cherokee bat and the goat guys. francesca lia block.

i have to admit that after reading witch baby and not enjoying it that much, i was wary of reading cherokee bat and the goat guys, but it restored my faith in the dangerous angels series.  i would even say it's my favorite so far, well second to weetzie bat, of course.

in cherokee bat and the goat guys, the kids, cherokee, witch baby, and raphael are left at home while all the adults are filming a movie in south america.  coyote was in charge of them.

witch baby was acting weird, burying herself in mud and cherokee went to coyote for help.  he suggested that she make witch baby a set of wings.  (quick digression i think i am going to be witch baby for halloween or world book day, though i do need to find cowboy boot rollerskates!) with the wings and the return of angel juan, witch baby acted normal again, well normal for herself.

due to the magic of the wings and the return of angel baby, the kids decided to start a band, the goat guys.  they booked a gig but raphael had stage fright so cherokee went to coyote again and got goat pants for raphael.

the goat pants turned out to be magical, and helped the band become successfully, though things started to get weird. the kids were also weird cos they were going through puberty.  they started drinking, smoking pot, and having sex.  i have to say that the analogy of waves for cherokee and raphael was quite clever and if i was a teen, it probably would have gone over my head (i was do innocent back then.)

then, angel juan was jealous of groupies loving raphael, and witch baby was jealous of the other two having sex so cherokee went to ask coyote for horns for angel juan, but he said no, so witch baby stole them.  they were even more amazing a band, and the one day hoof boots came for cherokee.  then, things started to get really crazy.  angel juan was mutilating himself on stage and getting headaches and cherokee's boots were hurting her.  

one night at a party, raphael did blow and hooked up with this girl and cherokee lost it and put everything on, the wings, the goat pants, the horns and the boots (which i thought would be cool for halloween too but i guess i would end up looking like maleficient.) and has a moment on a roof but coyote came to save her.  and he realized that he needed to help the kids and they return their gifts to the animals and the family comes back and everything is back to normal.  oh and  moral of the story was don't be in a rush to grow up!

a great story and i have to say i am kicking myself for not reading this earlier because i could have ordered one of these goat guy shirts when they were in stock! (i didn't get the reference when i first saw it online.)

so cute, huh? and check out the back:

i messed up! oh well.  hopefully they get more in stock!  but so excited for the next book!!!

love me back. merritt tierce. (237)

i saw merritt tierce's love me back on a book riot post and due to its cover, i decided to check it out.  you have to admit that the cover is quite intriguing, the neon lights, the sad yet hopefully sentiment.  i must admit that i am pretty good about judging a book by its cover, because i enjoyed this work.

i had no idea what love me back was about, when i picked it up.  i must have read a blurb about it on book riot but it didn't stick with me.  upon skimming the inside sleeve, i discovered that it was about a single mother and her work at restaurants.  i also learned that tierce was a "5 under 35" honoree and since i enjoyed molly antopol's the unamericans, i had high expectations for this work.  unjustly so, i know, but i did.

i have to say that love me back was beautifully written, i could not put it down, even though at times i was disgusted by what i read.  i guess that would be a testament to how well written it was. love me back is the story of marie, a young woman and her life working in restaurants.  marie, a single mother, though her daughter did not live with her, worked in a handful of restaurants, and spent her free time (the little time that she had, since she worked all the time) drinking, doing drugs, and sleeping with everyone she met at work.  marie's back story, which is revealed to us throughout the novel, and some details not until to the very end, was that marie's life was not so tragic, in fact, it was once filled with promise.  she was yale bound, but a church trip to mexico when she was seventeen, resulted in her being pregnant.  she ended up marrying the baby's father, and they lived together, but she ended up cheating on him, with everyone she worked with.  he learned of her cheating, after marie gave him chlamydia, which she contracted from one of the three men she was sleeping with at the time.  they separated, and he ended up with custody of the child.

throughout the novel, there are sections in which marie's stories are directed to her daughter, in which we learn of how her daughter came to be.  in her narrative, marie constantly spoke of wanting to do better for her daughter, or loving her daughter so much but it's just words.  in the end, one of marie's co-workers call her out on it, explaining that if they really wanted to be with their daughters, then they would be.  marie does love her daughter, but she does lie to herself about wanting to be there for her.  i am sure she loves her daughter, but as she admitted once she did not have that motherly instinct.

instead, the priorities in marie's life are drugs, alcohol, and sex.  i was disgusted and appalled by marie's actions.  i am all for one feeding their sexual appetite, but marie abused her body.  she was on self-destruction mode, she did drugs and had sex to distract herself from the pain she felt.  the pain that marie felt was never explicitly described, there didn't seem to be a specific source, other than life itself.  sure, her parents were overbearing, but they were initially helpful with the child, and she ran away from them.  her husband also seemed to be a good man, he was a responsible father and loved marie.  yet, it wasn't enough for marie.  i understand that yes, she lost her future, though never directly addressed, being unable to attend yale had to have had a negative effect on her.  however, instead of making her daughter the focus of her life, she instead sought ways to destroy herself.  and boy did she.  and i can understand the substance abuse to a certain extend, even the cutting and burning makes sense given her dealing with pain, however i could not believe what she allowed herself and others to do to her body sexually.  marie described situations in which she would do drugs and then let guys take turns with her in one night.  her last escapade before the novel closed, she had sex with brothers, in a moving truck?!?!?  it was disgusting to read about, and i couldn't imagine how someone can allow that to happen to themselves.  and i guess the frustrating part was that marie was better than that.  she was smart, but made bad decisions.   there was a handful of times in which she got herself clean, normally motivated by a man, but still she could clean.  she could have escaped the life she had but continue to life it. it was a very dark place that marie was in and i am grateful that i did not understand her.  

and in all honesty, i am not sure what to take away from this other then life is suffering.  and sometimes life deals you a shitty hand and instead of trying to make the best of it, you can just say fuck it and do what you want.  

regardless, of my approval of marie's life,  i do approve of tierce.  she is an amazing writer and i love forward to reading more from her.

oh and before i close i just have to add.  there was a part in which marie discussed how sometimes she will judge customers.  how they will come in, in jeans and order soft drinks and she thinks that there are going to waste her night and tip her poorly.  however, they end up asking for a bottle of champagne and wine and the next thing she knows they are leaving her a big tip.  this made me laugh because i feel like this happens to my friend larry and i when we go out to dinner.  he is a gm and is limited on his days off and sometimes we will go out to lunch or dinner and he will wear a sweatshirt and i look like i'm twelve.  and i'm pretty sure people are like why are these kids wasting my time.  and then we start ordering and it's majority of the menu and the servers realizes that we are going to get a good tip and that server's demeanor towards us totally changes.  lol

god bless ozzy osbourne

i checked out god bless ozzy osbourne after darlene told me that she and her husband watched it one night. and she was right.  it is an excellent documentary and i learned a lot about the osbournes.

to start, i have to explain that ozzy is coherent in this documentary!  he talks and he makes sense!  i know it's shocking to hear, especially those who watched the mtv series the osbournes.  it turns out that what we saw on that show was not the effects of alcohol and drug abuse, but rather someone on drugs and alcohol.  i had no idea, here i thought ozzy was just getting old, but it turns out that ozzy was just fucked up.  it was great to see him functioning like a normal person in this documentary, so watch it just for that.

also aimee, the sibling that did not want her face to be shown on the tv series is gorgeous!  at first, it hought kelly had just lost some weight, i mean they look like twins.  but it turns out that was aimee.  she really is quite beautiful.  no offense, but kelly must have some secret hatred/jealousy of her sister based on her looks. 

also ozzy has two children from a previous marriage, i did not know that.

sharon also shared what happened with dove biting and the bat bitiing.  he thought the bat was fake, and it wasn't.  

all in all, it's a really great documentary, tommy lee shared some crazy story about ozzy osbourne which was gross and entertaining.

if you have showtime, you should definitely take the time to watch it.  it's great to see his life and to now see him sober.

also i have to add, ozzy was super hot when he was younger!  and boy did he have some amazing outfits.  i especially loved all the fringe that he wore.  as seen below: 

taipei. tao lin. (192)

i forgot what inspired me to pick up taipei  but i did.  i have read other works by tao lin but wouldn't call myself a fan.  as i wrote in my post for his work richard yates, i am not sure how i feel about lin.  on one hand, i am never fully engaged in his work, i read it like i read things online, half-focused, but then he is pretty spot on when it comes to the hipster culture.

taipei, is another novel that is actually an autobiography that is framed as a novel (see: shelia heti's how a person should be?) which as i said before, thanks for the honesty but i can't help but feel cheated.  i mean why not just say it's a memoir?

in any case, in taipai, i discovered that tao lin did a shitload of drugs.  i mean a shitload.  and the sad part was that he did them because he felt like he functioned better in the world with them.  to quote the ever wise cher horowitz (which i think i have quoted before for this blog) "it is one thing to light up a doobie at a party, but it's quite another to be fried all day."  doing the occasional drug is kosher in my book but i can't imagine to the point of recklessness that lin did, having memory loss and vomiting all over union square from snorting too much heroin.  though in lin's defense he wasn't too fucked up because he did keep his google document of notes and of course all the videos which helped him create this work.  i am assuming all of the videos were real, i tried to look up the mcdonalds one but saw on his website the listing of the MDMA videos under his work.  i mean in the end he was able to do all of those drugs, not die, and still created a novel. so kudos to him.

but i mean reading about someone on drugs gets old quickly which resulted in my half-focus as a i read.    because in the end, regardless of how interesting these moments were to lin and his friends, they are all "you had to be there moments" for everyone else.  i have often thought that my life could be a tv series (after seeing mtv's "my life as liz") or a novel, well maybe more a collection of short stories, but i feel like i can never recreate the magic of what happen to me because for it to truly be great, you had to be there.  i could describe it but it was only truly worthwhile in that moment.  taipei was just one big, you had to be there story.  paul and erin's filming of tawian's first mcdonalds was great but i am sure it was 100% funnier if you were on drugs and there.  the same can be said for the #xmenlivetweet, i can imagine how incredible it all was for lin but to read it secondhand it wasn't all that amazing.  and i know because i have had ridiculous drunken (not drugged) incidents like lin, but i recognize that i am the only one that truly gets their magic.  like all the times i have snuck booze into the theater, for example my friend cody and i took in a bottle of rum when we went to see "pirates of caribbean" and i turned to him and in what i thought was a whisper asked for the rum, only for him to knock over the bottle and everyone heard the clank of the rum bottle.  or the time that my friends larry, peter and i went to see "jackass" and drank too much, and i had to pee so i decided to run out during an old person skit, and i ran straight into the mens room, apologized to a man peeing and bolted out the door while the concessions stand workers just stood their and laughed at my dumbass.  hilarious but would people want to read it?  my version of taipei would be called cahuenga and would be all about the drunken fun my friends and i had on cahuenga blvd circa 2008-2010.  but i mean other than my friends, who would anyone truly appreciate it or get it?  i mean lin has his celebrity clout to keep his readers reading but i am a nobody.

oh and before i drop all the drug talk (though it is like the defining theme of the novel), i did appreciate the irony of paul's disgust with erin taking prescription drugs.  erin started taking a pill as prescribed by her doctor and paul lectured her on not needing it and her becoming dependent on it.  this fight then escalated to the point in which paul left.  it was brilliant because the druggie recognizes the harms of prescription drugs.  society condones the recreational use of drugs yet drug companies are constantly trying to fix ailments that a) either don't exist or b) manageable without drugs.  i mean the number one side effect of most prescription drugs is death.  might as well take drugs for fun then.

though i have to add lin does not believe in drug problems as seen in this excerpt:

“They began talking about a Lil Wayne documentary that focused on Lil Wayne’s “drug problem,” which Lil Wayne denied. Paul felt it was bleak and depressing that the filmmakers superimposed their views onto Lil Wayne. Calvin seemed to agree with the documentary. Paul tried, with Erin, who agreed with him, he felt, to convey (mostly by slowly saying variations of “no” and “I can’t think right now”) that there was no such thing as a “drug problem” or even “drugs” – unless anything anyone ever did or thought or felt was considered both a drug and a problem – in that each thought or feeling or object, seen or touched or absorbed or remembered, at whatever coordinate of space-time, would have a unique effect, which each ever-changing person, at each moment of their life, could view as a problem, or not, for themselves.”

this is an interesting reasoning, everythinf outside of this notion of "self" is essentially a "drug" because it has some effect on us.  so i guess drugs really aren't a problem just another stimuli of life.

aside from drugs, there is also paul's relationship with erin, his wife.  i still don't know how that marriage happen though i will say i have, at least twice, tried to get two sets of my friends to marry when we were in vegas.  sadly it didn't happen both times.

erin and paul's relationship interested me because it reminded me of my best friend and i during my cahuenga years (maybe i should write this book).  we had alot of fun together but we also had these random fights.  my friend was also passive aggressive like paul, expecting someone to read his mind when he was upset instead of communicating or saying he wasn't upset when he was.  but part of the issue for us was just like erin and paul was that most of the fights happen when we were really drunk so that caused alot more drama than was necessary.  for me, it was interesting because i didn't know how authentic paul and erin's feelings truly were, everyone likes to believe there is more honesty when one is on drugs but at the same time your mind is so fucked that it might be true but it's definitely askewed. in the end, it just demonstrated how drugs can ruin relationships in addition to people.

as i mentioned earlier, lin is spot on when it comes to hipster culture.  i will admit that i loved the random asking of "do you like rilo kiley?" (for these that are curious, i do).  i also loved that marina abramović's "the artist is present" was mentioned because i sat with her for that piece.  goodreads was also namedropped though i don't think it's hipstery, i just use it.  but i guess everything felt very relevant but then again it was just his life.

i read it, not sure i would recommend it but at least i can say i read it.  which i guess is the point of reading tao lin.

kiki de monteparnasse. catel & bocquet. (154)

i came across kiki de monteparnasse on amazon and of course the cover inspired my man ray's famous photograph i had to check it out.  i figured a book about the model for man ray had to be interesting.  and it was!

as you have seen in this blog, i fell in love  with the lost generation thanks to woody allen's midnight in paris.  so i was excited to read and learn about kiki.  prior to this i had no knowledge though i had seen her back.

my post on kiki's memoirs discussed the stories i enjoyed from her life so i will share what shocked me and some of my favorite illustrations.

i was shocked by the drug use.  i always think of coke as an 80s thing but it has been around for a while.  i mean i remember how shocked i was when i discovered this lyric in cole porter's i get a kick out of you:

some, they may go for cocaine.

i'm sure that if i took even one sniff

it would bore me terrifically, too.

yet i get a kick out of you.

but was still surprised when i saw it in kiki's life though not completed shocked because she was a party girl as seen in these illustrations:

i was also surprised by how many men offered to pay her for flashing them.  i mean i guess its better than prostitution.  i mean a peek for some money, i can understand why she did it.

of course there was a bunch of nudity and sex.  she did pose nude and have alot of sex with artists.  again i don't blame her if i was in paris during this time i would have been the same way!

of course the book covered her relationship with man ray.  how they created beautiful art together but how their love was also destructive.  it was seen how kiki wanted to be a mother yet man ray didn't want kids, showing a more softer side of kiki.

the book also covered the time in jail

she mentioned in her memoirs.  it also showed her decline.  it was difficult to see her abused by marcel when she seemed to be an nonsense kind of girl

her whole life.  and like every too glam celeb, drugs took a hold of her and ruined her life.   it was also sad to see her life end due to drugs and alcohol.  if kiki was around in the 90s her life story would have made a great vh1 behind the music episode.  kiki had some hard times but she still lead an exciting life and contributed so much to the art community.  

being a graphic novel it was filled with wonderful illustrations.  i really loved the ones of photographs i saw in her memoir:

i especially found the ending illustration beautiful:

i will add that the chronology at the end of the book left me wanting to read more about kiki.   it also got me interested in man ray and i will have to pick up his bio.

kiki de monteparnasse was an interesting read to add to my knowledge of an era i love.

i just want my pants back. david j. rosen. (88)

"i just want my pants back" has been on my to re-read list ever since MTV turned it into a series. granted the the series first aired in 2011, it took me a while to re-read it. i first read it when my friend saba lent me her copy cos she thought i would enjoy it. i then stole her copy because i really enjoyed it. the delay in the re-read was that i was hoping to find the copy i stole. i didn't so i checked it out.

and yes the MTV series was kind of a my so called hipster life. so before we go any further i want to clarify something. just like i told that 6th grader that judged me based on my frames and blazer i wore to sub: i am not a hipster. i just recently had a whole talk with my friend tiffany on my non-hipsterness. and though i will admit i do have hipster tendencies (my friend jerry and my theory on our partial hipster-ness will appear later), i may be hip but i'm not a hipster.

and let the records show that my friends and i were wearing fake moustaches back in 2007. i bought a pair of fake ones at party city as a joke cos my friend cody could not grow one and then we wore them out to beauty bar. also that same year we started carrying around a toy pony before all this unicorn and bronies shit got started. and yes i trek out to hipster mecca aka coachella every year but i've been doing that since 2003. when it was only one weekend and you could buy one day tickets and rich parents from la didn't use it as teenage daycare. and i know it's so hipster cliche to claim to have done something before it was cool but i really did!

and i'll admit, i shop at urban outfitters (but only their sales racks), drink pbr, (but i'm cheap and my alcohol palate is nothing close to sophisticated), listen to indie rock, and do some things ironically; it's not because i want to be part of the hipster subculture. it just how i am. and yes i get there is this large subculture that i am apart of but hipster imples effort and my hipness is effortless.

but back to the show and the book. i did not see the whole season but the episode that inspired me to re-read was seriously a page out of my life. i forgot all that happens in it but it ends up with the lead dude (do they have same name as the book?) ends up marching with a marching band! this actually happened to me one night in hipsterville, ca aka echo park. in 2008, tiffany, cody and i were out celebrating obama's win and while drinking next to a liquor store ran into a marching band member. i harassed him for his hat and took some pictures but this was only a taste of what was to come! cos when we got to short stop there was a full on band on the dance floor. sadly not performing or with instruments but still exciting. oddly i never found out who the band was or ever saw them again. it was magical and that episode reminded me of it. in that episode there was also a penis piñata but my guy friends (straight ones) one-uped that with their penis bong (they paper-mâchéd a penis, complete with balls, around a beer bong, they also made a big ass piñata like literally an ass after watching that "family guy" episode.)

so to start off, the lead character who lost his pants, started off as the man of my dreams. total book crush! jason was a english major from cornell (that abused cliffnotes) who used to deejay in college and loved country, folk and indie rock. he was from the mid-west, which i always find endearing. he wore thick frame, was sarcastic, funny, and referenced karen o. and jeff koons. but here's the kicker a pork eating jew! (he ordered a bacon cheeseburger.) i do dream of marrying a jew but for cultural not religious reasons and as jason said judaism for his family was "more woody allen, less abraham and esther". and let me clarify, i'm not prejudice, any religion would do, it's just that judaism has the best holidays and they celebrate all of them!

but then jason went on a downward spiral and lost his dreaminess. i was okay with his whatever job or what douglas coupland referred to as "mcjob". but when he lost his job and then proceed to do nothing, it was quite sad. and before you get all judgy on me because yes i did spend two years on unemployment and yes the lectures jason's friends gave him did remind me of the lectures my friends gave me! there was a difference. i like all the other welfare moms and anyone else getting government handouts found life more comfortable on unemployment than with a 9 to 5. even you with the worker bee gene would become depended on a life of leisure thanks to uncle sam versus slaving away for a check. plus jason spent all his time getting high and drunk. i was out getting cultured and stimulating the economy with my government issued checks. also unemployment is not bad it's just when you become a mess due to it, i mean jason wasn't showering. when i was funemployed a handful of my friends were too and we'd go to museums and have other random and free adventures around down. but back to jason, yes i was once a slob like him, i mean no one truly has life figured out but it's like do something other than get drunk and high all the time. to quote cher from "clueless": "it is one thing to spark up a doobie and get laced at parties, but it is quite another to be fried all day." and drop e in the proper settings, raves, music festivals, light installations exhibits, not just a friday night at the bar. what a waste! and again i am not contradicting myself. i may do drugs occassionally but when it's appropriate.

oh and another issue i had with jason or the book but lack of condom use. there was no mention of him using condoms in this book. i mean we are the safe sex generation, we have been told countless times to use protection. and yet this book lacked it. i am disgusted if it was because the character didn't use them. i'm even more disgusted if the author didn't include it because it would have ruined the flow of the story. sorry but i'd rather have the heat of the moment interrupted with condom talk or putting one on versus waking up with some nasty std.

also he nicknamed his penis. gross.

but i do have to give him props for taking care of his neighbor patty. that was sweet. that gave me faith that he would get his shit together that maybe in a couple of years he'll be the man he needs to be.

so the book is a look at jason's life and honestly depicts how it is to be a twentysomething, the going out, the hooking up, the lack of real employment, and the friends at different stages of life. and how at times it sucks but it can also be a lot of fun. and i have to admit i saw a lot of myself in him, even the crying at commercials when life gets alittle overwhelming. this book did speak a lot of truths not only for twentysomethings but also new yorkers (i never lived in new york but from what tv tells me).

for example, the take-out place knowing your order because you call so often. this happens to jason and his favorite place, hunan. this never happened to me bit it reminded me of the "sex and the city" episode when miranda feels like the chinese take out girl is judging her.

i was reminded of another show, "how i met your mother" (also set in new york), the episode when robin, ted, and barney go out a club while lily and marshall try to do more grown up things and have a wine tasting and play board games with their married friends. there is the exact same critique in "i just want my pants back", jason commented on how his engaged friends stacey and eric have grown up parties with wine sipping not swigging and pictionary and talk of investing and buying apartments which all turns to charlie brown grown up talk to him. it was so like the HIMYM bit that i checked to see if the author wrote for him. he didn't, it's just a part of growing up. and it's so true my college friends that coupled, have started doing their own thing together and excluded the single ones, which is really just me. though i will add the gays are so much better about including everyone. my gay friends that couple never go into nesting mode like the straights.

and last but not least, patty had a little talk with jason about age, which describes my current state to a t. patty is jason's older neighbor but forgets her age when she hangs out with jason, she feels younger going out and hanging out. one night, she reflected back on her life and thought of all the silly things she has done and realized that she still does do silly things. and granted i am only turning 30, i got what she said. she told him:  

i'm still silly about so many things. maybe it's because i never settled down or had kids, but i think my brain is in arrested development or something like that.

i worry about the same thing, i do have 

peter pan syndrome, i have never been forced to grow up. and it's not bad, i have fun in life but i need something to start me on adulthood. and it needs to happen soon cos i'm 6 months away from 30! but i am so caught up in the now, i can't plan for the future.

i know such deep thoughts for a "hipster" book.

ironically, as much as the series was called a hipster series and therefore the book was probably labelled hipster. the characters did not identify themselves as hipsters. jason and tina are out at some dive bar and jason observed,

"it was full of twentysomething downtowners in assorted stylish smocks. it was a little like looking into a mirror, but someone we believed we were far more genuine than the others. you couldn't trust the others. they looked like us and they talked us, but at night, they went home and slept in pods. we slept in beds."

this the same theory my friend jerry and i have. we realized that we look like hipsters when we go out. plus we are asian so we have that asian hipster look. but though we look like them we are not a part of them. we are more genuine! as jerry phrases it, "we are partners in our hip-non-hipster-ness". i know it all seems like a farce like the ones we are judging us back. but we really are hip and it's genuine and we are not hipsters! i swear. (going to end here before i start sounding crazy.)