phamos

my sassy magazine collection is almost complete. i have every issue from january '92 through november '94 (after which it sold out) except for 4. march '92, november '92 (the one with mayim bialik dressed in the american flag -- i really want this), may '94 and june '94.

i also managed to amass some extra copies, as they were often sold on ebay in lots, so there was overlap. abby is going to be thanked for her hospitality in letting me stay at her place next week with a big honkin' stack of old sassys. i think she's going to be stoked.

here's the current rumored coachella lineup for this year. i think it's complete horseshit, because there's no way that in the year 2006 you're gonna get portishead AND massive attack on the same bill. but whatever. i'm going no matter what. i gotta converse with miss abby and see if she's planning to go -- i sure fucking hope so, cuz i don't want to drive out to the desert by myself. and jesus, i owe her so much money at this point from the last TWO years, it's not even funny. neither of us could remember if i ever paid her back for the hotel from the first year, but i'm pretty positive she never told me how much i owed her from last year, either, and i totally forgot about it until just recently. yikes. but the plan is, go to LA on friday the, uh, 28th or 29th or whatever, go to coachella saturday and sunday (the rumored sunday bill isn't as good, but if my boyfriend josh homme is there with eagles of death metal, i'm not missing it; but HAPPY MONDAYS? what year are we in anyway?), then stay for the week with my sister and help her with all the crazy wedding stuff -- then her wedding is the next sunday. there's my vacation for the year. (except when i get married and take my honeymoon -- i'm just going to take a leave of absence from work at that point or something, like when michael left to go on tour.)

ANYWAY, here's the rumor:

April 29: Depeche Mode, The Strokes, Portishead, Franz Ferdinand, Fatboy Slim, Massive Attack, Infected Mushroom, Royksopp, Kings of Leon, Doves, Sufjan Stevens, Broken Social Scene, Atmosphere, Blackalicious, Super Furry Animals, The Buzzcocks, Primal Scream, Supergrass, Ladytron, DJ Peretz, The Shins, Dieselboy, Tortoise, Sleater Kinney, Richard Hawley, Grooverider, Death From Above 1979, Yesterdays New Quintet, The Walkmen, Son Volt, Will Oldham, The Clientele, Lightning Bolt, Cage, The Crimea, OK Go, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, John Kelly

April 30: The White Stripes, Roxy Music (featuring Brian Eno), The Arcade Fire, Sigur Ros, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Boards of Canada, Underworld, Ween, Death Cab for Cutie, Armin Van Buuren, Built to Spill, De La Soul, Big Star, Iron & Wine, Uberzone, Happy Mondays, Dinosaur Jr, TV on the Radio, Elbow, Eagles of Death Metal, The Tears, Esthero, T. Rauschmiere, Cat Power, The New Pornographers, Carl Cox, Grandaddy, Calexico, Explosions in the Sky, The Wedding Present, Andy C, Fatlip, DJ Icey, The Notwist and Themselves preforming as 13 & God, Devendra Banhart, The Coral, Stateless, 65 Days of Static

the most blissful moment of the whole trip to pittsburgh? picture: driving home after the rowing trip, pitch black out, segev driving really aggressively and sneezing like crazy, me clutching my seat, terrible music playing on every radio station the whole way. suddenly, a radio station we'd never picked up before appears on the dial, playing "she's lost control". both of us just go, "oh, YEAH!" we listen to the whole song, totally psyched. segev's driving calms and his sneezing recedes. ian curtis is soothing us. after the song, the station goes to commercial, so i flip stations. on the next go-round of the dial, the station is gone as mysteriously as it came. no more signal, no more joy division, no nothing. it's as if the gods of manchester knew we needed a little relief just at that moment and smiled on us.

abby and i left LA at about 9:30 saturday morning and drove to palm springs. our hotel was really nice. we dropped our stuff and met up with chato (chado? i don't know.) and his friends kristy and matt, who were very nice. then we headed to the festival.

abby and i got a little punch drunk sitting in the giant line for parking. but we amused ourselves by inventing names for new adobe housing developments (bridgerock? stonestream? bridgestreamstone?). abby surprised me -- she had purchased me a new property, the kincaid residence (because my name really SHOULD be kincaid) where my horsies could enjoy fencie time. i would buy said horsies at the horse emporium. parking then involved walking and sweating and suddenly having to pee. so the first thing i did at the concert was use a porta pottie, which was surprisingly clean.

abby and i sat at the back of the outdoor stage and listened to the end of the stills set, which was good. abby didn't really know them before, but she liked them. we then ate some food and chilled in a shade tent. then she went off to explore and i stayed in the shade tent and listened to ...and you will know us by the trail of dead playing on the outdoor stage. i pretty much stayed at the outdoor stage all day. trail of dead were good, but they didn't play any of the songs i really liked, so i was kinda bummed. after trail of dead i actually went up to the stage and sat pretty close for death cab for cutie, who were good but pretty much sounded exactly like they do on the album, so not very exciting. but they actually DID play my two favorite songs, so YAY. after death cab i managed to meet up with amanda and steve by hot dog on a stick. it was virtually impossible to try and find people because the cell phone system was completely overwhelmed. but a text message got through to amanda and we got to see each other briefly. i was hoping to see them again at the pixies, but the crowd was just too huge to find them. abby also met us at hot dog on a stick and informed me that chato was puking at a nearby fence. brilliant idea, rolling in 107 degree weather and then eating a corn dog. so we sat at the edge of the fence with chato and kristy. they took off, though i know not where, and abby and i watched desert sessions on the outdoor stage. AMAZING. it was just such a great, mellow, fun, jammin' show, and the sun was going down, and everything was just so beautiful. abby and i both had this feeling of elation. that continued when, about halfway through desert sessions, we went to see the pixies. we got, mmm, ok seats, but it really didn't matter that we were mostly watching them on video screens because it was THE FUCKING PIXIES. they played just an amazing set. abby got goosebumps. frank black did this amazing feedback solo, where he set up all the guitars on stage by the amps and tuned them exactly right and played the pedals and strummed a guitar with a drumstick and just created this melodic swoop of feedback. it was a virtuoso performance of noise. the only thing that ruined it a little bit were the hoochie chicks standing in front of us. i came to think of them as tank top, halter top, and tube top. they had obviously never heard of the pixies before and had, like, come with their boyfriends or something, and they were dancing like they were at webster hall. me, abby, and the girls next to us just kept staring at them.

we were disappointed by radiohead. actually, i almost cried, i was so disappointed. they were just so...clean. it was obvious that we were watching the biggest rock band in the world, and that's not the radiohead i love. i don't love the radiohead that an entire crowd of fratboys jump up and down to. i wanted to see radiohead circa about '96, but it just doesn't exist anymore. i was happy to hear ed o'brien singing harmony at one point. but their new drummer is just so...poppy. and the loud beats from other stages kept drowning them out -- thom made the fantastic decision of playing a couple quiet acoustic songs and they sounded like disco remix radiohead. also, their lights and visuals were just so cheesy. they were obviously trying to be modern and edgy, but they just came off like a 2000s version of a journey light show. they also played a ton of stuff from their newest album, which i don't like very much and abby doesn't know at all. so, sadly, we left.

we were feeling very goofy by this point, so we kinda wandered. we saw a little bit of living legends, a rap group, at the outdoor stage, but they weren't very good. so we walked past mindless self indulgence and bought a hot pretzel (me) and a churro (abby), which we proceeded to scarf down faster than anything should really be eaten. we explored various light shows and art installations, and walked by da lata, heard some beats from the sahara tent, and then walked back the other way. abby started comparing coachella to burning man, and ruing the fact that there wasn't the same sense of community at this festival, no one just randomly walking up to people and having discussions about whatever they happened to be thinking about. we sat outside the mojave tent waiting for electric six. this one chubbyish asian kid with floppy hair and a totally shredded green t-shirt that was practically falling off of him (the overall look was very unattractive) came over and asked abby for a cigarette. he started raving about how awesome radiohead was, to which we just sort of nodded passively, and then started inquiring very loudly when kraftwerk started. we realized we had nothing to talk about with this kid. then, this other fratboyish guy came over and asked abby for a smoke. so abby decides to try and pull a burning man and says "only if you tell me something interesting." the guy just sort of looks at her blankly. she repeats herself with no response. so she sighs and asks "what was the most amazing thing you've experienced today." and the guy's immediate reaction is "radiohead," to which abby actually responded "wrong answer!" and pulled the cigarette away. but the guy was already correcting himself and said the pixies, so abby gave it to him. and then they proceeded to talk about something. i couldn't hear a word of it because electric six had started, so i just kept smiling blankly at the guy. the asian kid was still ranting about kraftwerk. we got away by going inside to dance to danger! high voltage. after that, i got a funnel cake and abby got a giant, suspect chicken kebob, and we sat in the shade tent then listened to kool keith at the outdoor stage. we grew bored quickly and decided to leave.

unfortunately, we left right when radiohead was getting out, so there was a huge exodus. first we couldn't find the car. there were two guys sitting on the back of their truck drinking beers who said to us and a couple other wandering people "good luck finding your cars. we'll be right here on ours." to which we sadly laughed. by willing around and aimlessly clicking the unlock button on her keys (which everyone else was doing too -- thousand of keys flailing through the air), abby finally found the car, to which we shrieked and jumped up and down and sorta sang with excitement. but then, of course, we got into the car, and pulled out into line, and proceeded to sit there. not moving. from the same spot. for an hour. we tried to amuse ourselves with whatever toys were in her car. i played with her jesus action figure and spun a disco ball in the light while singing "come sail away" by styx. so, after a very depressing conversation with chato where he said "yeah, we had no problem getting out, we're halfway back to the hotel," we gave up. abby and i put on a tortoise cd, pulled back into a parking spot, chilled for a couple minutes, then fell asleep in the car. i woke up when i heard a siren at 3 in the moring and the place was desolate. there was dust flying everywhere. we started driving, and it was like the earth had lost all parameters of time and space. as i said the next day "it was like infinity-o-clock." the tortoise playing on the stereo didn't help. but we did make it back to the hotel, where i ate pretzels and tried to get information about the headline "justice souter attacked" but was never enlightened. (i found out on monday morning that it wasn't politically motivated or anything.) and then, we went to sleep, around 5 a.m., to get ready for the next day of the festival.

to be continued. DUN DUN DUHHHNNNN!

well, well, well. in my absence, simi has learned how to climb up onto the kitchen counter and into the sink. this will be problematic when segev gets home. i'm pretty easygoing about it, but it'll piss him off to no end. he's been spoiled by whistle and fidget being so well-behaved. simi has also learned how to use her claws to climb all the way up your jeans. this could also pose a problem.

i was treated to the pan-flute, muzak version of salisbury hill in the airport. yikes.

the good news for the evening is that i got the bill from the animal hospital and my balance is only 900-and-some dollars. that's in addition to the $1667 i put down when i dropped fidget off, but still considerably less than it could have been. and thanks to all the donations, including recent ones from lydia, joan yin, and my cousin katie, most of that $900+ is covered by the fidget memorial fund. thank you, all of you. even those of you who couldn't afford to give money, you've just so totally been there for me, everyone. thanks.

i have to go to the post office tomorrow and pick up fidget's ashes. i wonder if that will make it any more real.

i took a lot of crap-assed, hurried polaroids for suzanne today. i hope at least a couple of them are agent-presentable.

oh, how i wish i had kool-aid.

simi keeps trying to type. :)

went out with abby tonight. *bounce* *bounce*

tomorrow i'm dependent on mimi's car needs and amanda's availability. part of me just wants to say fuck it and sleep all day like i did today. but that's a waste of the money mom and dad payed to get me here. awwwww.

i keep talking about the fucking cat. shut up, maggie.

hi everyone. i'm posting from jfk airport on one of these lttle "check your email" machines. i just stood in line for security for an hour. they made me take off my belt. strip tease at the metal detector! the "a" key on this piece o crap don't work too well, that's what i'm discovering. so my flight's not for another 2 hours or so -- the traffic getting here was much lighter than i expected. i shall now go read both time and newsweek. party! oh, and buffy last night? gooooood. sexxxxxx. yaaaaaay.