My weekend - the awkward

Now for the Awkward part of the weekend – Surprise!

Since I posted a couple weeks ago about wanting to get into volunteering, Raul forwarded me a link from 826LA where they said that they needed Volunteers for the L.A. Times Festival of Books. I figured, since I was going anyway, this would be a great way to get started on that, right?

WRONG.

When I got there, everyone seemed friendly enough….until they mentioned words like “training” and “orientation.”

Turns out you can’t just “sign up” to be a volunteer – you have to go through an orientation & training process where they make sure that you’re qualified to be a volunteer! (aka “not insanely violent / a child molester, etc.”)

They were nice enough about it, though – but I could tell they were a little….upset(?) by this whole predicament.

So yeah.....that was a bit awkward.



They “let me leave early,” though, which was nice of them….I think.

The Volunteer Coordinator emailed me the next day saying that they appreciated my help and just wanted to “tell me a little more about the volunteer process." (ha, ha…hah) I emailed her back and asked if they could fit me in to one of their Orientations next Saturday.

So….another bump in the road, but at least I’m getting started!

My weekend - the Bad

Okay, so now the “Bad news” post.

After Warren’s & Ryan’s parties on Friday night, I woke up early (bad idea) to get my car tuned up.

While getting it serviced for a routine oil & air filter change, they found a couple of things that needed replacing – among them, my power steering valves (or something). It’s gonna end up costing me over $400 to get it replaced. And no, my extended warranty is not going to cover this.

@#$%^&*()

At times like this, I don’t know why I even go to Toyota. It seems like every time I go to get my car a routine check-up, something’s wrong with it.

WTF, TOYOTA.

Also – I bought some new dance sneakers about a month ago and while I was dancing at the Pasadena Ballroom, I noticed that the suede is already coming off of the toe on my right shoe!

@#$%^&*()

Fortunately, this is an easy fix, maybe even one I can do myself (for free!) But still, after only one month?? I only wear these on the dance floor, too!

The shoe in question

I expected better quality from you,
Aris Allen!

**EDIT** (4/27/10)
I ended up dropping my car off yesterday after work and then taking one of their service shuttles back to my apartment (cuz I didn't want to wait around - I wanted to go home). I later checked my phone and saw that they had left me a message saying my car was ready and I could come pick it up.

So I called them to request a shuttle to take me down there......and no one picked up.

I left a message and waited half an hour (this is around 8pm) for them to get back to me - of course no one did. I eventually had to call one of my friends who was just getting off work and 'politely ask' that they pick me up / drop me off.

W
T
F,

TOYOTA!

My weekend - the Good

My schedule this past weekend was pretty jam-packed, so I’m gonna post this in sections:

PART I - THE GOOD
(mostly pics)

The weekend started off with a few evening festivities: my friend, Ryan, was having a birthday party that started off with dinner at Agra Café. The food was pretty tasty (and soft, which was very nice for me and my new braces) and surprisingly filling for what didn’t seem like a whole lot when we ordered it. I also got him this shirt since he shares my love of “cool t-shirts” (we all should, amIrite?). I originally thought about getting him a new sleeping bag (he’s really into camping right now and mentioned his current sleeping bag sucks) but good thing I asked (leading me to go with the shirt) because the ones he’s been looking at cost over $100!


Unfortunately, Carol & I had to leave the birthday festivities early because our old college buddy, Warren, was hosting a goodbye party at Mccabe’s that same night. We got there in time to celebrate the memory of Warren’s life in L.A., but unfortunately forgot our cameras to commemorate the event. (Although Warren’s facebook status the next day “Warren regained consciousness in a bathtub. Fortunately it was not filled with ice and I have all my kidneys," should give you an idea of how drunk everyone got)

The next day (Saturday) I hung out with Dario at Unique L.A. It was pretty interesting – here’s some pictures to help you see what I mean:






Bought a shirt, too!

From

Popcasualty

Afterwards, I decided to finish my Saturday night off at the Pasadena Ballroom to see Stompy Jones play. (Always a good time! No pix, though – too busy dancing)

Finally, I woke up early on Sunday to attend the L.A. Times Festival of Books panels – there was one on Publishing (Editors Speak Out) & another on adapting books to movies (Page & Screen) that I attended.

The Publishing panel was pretty interesting – they talked a lot about how technology and a writer’s ability to “self-publish” has affected the Editing & Publishing industries and answered a lot of questions from the crowd.

Not mine, though (ran out of time). I think it would’ve been a good question, though: I wanted to ask what they thought of writers posting their work on their blogs: good idea? Bad idea? Does it matter?

Oh well. Here’s some pictures of a few things that went on at the Festival:

What's it good for?

I meant to post this yesterday, on the simultaneous “Earth Day” & “Take your Daughter to Work Day” (which inspired this post), but missing a day of work (Wednesday) to go get the bottom set of my braces put in really piled up all the work I have to do.

When I chose to be an English Major, I would get asked (as I’m sure all English Majors / English Degree holders do) “what are you going to do with that?”


I think people used to ask that because it is a well-known fact that “English Degrees are worthless.” (i.e. “they won’t make you any money”)

This “fact” is well-known because, let’s face it: everybody can write (so there’s no real demand) and even if you are exceptionally talented, there’s not much of a chance that anyone will realize it, much less pay you money do it. So spending a college tuition pursuing an English Degree is, in the long run, considered a big waste of time.

Can you tell I still have kind of a chip on my shoulder about this? Maybe?

The only degree considered more worthless than the English Degree is “the Philosophy degree.” But I don’t really know anything about that.

ANYWAY, I would usually answer people who asked this question (“what’s an English degree good for?” in case you forgot) that it’s actually pretty useful in becoming a Lawyer – because Lawyers spend a lot of time examining text to determine the intent behind the person who wrote it….much like English majors do.

And at one point, I did want to be a lawyer. (I don’t anymore). I spent several summer vacations during my high school / college years working for an Attorney as his assistant filing papers, etc. etc.

This would usually shut them up because another well-known fact is that “lawyers are successful & make lots of money.” But then I came across this (old) blogpost the other day and it appears I have lost one of the best retorts I had to that age old question.

But if you think about it, what good does any College Degree do you these days? Having one doesn’t automatically guarantee you a job because there are quite literally hundreds of other people with the same degree applying for the same position you are. What’s going to separate you from everyone else is what you do on top of having that degree.

So I guess my answer to that question now is “the same you can do with any degree – nothing.” Not to badmouth college degrees—they’re valuable proof that you’re educated and well-read—but I’m of the opinion that, these days, this is all they’re good for.

Keep in mind that I'm just ranting, and please feel free to argue with me otherwise.

Obligatory 4/20 Post

For those of who don’t already know, April 20th is better known as “4/20,” which is kind of a ‘holiday’ for marijuana advocates. I’m not really sure why this particular date was chosen, (as I don't smoke) but the Wikipedia article I read on it says that it’s because, a long time ago (1971 A.D.) a bunch of teenagers in San Rafael, CA met at 4:20pm after school to search for a rumored abandoned crop of cannabis…..which they did not find.

Also – I guess cuz it’s close to Earth Day? (Thursday 4/22)

A
N
Y
W
A
Y,

To "celebrate the holiday,” I thought I’d share this clip from the movie: “Reefer Madness: the movie Musical.”

"The Stuff" by Ana Gasteyer

If you liked that, you should watch the rest of the movie. It's a great satire, not only of the original "Reefer Madness" (aka "Tell your Children!") but of all propaganda in general.

Now, personally, I don't smoke. But I didn't really have anything better to post about today & I'm a big fan of this movie (even if it is a musical), so I figured "why not?"

I'll try and write a better post later this week. Till then, have fun all of you lovers of the leaf!

A lot on my mind - Volunteering

So as some of you may know, I’ve been hoping to “branch out” of my specifically career paths by attempting to volunteer at non-profit organizations. My hope is that, by volunteering I can learn different skills and ‘sample’ different lines of work through my observation and experiences.



I got the idea from someone I met who told me that she only discovered she didn’t want to become an Engineer *after* she got her Engineering degree. She eventually became a volunteer coordinator at a non-profit and gave me her card when I said I’d be interested in helping out.

Unfortunately, I am off to a bit of a rough start as the non-profit this person works for happens to be Christian-based as is reflected in a few loaded questions they make you answer in the volunteer application:

Q: Tell us about your faith.
A: I don’t have one.

Q: How often do you attend Church/mass?
A: Once in the past nine years?

Q: In your opinion, what specifically characterizes a person walking with God?
A: I...don't know?

It also asked me to list the name of my Pastor / Reverend as a personal reference.

I thought about just filling it out anyway and hoping for the best – they can’t deny me from volunteering based on religious differences, can they? – or even asking if my not being Christian (or religious) would be a problem, but then I realized that if I’m taken aback by just the online application, I can only imagine what other things I could take issue with as I go further down the line. So I decided not to do it.

Shame, too. I had high hopes for that one.

Still on my list is the "A Noise Within" Theatre, Visual Communications, and Idealist.org

A lot on my mind - Writing

So another thing that’s been troubling me / on my mind lately is this short film that I’m trying to make with Rosa.

She's (understandably) been taking a long time to read my first draft because she’s been busy trying to get into Colleges / Grad schools. But she finally got back to me saying she read it, liked it, and advised what the next step should be if we really wanted to do this.

That next step – finding money to produce this.

I suppose this is what prevents a lot of films from being made (both good & awful) but I’m hoping that we can find a way to overcome this. We’ve been brainstorming over emails this past week and have come up with several ideas; here’s what we’ve come up with (listed in order of likeliness):

- Yard sale
- Car wash
- Host a “fundraiser” party: (like a regular party – but people pay us money)
- Find someone “rich” willing to ‘invest’ in this movie.

I told her I’d be willing to “chip in a few bills” for this as my only goal for this film is to see it made, but I’m sure other people (Rosa included) would like to see some money out of all their time and effort. But as of right now, “Yard sale” seems to be our most likely choice.

Movie-making doesn’t seem so glamorous now, does it?


**UPDATE**
- I took the notes I got from everyone I sent my first draft to and am almost finished writing my second one. (Spent all Sunday writing - now I gotta re-edit it and see if it still flows / makes sense)

- Also spoke to Nico and apparently there's a website that helps with grants for artists? Not getting my hopes up, but if that's true and we can get some funding through it, that'd be awesome!

It's NOT "just a Blog"

I was going to post an entry about some of the other things that have been bugging me lately, but I just read this interesting article in the L.A. Weekly “Theatre section” which I wanted to write about.

The article, entitled “I Blog Dead People,” (more about blogging than theatre - something I found odd) recapped a fact-checking faux pas when a L.A. Theatre critic posted an entry mourning the passing of another L.A. Theatre critic who wasn’t actually dead. The critic eventually posted another entry, apologizing for the error but tried to downplay it by saying that he was just writing something in a blog and that his mistake wasn’t as grave as people were making it out to be.


L.A. Weekly critic Steven Leigh Morris (writer of the article) seemed to have a bone to pick with this line of thinking as he noted these were the same people who wanted an ‘on-the-record’ interview with a theatre publicist so they could use it in a story they were putting on the same blog.

I found the point Morris makes here incredibly interesting because I’ve seen examples of this contradiction happen before: a prominent writer (who usually comes off as a little smug) will argue that blogging is a legitimate (and better) source of news because it can provide a faster and more in-depth look at things where journalism can’t, and then later argue that “it’s just a blog” when they’re called out on an error that they made in an entry.

Nice try, media bloggers, but you can’t have it both ways – if you’re going to argue that blogging is a legitimate source for news, then maybe you should treat it like one and subject it to the same fact-checking (and spell-checking, seriously) that the other media does. Or at least take responsibility for the error and correct it. Otherwise you’re just hurting your reputation – and that of bloggers everywhere.

Granted, a lot of bloggers don’t do this. A lot of them either check to make sure they’re accurate or say upfront that their claims are pure B.S., but this is important for anyone who blogs to keep in mind because blogging IS becoming a reputable source of news these days. Every company with a website probably has a blog function by now – and we should be able to trust what they say whenever it mentions something newsworthy.

Otherwise blogs would just be filled with baby pictures, online surveys and angst-ridden teen poetry.



Can you imagine? This guy has.

A lot on my mind - Housing

Like the title says, I’ve had a lot on my mind lately and I guess this is as good a place to unload my thoughts.

One of the more pressing things I have in the back of my mind is moving – something I really hate doing because of how time-consuming and tedious it is. But Evan is moving out, so I gotta scramble – sooner rather than later – and I’m currently without a plan. They say that finding a place is the hardest part of moving and I think that’s because there are so many questions that come at you all at once, causing you to panic.

These are the thoughts that are causing me to panic:

Where to live? Should I live alone or with a roommate? Can I live alone on my budget? Who am I going to room with if I can’t? How will this affect my (also slow & tedious) volunteering / job hunt? How will I know if I’m paying too much on rent?

Ideally, I would love to move back to Pasadena because it was a great city to me.

• It has the Laemmle / Regency / Paseo
• The Lindygroove / PBDA / Third Saturday Swing are so close-by.
• Gotta love the convenience of Peet’s Coffee & Tea on Lake Avenue
• A lot of my friends live close-by.

But the reason I moved to Glendale in the first place was because living in Pasadena got a little too pricey for me. But a friend of mine recently moved to a rather nice-looking Pasadena apartment in the Playhouse District for not too much of a month’s rent, so I’m hoping I can do the same. It *is* a buyer’s market after all these days….!

SUGGESTIONS ON WHERE TO LIVE FROM PEOPLE I’VE TOLD
Eagle Rock
Pasadena (by me)
Burbank
Korea town

And take a look at the typo in this email I got from a girl I told at Lindygroove:

Hey Stuart,

Are you still looking for a place to rent? The bedroom in my apt will be free at the end of June for $550.00 not including utilities.

O WILL IT NOW???

Anti-April Fools

April Fool’s Day is one of the few ‘holidays’ that I don’t enjoy because I think it’s inherently mean-spirited.

I know that the pranks pulled on this day are supposed to be “all in good fun” but I don’t think a lot of people really understand what that means. To me, it means “everyone finds it funny,” not “everyone *but you* finds it funny.”

And call me ‘uptight,’ but I just don’t find those kinds of things funny. I guess it’s kind of a sore spot with me.

A GOOD APRIL FOOL’S JOKE: a guy announces he’s pregnant. (ridiculous)

A BAD APRIL FOOL’S JOKE: a girl announces she’s pregnant. (plausible)

So yeah, that’s my “beef” with April Fools Day. But give me Pi Day, (3/14) Talk like a Pirate Day (9/19), or any of those other ‘holidays’ that people celebrate *just because* and I’m your man.

In any case, I thought I’d do post some Anti-April Fooling news and just update you all on some new happenings in my life:

• My brother called me the other day and mentioned he’s coming to L.A. to visit for a week. He’s coming the last week of April (26th – 30th?). Gonna try and see if I can take a day off that week so we can do the “family bonding” thing.
  
• Been trying to find some companies / non-profit orgs that are looking for volunteers. This will be my way of slowly ‘trying to find a new job’ if things don’t change at my current one soon.
  
• Evan is moving out come June 2010 so I’m beginning to look for a new place to live / a new roommate to take his place. My ideal area would be “Eagle Rock” / “Highland Park” (in the middle of everywhere I want to be) but I’m just worried about being able to afford a place on my own if I can’t find a roommate.
  
• I have no idea if that short film script I wrote will ever be produced. My director friend is turning out to be flaky as hell & might even be moving since she got accepted into several film schools outside L.A.

Okay, that’s enough for now.

TRY NOT TO BE AN @$$ ON APRIL FOOL’S DAY, OKAY???
Kthx.