Click images for desktop size: "I'm Melting" by Janet Tangus I didn't find any money yesterday.
I did get to change shirts twice. Sweated through a cotton button down and two T-shirts. Too hot for me. People always think that LA is hot. It's not. Its just fine.
My friend is feeling "improved" which I think is the same as better, but I wouldn't count on that. Last night she finally played with the AppleTV. She discovered Jack White on YouTube. She was particularly taken with the Raconteurs' version of Cher's "Bang Bang". The Raconteurs version seemed more based on the Nancy Sinatra cover than the original.
I was just glad to see her having fun and being excited by her various discoveries.
There's a band I love that a lot of people seem to hate: Guitar Wolf. They have a lot of videos on YouTube as well. There's one in particular "I Love You, OK". Its a solo, just Guitar Wolf (The band is Guitar Wolf, the members are Guitar Wolf, Bass Wolf and Drum Wolf - keeps things simple, doesn't it?) on electric guitar rasping and growling through a vicious number that I guess is a love song. He sings it in Japanese so I can't really say for certain.
As Guitar Wolf slams his guitar around and growls in a controlled apoplectic fit at the mike the song always appears about to disintegrate into low level noise but he fights and wrestles it back to the pounding chords and the inchoate melody so that the chorus, "I love you, OK" floats between being a demand to an insane plea. I like the way he fights to control himself, the guitar and his voice. It gets close to a Lichtstenian ideal of art. To me at least. Most people just wonder how I can put up with all that white noise guitar and screeching. I can. I do. I like it plenty.
I've always liked Guitar Wolf. I even liked their movie: "Wild Zero". It was an insane bit of film made for no budget. It swiped the plot from "Plan 9 From Outer Space". Yes, that "Plan 9" worst film ever made, "Plan 9".
The plot is that an alien invasion is presaged by converting earthlings into the living dead, ZOMBIES FROM SPACE!
Guitar Wolf aren't even the real heroes. The hero is a Japanese kid who wears leather and dresses like Elvis. He wants to be Guitar Wolf, the entire band.
There's a beautiful drag queen, a beautiful ninja warrior, a crazed club owner with a penchant for wearing hot pants, and enough gore and zombie head explosions to satisfy the most jaded zombie freak out there (like me). There's also plenty of Guitar Wolf music, J-Pop and the band driving around Japan raising their fists defiantly to the alien space ships and shouting their war cry "lock and lor". Its a great ultra low budget movie. If Guitar Wolf hadn't done anything else I'd have become a fan. As it is they've done nothing to disgrace the image.

Click images for desktop size: "Untitled" by Robert Crumb I've always like Japanese rock. I lost my collection of Shonen Knife with the hard drive crash. Thy started me into it. Then The 5-6-7-8's got famous when Tarentino exploited them for Kill Bill. They were the coolest thing in the movie, dressed in gold Dragon Lady dresses and bare feet slapping out the beat of "Woo Hoo". They've always been pretty big in Japan. I like their covers, like "Wooly Bully" is a hoot and their take on Tommy James' "Hanky Panky" is enthusiastically original.
There's a great Japanese compilation album called "My Summer Love". It features a couple dozen of the best female hard rock/punk bands in the country. It some how always strays into J-Pop territory, which is fine by me. There are plenty of good to great tracks on the disc. For me the most atypical is The Pebbles doing "I Love You Baby". Everything you need to know about The Pebbles and most of the girl groups in Japan is all right there in the sound waves. If you have any unanswered questions you can clear them up with a fast listen to The Bunnies cover of "Let's Dance". For me this is high art becasue its intended to me nothing but fun and a reminder of the joy of being young.
The Japanese compilation brings to mind that classic USA comp, "Now Just The Girls". The American's are more driving and wear their influences a whole lot more subtly but they have a base iconography that's pure bliss. Candypants doing "Nerdy Boys" has more in common with The Bunnies and Jan and Dean than Metallica and I approve.

I'm not going to look for money today. Too hot for me. My blood is too thin and used to dry heat. The kind of heat that dehydrates all these bugs!
We need money but the situation is serious and not desperate.
There's no danger of having no home. The bills are paid. The mortgage is current. That just doesn't leave any free room for luxuries like food. I don't drink so that's cool and I loaded up on a coupon item so I've plenty of Diet Dr Pepper so I can feel like I'm drinking like the rich.

Its been a month today that my little blind dog passed away.
I still check under the chair to make sure I don't roll it over him when I get up. I still miss him huffing behind me following me everywhere I go. Getting mad at me for not just sitting down and staying put for a while.
I'm taking the 3 dogs on a walk to the post office. I miss how excited he'd always get even when he was walking into telephone poles.
I wish he'd come back.