Joss Whedon and U2!

Okay, so I missed a week, but I’m back. It has been a fun last few weeks filled with Joss Whedon, U2 and some downright strange politics.
First, there was The Guild/Dr. Horrible screening at the Egyptian Theatre. This was a fun night! The crowd was great and after the screening all the Whedon brothers, Maurissa Tancharoen, Sandeep Parikh, Vincent Caso, and Felicia Day came up for a panel Q&A. The Q&A went for about half an hour and then when it was over, they all stayed and talked with the crowd, answering more questions and taking pictures. It shows they really do care about their fans. Joss Whedon’s fans are known for their loyalty and tremendous support. Aside from a connection to the material of the shows, it is moments like this that have earned him the fan base he has. Seeing someone who has had that kind of success, and is also busy working on a show, take the time to hang around after a Q&A says a lot about Joss Whedon and his family/team. Also, for any Dollhouse fans reading this, Enver Gjokaj and Dichen Lachman were there just hanging out. I talked to Enver afterwards and this guy is one of the nicest, most down-to-earth people I’ve met in LA. The man is proving to be one hell of an actor on the show too. I didn’t speak with Dichen; she was posing for pictures with fans. The whole night was a lot of fun and it was great to meet people I respect and admire and have them turn out to be amazingly nice people.



So, my next weekend was filled with U2. Yes, I was at the Rose Bowl show along with 97,000 other people. I got there at 7 AM and was number 495 in line. It was well worth the wait. They had us segmented in groups of 250. At 5:00 they let the first 250. It went smoothly. Then when they decided to let our section go to the gate, security forgot to have someone stationed at the back of our section. All hell broke loose and a line of over 2,000 people bum rushed the gate. It is a wonder no one got hurt. Despite the line crash, we still ended up in the inner circle of the pit. We were between the drum set and the right side of the stage, about four people back.



The Show opened with the Black Eyed Peas. I wasn’t wild about having them as the opener. The tour dates before us had the band Muse and I had been looking forward to finally seeing them live. They turned out to be a good opener though and they gave us a surprise guest that made them worth it. Slash came out and played Sweet Child O’ Mine with them. Not a bad way to start off the night. They finished up and everyone was ready for U2. We had YouTube’s live feed cameras swooping over us keeping us entertained. It amped up the crowd knowing we were not only being filmed for a DVD, but being broadcast live on YouTube. Bowie’s ‘Space Oddity” started playing and we knew U2 were coming onstage. The show was incredible! You can still watch the rebroadcast on YouTube. YouTube did a surprisingly great job with the recording. The quality and the camera work is impressive.
I won’t give a blow by blow of the show, but I will share one highlight. The set has bridges that rotate around the circle. A few times the bridges would stop over our heads and we’d see Bono or The Edge’s feet walking over us. During the song “Until the End of the World” the Bridge stopped just to the right of us. Bono was just a few feet from me and he leaned over the rail and sang a verse directly at us, reaching out to us at one point. I’m not one to get star struck, but it was the coolest moment of the show and a bit surreal. I snapped a picture right before he reached out. No, this is not using a zoom, he was that close.



Tomorrow I’ll post about yesterday’s election results. The NY 23’d congressional district, the Republican takeovers in Virginia and New jersey, and the deep disappointment I have in the state of Maine for what was Prop 8 all over again.

Who You Gonna Call?

Okay, so I’ve decided to get my act together with this blog. I am going to make myself update it at least once a week. I realize my last entry was back in July. I’m not going to try to explain my whole summer in a post. Suffice to say it was filled with great music, friends, and even a summer romance. All in all, it was a great summer. I’m so glad its fall though. Although, you can’t really tell that its fall in LA. We had a few rainy and gloomy days this week, but now it’s back to being 90 degrees and sunny. I’m not complaining, but sometimes I do think it would be nice to have a real change of season out here.

We did have a cold night last weekend and I spent most of it outside. The Hollywood Forever Cemetery held a special outdoor movie screening of Ghostbusters. I’m a big Ghostbusters fan. When I was a kid I had all the action figures, the firehouse for them. I had the jump suit with a plastic proton pack (complete with a nerf proton beam that shot out from it). So I was excited to finally see the move on a big screen with an audience. The best part, it was all for charity. This screening was put on by The Jewish Federation as part of the Fed Up With Hunger campaign. Tickets were not sold to this event. Your entry fee was five cans of food. By the end of the night they had raised almost 8,000 lbs of food. Incredible! Hunger is a big problem in Los Angeles. The statistic is that over one million people in the city of Los Angeles go hungry each day. So if you’d like to help with that problem, you can go to http://www.givelifemeaning.org/fed-up-with-hunger.html

That is all for today. October is going to be a great month though. I’m going to a panel with Joss Whedon and Co. tonight. I’ll give a full report on that. I’m also ready for October 25^th. U2 at the Rose Bowl! I’ve had the tickets for months and I’m beyond excited that the show is almost here.

I’ll leave you with a song/artist recommendation. I was trying to decide on a song and narrowed it to two. I couldn’t decide, so you’re getting both. These are two amazingly talented individuals. First up is Jay Clifford. Some may know him from the band Jump Little Children(sadly no longer together). This is a song off his debut solo album. It is a beautiful and haunting song, and my favorite off the album. The song is called “Waltzing past the Grave”.

Jay Clifford-Waltzing Past the Grave


Next up is Vienna Teng. I saw her live this summer and she was fantastic. I had not heard any of her music before then, and I’d been missing out. This song is off her new album, Inland Territory. The song is about having a break up (either between friends or lovers) and realizing you aren’t going to be able to stay friends with that person. The song is called “Antebellum”. Floow the link. The player will be in the top right of your screen.

Vienna Teng-Antebellum.

That's all for now. Another update next week, I promise.

A Sad Day

Today an 88 year old white supremacist walked into the lobby of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum and opened fire with a rifle. He shot a security guard before himself being shot by two other security guards. The security guard, Officer Stephen Tyrone Johns died of his wounds at the hospital. The shooter, Mr. James W. von Brunn also died at the hospital.

The one positive part of this story is the courage and swift action of the security guards at the museum. They quickly took the gunman down before anyone else could be shot. They got everyone inside safely out of the building and should be commended for that. As tragic as today is, the situation could have been much worse had it not been for them.

I will never be able to process senseless violence like we witnessed today. Two men are dead, and for what? One man's bigotry and hated led to an attack on a place constructed to combat those very feelings and actions. I am Jewish, therefore this attack take on a more personal feeling, but I am appalled by hatred of any kind inciting violence. We spend so much time on the "war on terror" it is easy to forget that we still have a problem with homegrown terrorist right here in America. Make no mistake, that is what this man was, a terrorist.

So all I ask is that everyone try to do their part to combat bigotry and hatred. People learn by example. The world needs more people showing tolerance, compassion, and civility towards each other. If people can make an effort on that, then the world will start to have less men and women like James von Brunn.

Also, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum is a true wonder. I visted there in 2006 and it was one of the most emotionally charged experiences I have ever had. They have done a wonderful job with this museum and it deserves everyone's support. If you are ever in D.C., please take part of your day and visit. It is a moving experience and well worth the visit. Their website is http://www.ushmm.org/ Please check them out.

Green Day in L.A.

So, I'm just going to dive right into the last few days. This past Thursday I went to the Green Day concert at the Henry Fonda Theatre. It was an amzing show. We got there a little over an hour before the doors were to open and the line was around the corner and down the block. Somehow we still managed to be fourth row in the pit. The guys put on a great show. They played a "best of" songs off the new album and then came back out some off the last record. Then they decided to take requests. They played some old songs I had resigned myself to never hearing live. The setlist was as follows:

First set: Song of the Century / 21st Century Breakdown / Know Your Enemy / * / East Jesus Nowhere / Last of the American Girls / Murder City / ¿Viva La Gloria? (Little Girl) / The Static Age / 21 Guns / American Eulogy: a. Mass Hysteria b. Modern World / See the Light

Second set: American Idiot / Jesus of Suburbia / St. Jimmy > Longview / Brat / Going to Pasalacqua / Dominated Love Slave / Christie Road / Coming Clean / snippet of Iron Man / Who Wrote Holden Caulfield? / She / Basket Case / King for a Day (with Medley: Shout > California Here I Come > Baby Face > Swanee > Radio** > Stand by Me) / Minority

That's right, they played Brat! It was a great night. I'll be seeing them again in August at The Forum.

Other than that, not too much else has gone on these past few days. I had a great weekend with the girl I'm dating and now I'm just going to try to make the most of this new week.

I'll be writing again later this week.