a few of my old myspace blogs...

Sometimes I think I'm a dinosaur...
Sometimes I wonder if the fantasy is better than the reality. Sometimes, the exquisite bliss of living in a dream surpasses the need to know. It has been said that; It hurts to love someone and not be loved in return, but what is the most painful is to love someone and never find the courage to let the person know how you feel.

I am a firm believer of the perception is reality mindset, especially when it comes to how I perceive myself, but i have conflicted feelings when it comes to matters of love. Sometimes I find myself attracted to, and longing for, people that I perceive as unobtainable, whether they are or not doesn't matter as my perception dictates my reality; if i see them as unobtainable then they are unobtainable.

I think about it a lot.

I think unrequited love is a beautiful thing, but I'm sure reciprocated love could be even better.

Sometimes I think I'm a dinosaur.


quotes
"The person who tries to live alone will not succeed as a human being. His heart withers if it does not answer another heart. His mind shrinks away if he hears only the echoes of his own thoughts and finds no other inspiration." Pearl S. Buck

Don't ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive. Howard Thurman

It hurts to love someone and not be loved in return, but what is the most painful is to love someone and never find the courage to let the person know how you feel. Unknown

The problem with writing a deep, meaningful blog on myspace is when...
you spend over two hours writing, no make that "composing" a new blog and when you go to post it the blog has "timed out" on you? Erasing everything you've written. One more example of why I hate technology. A journal, aka a pad and a pen never times out on you. Here is my revised list of stuff that bugs me.

1. Cell Phones and Phones in general, I hate them, I know hate is a strong word but in this case it's not strong enough.

2. Modern Technology, we have a new "fax" machine at work, to send a fax you have to first scan the document, send it to your computer and then e-fax it. In ye olden tymes you could type in the phone number and hit send.

3. People that say "going green" or "reduce my carbon footprint" usually I throw my hand in their face and say "whateverrrrrr!!!" that usually shuts them up pretty fast.

4. People that drive a Toyota Prius, have you seen how these people drive? In parking lots they go 1 mph so they can run on stealth mode, on the freeway they go 120 mph. Prius owners... are you really "above the law"?

5. People that are 420 friendly. I'm sorry, I'm too tired to go into detail on this one.

6. "Burners" aka Burning Man Attendees, if you have EVER said "Burning Man" and "changed my life" in the same sentence you need help. Try doing volunteer work, that will change your life and actually make a difference.

7. Politicians, here's the Readers Digest version, you have MONEY in your pocket, politicians want to get it out of your pocket, the end.

8. Taxes, you make money? Income Tax! You spend money? Sales Tax! You save money? Interest? Taxable Income! I think we should abolish Income Tax.

fashion guycons...

You'd never guess by looking at me but I do have an eye for, and, an appreciation of, all things stylish. I'm working on becoming more stylish myself as I'm sick of being a "one pair of shoes, jeans and a t-shirt" kind of guy. I hope to dovetail my style makeover with my new health and fitness regimen... which starts on Monday... I mean it this time! I have a few guy style icons I admire, I call them "Guycons" These guycons are people I consider to be proper gents, stylish and worthy of emulation or at least my respect. They've sported looks which no doubt will influence my clothing purchases in the near future. (regular readers will notice I've already forgotten about my financial concerns as discussed just yesterday).
Steve McQueen is, without a doubt, the King of Cool. He liked cars, motorbikes, did his own stunts (most of them), made some great films and was one sharp dressed dude. McQueen was also fond of PERSOL sunglasses, BARACUTA jackets and desert boots. If you haven't seen BULLITT filmed in SF, see clip, the GREAT ESCAPE or the original THOMAS CROWNE AFFAIR you need to get on netflix and cue 'em up.
Daniel Craig is officially my favorite Bond, I know there are probably Sean Connery fans out there, maybe even a Pierce Brosnan fan, that would disagree but Craig has brought some much needed life to the James Bond genre and... he's the same age as me. I KNOW!!! I don't know whether to thank him for inspiring me or hate him for making me look bad?!

money and dating...

Another unplanned day off tomorrow, not enough work, people are not showing up for their appointments. I need a plan, for either making more money or to save more of the money I make. Sometimes I think about advertising on craigslist for a room-mate, I'm sure there are plenty of other people in a situation similar to mine, two people living in a studio would make things overly cozy I reckon. The majority of my money goes to rent, then eating out on a near daily basis, lunch in SF is typically $8, dinner is usually close to $20 when you add sodas and a tip. As you can imagine, it adds up fast.

It's not easy to save money though, being a single guy, I want to go out, be social, go on dates, all of which requires spending copious amounts of cash. I know what I need to do, scale back, I'm just not ready/don't want to yet. I probably should mention that I signed up for "just one more month" of yahoo personals. I wasn't going to, the endless hours searching through profiles soaked up a lot of time but, what else did I have to do? Update myspace? Facebook? Playstation? (i need a life, i just re-read this post) This time around though I'm trying something different, I'm going to see if anyone initiates contact with me. So far one chick has and that was today. By the way, I refer to the gentler sex as; women, chicks, girls and occasionally ladies. Generally, chicks and girls are interchangeable terms for women OVER the age of 18. I pretty much reserve the use of "ladies" and "lady" for married women... or senior citizens... or royalty... or someone I'm not interested in dating. However, it doesn't apply to women in the 18-24 year old age group, I guess they would be chicks also but, again, not what I would consider as belonging to my dating pool. I know this is confusing for some so here are some pics;

In this pic we have 3 women "CHICKS and GIRLS" that I would consider dating.













This is a "LADY". She is married, a senior citizen and royalty, a trifecta of my dating deal breakers, she is not someone I'd be interested in.

Hope that helps.

my weekend...

Saturday night; i went out to Annie's social hall on Saturday night with my buddy Dave, i knew it was joy division/cure night but what i didn't realise there would be tribute bands! I've been craving some live music for ages! i backed out of several gigs lately; "stereolab", "the bird and the bee" and "this charming band" so i was really ready to get my fix. i call them tribute bands and not cover bands because the lead singers "became" Ian Curtis and Robert smith, the Robert smith dude was pre-bloated Robert smith (in case you need me to paint a mental picture for you), it was really really good and, i got there in time to hear my fave JD tune "transmission", i think that's what it's called. the other entertainment for the evening was co-worker/associate Jeff, when sober he is funny as hell, but faded he's a whole different person, in between songs, after the applause had died down, he insisted on voicing his opinions on the band; "these guys suck!", "the singer has no energy!" etc. to avoid being guilty by association i vacated to the bar. it turned out to be an amazing night.

Sunday night my friend came over, I made dinner and we watched the Monica Vitti film, it was pretty good, there was a few scenes which i found to be pointless or at the very least longer than they needed to be, pretty much any scene shot in the stock market building was unnecessary and added nothing to the film, but, i did like the way the rest of it played out, Italy in the early 60s is a trip, architecturally speaking. The style back then was amazing, men in suits and Vitti looking drop dead gorgeous as always. my friend didn't care for the film much, which is now the second film I've picked out that she didn't like, the first one being Godard's "Le chinoise", which actually was a complete turd of a film.

Monday... today i met up with Dave for brunch, Dave, by the way, is my best friend here in the City, so you'll be hearing about him quite a bit as we run around a lot. anyway, we had a nutritious and delicious brunch at IHOP on Lombard street, we had a good time talking about our usual topics of conversation, women being one recurring topic. our waitress was this unconventionally beautiful Russian chick; "Natalya". i kinda think eastern European (Hungarian, Czech, Ukrainian, Polish, Russian etc.) women are gorgeous, especially in a no nonsense, take no shit, keep me in line, let's roll our sleeves up and get it done, kinda way. we tried to guess what her hobbies and interests were, Dave came up with "disassembling and reassembling world war one rifles" and i came up with "separating wheat from chaff" we were pissing ourselves laughing. there were others but... you had to be there.

new camera...

This is a view of my living room, the doorway leads into the diningroom and then into the kitchen, the bookshelf on the left was the ultimate sidewalk find. On the bookshelf is one of my most favorite things, a wood block clock, I'll add a pic of it at a later time, (no pun intended).



This time the pic is taken from the doorway, the large artwork was done by an amazing Fresno artist named Aurora. She is on myspace and does commissioned work, she is working on another piece for me.



I took this pic this morning on the drive to work, this is northbound on the Golden Gate Bridge.



I work at a Vespa scooter dealership as a mechanic, we also sell exotic cars, I love my job!



The tunnel heading back towards San Francisco.


This is the toolboth to enter SF from the Golden Gate Bridge. If you're from the North Bay or East Bay there's a $6 or $5 cover charge for coming in to enjoy our beautiful city.








this is moi.

how was your life today?

1. Slightly under the weather for the first few hours at work, Coronas with Lemon will do that to you.
2. Listened to my AIR playlist all evening.
3. Had many emails to write but not feeling creative, see number 1.
4. Found some pictures of Francoise Hardy I hadn't seen before, saved them and posted them up on myspace.
5. Made plans for Sunday and Monday.
6. Zoned out on fashion blogs. See blog list to the right.
7. Stayed up far too late again, craving some structure.

How is your life today?

frequent your local library, it's awesome!

My library rocks! I flew over there (Ortega Ave. Branch) this morning on my Vespa and on one small spinner rack I found so much good stuff! I'm so stoked! I picked up "The Red Balloon" aka "Le Ballon Rouge" by Albert Lamorisse, I saw a clip of this movie set to some tunes by a band called "Explosions in the Sky", actually I'll attach it to this post so you can see it. I cannot watch it without bawling my eyes out, sometimes things are just so beautiful I can't help it.

Another film I picked up was Michelangelo Antonioni's "L'Eclisse", all I know about this film is it's about the difficulties of finding connections in an increasingly mechanized world, and Monica Vitti is the star and I think she is h-o-t. Also picked up today was "La Vie En Rose" a movie about the life of Edith Piaf and finally "The Man who loved Women" by Truffaut who happens to be one of my favorite directors. 4 movies, 7 days, ZERO dollars. That's how to have fun in a recession.

no news is good news... no?, wait, what???!

The depressed economy finally made it's way into my life today. Work at the shop has been very light for the past few weeks, but there's always been something needed done, until today, I was sent home early and told to not bother coming in tomorrow. Hmm... I already missed a day and a half because I was sick. Finances are going to be tight for a while so now I'll have to curb my spending; no more lunches at Macha, and no more eating out, unless it's a special occasion like a date with a gal or brunch on Sunday with my buddy Dave. I'm also cancelling my trip to Fresno this weekend. Ok, tomorrow I will actually eat out for breakfast, it's been months since Ive stopped in at Double Team Coffee for a bacon, egg and cheese bagel.

I'm glad I don't watch the news or read the paper. I am conducting my own little experiment, instead of me keeping track of current events I'm going to let the news find me, seriously!, I want to know what topics are talked about enough that they reach me without any involvement on my part. Here's what has happened to find me; we now have a black president and Jessica Simpson has a weight problem. Oh and a helicopter crashed in Scotland and everbody survived. I can't believe Jessica has a weight problem!

On my day off I'm heading over to the Ortega Branch of the public library, they have a dvd of "The Eclipse" (1962) starring Monica Vitti, you can't beat a free movie rental! Laundry is done, apartment is clean... what am I going to do?

the durango 95 purred away real horrorshow...

distractions that are consuming my time and thoughts... facebook; kinda like myspace but without all the glitter and bells and whistles, but, fb is truly evil, it goes deep and intertwines itself with your everyday life, clicking on your individual items reveals who else in your network shares that interest, activity or fave music etc. with you, as Rob at work put it "that's some crazy big brother shit".

myspace, i dunno, i still love myspace, simply because I can save my fave vids from youtube and dailymotion. lately my myspace page looks more like a francoise hardy fan page than anything else. i personally think myspace went down several notches when they stopped allowing playlists from playlist.com

yahoo personals, wow! this website was such a timesponge! don't get me wrong, i learned a lot about human nature and how to view relationships during my one month membership (which i just cancelled by the way) and i would recommend it to everybody, but my gawd, it is work! (but well worth it).

music that changed my life...

The first tune I ever remember hearing that made me pay attention was "Rock and Roll, Part 2" by Gary Glitter, I think it came out in 1973 or something which would make me about 4 years old, it was such a hard, tough, here comes trouble kinda tune, very repetitve and the lyrics were very easy to remember even for a 4 year old. All I know is that when I was wee I wanted to have that as my theme song when I walked into a room. It transports me to a place we lived in called Wester Hailes, a suburb of Edinburgh, Scotland, which, at the time seemed like a cool place, but it became such a drug infested shithole they demolished the entire neighborhood we used to live in.


"Rebel Rebel" by David Bowie was the next tune that made the hair on my neck stand up, the guitar riff at the start is amazing! I remember seeing Bowie on a t.v. show called The Old Grey Whistle test, a music show on BBC2 late at night. His two different eyes were "mental" I thought.


I never considered music to be sexual, sensual or raunchy, (why would I when I was a kid right?) until I heard Donna Summer sing "Love to Love You Baby". NEVER have I sat and listened to each word so intently in my life until I heard her moan the lyrics to this tune. It's still hot, she's still hot and it still gets me hot.


Another tune by Donna Summer, "I Feel Love" she may have felt it, but I didn't, I was completely entranced by the techno! I was starting to dig music, really dig it, I had heard the future and it was drum machines and synths.

"Sex and Drugs and Rock and Roll" by Ian Dury & the Blockheads what a sweet tune, for a crusty old punk this little ditty had it all stated clearly in its title. Clever lyrics all sung by somebody that was my Dads age. Wicked!


Bee Gees singing "Saturday Night Fever" this was what it took to be a man and get the chicks; great hair, FAT medallion, a white three piece suit with flared trousers. Why couldn't I have been of age when the disco wave crested?!??


Another tune that cemented the "future of all music for me was "The Model" by KRAFTWERK, holy crap! I fell in love with music once I heard this, techno, REAL TECHNO which is spelled k-r-a-f-t-w-e-r-k, became my identity for the next four years of my life, every album, every 12inch remix by these guys became daily listening for me, and when I got bored listening to it at regular speed I would speed it up or slow it down, surely there was a secret message hidden in here somewhere?


"Cars" by Gary Numan this tune was thee trump techno tune in my vinyl arsenal, what could possibly make techno any better? A techno tune about CARS! that's what. I learned to dance to this tune and I still use those very dance steps to this day.


The tune by one hit wonders M rates high on important tunes, "Pop Muzik". Remember this one? "new york, london, paris, munich, everbody talk about; pop muzik!" Techno was about to fall flat on it's face, "real" instruments were needed, if only somebody could blend guitars with a drum machine, some haunting backing lyrics song by a hottie in a leotard, biting lead vocals and a catchy whistle for a chorus....

That itch was scratched by Peter Gabriels "Games without Frontiers" What an amazing tune, this was when I realised music could really be deep and have layers and be political or... something.


ANY SONG BY THE SMITHS, enough said.


"I Wanna Be Adored" by The Stone Roses. Phenominal piece of work, I thought for the longest time he was saying "I wanna be your dog, you'll adore me" I was close. The Stone Roses kept getting better and better too. The lead singers solo stuff is pretty good too. This tune reminds me of high school.


Quite possibly the ultimate soundtrack when realising the romance is over has to go to The Sundays "Here's Where the Story Ends" the vocals, lyrics, it all just fits.


"Missing" is one of those songs I'd hope a chick would put on a mix tape for me. Everything But the Girl are one of my fave bands when I'm feeling melancholy, chicks never made mix tapes for guys though did they? They did?!!


Does anyone remember Skee-Lo? I'm not a fan of rap or hip hop or urban or R'n'B but I LOVED this tune; "I Wish". Remember? "I wish I was a little bit taller, I wish I was a baller, I wish I had a girl who looked good I would call her" Oh come on people! It was an instant classic! Give it a listen and all of a sudden your transported to L.A. in the summertime... yo.

Ok, how about The New Radicals "You Get What You Give"? Another band that packed it in before getting started, this track brings a tear to my eye even today.


"Maps" by the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, is a love song that should be considered perfect, nothing is more beautiful than unrequited love. I should know. I was turned on to the YYY's by an ex-girlfriend who also schooled me on another great band on this list;


Interpol, anything from the album "Turn On the Bright Lights".


Blur is another great band, but, for reasons unknown to me right now I'm going to pass them up and give "Feel Good Inc." by Gorillaz a mention, dreamy, trippyand fun to dance to. Completely different from anything ever done, correct me if I'm wrong.



"Young Folks" by Peter, Bjorn and John. Effin' great! Music was fun and simple again, this tune totally reminds me of when I first moved to the City, it was an exciting time, buzzing 24 hours a day.


"Ice Cream" by New Young Pony Club was the first tune I loved and latched onto when I returned solo to S.F. Fun, fun, kinda sexy and fun. But enough about me, let's get back to the music hahaha.


Ok, so, I need to wrap up this list, keep in mind that it's not an exhaustive compendium of all the music that meant something to me, just the ones I felt like sharing, ok? Finally, one last good dancey fun track for you to google, if you like electro clash, and I know you do, you owe it to yourself to give "Shut Up and Let Me Go" by The Ting Tings a listen, funky guitars, disco cymbal work and jangly lyrics. A scenester anthem for the ages.

learn from my mistakes...

A month or so ago, when I was out and about, I ran into a girl I kinda sorta knew and I kinda sorta liked. We danced a bit, talked a bit and we exchanged phone numbers. We went out on a few dates and things were going really good, then one night it went sideways. I was out at a club, New Wave City, or 1984, but anyway, I was out, I'd been drinking, I liked this girl I'd been dating and, at 2:20am I get my phone out and proceed to text the following message to her; "do you want to come over?" yeah, I know right? NICE ONE TOM!

So as you can imagine that was that. I woke up next morning and cringed as I looked through the sent messages, hoping that it had happened in a dream, no such luck. Ashamed I emailed an apology; no reply, I called and left a message, no call back. It was then I knew I needed to rethink everything I thought I knew about dating and I joined yahoo personals.

lazy sunday...

I stayed up kinda late last night, I've had the flu all week, actually the flu part only lasted 2 days and the rest of the time has been recovery from the flu, but, it did allow me to rest and get caught up on much needed sleep, for weeks I was running on 6 hours a night, which, on occassion isn't all that bad but when it becomes the norm it quickly can turn into bad news, zits, dark circles, lethargy etc. So I slept a lot.

I had brunch today with my friend. We went to Flippers at Hayes and Octavia and I had my usual "morning charge" which was promptly followed half an hour later with a "morning blast", just kidding, it was delicious as always. She told me about the big Valentines pillow fight down by the waterfront, sounded like a lot of fun, I wish I had gone, the weather has been pretty wet lately, raining pretty good for the last 2-3 days, I figured there wouldn't be much of a turn out or it'd get cancelled, she showed me all the pics, feathers everywhere! Seriously it looked like snow. I gave her a homemade Valentines card and a gift. I had a t-shirt made for her like the one worn by Jean Seberg in ABOUT de SOUFFLE, and it came in pizza box. I had it done at a store on Haight street called "BANG ON" See above pic.

I spent a lot of time thinking about personal relationships in the past week and I'm thinking that it's best for me to live in the moment, to recognise and enjoy good times while they are happening, this might not be groundbreaking news for some people, but for me it's world changing. There's no past, no future, just now. Before I would sometimes find myself, in the middle of doing some activity, and I would be asking myself; "ok, what's next?" Everything is temporary and whether I'm listening to music, watching a film, listening to the rain, shopping with friend or on a date with a pretty girl, wherever I'm at, whatever I'm doing, I know; it doesn't get any better! It's an awesome state of mind.