from being woken at 2:30 AM by the front desk clerk telling us we had to move our cars as the city of LA would be paving outside the parking garage and we wouldn’t be able to get out the next day! We went down to the front desk very bleary to meet a few more people being told the same thing, and the clerk called the Days inn around the corner and they said we could park there for the night. So mildly annoying to be so rudely interrupted but at least we got it settled. The hotel had only found out at 8 PM and had tried to call earlier when we were at the movies. But somehow I think they could have handled it better than waking us at 2:30 AM! Friday we went shopping and hit Gallery 1988 where I got a cool Rhys Cooper poster of a particularly evil looking Cheshire cat from their themed art show based on American McGee’s Alice in Wonderland, and got a neat shirt & poster at the Tokidoki store and then up to Wacko’s/La Luz De Jesus where I saw the Glenn Barr exhibit and scored a cool Axel ring I found in a case in the back. Also enjoyed the wacky kitty art in the “Kitties and Ice Cream” theme show at Japan L.A. – I just love this proliferation of themed group art shows! In the early evening we headed down to the Troubadour in West Hollywood to catch the first of Nick 13’s record release shows for his solo country record that had just come out (lucky Jennifer had caught the free show that Tuesday at Amoeba before I was able to fly out). Traffic was insane due to the big gay pride fest a few blocks over & some road closures but we still made it to the front of the line with many of our friends – Thomas, Miquel, Rosaria, Jeff and Janice. And once inside found Rachel and Alex and Louie Bones! The opening act was Lynda Kaye who was quite good and very inspired by Patsy Kline in her gold lame dress and matching gold glitter Gretsch with a huge beehive hairdo that would make any Baltimore hon proud. Then time for Nick 13, going all the way country style in black cowboy boots and a Nudie-esq nicely tailored black & red pinstriped western style suit with his back up band –Johnny Bowler from the Guana Batz on upright bass ( a gorgeous metallic lime green glitter version of my pink King Double Bass Sparkle King!), Storm on guitar and some older gentlemen in drums and steel guitar (I am afraid I did not catch their names) The songs from the new CD are wonderful live and really showcase his beautiful voice although some of the crowd were bit rude the first night screaming incessantly for Tiger Army, hopefully they were placated by the new honky tonk version of” Cupid’s Victim” and by the song that started this whole direction, “Outlaw Heart”. Got some very nice photos I put up on flickr - June 10, 2011 - Nick 13 at the Troubadour June 11 2011 - Nick 13 at the Troubadour Afterwards, as always, a group of us headed over to Swinger’s Diner to eat and hang out. Missed that place and my west coast friends, LA is like a second home to me as I have been there so much over the last half dozen or so years Got back to the hotel late & was too tired to even look at my photos! No interruptions this time. Saturday morning I was so pooped I stayed in and edited & uploaded pix and took a nap while Jennifer walked up to Hollywood & Highland for some shopping. Glad I was better rested and ready to enjoy night 2 at the Troubadour! A different opening act this time, Miquel Garcia and the Vaquetones, a Mexican country folk band, reminded me of the ones in Desperado. (and the 2nd night Nick had a dark brown suit with a cream shirt under it. He had a purple suit at Amoeba. We are taking inventory of his suits and are hoping to see the purple one again when he hits the east coast next week!) Crowd was much better behaved the second night, both nights Nick 13 got a huge response. I really enjoyed these shows – ya know, it’s really nice to see a band and not have to worry about mosh pits and crowd surfers and getting kicked in the head…. Very glad I’ll get a chance to catch some more of his solo shows next week in Philly, NYC and here in DC at the Black Cat. REALLY hoping Tiger Army does another OCtoberflame Halloween show, it’s become a tradition! Sunday AM we checked out of the Hollywood hotel early & drove down to Long Beach for the Ink and Iron tattoo festival held aboard the Queen Mary (and spilling over into the parking lot beside it). I had really missed seeing Laura and Ashley at the Nick 13 shows as Ashley could not make it & Laura was busy manning the booth she had at Ink and Iron selling her artwork. Was great to see her paintings in person and I got prints of two she had done (one of Davey Havok from AFI and one of Mark from the Unseen), she also makes amazing hairpieces of animal skulls and bones. We had fun shopping as there are so many cool booths at that show. Found a “Creature from the Black Lagoon” wallet for Paula and got a painted skull from Los Calaveras (the folks who made my cool fridge magnets I’d picked up there before). Got a neat Day of the dead style ring from Femme Metale and a cool modern replica of an old Mexican biker ring from a jeweler visiting from London. Checked out the tattooist on the Queen Mary and got a cute page of cat themed flash from Dear & Departed singer Dan Smith of Black Cat Tattoos and a stunning Asian style dragon print from Jorge Henning to go with the Tiger print I’d picked up last time. Ogled the wonderfully restored vintage cars and hotrods on display….oh sigh! And that evening caught Anti Flag and The Buzzcocks on the main stage. My friend Louie Bones was working for Anti Flag and hanging out with a dear friend of his he had told me a lot about – none other than London May! (London was the drummer for Samhain for the November Coming Fire period and for Tiger Army on The Power of Moonlite!) Had heard a lot about him but never met him and Louie pointed me out to London and they waved from the side of the stage and after the Buzzcocks’ set I ran into him & he introduced himself and was very cool. Shameless fangirl moment for Liz! We found a cheap hotel near the airport ($45 on hotwire for the Ramada – yay!) and I had to fly home the next morning. Hard to go home but I know I’ll head back when I can, always great to have trips like this to look forward too and the chance to go shopping for cool stuff and see all my friends out there! ( links to flickr galleries and way many pix below - you have been warned!!! LOL! ) Current Mood: contemplative (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Wednesday, June 1st, 2011
11:42 am	Soomed again! That damn Soom company and their lovely dolls... I've resisted buying any more for a solid year but just caved again when I saw their latest limited monthly fellow, "Bazael - Rauco of Pain" (whatever that means!) ...oh swoon.... like I keep telling Paula, I had no interest in dolls when I was a kid, but they sure didn't make them like this! At least they take layaway, he'll be paid off by the end of the summer! ( more pretty demon boy below... ) Current Mood: crazy (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Friday, May 6th, 2011
4:34 pm	Hooray! Art score! Moon Editions released some color variants of the two amazing Florian Bertmer prints I wanted that were originally done for the Gallery 1988 "Required Reading" show inspired by favorite books and I was lucky enough to score of of each of these: "Paradise Lost" - one of the prettiest fallen angel images I've seen! "Call of Cthulhu" /|\(;,;)/|\ Yay! Screamingly Art Nouveau Lovecraft!!! Whoo hoo!!!!!! Current Mood: bouncy (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Thursday, May 5th, 2011
12:16 pm	Need to figure out a weekend to get to NYC to see this!! at the Metropolitan Museum of Art- Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty May 4—July 31, 2011 http://blog.metmuseum.org/alexandermcqueen/about/ I already ordered the catalog from Amazon and found a great slideshow of the exhibition here: http://www.glamazondiaries.com/2011/05/review-alexander-mcqueen-savage-beauty-at-the-metropolitan-museum-of-art/ What a freakin' genius...... These are the most amazing shoes I've ever seen. McQueen elevated footwear into the realm of fine art (probably as well I have completely flat feet & could never wear heels tho I'd lust after these just to put them on a shelf and star at them!) http://shampalove.blogspot.com/2010/07/alexander-mcqueen-angel-boots.html http://www.boingboing.net/2010/07/13/alexander-mcqueens-a.html What a damn shame we lost him so young..... He was such an amazingly talented artist with th emost mindblowing fashions I've ever seen. Rest In Peace Lee Alexander.... Current Mood: contemplative (Comment on this)
Tuesday, May 3rd, 2011
9:18 pm	I will never in my life have enough walls....... Sigh..... there are so many beautiful posters and prints being done these days, I will never have enough wall space & as is need some more Itoya profolios for storage but could not resist picking up these lately....... "Pan's Labyrinth" silkscreened poster by Mondo, art by Aaron Horkey in their Guillermo Del Toro series.... (I can't wait to see what they'll do for Devil's Backbone" and "Chronos"!) Mondo has been doing one amazing poster after another.... I also picked up these from them in the last few months - ( more art below ) (Comment on this)
Wednesday, April 20th, 2011
12:47 pm	more great finds! Estatesales.net is my new friend :) Over the weekend I had more amazing finds. On Saturday while Paula was at her doll making class I drove down to River Road and found one where a wealthy woman had passed. She had amazing taste in clothing in my size and I picked up a couple of beautiful pieces by Coldwater Creek. Then I went a few blocks away to another sale from a fellow who had lived in China. I got a gorgeous big mirror with oriental dragons around it that he said came from a Buddist temple. I also got a beautiful little blue and green crystal foo dog that was just exquisite and in a very fancy presentation type box; the detailing reminded me of Lalique so for only $5 I grabbed it. I brought it home and did some research on the web googling the maker on the box “Grand Crystal of Taiwan” and found it is by a glass artist named Heinrich Wang for the company Tittot who were the first to produce art glass in China, similar pieces I found by them on ebay range from $400-$750! This one appears to be an early piece and is signed and numbered underneath. Pretty cool find! On Sunday morning I got up early & told Paula I think we needed to go back to the great estate sale off River Road that I’d told her about. And boy am I glad I did! It was a madhouse as everything was now half off, I’d never seen such a line to get into a sale but since I already knew the layout I bee-lined back to the clothes. I ended up buying pretty much a whole new wardrobe of really nice separates by Coldwater Creek and Chico for an average of $3-4 a piece that would be $70-80 or more each new including 2 pairs of pants, 3 long skirts, several tank tops, a dress with matching jacket & several big overshirts & jackets as well as some nice costume jewelry. Paula got a cool red oriental style jacket & some nice shirts including a linen Liz Claiborne blouse. I am stunned to suddenly have so much really nice dressy clothing that fits & looks great! The woman whose sale it was also had great taste in books, especially horror fiction. I was able to fill in the gaps in my own library of Stephen King hardcovers I didn’t have and picked up Insomnia, Desperation, Gerald's Game, The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon, Nightmares & Dreamscapes, Hearts in Atlantis, Just After Sunset, Everything’s Eventual, and Rose Madder. Other books I picked up included: The Hellfire Club by Peter Straub and Black House by Stephen King & Peter Straub; Blackwood Farm by Anne Rice; Mapplethorpe: a Biography by Patricia Morrisroe; The Monster of Florence by Douglas Preston; The Dante Club by Matthew Pearle; The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown; Cold hand in Mine: Strange Stories by Robert Aickman; Haunted: Tales of the Grostesque By Joyce Carol Oates. And after nearly 4 months we finally got our security deposit back from the old place (VERY long story!) and Paula and I made an Ikea run & got lots more shelves so we can finally finish unpacking the stuff that is still in boxes! The new apartment will look really nice when we get it all pulled together. Current Mood: cheerful (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Wednesday, April 6th, 2011
1:12 pm	I miss you already Kristen Yesterday I came home from work to find two emails letting me know that one of my dearest friends had taken her own life which left me devastated. Another link now shattered in my small circle of friends, the fourth I have lost in the last few years. It has shaken me badly and reinforced how fleeting and temporary this mortal coil is, we need to live each day to the fullest and appreciate what is in the here & now for tomorrow might be too late. Carrie, Jeannette, Kristen and especially Judy, I miss you all more than you can imagine. I met Kristen back in 1995 when my merry pack of friends frequently road tripped to many Marilyn Manson and Psychotica shows. Kristen was our little “pixie girl” with pink hair and a huge smile, always cheerful and full of energy. She lived in northern New Jersey near NYC and often let us crash at her house when we drove up to New York for shows or to hang out at Squeeze Box. We travelled together on road trips all over the east coast & Midwest – Massachusetts, Ohio, Erie PA, West Virginia. A bunch of us with all travel together & split a cheap motel, often Red Roof or Motel 6 (which we nicknamed “Chez Liz” since I was usually the “tour director”) I remember on weekend trips when everybody else would be asleep in the motel and Kristen would get up first thing in the morning to do her running, no matter where she was, she always kept in incredible shape. Later after she’d moved to LA she was always going to the gym & various ballet & fitness classes. Kristen went to nursing school & got her R.N. – she dreamed of working in the emergency room and after moving to California & moving through several hospitals working for a contracting firm she got a great job at the ER at Cedars Sinai, one of the top hospitals in the country. Heard lots of crazy stories of what went on there (I guess the staff were very familiar with David Hasselhoff, she also told me about the time she had to call Courtney Love for permission to do a test for Frances Bean Cobain!) I really admired her for working so hard for her degree and achieving a good career helping people. Kristen moved out west in the fall of 2004 – she stopped at my old apartment in Gaithersburg on the way out along with her mom who was helping Kristen drive her huge tank of a car cross country. Her mom (also a nurse) had never been outside of NJ and was excited as it was the first day she’d ever pumped gas herself since NJ is all self serve. (The silly things that stick with you). We all went out for Thai food and wished them the best. In late November 2004 I visited for a week – Tiger Army was doing a string of shows at the Wiltern Theater opening for Social Distortion and Kristen invited me to stay at her apartment so I could go to all the shows. She had an awesome pad in West Hollywood on North Palm Avenue that ran between Sunset Blvd and Santa Monica Blvd. The first night we were there we walked up to Sunset Blvd and ate the Rainbow and she pointed out all the famous clubs around the corner like the Whiskey A Go Go, the Roxy, the Viper Room and the Key Club. We ate at the Rainbow many times and every time we went there we ran into Lemmy from Motorhead just hanging around ... unbelievable! I guess he is a fixture there and lives nearby. Kristen had a busy work schedule but still was able to come with me to a couple of the shows & I teased her mercilessly because she had a huge crush on Mike Ness from Social D so we always called him her “baby daddy”. On Thanksgiving she took me to the hip little diner Swingers on Beverly Blvd for the first of many times & I enjoyed my turkey dinner with her, it will always be one of my most memorable Thanksgivings and I think likewise she was happy to share it with a friend since it was her first T’day so far from home. She showed me a lot of cool sites around town & we went shopping on Melrose. Since then I’ve visited her several times a year on my many trips to the west coast and we were always in touch by phone or email. Sometimes her schedule was so hectic we couldn’t meet up when I was out & we just chatted by phone, but whenever possible we’d get together even just for lunch or a little shopping. The last time I saw her was last October when I was on my annual “Halloween time vacation”. Jennifer and I were in LA, we went over to her new apartment (now just around the corner from Swingers where we had lunch) and I got to meet her two new kittens, R2 and D2. Kristen had always been a huge Star Wars fan so I thought the names were really cute. R2 was the little black girl cat and D2 the bigger white and grey boy cat. We played with the kitties and I took many silly pictures of them chasing strings and it was evident how much she dearly loved them & we joked about the bunch of us becoming “crazy old cat ladies”. I tried to talk her into coming with Jennifer and me to the Universal Studios Halloween Horror night but she couldn’t make it. Kristen was the prettiest girl I ever knew, model pretty. She had a beautiful face with bright large eyes and full lips and just glowed from within. She reminded me a bit of Nicole Kidman although I honestly thought Kristen was prettier. It was obvious, she had many famous photographers ask her to model for them including John Santerineross and Jeffrey Scott. Once she told me Dean Karr had asked her to pose for him but I’m not sure if she ever did. The first serious modeling she did was for John Santerineross back when she was still in New Jersey and she was hesitant to even tell me about it since she had posed nude and I think she was afraid I might think less of her but I reassured her that this was museum worthy art, not “porn”. Several photos of her appear in his book “Dreams”. John had been her landlord at the time, she rented an apartment above his studio in Kearny & also right across the hallway from Empire Hideous and former Misfits singer Myke Hideous who she introduced me to. After moving to LA she did a lot of glamour and pinup and rockabilly type modeling, she was always sending me links to photos on her facebook and myspace which unfortunately she apparently deleted but I found her portfolio still up on Model Mayhem, her modeling name was “Nurse Krissa Amore” - http://www.modelmayhem.com/1381365 One of the shoots she was most excited about was the one where she was made up like a zombie as she loved horror movies & horrorpunk like the Misfits etc. She had an “old school tattoo” of roses and the word “Amore” on her back among her many tattoos (her first was of a pixie, we always called her “Pixie Girl”) She liked to pose in “Sexy nurse” costumes which was funny since she really was an R.N., we made a lot of Animaniacs “Hellooooooo Nurse” jokes. She would dress up in wonderfully crazy Halloween costumes, I think the best was her “Princess Leia in her slave outfit” since she was such a huge Star Wars fan (and one of the few girls I know who could successfully pull off that outfit!) Her YouTube channel is still up with some cute videos of her kitties- http://www.youtube.com/user/NurseKrissaAmore I started a gallery of photos of her on my flickr, I put up some of the most recent ones, need to hunt down some earlier ones I will add. I’m glad I always had my camera, at least I have many great photos to go with the awesome memories I will treasure forever. We had an awful lot of good times. http://www.flickr.com/photos/sistinas138/sets/72157626313377241/ So many memories, so many stories. I’ll never forget her telling me so many stories about her longtime friendship with Maynard James Keenan of Tool who she always just referred to as “Jimmy Joe”. She showed me pix of her visit to his house in Arizona and his vineyards & silly pictures of him making breakfast, just like anybody. When she first moved to LA he was one of the only people out there she knew already. I’ll never forget her phone calls when she was hanging around with Anton LaVey’s grandson who sounds like quite a character, or how Ginger the drummer from Marilyn Manson had a huge crush on her, or about her visiting the Family Guy office after being invited by the boyfriend of one of her patients and getting a script autographed by Seth MacFarland. He even drew a little "Stewie" on it. Or her picking me up at the airport one night & telling me I just had to see this new TV show called "True Blood" and we got Chinese takeout & went back to her place and watched it on demand. (I'm now a huge fan). I'll never forget going to the Grove to see Episode 3 (a.k.a Revenge of the Sith) which had just come out a day or two before but she’s already seen it 5 or 6 times but was eager to go again. I'll always think of her when I see anything Star Wars related. When I was packing to move and felt overwhelmed with all the toys I boxed up many of my Star Wars toys and sent them to her & she was delighted to get them totally out of the blue. When I got my new cell phone which is a 'droid I programmed it to make R2D2 noises when I get a text or email and couldn't wait to tell Kristen because I knew she'd appreciate the silliness. I'll never forget meeting up with her in Las Vegas, I was there to see Tiger Army, she'd come out with a few friends to see My Chemical Romance. She always called Gerard Way "Pedro". We stayed at the El Cortez near Freemont Street which was actually pretty nice. Kristen loved to travel and always sent me photos - she visited Japan, Australia (had a great picture holding a Koala!), went swimming with dolphins in Mexico and visited Hawaii several times. I know she really loved Hawaii and thought about moving there, I told her with a career as a nurse she could probably get a good job anywhere. Kristin's photos from Australia http://share.shutterfly.com/share/received/welcome.sfly?fid=a20fb484d5154705&sid=8AasWTdy5bNWO_ Kristin's photos from Hawaii http://share.shutterfly.com/share/received/welcome.sfly?fid=94fa63de0a9a12b4&sid=8AasWTdy5bNWYQ I only sorry she won’t be there for those dreams, at least she lived an interesting vibrant life with more packed into it than many do with more decades. I wish I could understand what happened but you can't get inside somebody else's head. "You get what everyone gets, you get a lifetime." – Neil Gaiman Current Mood: crushed (8 Comments |Comment on this)
Saturday, April 2nd, 2011
11:07 pm	today's awesome estate sale finds :) Living in a better neighborhood also means access to better junk :) Went to an estate sale this morning nearby that was probably the home of a 60s era diplomat stationed in Asia judging by the number of presidential portraits & their collection. We picked up these goodies - 1950's vintage Japanese Oni masks by Hakata Doll company - and a vintage Indonesian snake charmer's basket! Where's the Bronx Zoo cobra when you need her? Current Mood: amused (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Friday, April 1st, 2011
6:51 am	one of my favorite books of ALL time..... is the collection of witty essays "Metropolitan Life" by Fran Lebowitz, she was the disco NYC era Dorothy Parker/Oscar Wilde. I remember back when she was writing her column "I Cover The Waterfront" for Andy Warhol's Interview magazine (for back then ol' Andy was still with us) and every month I'd get my issue & go straight to her column.... I was thrilled this morning to get an email from the AFI Silver to find she'll be doing a talk there May 12th when they show the documentary on her by none other than Martin Scorcese. I am SO there! http://www.afi.com/silver/new/nowplaying/events.aspx#publi Wonder if she'd sign a dog earred tattered book I have been reading aloud at anybody who would listen for 30 years.....? Current Mood: excited (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, March 15th, 2011
9:04 am	Best Possible News On Saturday kisarazumama went to her doll making class only to find out that her sensei's brother and wife had not been heard from since the tsunami hit Sendai where they live. We spent the weekend worrying about them, anxious for news. Thankfully they are OK, their story (and Akiko's) even made the Washington Post this morning!! http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/a-scary-wait-for-word-on-friends-family-in-earthquake-stricken-japan/2011/03/14/ABaXq3V_story.html I am hugely relieved! Even just a little good news is encouraging, watching what has been happening has been utterly heartbreaking. Current Mood: relieved (Comment on this)
Monday, March 7th, 2011
8:54 pm	best weekend in a long time! Spring and better weather approaches (at least until yesterday, sigh).... finally pulling out of the winter doldrums, a firm believer in seasonal affective disorder (on top of just "normal" depression) Friday - after work caught Rango at the Movie Theater at Montgomery Mall - yay for the Groupons that kisarazumama & I each bought around Xmas good for unlimited free movies for a year at that theater so can go to the movies anytime, even if we are broke! Rango is not just a good film, its a good classic Western as well as being deliriously weird and slightly existential with Johnny Depp doing the voice of a Chameleon with issues.... Absolutely loved it! Luckily went to bed fairly early & then got up early Saturday to drive to the White Marsh mall north of Baltimore to catch the Megabus to NYC with kisarazumama so we could go see the musical "American Idiot" (based on the Green Day album of that name) on Broadway during the 2 weeks when AFI singer Davey Havok would be playing one of the roles. We had originally planned to take it from DC but I was miffed that after I booked the tickets they moved the bus stop to outside a parking lot half a mile from Union Station and since some of that area can be kinda sketchy I didn't want to be walking around there late at night since the nearest parking was at Union Station itself (and the bus left too early in the AM to take the metro down) Going out of Baltimore turned out to be fortunous tho as at the bus stop we met a gal wearing a Despair Faction shirt who asked us if we were going up to see American Idiot. She'd seen me pull into the lot and the sheer # of AFI stickers on my car kinda gave me away :) It was great to find another fellow DF'er heading up & we ended up hanging out with her all day & having a wonderful time (she is on LJ as alice_ash and am happy to meet somebody else in this area who likes the same music & stuff!!!) Once in NYC we walked up from where the Megabus let is off (around 7th Ave & 28th I think) & were mildly disappointed that the anime shop on 30th street we passed was closed & didn't open until noon :( So we made our way up to the theater district to check out where Americam Idiot would be playing (at the St James, most appropriate as Davey plays a character named St Jimmy!) and a few doors down saw that Discovery was having a huge exhibit of artifacts from Pompeii.... well, you know liz & musuems.... and before you could say "Vesuvius" we were on our way to the exhibit, "Pompeii The Exhibit: Life and Death in the Shadow of Vesuvius") HIGHLY recommended going if you are in the area. There are some amazing fragments of frescoed wall paintings (I honestly did not realize the ancients had such a good grip on perspective but then how many paintings survived from then???) as well as jewelry, statues and everyday artifacts. Then they herded us into a room which darkened & showed an animation of a timeline, hour by hour of how the volcano erupted & covered the city in thicked ash while the sound effects rumbled and lights blinked... as the ash filled the screen dry ice floated up from the floor and the screen opened into a large darkened room in which sat the famous plaster casts of the pompeiian victims, a very very effective presentation leaving one in stunned silence to see the forms of bodies as they tried to cover their mouths to avoid sufocating, often grasping their loved ones. How ironic that their total destruction lead to us having the most detailed knowledge of the day-to-day existence in an affluent Roman city. One of the casts was the famous one of the dog who probably strangled himself on a chain trying to escape that Siouxsie used for a 7" cover to "Cities in Dust" After the Pompeii exhibit there was time to grab a quick lunch at a nearby deli and get in line for American Idiot. I had really lucked out on the tickets as we were in the third row center, meaning the cast were practically in our laps! Enjoyed the play and the cast were great, I thought Davey was positively electric as the devlish tempter St Jimmy and also particularly liked Justin Guarini as Will (had never heard of him before and only found out the next day when I googled him that he'd been on American Idol!) Check out Paula's wonderful writeup & a gallery of my pix here - http://doom-magazine.com/doom/saint-jimmy-davey-havok-american-idiot-2515 ! After the show we walked downtown & checked out Paul Booth's art gallery/tattoo shop Last Rites which had some very cool paintings. I was especially impressed by the ones by Stephanie Henderson - http://lastritesgallery.com/shows_henderson.php They also had an amazing bronze sculpture of "Li" by H.R. Giger that I'd never seen before and were nice enough to let me take some pix :) Then dinner in a nice classic NY Deli and megabus home! On Sunday kisarazumama and I went down to the DC Big Flea market at the Dulles Expo center in Chantilly to pick up my Sylvia Ji "Thunderbird" print from Gizmo's Art that they framed for me. I've been bringing them my art collection a piece of two at a time and they are doing just amazing work, this one no exception! I left them my new Mark Ryden print ("Yoshi the Forest Spirit") to frame (picked out a lovely burlwood frame for that with green and brown mattes) and my Michael Zulli Salome painting (the one from the center of Neil Gaiman's "Creatures of the Night"cover) which called out for something gold and Art Nouveau-ish. Then I had a WONDERFUL find at the Big Flea, found somebody selling a Marcel Breuer Wassily chair very cheaply, looks to be one of the nicer higher end versions and not the cheap knock offs. My eyes about bugged out of my head when I saw it, didn't have enough $$ on me and they didn't take credit cards but nicely offered to take a check so was able to give them what cash I had & write a check for the rest & do a little happy dance (aside from wrestling it into the backseat of my Hyundai). I have always wanted one of these chairs, prolly since seeing it in the Museum of Modern Art as a teen, IMHO its an iconic example of 20th century Bauhaus design. Gawd I am such an crazy art/design geek! If I'd had $$$ I would have got in deep d- do over the dealer with the huge collection of Ukiyo-e woodcut prints including a stack (!!!!!) by Yoshitoshi who I am especially fond of. Oh heavy sigh.... They were happy to explain their generous layaway plan....this is dangerous info.... Anyhow am deliriously happy with my chair and once again living up to the stereotype of being the palest honky out there as kisarazumama and I laugh over the posts on S.W.P.L. Current Mood: contemplative (Comment on this)
Monday, February 21st, 2011
3:39 pm	The Clockwork Dolls KAT_1796 Originally uploaded by Elizabeth V Bouras new pix live from Katsucon 2011! http://www.flickr.com/photos/sistinas138/sets/72157625977655089/ (Comment on this)
Monday, February 14th, 2011
8:31 am	Celebrating a Half Century of my favorite angry man! Sorry for the silence.... I have been slug-girl the last two months, moved into my wonderful new apartment in the dead of winter and freezing cold weather sick as can be & have been slowly getting back to normal but still really, really tired. I think it is cumulative exhaustion from not just the move but the stress at the old place for the last several years (still need to file a dispute with Montgomery County to get the landlord to give me my $1000 worth of deposit + interest back in a form I can access, LONG story - ARGH!) But last night was the first time in forever I went downtown (even tho I am half the distance to DC I was, much shorter metro ride - woot!!!), had dinner with kisarazumama at the Mad Hatter (wonderfully whimsical restaurant on Dupont Circle decorated ala Alice in Wonderland style - strangemuses, we need to take you there as I think you'd really get a kick out of it plus the food is quite good!) and then met up with scarydavedc at National Geographic's Explorers Hall to hear a spoken word performance by punk rock legend Henry Rollins. Not just any Rollins show but a very special one as it was Hank's 50th birthday and he decided to celebrate by doing a show here in his hometown to be taped for a future DVD! I was so glad I was able to score tickets after a very frustrating time on the internet hitting reload for about an hour when they went onsale and their ticketing system crashed but was soooo glad I managed to get them! Hank was in fine form, I think it was the best show of his I've ever seen (of many!). He got a special intro this time too from his childhood buddy & inspiration Ian MacKaye who came onstage and told us how he met Rollins when he was 11 and heard a rumor that there was a kid down the block who had a snake....and a BB gun.... and he went over to meet him and found that Henry Garfield had a real live boa constrictor and TWO BB guns...AND Cheech and Chong Records, well let the party start!! So great to hear the stories and see these guys who've been friends for 38 years, let alone both musical legends! Rollins spoke at length on many subjects, from describing how he auditioned for Black Flag & was offered the job as singer to his recent journey to Pyongyang. Overall he sounded more positive than in the past, maybe it was due to the presidency of Obama (who he said that he admires) and end of the Bush reign, and partly due to the recent events in Cairo that point to major changes that are possible from the younger generation. Some pix on my flickr here, they are kinda grainy as I used my point & shoot & tried to be discreet... http://www.flickr.com/photos/sistinas138/sets/72157626052133578/ Great to see him, what an amazing speaker! Got an awesome souvenir as they were selling these cool limited signed & numbered silkscreen posters down by Shepard Fairey (see image at right) done just for his birthday shows, what a bargain at only $20! And I also got lucky & scored another limited print by Shepard Fairey released on his Obey Giant web site in honor of Henry's 50th b'day, a cool 1981 Black Flag image based on a photo by Glen Freidman! They were to go onsale at a "random time" yesterday, I had the site up all day hitting reload with no luck but took my ipad with me as we went downtown & checked as we finished dinner and it had just gone up and I was able to get one! This is super cool as it is signed not only by Fairey but by Rollins and Friedman as well! (GOOD Shepard, credit the original photographer!) When I checked again out of curiousity they had already sold out (I figured they would go fast) and I joked to scarydavedc that they'd be selling for double on ebay by the time the show was over so we checked ebay after the show let out & there were already people on there trying to scalp them for $500! CRAZY! But very glad I got mine :) Current Mood: content (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Wednesday, December 15th, 2010
7:55 am	apologies for the silence Been quiet way too long, under a lotta stress but all will be over soon! Today Paula and I and the kitties start moving to our way swanky new pad and get outta this ghetto and into a much nicer neighborhood also MUCH closer to work. Our commutes will instantly shrink from 60-90 min each way to less than 10 minutes meaning more sleep & way less stress. And away from the crazy landlady from HELL who has harassed us nonstop for the last year, we could not WAIT until the lease was up (leaving 2 weeks early & leaving an empty shell behind) Here's the new place - http://www.flickr.com/photos/sistinas138/sets/72157625427629849/ Look forward to decorating, have gotten a whole lot of art nicely framed in anticipation. Next stop, IKEA! (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Friday, September 10th, 2010
9:56 am	Ra ra-ah-ah-ah. Roma roma-ma Roadtripped down to Charlottesville, VA on Wednesday to catch Lady GaGa at the John Paul Jones Arena @ the University of VA since I was able to get much better seats there when they went onsale than the nosebleed ones I could have got for DC - turned out to be well worth the trip! (Yay also for Captain Kirk & Priceline as we were able to get a very nice room at the Marriott Courtyard for only $65 - less than I paid down there last time for a skanky Days Inn!) Paula wrote a brilliant review that is now up on Doom! magazine with some pix I got with my little Lumix And yes, there really is a monster at the Monster Ball. He looks rather like a giant angler fish dangling glittery bling to draw his prey. =) Also really enjoyed the openers Semi Precious Weapons - gave me many flashbacks of the times I spent hanging out at Squeezebox @ Don Hills in NYC back in the mid to late 90s, sigh! Gotta love anybody who proclaims "I can't pay my rent, but I'm fucking Gorgeous!" ( glammed out boyz below ) Current Mood: contemplative (Comment on this)
Thursday, August 19th, 2010
2:18 pm	Dommin at the Recher Theater! Went up to the Recher Theater in Towson Sunday night with kisarazumama and caught Dommin and Volbeat - once again got the hookup from miseryxchord and was able to bring my giant camera along & get some shots for Doom! Magazine - yeah! Not the greatest I'm afraid as there was so little lighting (sigh, there is a reason they use red lightbulbs in darkrooms!) but did the best I could. Really love Dommin, they are one of my fav new bands of the last few years that I fin dmyself listening to more & more. Kristofer has such a gorgeous voice, reminds me a lot of Bryan Ferry actually. They are building up a pretty rabid fan following - was talking to a gal on the rail who'd driven 7 hours from Cleveland to see them & had even flown out to LA with her other friends that were there to see them before. (Hmm...where have I heard of this sort of behavior before??) Glad to see them get devoted fans, they deserve it, look forward to seeing them again, hopefully headlining so they get to do a longer set! Headlining were Volbeat from Denmark, had not heard of them before but they were quite good - they cite their major influences as Metallica, Social D, Johnny Cash & Elvis so you can get a good idea of how they sound from there :) Asidse from the low light the Recher is a fun place to catch a show, very much a "mom & pop" kinda place without security nazis etc, they also have a little bar/restaurant called "The Rec Room" next door that is cheap with very tasty food, we had burgers & fries and the burgers were terrific (almost on a level with BGR), the fries tasted like hand cut fresh potatos. ( a few below cut, more soon to Doom! ) Current Mood: mellow (Comment on this)
Tuesday, August 10th, 2010
1:35 pm	Psycho Head Blowout...... Had a long, hot but ultimately fun day last Sunday down near Manassas, Virginia at the cringeworthy named venue "Jiffy Lube Live" (formerly the somewhat classier sounding Nissan Pavillion) shooting the Mayhem festival for DOOM! magazine, jumped at the chance to get some good pix of Rob Zombie & Co as well as a ton of other bands. Still gotta finish downloading all the memory cards & sending images on to miseryxchord but got shots of Atreyu, 3 Inches of Blood, Winds of Plague, Chimera, Hatebreed and Shadows Fall on the outdoor stages during the afternoon, and then Five Finger Death Punch, Lamb of God, Rob Zombie and Korn on the mainstage in the evening. And speaking of Doom! Magazine, my Alkaline Trio, Left Alone & Swaggers shots from Warped last month are up now!! :) meanwhile here's a sneak preview of Rob Zombie & John 5 :) (BTW when I look at these pix of J5 all I can think of is how his makeup looks like Rocky getting ready for the floorshow...) ( terrifying creatures from outer space below!! ) Current Mood: cheerful (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Wednesday, August 4th, 2010
10:34 am	more music festivals to come! Doom Magazine! has some galleries up now of my Warped photos of The Casualties, Andrew W.K. and After Midnight Project (along with my Hootenanny shots), with Alkaline Trio, Left Alone and possibly the Swaggers still to come :) And this weekend I'll be heading to (gawd help me the hideously named) "Jiffy Lube Live" (Nissan Pavillion at least sounded classier) and shooting the all day Mayhem Festival including Rob Zombie, Korn, Atreyu and a bunch more for them =) Took a look at how many bands were on the bill & quick ordered some 16 GB cards from Adorama (yay for quick shipping!!!)... really want to get good shots of Rob Zombie to make up for the ones I tried to get in 1993 at the old 9:30 Club when I went to see White Zombie play - I snuck in a little Olympus Stylus 35mm point & shoot and tried my best to get shots but damn Zombies bounced around the stage so fast I ended up with two rolls of mainly ends of dreadlocks flying out of the frame :( Yay for MUCH FASTER dSLRs!!! Current Mood: creative (1 Comment |Comment on this)