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Vanguard: a club that isn't full of douchebags

Yes. I couldn't believe it myself. I went with two girls, and usually my experience with clubs in LA involves a lot of weird guys getting all up in everyone's grill, while generally acting like they're reliving their frat-boy years from 10 years ago. (I was planning on writing about one such club - Secrets - but I unfortunately got sidetracked and never got around to it. And by now it's been so long, and i've spent this long trying to forget that experience, that I'd never do the place justice.)

Amusing story - my friend had it on her mind to go to this place called Silver Platter. We were already aware that it was a club where transsexuals hang out. However, the place wanted to charge us cover despite being advertised as free, and it was quite a bit creepier than we had envisioned (and that's saying a lot, because we had envisioned a pretty healthy dose of creep). Anyway, after making a hasty exit there, at 1:15 in the morning we decided to give Vanguard a try. At first it seemed that they wouldn't let us in, but thanks to my wonderful friend Stephanie, we managed to not only get us in, but get us in the VIP line, for less than the original cover charge.

The club is two levels - I'm pretty sure that the upstairs is the "VIP" area. (I'm going to use the term VIP loosely; that label is kind of dubious when my friend can get three schmucks in the VIP section with a little sweet talking.) When we got there, they were playing top 40 hip hop up there. Eh. I guess it's amusing for a while. After spending about 10 minutes upstairs, we made our way to the main dance floor.

The DJ on this particular evening was a chap named Sander Van Doorn. He was doing his trance thing, but with some funky glitch-esque cuts in between tracks. It kind of threw me off my game a little bit while dancing. (Now granted, my skill in dancing is pretty much zero, but hey, it's more fun to blame the music.) Despite this little quibble, he created a pretty good vibe, and he was right up front, visible to the entire dance floor, and using his presence to get people in the mood and get people to feed off his energy. Now, granted, his presence was fairly fruity and effeminate, but it got the job done, so I'm not going to complain. The sound system was pretty sweet too. The bass thumped just the right amount, while maintaining exceptional clarity throughout the rest of the pitch range, despite the volume level.

We pretty much left when they kicked us out at 4am. And I'm ready to go back. Anyone who's into electronic dance music should check this place out. But not if you're a douchebag. In that case, stay far away.

6021 Hollywood Blvd
Hollywood, CA 90028

I'm breaking theme.

So, I'm going to talk about school. More specifically, the first week of school.

I really try and get excited about it. I conveniently ignore the fact that I regularly overload my schedule between work and school to a point where the only way I survive is by ingesting copious amounts of caffeine. "It's a new semester, you get to meet new people, and you're a little closer to graduating!" I tell myself that. Pretty much from the time I end the old semester until the time I start the new one. (Since I took summer classes, that gap wasn't very long.)

Then the semester starts. And of course there's an accident on my way to school and a bunch of cops are redirecting me to the wrong direction. And then I get to campus, and everyone's lost, so they're walking super slowly and keep stopping every 10 feet, so you bump into them. And the lines everywhere are like rediculously long, so you can't buy any of your books. You can't even buy a frickin' pencil.

The middle of the semester is so much nicer. Too bad by then, there's stuff like tests and schoolwork to worry about.

In the interest of helping a sister out...

My friend Mamie has a tee shirt company that she runs on the side.  For the month of July she's going to donate the money she makes to her favorite charity, http://www.care.org.   In addition to providing short-term and long-term solutions to impoverished and disaster-stricken areas of the world, the organization is dedicated to providing women with social and economic avenues to be productive members of society, as opposed to being marginalized like they are in many parts of the world.  So, in the name of altruism, buy a funny tee shirt that will make you unique (I doubt you'll find too many other people wearing the same shirt.  Or maybe you will, because you'll tell your friends about that awesome tee shirt and they too, will buy a tee shirt in the name of altruism.)

http://www.redlettergear.com

2008 Pride LA

So, I have a lot of gay friends.  More specifically, I have a lot of lesbian friends.  Take a group of lesbians, and I'm pretty much your token male.  Strangely I manage to evade their man-hating ways, and they accept me, despite being a dirty, smelly, horny guy.  A few of my friends think that I am a lesbian, just trapped in a guy's body.  I'm not going to dispute that claim.

Anyway, so yes, I went to Pride LA.  At least, I went to one day of it (Sunday.)  One of my friends told me, "You're going with me to pride." That was said as a statement, not a question.

The experience really is more like a very, very large, urban carnival.  They basically close off a 3-square-mile area off for the event, and there's your typical carnival food available (funnel cake, greasy hot dogs, other random kiosks.)  There's a ton of booths where charities try and get you to donate stuff to them.  Other booths where people try and sell you overpriced things.  A car dealer with cars on display.  Like a gajillion music stages.  A rave floor.  Yeah.  Oh yeah, and a lot of barely-clothed men.  Apparently gay guys love their underwear.  Because for about 20% of them, that's all they wore.  It basically was like a men's locker room, only PG-13 instead of rated R.  And of course, there are your bears.  Who were pretty much clothed as much as the "prettier" gay guys.  Except they were hairy and had ridiculous mustaches/beards, and probably strolled in on their loud obnoxious Harleys.  There were other lesbians there too.  Some you could tell were gay.  Others, they start kissing a girl passionately and you're like, "Really?  Seriously?  Her?"  And of course the straight fag hags, who were generally attractive, and who I could tell were not gay, but of course they were too immersed in their gay guys that it's not like I could go up to them and be like, "what up girl?" and not have the guys all over me.

I saw Olivia Newton-John, and Supreme Beings of Leisure.  Olivia Newton-John was pretty neat - she's all famous so it was pretty cool seeing her in concert.  Even though she's like 70.  I think she did a duet with Jessica Simpson too.  I need to get confirmation on this, but it sure looked like her up there.  And I don't know too many other Jessicas that look exactly like Simpson.  The other band is a band I just recently got into.  They have full instrumentation (Drums, synth, bass, guitar) but they have a very, very electronic sound.  You can hear the electronic elements more on their Myspace.  I'll post some pics too.

Even though I'm not gay (gay guys scare me a lot of the time, actually) the whole LGBT equality thing is a pretty big deal to me, and I'm pretty happy to support anything that helps their cause.  I really, really believe in gay marriage (or some equivalent that provides gay couples the same legal rights as straight couples).  I really believe in breaking down walls of hatred that still permeates the greater part of American society regarding LGBT people.  I think anyone who feels that way should try and cultivate relationships with LGBT people and participate in these events.  Obviously the next step would be to volunteer and help out.  I'm not really there yet, but still, I think that just showing up is an important display of support, and the more straight people show up at these events, the more that the LGBT community will be able to witness the gradual acceptance they will have reached within mainstream society.

SBoL playing Never the Same:

Since my car broke down, I'll write about music...

I'm sure many of you are aware how easy it is to waste time on sites like Youtube.  First you look at some random clip, then you look at the "Similar videos" section, and then, four hours later...

This is pretty much what my Saturday Morning started with.  I'm not even sure what I was looking for.  I think I was looking for a random music video.  I got sidetracked and watched an REM/Bruce Springsteen video.  Then I watched a Patti Smith video.  Then I watched an Eric Clapton video.  Then I watched a Who video.  Wash, rinse, repeat.  Four hours later, I've watched 4 versions of Layla, 6 versions of Because the Night, 3 versions of My Generation, etc.  And of course, once you watch Youtube flicks of all these people, you have to wikipedia/google them.

There's two things that struck me on my crusade to learn about this stuff.  One is how much these bands influenced the punk movement.  There's even a category of music for them, according to wikipedia: protopunk.  Usually 60s/70s rock is seen as a separate entity from the punk movement that followed, but then (if you're old enough) you remember the guitar-smashing shows by The Who, and remember the late 60s, rebel-against-authority movement brought on by the Vietnam War, and you realize that punk in its current incarnation is just the evolution of the rock and roll movements of the late 60s and early 70s.  Like for example, if you were to pull out "Horses" by Patti Smith and friends, you would pretty clearly hear aspects of "punk" in her music.  And it just goes to show the ebb and flow of music in general - no matter who you are, no matter how brilliant you are, your past influences determine your current and future work as a musician/artist.

The other thing that struck me is the level of instrumental talent that was displayed by a lot of these people.  And this strikes me partly because although I am certainly entertained by all sorts of music, and I'm not about to denigrate their vocal skills (which for the most part are excellent), I still wonder who is this generation's Eric Clapton or Jimi Hendrix or Mark Knopfler are.  I know there's a few out there - The guitarists for Tool and Avenged Sevenfold come to mind.  Nonetheless, I still feel like there are fewer great instrumentalists today.  Maybe today's music is all about vocals and drums/rhythm, with less emphasis on guitars, saxophones, and (to a lesser extent) piano.  I don't really buy into the conclusion that musicians as a whole are less talented today - there's more people and more exposure, and that almost always means more talent.  Perhaps the market is somewhat flooded  with all the new media formats making it easier than ever to put your music out there.  Maybe the business people are exerting some of their power to homogenize popular music in the name of the dollar.  There are many possibilities.  For me, all I can do is hope that more of the good music finds my way in my ears, and that the bad stuff doesn't turn me into a jaded old fool.

Brass Monkey

It's too easy to refer to that Beastie Boys song (or various other usages of the phrase) when talking about Brass Monkey.  Apparently it's a rather popular pub name too, so I probably should specify that I'm talking about the karaoke bar in Koreatown.

Yes, occasionally I hang out in the town of my people.

Anyway, this place is somewhat dive, in the sense that there's a noted difference in the decor outside (it's inside a modern-looking office building that looks like it's about 20 stories high.) I guess they had to make a conscious effort to look like a homely pub.  That sort of feel might make people more inclined to sing, so I guess I can't blame them.

Despite the fact that this bar is in Koreatown, it's more of a public karaoke place - you sing in front of the crowd, and not in the friendly confines of a soundproof room.  If your goal is to try and make some new friends, the public setting is probably a good thing.  What better way to break the ice than to serenade him or her with a bad rendition of Don't Stop Believing by Journey?  Being somewhat of a karaoke nutjob, I've developed a short list of songs that I don't mind singing in front of a crowd.  Some of these songs weren't chosen for their artistic value.  (I find it fun to duet Barbie Girl, for example.)  I ended up singing Friends in Low Places and Piano Man.

If you plan on singing, expect to wait about 45 minutes to 1:30, depending on the crowd.  We were there on a Thursday and my first song still took quite a while for them to get to.  Now, part of this was because there was a large group of birthday drunks hogging the mic, but I can't imagine any other night being any different.  And on Friday or Saturday you'll probably have to put your name in really early to get even one song in.

But that's okay.  2/3 of the fun at places like this is laughing at other people's awfulness.  And yes, that is fun.  And there's also some fun to be had in singing along from your table.  So even if you don't get to sing, the experience is still entertaining, especially after some booze.  They have a long list of special cocktails.  They're all really strong, but also really pricey.  The beer is pretty normal-priced, so if you need to drink cheaply that's your best bet.

I've been to other karaoke bars and this one certainly had a larger crowd than others I've been to, so you'll actually be singing in front of an audience.  This can be both good and bad.  It's still a fun, casual setting for some drinks with friends, as long as you don't mind the pain in your ears when that awful guy goes up there and butchers your favorite song.

Brass Monkey

659 S. Mariposa Ave.

Los Angeles, CA 90005