...And Then There Were Two.

"The clock's running down..."
- Fountains of Wayne, "All Kinds of Time"

The original threesome that made the move to California was broken apart yesterday. Our friend returned to Iowa, leaving only me and my girlfriend to hold down the fort for the remaining two months of our lease. However, the two of us will be cutting our winnings and leaving at the end of July, in one month.

One month to go. That leaves a lot of unanswered questions to think about.

Have I done everything that I've come out here to do? Is there time to do everything that remains on the list? Will I ever get the chance to live in California again? What should I do with this final month?

A sadness has crept its way into my heart, seeing the apartment removed of all the roommate's junk, becoming empty and lonely in a way. Though we had our differences (many of them, in fact), she was still a third of the California experience. A third that is now gone. That's a third of the memories, a third of the days, and a third of the reason we came out here in the first place. It's a hard thing to deal with.

Our stay is ending.


This Entry In Song:
Jack Johnson - "All At Once"
Motion City Soundtrack - "Can't Finish What You Started"

Be Back Soon,
Shaky Jake

R.I.P: King of P.O.P.

"They lied when they said the good die young."
- Anberlin, "Godspeed"

It's true, not all of the good ones die young. Some die middle-aged. But Michael Jackson wasn't just one of the "good" ones, he was one of the great ones.

Everyone has a favorite Michael Jackson song. And the best part is, no one has to scour their brains to think of it. One millisecond after I'm asked the question, I can respond "Billie Jean." His music had that much of an impact on people even as young as me. At almost every wedding I go to, if the DJ spins one of his greatest hits, I move my way to the dance floor and do my best to imitate MJ. Moon-walking, crotch-grabbing, finger-snapping, the whole thing. Now...it will just seem too sad to do it.

With the upcoming tour, a lot of people thought Jackson was on his way to re-launching his career. I guess we'll never know. But I don't suppose that matters much. It may be better to realize that a lot of great musicians never get to see how much of a legacy they left. Michael Jackson got to see himself on top of the world. He lived 50 illustrious years, the majority of them as The King of Pop. He was and is a music legend.

He will be missed.

My final dance tribute to Michael Jackson:



This Entry in Song:
Michael Jackson - "Wanna Be Startin' Something"
Michael Jackson - "Billie Jean"

Be Back Soon,
Shaky Jake

Fast Fact #11.

The TV show Friends is actually a lot more unique than most people give it credit for. I mean, seriously, could it be any funnier? Well...yeah, I suppose. But it's still a good watch, even after the 4 dozenth viewing.

A Politically-Charged Rant On Foreigners in America.

In this blog, you'll usually find me making paragraph-long jokes about celebrities or musing on slightly sentimental topics...but not today. Today I'm tackling something a little more serious and controversial: foreign people coming to America and pissing me off.

WHAT?

Yeah, I know, bare with me. Or don't. It's up to you, because you're living in America and have the freedom to click your way to another blog or go peak in on your neighbors next door doing it like coked-up rabbits instead. The choice is yours.

If you're still here, I'll issue a straightforward warning: you may agree with me on these things and you may not. If you don't, that's cool. (That means you're a dick...but whatever.) And just so you know, I'm not going to be one of those Southern prejudiced caricatures that screams "if you can't speak English, you don't belong in this here country!" at every off-white person he encounters. But, over the past few months, I've had my head shoved into the (at-times counter-intuitive) melting pot that is Los Angeles, and I don't always like what I see.

The population of "out-of-towners" in L.A. is mind-blowing. If I had to guess, less than 30% of the people that live here were born in America. That other 70% is very, VERY proud of their ethnic heritage; proud to the point where they refuse to learn English because it might "taint" their own cultural identity. Instead, these people will look at you like you're from fucking outer space if you can't speak their language. Like they're offended. That you can't speak Spanish in America. What...the...fuck?

If I go to Panama, and the Panamanians don't speak English, I think, "yeah, that's about right. Boy, I wish I'd stopped to learn a little of the native language before I decided to live here." It sucks, but it's fair. I don't think, "what a bunch of cocksuckers. Learn to speak English you idiots. [Scoff] Arrogant Panamanians." And yet, that's what I see happen nearly everyday in California.

Message to all foreigners: If you don't want to speak our language, or participate in our culture, or "American-ize" yourself too much, then stay in your own country. It's pointless for you to be here if you're not going to try grow as a person, and it's just plain rude to expect everyone to cater to your every whim because you don't understand what the hell is going on. Get over yourselves.

Drunken Cartwheels: An American Tradition.

Sure, America is a great place to escape all types of persecution and we welcome the "tired...poor...huddled masses yearning to be free," but that comes with restrictions. You can't just come here to piss on our heritage and do exactly what you did in your home country (with better pay and benefits). Doesn't work that way. Granted, American flag apparel is not necessary (for anyone...ever) and you don't even have to know all of the state capitals. But being able to pronounce the president's name and having an English vocabulary greater than Hellen Keller is a must! They are pre-requisites, not options.

Please attempt to learn the basic words and phrases that are needed in important situations--like, I don't know, working and stuff. You can certainly come to America and you can absolutely take a job away from a lazy American who thinks that working at a McDonald's is below him but beating his wife and starving his kids is an Olympic event. That's fine. But if it's truly that hard for you to understand simple things like "how are you?" and "this isn't supposed to go in there" and "put that down before you hurt somebody" you may want to consider picking up an English dictionary to have some alone-time with. And you absolutely, positively, without a single doubt, should NOT hold a job which requires you to speak to customers over the telephone. That's just being silly and makes it seem as if you're trying to piss Americans off. We don't like it! (So...job well done?)

If you don't like this country, the people in it, and its culture, why would you want to live here? And if you're going to stick strictly to your own ethnic circles, speaking in your foreign language at all times, couldn't you be doing that back home? With people that do that same thing and won't get furiously annoyed with you when you think that "orange" is a number?

Just something to think about, foreigners.


This Entry in Song:
Anberlin - "Foreign Language"
Better Than Ezra - "American Dream"

Be Back Soon,
Shaky Jake

Who Can Argue With a Free John Mayer Concert?

"I have been a douche at times."
- John Mayer @ Hotel Cafe on June 14th

A couple of nights ago, I had an experience that I can only define as "completely unique to Los Angeles." A friend had heard from a friend who had heard from his sister who had read on Twitter--yeah--that John Mayer was playing an impromptu set at the Hotel Cafe. Big whoop, right? But his Twitter note came with another descriptor: "5 dollar show." Annnnnnd, now we're talking. Because whether you like John Mayer or not, you're not going to pass up a $5 concert on a Sunday night. Especially when it's a hugely successful musician like Mayer. Because I may be a music snob, but I'm not a general retard.

As four of us stood in a line of at least 100--and growing--I contemplated the schematics of this situation for a moment. At 8:55 PM, John Mayer posts on his Twitter page that he'll be playing at 11:30 PM. At 9:33 PM, we find out about it. At 10:28 PM, we arrive at Hotel Cafe, in Hollywood. That means, in 93 minutes, John Mayer rallied over 100 people via the Internet to see him play a show on a Sunday night. At 10:29 PM, I start to re-evaluate my opinion about the usefulness and popularity of Twitter.

There was a cog in this little scheme, though, which turned out to be the patrons already inside Hotel Cafe at the time John announced his show. Once word crept in, those same people decided to stay, which meant that only a handful of us outside were getting into the already packed bar. And yet, we all held onto faith. On three separate occasions, a promoter/bouncer/manager/dipshit came out of the club to tell the line (rapidly lengthening to something of a riotous mob in line for a Harry Potter movie) that "the show is all sold out. No one else is getting in. So go home. Please." And each time, a few of the lesser fans would fall away, letting us inch closer to the door.

(Note: fans in this sentence relates to fans of cheap shit, and not necessarily John Mayer's cheap shit. Though it's possible.)

Photo Courtesy of Just Jared.

And then...the man arrived. The man who was advertising a "5 dollar show" was here to play that very same 5 dollar show. The coolest thing? He drove himself into the little back alley where we stood, parked his car beside the line, grabbed his own gear and headed inside, leaving his Porsche parked in a back alley...alongside a hundred star-struck fans. He must have had a separate guitar case for his balls somewhere in the back of that Porsche. Paparrazi flashes be damned if I didn't get a good solid glimpse of "that guy who played that song about bodies being wonderlands." Neat. But he didn't say a word to anyone, didn't look toward the general direction of the crowd, and didn't respond to my announcement of "fuckin' Twitter. Yeah!" What...a...douche.

Having witnessed Mr. Growley-Face mope his way into the venue, I was less concerned about seeing him play. My posse stood strong, though, and that meant that I did too. We stood that way for another half an hour after the show had started. In the alley, talking to the paparazzi. Fuck me. No, wait, fuck John Mayer. I doubted we would even catch him coming back out, let alone see him sing any chords. I'll tell you this, though, I was this close to peeing on his windshield wipers. Thankfully, after a few of the longer moments a person can have had passed, an incredibly pierced hostess came to let the stragglers hear the remaining Mayer-time. "He's not done yet, but I don't know how long he'll keep playing for." The crowd of now perhaps 14 scurried inside.

I thought to myself, "Self, I'm not paying 5 bucks to hear this newly-proven d-bag maybe play half of a song." And then the hostess said, "You don't have to pay. You can just go in." At least, I'm assuming she said the second thing, I'm not really sure because I was already standing 20 feet from John Mayer inside Hotel Cafe.

Dimly lit and intimate as all get-out, the inside of that place was cool beans. John was mid-solo in some bluesy little jam when I entered. Being a bit of a guitar nerd, hearing him bust out some cleanly-plucked blues ditties made me smile and like him just a little more, but not as much the story he was about to tell would. In between songs, he spoke to the crowd with a sense of humor--though, thankfully, not from his stand-up act--and introspection. These two things mixed in a coming-of-age story, wherein he admitted (wholeheartedly) to the small audience that he had been a huge douchebag in the past, and that he was working on it. In the same story, he told us not to be the "beta" to anyone else's "alpha," meaning that we should not take guff from people. He relayed the much-recounted TMZ segment, where Mayer came stumbling out of a bar with lipstick marks covering his face and slurring about how drunk he was, which--spoiler--turned out to be a prank. And while I had previously fallen on the side of the TMZ reporters who lauded Mayer as "lame" and "sad," the argument Mayer gave for himself was hard to counter. He said in plain terms that he had fun and no one should judge him for that. He did something he thought was enjoyable and then had a good chuckle over it. You can't get much cleared than that.

Photo Courtesy of Alejandro De Cruz.

I enjoyed his insightful musings on life, but that's not what I (hadn't) paid for! I (hadn't) paid to hear music! So he played some things old, and some things new, some things borrowed, and some things blue. And, fine, I'll just come out and say it: he was fucking goooood. He may not be Eric Johnson, but he's pretty damn solid. I want to share with you a small, lyrical snippet from a new, in-the-works song he played. It goes:

" Anything other than yes is no. Anything other than stay is go.
Anything less than 'I love you' is lying. "

Whether you like John Mayer or despise the very fingers he uses to play the guitar, you have to agree that those are words to live and breathe by.

After the show, he continued the slow dropping of his cape of douchi-ness and stayed to sign tons of autographs and take what felt like thousands of pictures. He defaced Emily's wallet (don't worry, she asked him to).

I walked into the alley behind Hotel Cafe a fan of cheap, live music and went home a pretty sizeable fan of John Mayer. I won't be asking him to autograph my genitals or see him star in a summer action movie anytime soon, but I think I'll consider picking up his next album.


This Entry In Song:
John Mayer - "Heart of Life"

Be Back Soon,
Shaky Jake

Kyle Cease Gives Crowd Collective Swamp Ass.

"Does anybody here [insert question]? You're actually shaking your head no, like I should just look around at everyone and see which answer they're nodding. Like it's process of elimination. There's got to be a better way!"
- Kyle Cease, owning Emily at the Jon Lovitz Comedy Club

You may know him as Bogie Lowenstein in 10 Things I Hate About You (as my girlfriend does) or "the Slow Clapper" in Not Another Teen Movie. But I simply know him as "the guy who made my pants incredibly damp." He's Kyle Cease biz-nizzles!

I caught Kyle's show at the Jon Lovitz Comedy Club (recently opened at Universal's Citywalk) last night and have to say this: if you watch the following clip and don't laugh at it more than three times (once right away and two more times in the days following when you stop to reflect back on it), you cannot be my friend. Not now. Not ever.



That kind of rapid-fire joke spillage is usually reserved for 3-year-olds who haven't grasped the fact that their overuse of knock-knock jokes makes them sound even stupider than they actually are. But when Kyle Cease does it, it's funny (and way cuter than some asshole 3-year-old.) (Also, are you getting tired of parentheses yet? Because, really, I feel like I might be using them too often but don't want to stop...)

Last night I laughed so hard that I cried...twice. And I don't mean that thing where you're just laughing and tears are coming out, I mean actually, physically sobbing because the laughter was overwhelming. I left the Jon Lovitz Comedy Club with a joke-induced stomachache and very sweaty ass. I'm serious with this--my ass was sweating so bad that it may have looked like I peed my pants from behind somehow.
And that's the true benchmark of comedy: giving someone swamp ass from telling jokes.

Kyle Cease is highly recommended for fans of: jokes, joke telling, strongly-worded insults, grandmothers, comedy, pianos not really sounding like pianos at all, backwards hats, slow clapping, sideways hats, and beautiful tirades about inept parking garage attendants. And things like this...




This Entry In Song:
Fountains of Wayne - "New Routine"
Lionel Richie & The Commodores - "Easy Like Sunday Morning"


Be Back Soon,
Shaky Jake

How Hard Is It To Remember Iowa?

Iowa and Ohio should just merge to form Ohiowa, if for no other reason than so people in California will actually be able to remember where the hell I'm from.

"You're from Ohio, right?"
"No, but close. Different state, similar name."
"Oh, that's right, my bad. Idaho..."

Yeah, we might as well toss Idaho into the name combination, too. Make it a tri-fecta. It's going to save a lot of time and confusion in the end. So from now on, I'm referring to myself as an Ohiowaho-an.

Unless, of course, that's too hard to remember?


This Entry In Song:
Dar Williams - "Iowa (live)"

Be Back Soon,
Shaky Jake