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Live a Little-- Don't Just Sit There!! |
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August 22 Finally!! Something to Blog About...Not like I had surgery or anything like that.
Or my belly button being stored in a jar in some patholgy dept.
Or getting a Wii & making some cool characters.
Or seeing the group ABC for the umpteenth time.
Or getting prime box seats for free to see RUSH.
Or learning some new tunes on the guitar to jam with the boys.
Or getting not one, but two (2) HDTV's.
Or test driving a Mini-Cooper with my buddy Ruben & his wife Lissette.
Or reuniting aforementioned Ruben with Jorge after 28 years.
Or Miguel's upcoming nuptuals to Sara.
Or my liver's actually working better after my illness.
Or having to remove XP Service Pack 3 from my system 'cuz it slowed everything up.
Or hearing from Bob, Valerie, Joane, & Paul <-- (all friends from different stages of this thing we call life)
Or getting sappy forwarded E-mails from my sister.
Or...
Or...
Or...
Oh man, I guess I don't have a whole lot to blog about after all...
So a little something to look forward to-- August 20 An "almost" updateIts late & I have to go to bed soon, lousy job-thing!!
A quick update is at my inaccessible-long-forgotten-recently-rediscovered other page at http://360.yahoo.com/leoliar1
At least I didn't have to endure more cheesy 80's concerts 'cuz ABC didn't tour the US this summer. Don't get me wrong, I actually enjoy watching Martin & the boys jam. It's the other bands that usually play after ABC leaves the stage that are as irritating & annoying as Celine Dion doing a cover of AC/DC's "You Shook Me All Nite Long". Go ahead, look it up on youtube, have a barf bag handy. Don't say I didn't warn ya!
Anyway, I'm embedding a video for the first time, see how it goes..
April 30 Update Coming SoonWill post new entry & photos soon - stay tuned...
(Oh no.. ABC is coming to the Orange County Fair... that's a whole different rant!!) September 30 We Gotta Stop Meeting Like This...Edit 10-4:
Added links to Alice's pages, added Hollywood Bowl Photo Album, added some pics to New Digital Cam Album
Thanks to Ang, we've managed to run into Martin Fry & various members of the band ABC at least 3 times over the last year or so.
They're probably sick of us by now, but they're too polite to say so. They just tell us that they gotta go, they're behind schedule, etc.
Well, anyway, we made some new friends last weekend in Hollywood, where the Totally 80's show was the big event at the Hollywood Bowl. Both Alice & Chrissy were a blast to meet & chat with at "The Pig & Whistle" on Sunset Blvd. Too bad we couldn't all sit together for the show. Gotta say this: whoever planned the parking area for the Hollywood Bowl should be doing hard time in Gitmo. Unfortunately, the only band I had any interest in seeing was opening the show, & I would most likely have to sit through the dreck of the Psychedelic Furs & the Human League. I just sat there, hoping the Justice League would come & rescue me after the ABC set.
One thought that kept crossing my mind during the Psychedelic Furs' set was "How in the world do people get together to deliberately write the suckiest lame uninspired slog & pass it off as music?" And people actually pay for this!! Richard Butler, the lead singer, phoned in his performance while squirming in his iron lung. He looked as excited as a Rabbi during Ramadan. Definitely didn't win me over. It has to get better than this. At least the Human League had a flashier set, but Phil Oakey's getup led me to believe he was trying to emulate Hellraiser's Pinhead stuck in a lame Matrix sequel. The only song of theirs that I really enjoyed was "Electric Dreams" mainly 'cuz I knew it was the end of the show & the 80's music regurgitation was over for now.
So after the show, we met up with our new friends & ended up at the artist entrance where Jane Wiedlin, who emcee'd the show, was signing autographs. While Ang got her to sign our program, I went off to find Martin Fry & caught up with him for a moment. The cool part was that when I called out to him, he looked over & I caught the instant he recognized me on film. He asked if Ang was there & I told him she was getting Jane's autograph. I asked him if he'd be back near where we were, & he said "Yeah", so I said "OK!! See you later!!" & ran back to show Ang the pic I had just taken. She didn't belive me at first, but it didn't takelong to convince her. In the meantime, Courtney Love (gag) entered the artist's area with a friend & her bodyguard. It didn't take her long to leave. When she left, it looked like she was walking diagonally.
Well, after awhile, Martin & his assistant finally appeared & we went over & said hello & blah & blah & blah. You know, the good ol' "Great Show!" "Get a Pic?" "Sign this?" stuff that I know he gets from fans wherever he performs. The cool thing about Martin is that when he remembers certain fans he devotes a little face time & conversation beyond the "Thanks for coming out" greeting that all fans get when they meet Martin or any of the guys in the band. He also reads some of the fan blogs that are tied to the ABC myspace page.
So we got a few more pictures of Ang with Martin & a few group pics. The pics are somewhere here & Alice's are here and Here.
At the end of the show itself, my rating for the evening was 1 of 5 stars.
At the end of the night, my rating for the evening was 3 of 5 stars. Thanks Martin. Thanks Alice. Thanks Crissy (Where's Jack & Janet?) Thanks Nikki. Who knows when we'll all get together again? Apart from the awful "music", I really did enjoy the short time getting acquainted. Only time will tell.
April 10 Hello Again..Yeah, it's been awhile, just need to update my page. I re-arranged the layout & set a new theme. Also uploaded a bunch of pics in the Digital Cam folder. Been working alot with Screenblast Movie Studio 3.0 & doing lots of cool stuff. I was watching some old WHO videos & noticed that they sounded a little fast, so I was able to re-sync them using the actual MP3 of the song. I was also able to match an old live music video to a cassette soundtrack, even though they were recorded at different speeds. It's pretty awesome!
Been also jammin' with Jorge. Man, he's good. I need to learn more songs!!
We're gonna go see ABC next month. I can't believe I'm actually looking forward to it!!
A very belated congratulations to my "Jedi"** niece Rebecca on her engagement to Jared. Yup, that Jared, he's one fine young man, he is. Looks like ya finely reeled him in!! Yup, you did!!
** - She was christened a Jedi-Baby because she was born on the day "Return of the Jedi" was released in 1983.
That rant below came from hearing a lousy 80's song on the radio. That's all - I needed to vent. Commentary: The 80's - An Abysmal DecadeWhat can be said about the worst music ever to disgrace the airwaves? Yeah, I'm referring to that cable TV aberration known as MTV. Yes, they started out on a noble note when they aired a concert every Saturday might at 8pm. The very first one was the fantastic (now hard to find) "Rush - Exit.. Stage Left" which introduced many to exquisite musicianship. What could've been a great opportunity to visually showcase the great & exciting music up to that time (1982), MTV quickly became a petree dish for cheesiness that emphsized style over substance, glam over natural talent. We began to be deluged to constant doses of Culture Club, Wall of Vodoo, Dead or Alive, Gary Numan, Art of Noise, Souxie & the Banshees, among others. It seemed like any group of posers with a programmable Casio keyboard & a video camera could get their video on MTV. Lousy videography, worse songs, & a sense of entitled self-importance & relevance dominated the channel with euro-trashy arrogance. Sure, there were some bright spots, Duran Duran made some fairly decent videos, ABC had a pretty good production team (with Trevor Horn), Rush stayed productive, Pink Floyd limped back into exsistence, Cyndi Lauper (although cheesy at the time) not only broke out with "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun" <-- Cheese factor of 11, but gave us "Time After Time" & "True Colors" which have stood the test of time. Michael Jackson, back when he was still afro-american, broadened the vision of the emerging video industry by incorporating real feature film directors. Yes, it was promising. Instead, we mainly remember the 80's with echoes of "Come On Eileen", "Too Shy", or Men Without Hats doing the "Safety Dance". Truly prophetic, Video really did kill the Radio Star. August 20 It's about time..Sorry I haven't had the time to update lately, so much going on at the homefront & at work.
First off, we had a great time during Miguel's visit. So great, in fact, that we decided to pay him & Sara a little visit during that time of the year commonly referred to as "Thanksgiving". That'll teach them to live in the same state, HA!
During Miguel's visit, he picked Sam up in Escondido & drove him up to our place where we proceded to go to a friend's house in Fountain Valley where the garage is set up like a music studio with drums, mikes, amps, the works. We had a healthy little jam, and although Sam hadn't played in a group setting in a long time, he hung in there pretty well. Our friend Phil is always a great anchor & a pretty solid musician so he helped Sam quite a bit. Too bad Miguel was so out of it from all that driving that he tuckered out in the middle of the whole thing & had to lie down for a while. Miguel is an excellent guitar player but that day he had trouble dialing in his equipment so it was always too loud or too soft. All in all, a pretty good jam considering we haven't played music together in years, & I had my first real taste at playing drums. We ended the night with our rendition of "Sounds of Silence", which came out better than usual, just to impress my brothers. (Whether they were impressed or not, I don't really care).
Every time Miguel & I get together, this wierd chemistry just kind of erupts & the jokes and wisecracks start flying in all directions. Sam was totally overwhelmed & lightheaded from laughing so hard. I honestly think he hasn't really had a life-altering, bowel-cleansing laugh in a loooooonnnnnggg time. Imagine an interview of Paul Jr talking about Sam on American Chopper : "To be honest, I didn't think we could get him to wet himself at all, being that he's so high strung, but once his younger brothers started building on the comments & wisecracks... well, we couldn't stop the car fast enough to let him out so he could let his pants drip themselves dry. It worked out better than we could've possibly imagined.. Dad's really gonna be pleased..."
One of Miguels funnier lines came later on the way home, we were discussing this trailer-park-type girl in Riverside we used to know in the early 80's who had a boyfriend in jail, but always called our house to talk to Sam. I answered the phone one day (people claim we all sound alike) to hear her exclaim "Guess what!!" so I replied "Your boyfriend escaped" then I gave Sam the phone....
Anyway, we were discussing where or what or how many kids from different guys later this girl may be up to by now, when Miguel concluded that she's probably a "Fluffer for Death Row".
 It was at this point that I nearly had to stop the car for fear of spontaneous combustion on my part. It's Miguel's irrepressible deviant wit that makes life interesting sometimes. We should all pool our resources & get Sara a lifetime supply of valium. OK, let's move on, shall we?
 Since before last Christmas, I'd been looking for ways to digitze video into the computer to finish a family project that had been in the works since 1991. A less-than-adequate version was completed earlier this year, but I still wasn't satisfied with the overall quality. Once the proper equipment was available, the true vision for this project started taking shape. Some additional footage was added & a new sequence emerged which was more well-rounded & more inclusive as well as more in-depth as to how our family relates to one another as a whole. This new version of the video was premiered at the annual July family gathering & overall got a fantastic response from everyone who was able to attend. I created a small photo album with a few vidcaps of the video where Marcos can't remember the words to a song, & where I'm having some fun at Sam's expense.We recently picked up a Canon SD400 digital camera.
 It's pretty sweet. Angela really REALLY needs this so she can drool over the Martin Fry pics I'm gonna shoot at next week's ABC concert at the House of Blues in Anaheim. Well, at least I get a cool camera out of it. I think its like the one Jared received from his parents at his graduation. Speaking of Jared..
Welcome Home, man!! You're definitely a bigger man than I could ever claim to be. Spending a month in Kabul, Afghanistan to upgrade a hospital's record-keeping system is deifinitely & infinitely more gutsy than playing chickenhawk in a phony photo-op ranch in Crawford. Here's to you (and Becca) !!
    Joke of the Day : Why did the Chickenhawk cross the road? To avoid having to answer for his failed foreign policy. Ok, so its no laughing matter. That's all I'm going to say about that.
These past few weeks have been a bit wierd. Our regular supermarket recently rearranged all the aisles & registers & now all us regular patrons have to re-learn how the layout of the store is supposedly more convenient to find everything we need. It turns out some efficiency experts were hired to "improve the flow" so to speak. Where there once were spacious check out aisles, now they are crunched together & are extremely difficult to get through. All the food aisles are arranged in an illogical way, I just can't understand why the cake mixes & frosting were seperated from the cake pans. It's like that throughout the store. For the last 2 months, our grocery shopping time has doubled from 45-50 min. to 90-100 mins. Because we still haven't re-learned where everything is. That's pretty %^&^*!@ convenient!!
Same thing just happened to our Boston Market. They had this very efficient system there, but NOOOOOOOO...!!
Their bosses had their main counter torn out & installed a half-counter where employees have to struggle over. Yeah, that' s better!! I asked some of the employees if they liked it, & was told that even after a few weeks of the new setup, long-time employees were considering leaving out of frustration, all because their bosses deliberately broke the system that worked for them. What is it with efficiency experts anyway? They have no real skill so they contract themselves out at top dollar to make life difficult for those who have a skill or two & have streamlined their own jobs to better deliver their product to customers/bosses. So there are these pencil-pushing dimwits who have no clue about what you do & why you do it come in & tell you that whatever it is you're doing, it's wrong, & how you could improve on doing something they know absolutely nothing about. Get a real job & leave us alone!!
(cough cough, ahem, not a - um - commentary on what's - um - been going on at work these past few weeks - cough cough!)
Thank you for your support!!
Tune in real soon for the next episode titled: "The Life of Brian" or "Brian's Brain" July 12 I Know it's Late, but..It was a good Birthday, & heard from just about everyone in my family, including my twin (from a different set of Parents) bro Ruben. He included his blog address in his E-mail, so with his permission I'm including it in my new "Friends" links on the left-hand side of the page. There you can read a bit about the extremely difficult year they've had & how true faith can move mountains. I really admire them for their strength of will & courage in the face of adversity. There are times that I am glad that I have friends like Ruben & Jorge, we can pretty much discuss anything no matter how much time passes between conversations.
Great- now I'm getting that cheesy Dionne Warwick & Friends song playing in my head: "That's what friends are for"
  Anyway -- check out Jorge's blog entry for July 4, it's pretty cool the way he incorporates Google maps with his photography.
This guy's incredibly creative with his smarts!
Everyone have a great week! I'm really looking forward to Miguel's visit next week. We're gonna jam guitars again!! Yea!! June 28 Sometimes Summer Comes Too Fast..It's that time of year when the kids get out of school, the Big Movies hit the theaters & the facial hair gets singed by a lightsabre (sp-saber?). My old buddy Jorge was kind enough to let me use his cool scanner to get some old negatives scanned. Unfortunately, it can only take 35mm film & not the old type126 from the 70's, so I may have to invest in the proper equipment for myself in the near future. So, there's a new photos folder with some 1987 pics of me with my cat Maynard, as well as some 1997 pics of Chris (my best man) & Poe (when we first rescued him from the street). I'm also including some cell phone cam pics taken two weeks ago at Ruthie the brat's Graduation as well as one comparison pic from my previous attempts at scanning negatives. I don't think I can upload animated GIF's otherwise I'd put up a trippy one I made over the weekend featuring MOI "Townshend" & Sammy "Daltrey" in an attempt at air guitar. It came out kinda cheesy & kinda cool at the same time. UPDATE -- As you can tell, it can definitely be uploaded. Oh--the humanity!!! Hide the children & re-gurgitate the paperclips!!
On a different note, now that summer is here, all these song clips that refer to summer bounce around my thick, empty head. Stuff like "Speak to me of Summer, long Winters longer than time can remember..." by Yes as well as Janis Jopiln's bluesy "Summertime, time - time, Child the living's easy, Fish are jumpin out", and Kansas' "The sun beats down upon me & it looks as though the spring has waited long enough to get here, she knows that I must sing about her future, or sing about her past, I love to play my music, & I try to make it last -- Sometimes Summer comes too fast..."
Any one is welcome to add to the Summer music jumbling through this "activity-challenged" brain of mine, just enter it in the comments!
I'll be looking forward to see if anyone actually plays along....
BTW-- Don't try this at home...
 June 07 Remembering RigoAt the facility where I work there is a pretty decent cafeteria, and over the years one gets to know the guys behind the different counters where they serve you a plate, or grill you a burger, make a salad or a burrito, depending on which counter you choose. A few years ago, a fairly young guy (about mid 20's) named Rigo worked behind the sandwich counter & was very good at what he did. By good, I mean quick as well as getting your order just right. As time goes by, some cafeteria workers transfer in & out, & Rigo eventually got caught in the revolving door. This was about five or six years ago. Their replacements eventually become familiar faces in our daily rountines. A couple of weeks ago, as I was ordering a chicken wrap from Jose (one of the current cafeteria cooks) , he asks me (in Spanish): " Did you hear about Rigo Tovar? He just died.." Puzzled, I replied "You mean the guy who used to make me a mean turkey sandwich here?" Jose nearly fell flat on his face he started laughing so hard. Now I was REALLY confused. Ok, Rigo dies, & Jose is laughing. At Rigo? Or was it something I said? Roberta (the cashier) went behind Jose's counter to get a towel or something and Jose tells her what I said. Now Roberta has been at this cafeteria for as long as I can remember, so she knew who Rigo was. The moment Jose told her what I said she turns to me & starts laughing uncontrollably. Am I in the twilight zone? Rigo dies and people are laughing. Very strange. I got my lunch & left. A couple of days later, as the afternoon cleanup crew came by to empty the trash cans & clean the floor, I asked the guy emptying the trash if he ever heard of a guy named Rigo Tovar. "Oh sure," he replies in Spanish, "he just died." Hmm, Rigo the sandwich guy sure was popular. Could it be that in this very small world there could just maybe & possibly be another totally different guy that goes by the name of Rigo? "Who was this guy?" I asked, "he sure was popular..!" So the custodian guy proceeds to tell me that Rigo Tovar was a very popluar Mexican singer/songwriter/musician who happened to be blind. Kind of like Jose Feliciano. Hmm, now I kinda get it. The next day, I asked Jose to make me a chicken wrap "Rigo Tovar Style". Confused, he asked "How do I do that?" I quickly responded, "With your eyes closed." |
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