ADRIAN DOES STUFF

Three weeks of relative calm

2007-06-27T15:32:48-07:00

Ahhh ... I'm currently in the midst of a three-week period of relative calm. Sure, there have been some gigs – DJing a super-gay set at Pop Roxx on Gay Pride weekend, a couple of local Jameson Bartenders Balls for Smash-Up Derby to play, the San Francisco Magazine Best of the Bay party, performing as Princess Kennedy at Trannyshack – but overall, it hasn't been this crazy feeling of GO GO GO!!!

It's three weeks between Bootie parties, so that helps. Time for us to get all caught up, before the cycle starts all over again, as we launch headfirst into summertime, and all that that entails: Bootie anniversary parties in both LA (two years!) and SF (four years!) ... moving Bootie NYC to Luke & Leroy in July ... doing the The A+D Show in August ... recording a Smash-Up Derby album ... getting ready for Burning Man, and doing the last year of my Black Rock City newspaper, Piss Clear.

But right now, it's all good. D and I have actually (gasp!) hung out with friends, and have gone out to dinner with people! We actually went to somebody else's club for a change! We saw a movie in the LGBT Film Festival! (Okay, so that was kinda work-related -- Motherfucker: The Movie, a documentary about the famed NYC club night)

But anyway, it's been nice, although I know it's going to be ending soon, and then it's going to be Bootie-related stress all over again (I just realized how fucking ridiculous that sounds!)

Success is killing me

2007-05-08T15:04:05-07:00

I'm barely keeping my head above water.

This month, I'm promoting and DJing a Bootie mashup party every fucking weekend ... two in San Francisco, one in LA, and starting on May 18th, we go monthly in New York City.

Smash-Up Derby is playing five shows this month -- Philadelphia, Denver, New York City, and two in San Francisco. One of them is an acoustic show.

Plus, we have three other random DJ gigs ... which are almost kinda nice, seeing as none of them are attached to parties that we have to promote as well. We just get to show up and play.

I'm performing at Trannyshack tonight -- it's Pink Floyd: The Wall. I'm doing "Comfortably Numb" ... which is insanely appropriate for how I'm currently feeling. The entire performance is pretty much a metaphor for my life right now.

Except that I have no one to help carry me out the door.

Remember when I used to update this blog?

2007-02-20T15:55:16-08:00

I mean, at least even just every month or so. Good times...

Bootie Bootie Bootie, rockin' everywhere ... San Francisco, Los Angeles, New York City ... and it keeps me damn busy.

And you know ... stuff and things. Stuff more important than keeping up with this blog, apparently.

To find out what the hell I'm doing, just click on the links at the left.

Unless it's my MySpace page. I fucking hate MySpace. Mysterious D now deals with all my MySpace correspondence. So if you get a message from me through MySpace, chances are, it's actually Deidre who is writing for me. Seriously. I can't stand MySpace. It's like surfing web pages in 1996 ... clunky, shitty, hard-to-read, crash-prone, buggy, and just plain ugly. WTF? How does a web site with such a horrible interface get so damn popular? Never underestimate the stupidity of 15-year-olds.

Now that I think about it, I probably would have said the same thing when I was 15. I hated all those people in high school!

Anyway, random tangent while I'm at the decreasingly important day job. Back to doing important Bootie club work, in-between the other work...

Looking at my schedule, I'm sure it'll be another three months before I post here again....

Birthdays suck

2006-12-24T04:38:24-08:00

Especially when they're on Christmas Eve.

Hopefully, I'll feel better about it all tomorrow.

To the two people who gave me cards, and the dozen people who wished me happy b-day... I love you, and thank you. And thanks for all the iPod goodies, Party Ben. I'm sorry I gave you a drunkenly hard time about mixing out my song a minute early. Seriously. But to everyone else who didn't show up (without a text or email telling me why you couldn't) well...

When I go "eh" with everyone else's bday, that's why.

Our midnight mashup show didn't even show up without a phone call or text to let us know. So much for my whole midnight thing. Fuck you, Foxy.

Played a new Journey mashup we made in 45 minutes tonight at Pop Roxx ... it worked ... "don't stop believin.... hold on to that feelin'" ... but not this feeling... Ugh... But that song was the highlight of the night.

Hey, at least I came home with all our CDs ... unlike last year ... anyway ... Lane took some good pix, and there were moments.

But I'm left with this shitty feeling, and I don't know why. Maybe I should just go back to blowing off my bday. It was probably better that way.

Bootie Bootie Bootie, rockin' everywhere...

2006-12-15T01:47:15-08:00

'Tis the season ... been busy as usual, which is why I haven't posted SHIT in six weeks. Of course, lots of stuff to report -- especially a lot of stuff about Bootie.

We heart Eric Kleptone

A few Bootie parties have come and gone, including our Bootie British Invasion with Bastard USA in the upstairs lounge, and guest DJ Eric Kleptone -- who also DJed at Bootie LA. Here's a silly pic of me and Eric at Bootie.

So nice to meet a mashup artist whose work we love and respect -- especially when he turns out to be SUCH a nice guy, and totally on the same page as us in regards to mashup bootleg culture. Such a similar aesthetic and attitude as ourselves. He totally rocked it at both Bootie parties, and it was so great hanging out with him and talking shop, comparing notes, etc. His shit is totally The Shit.

Bootie British Invasion

So in addition to Eric, we also had seven -- count 'em -- SEVEN other bootlegger DJs from the UK come over to take over the upstairs lounge at Bootie, doing Bastard USA. Bastard was the first mashup/bootleg club night in the world, which used to take place at a tiny bar called The Asylum in London. The night before Bootie, D had set up a dinner, which we jokingly referred to as the first meeting of "The Order of the International Bootleggers," or something like that. There 14 of us in total, as we invited all our local mashup DJ friends, and got everyone together for a four-hour marathon dinner/drink session! Anyway, here's a shot of us, as we took over the secret basement room of O'Reilly's Holy Grail...

The British Invasion party at Bootie the following night was a helluva a good time. We had around 850 people there, and Smash-Up Derby did a British-themed rock set, featuring only mashups by UK artists. The Bastard USA upstairs lounge was definitely something different for our crowd, as the British boys spun a lot of drum n' bass and other fast tempo bootlegs, which ended up being ... interesting. Anyway, here's a pic of Smash-Up Derby in full-on Union Jack glory...

Bootie NYC ... coming soon!

After that insane weekend, D and I flew off to New York City to do a DJ gig at the Hiro Ballroom, where we met quite a few people, including DJs ATOM, Moldover, and Lobsterdust. We stayed with our dear friends Halycon and Sam, and we pretty much barely saw daylight the entire four days we were there. We were out every single night until the wee hours of the morning, and we tried to hit quite a few parties. We even DJed a Burning Man-esque sexy party at a Brooklyn warehouse/loft.

Had a meeting with our potential Bootie NYC co-promoter, and it's looking like it's going to happen, so ... details coming soon!

BTW, I just gotta say that I totally LOVED New York on this trip. On previous excursions, I've always been a bit ambivalent about NYC ... like, it's a big city, and there's a lot going on but ... whatever. It's that "we're the center of the fucking universe" attitude that most New Yorkers seem to have that kinda turned me off. Like, "if it's not happening in New York, then it's not happening." And that's patently NOT TRUE. (Where's the equivalent of such San Francisco institutions as Trannyshack, Midnight Mass, or hell, even Bootie? That's right ... there's NOTHING LIKE ANY OF THEM in New York).

But this time, I was filled with this sense of excitement and opportunity. Sure, there's nothing like Bootie in New York. Therefore, I want to MAKE IT HAPPEN! Because, from what I hear ... if I can make it there, well ... I can make it anywhere! ;-)

My first Thanksgiving in San Francisco in 11 years!

D and I had a couple of good DJ gigs over Thanksgiving weekend, so this ended up being the first time we ever stayed in town over the long weekend. We used to always go on a desert roadtrip, something I've been doing every year without fail since 1995. But ... the DJ career is on an upswing, and so here we are, stuck in town.

So what did we do for Thanksgiving? GOT DRUNK. We thought it would be kitchzy fun to go to Tommy's Joynt with a couple friends ... the Thanksgiving dinner was sub-par, but the beer is always good. When we left, we decided to bar-crawl down Polk Street, but every bar was closed at 4 in the afternoon ... until we got to (where else?) our old watering hole, The Cinch. And the food was better there!

The next night, we DJed at Freaksgiving at Mighty. This was definitely one of our best DJ sets EVER. We had some chunks of our set already planned out from when we spun in New York City, but tonight, it just all fell into place and it was on fire! Some nice beat-mixed sections, a healthy dose of A+D tracks, and it all flowed perfectly. WOW! Just magical, and that so rarely happens. Lane Hartwell took some great pix here. Here's one of 'em...

The next night was Pop Roxx at DNA with our guest DJ Moldover from New York City, who we had met the week before. He does all his DJing with an Ableton Live rig... very cool stuff. Fun night, as usual.

A Very Bootie Christmas

DAMN. Last weekend's Bootie party in SF was SOOOOO much fucking fun! We were worried, because not only is December a notoriously bad month for nightclubbing (everyone is already out drinking for free at their or their friend's office Xmas party) but it was also pretty rainy out here in San Francisco.

But that didn't keep them away ... it was just like last month, we had around 850 people just going OFF! Plus, we were the after-party for the all-day Santarchy/Santacon thing happening so anyone dressed in a Santa suit got in for free. How much did I love looking out on the dance floor and seeing a bunch of drunk Santas getting down? Priceless.

We decorated the joint with Xmas decorations, and I even pulled off my hour-plus set of Xmas bootlegs without clearing the floor -- well, except for Voicedude's brilliant "Family Guy" mashup called "Carol of the Burgers" from last year's "Santastic" CD, but it was worth it for the few people who got the joke and went FUCKING NUTS when I played it!

Besides, it's only a little over a minute long, and I learned from DJ Instamatic last month that there are few things more gratifying as a DJ than deliberately clearing your floor only to bring 'em all back with the next tune! Most of what I played during the Xmas set is on our "A Very Bootie Christmas" CD, and we gave away LOTS of them tonight ... you can download it here!.

Smash-Up Derby rocked it -- we modified a few of our tunes to become Xmas songs. and we even brought our drunken Santa Claus up on stage for the last song. Our Ramones Christmas mashup -- "Christmas Bop," which mashed up The Ramones with "Deck The Halls," "Silent Night," and "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" -- was our set closer, and turned out to be a big hit. We totally pulled that one out of our collective asses, coming up with it in rehearsal in probably less than a half-hour. It was sort of our tribute to Princess Kennedy's old holiday band, The Yuletards, who used to do punk rock Xmas songs. So much fucking fun!

And DAMN, the Fandango upstairs lounge was going off like it never has before (except when we do Mini-Bootie there at the club Pop Roxx ). They SERIOUSLY decorated the lounge (and made our meager efforts in the main room look lame in comparison) and also totally rocked it on the decks. DJs Malderor and Redstickman are both due for some main floor set time soon ... they had that upstairs room packed all night, and we didn't end up shutting it down until nearly 3 AM, when I finally ended it with (what else?) "Jon Whitney Houston."

DJ Jay-R turned out a great set, right after our midnight mashup show, which was Foxy Cotton doing his best Sarah Silverman impression by doing our A+D "Give Da Jew Girl Toys" mashup from the Santastic II CD. It's a "holiday party," not just a Xmas party!

I can't express enough how fucking shocked I am by how the evening went! The vibes were so good ... Santa and his elves were giving away free CDs all night, people were having a great time, it was just such a friendly, no-attitude, unpretentious, up-for-it crowd! (Which, for the most part, it always is ... but this time it was even better!)

I got stuck upstairs in the Fandango Lounge DJing till the bitter end, so Party Ben ended up doing a longer set than he was expecting, going from 1:20 or so till almost the end, when I came in to close out the night with DJ BC's "Imagine Santa" (again, from the Santastic II CD) which was so nice to see people slow-dancing to that. (And having the bar staff singing "Santa Claus Is Coming To Town" afterwards!)

Like I said, it was THAT kind of evening ... it surpassed all of our expectations of what a club is supposed to be like during the worst club month of the year. Thanks to everyone who came out!

My birthday party is coming up at Pop Roxx in two weeks ... this time, I won't be getting so drunk that I lose all our CDs. Not to say that I won't be getting drunk ... just not THAT drunk!

Wow, I seriously suck at updating my blog!

2006-11-01T15:17:58-08:00

Seriously. Seems like I'm just too fucking busy with Life to bother with WRITING about Life. Which kinda sucks, because there's a lot of cool shit going on with Life.

Okay, here's the brief update:

We made a bunch of new mashups. Six in total, actually. We just went on a bootlegging rampage, which we needed to do, since we hadn't exactly been very productive lately in the mashup creation department. Here's what we made:

Sexy Peek-A-Boo - Justin Timberlake vs. Siouxsie & the Banshees
Promiscuous Walk - Nelly Furtado vs. Aerosmith vs. Run-DMC
Nelly Furtado's Crazy - Nelly Furtado vs. Gnarls Barkley
You Believe Me All Night Long - Cher vs. AC/DC
Love Shack On Wheelz - B-52's vs. My Life With The Thrill Kill Kult
Gold Lion Tale To Tell - Yeah Yeah Yeahs vs. Love and Rockets

You can also find them all at www.RebelDJs.com.

Bootie Bootie Bootie, rockin' everywhere ... besides Bootie SF (with DJs BC, Lenlow, and Adam Balm from Boston's Mash Ave!) and Bootie LA, we also did a couple Bootie-style parties for corporate clients ... hell, we even DJed at a trade conference! Also, been working on launching Bootie Paris, Bootie NYC, and Bootie San Diego. It's all in the works, and very very exciting! We're even in the midst of trademarking the Bootie name and logo. Frickin' cuh-razy. How has it come to this? The whole bootleg mashup DJing and throwing parties thing was just supposed to be something we were doing because we thought it was fun and new and interesting ... and now it's somehow turning into an actual career. Funny how life goes...

We got a really nice article written about us the SF Weekly. It was for their Music Awards Issue ... we were nominated in the "Best DJ" category, and we spun for the VIP reception at the awards ceremony at The Warfield. No, we didn't win ... but neither did Mike Relm, who is fucking amazing, and we would have been quite happy to lose to him. Instead, some dance music DJ we'd never heard of from KALX Berkeley won. Oh well... at least we got that nice article.

Smash-Up Derby played at the Cow Palace! Yup, the same stage I saw Rush, Nirvana, and Queensryche! We played the Exotic Erotic Ball, and it was a blast! Got to try out my new confetti cannons too ... I think they'll work better in the DNA Lounge than the cavernous Cow Palace. Anyway, got to wear a corset from Dark Garden and rock out. BTW, that's the SAME corset that Budgie from Sioxsie & the Banshees/The Creatures has worn!

Good stuff coming up ... one of our bootleg heroes, Eric Kleptone from The Kleptones, is guest DJing at both Bootie parties, in LA and SF. And we've got a bunch of rowdy Brits coming to San Francisco for the Bootie British Invasion, doing Bastard USA in the upstairs lounge. Can't wait!

And then we're heading to New York for a couple DJ gigs, in anticipation of doing Bootie NYC. Woo-hoo!

There's the update ... like I said, lots of good stuff ...

If a picture says a thousand words, then this is a 3000 word blog entry!

2006-09-27T20:28:38-07:00

Been busy, as usual, so no blog update in a month. Ooops, sorry. Life keeps getting in the way of Writing About Life.

Got my journal from this year's Burning Man in the works, along with some musings regarding our Bootie French Revolution party, not to mention Smash-Up Derby at the Folsom Street Fair.

In the meantime, though, here are some pix. A 3000 word blog entry right here!

Visors are the new cowboy hats. Me at Burning Man, showing off my handywork. PDFs of all of this year's issues of Piss Clear are archived on the web site -- click here -- and scroll down.

My favorite pic from September's Bootie party, with DJ Zebra on stage surrounded by, um ... some very happy club people! One of my favorite guest DJ sets ever.

I am totally airborne in this photo. I love jumping off of drum risers! Playing at Folsom Street Fair was so much fun ... and Trixxie got us hooked up with totally gorgeous Stormy Leather corsets for this show. I want to wear mine ALL the time. I got to pretend like I was fucking a furry on stage while singing "I wanna fuck you like an animal" -- but I'm saving those pix for my next blog entry. But you can get a sneak peek here.

More later. For realz.

My month of stress is over!

2006-08-21T19:39:06-07:00

Well, August is almost over, and I survived, with my sanity and relationship relatively intact. DAMN.

It was just NON-STOP there for a while ... mostly gearing up for our MASSIVE Bootie 3-Year Anniversary Pirate Ball, which turned out to be the biggest party of our career. Over 1000 people there, with over half of them dressed up in some sort of pirate attire! Nine DJs, three performances to coordinate, plus, Smash-Up Derby performed a fucking mashup rock opera ...yes, we finally did Dean Gray: American Edit - The Theatrical Experience. It's been a dream of mine to perform that as a stage show, and with Foxy Cotton's help, we pulled it off!

The party was absolutely INSANE -- I practically had a nervous breakdown about four hours before the doors opened, and afterwards, I needed two days to recover. There was just SO MUCH going on, and so many little details to stay on top of. But it was A GREAT NIGHT, so much fun. I feel immensely proud. Two weeks prior to the party, the San Francisco Bay Guardian's annual Best of the Bay issue came out, and Bootie was voted "Best Dance Club" in its Readers Poll. To say that we were ecstatic would be an understatement! Over the past three years, we have worked so hard to create a party that is as fun and as mashed-up as the music we play there.

What surprised us the most is that this award didn't go to a nightclub venue (as it has in years past) but to just a single club night -– and one that happens only once a month! For a genre as wonderfully niche as bootlegs and mashups, it's a testament to the vitality of the Bay Area bastard pop scene that a club devoted to such a specific style of music could win this award. Plus, Smash-Up Derby won an Editor's Pick award, for "Best Slayer Meets Tori Amos." The great thing was that we all got to go to the Best of Bay award party!

So, in the midst of all of this, I also hosted "Smashed & Trashed" mashup night at Trannyshack, and did Bootie LA with DJ Tripp. Oh yeah, and then right after the Bootie Pirate Ball, I had to start working on Piss Clear, the newspaper I publish out at Burning Man every year. 60 hours of work in four days ... I ended up sleeping at my office one night! I was stuck there for 36 hours straight, working on that damn thing. But I think we've got a pretty good run of issues this year. I especially like the cover of the obligatory Drug Issue that Eric Shutterslut shot. Yes, that's my tongue.

But now that's all done, and really, all I have to do this week is get ready for Burning Man, and get all my ducks in a row for Bootie LA (the one we'll be missing while we're in Black Rock City) and the Bootie SF that happens six days after we get back from the desert.

Packing for Burning Man should be easy ... this is my 14th year, and I pretty much already have everything. The thing D and I are really excited about this year though, is that we're going to be DJing for the first time out there! We're doing Bootie BRC on Thursday and Friday night! Woo-hoo! Black Rock City really needs some dance music that's not JUST trance and techno ... and we're happy to bring the flava! It should be a blast. Plus, we're camping with a bunch of cute gay boys who are bringing a big 16-foot dome, so for once, we'll have a cool chill space in front of our camp.

Damn, it is SOOO NICE to have a week of relative calm before heading off to the desert. Time to breath, get all our shit together, not have the stress and anxiety of a looming deadline always bearing down on you. Ugh ... because that's what the past month has been like! Anyway, still got lots to do, so I'm not going to write a book here ... just a lil' update before I head off to Black Rock City.

Yikes! I'm going to be very busy for the next month...

2006-07-19T15:06:31-07:00

I've got a blip of free time right now as I wait for the editors to give me articles to layout here at my day job at the Bay Area Reporter. So I figure I better blog now while I'm thinking about it, because looking at my schedule for the next month or so, I am very soon going to have NO TIME for anything other than work stuff. It's all GOOD work stuff -- in other words, it's all MY work -- but it's still work.

Bootie post-party report

Bootie was last weekend, and it was a CRAZY NIGHT! Aaaaigh!

We got a good crowd early (cheaper admission before 10:30, plus the kids still love those free CDs to the first 50 people) which was nice for Smash Hitley, our special live guest from Toronto. He played keyboard live, which triggered various audio and video samples. Pretty cool ... definitely the most art-damaged Bootie performance we've ever had!

I must say, I really enjoyed Dada's set beforehand. Now that Smash-Up Derby is playing every month, he saves the rock mashups for the band. Most of the second half of his DJ set was very dancey, which I've been groovin' on. You can listen to an audio stream of the whole evening here.

Speaking of the band, we opened up with "Smells Like Billie Jean" for the very first time (it's always been our set closer). And we tried out a couple of new ones: a version of Earworm's Depeche Mode vs. Goldfrapp (we dubbed it "Personal Trained Jesus") and Tripp's Cure vs. George Michael "Close To Faith" (which didn't work as a DJ mix, but was great for a live band.) We also did "Don't Stop Believin' 1979" (Journey vs. Smashing Pumpkins) which we LOVE doing. The audio on the webcast sounds like shit (the vocals are always WAY TOO LOUD) and you can hear every bad note me and Trixxie hit, but trust me ... it ROCKED live!

Mysterious D and Party Ben both were there excellent selves. I especially dug D's set, as she mixed up some new faves with older "Bootie classics." Then it was time for our very sexy midnight mashup show, featuring Nicorette and Miss Glittorus (two very real girls, not drag queens) as feuding bi-curious baton twirling cheerleaders! Woo-hoo! Plus, it was fun to see Steven Satyricon, our gay go-go dancer, pretend to be a straight jock. So wrong!

After that, DJ Earworm was up, with a selection of mashups that seemed to be mixed with either electro or 70s rock. Yes, that was a Steely Dan mashup in his mix, along with Kelly Clarkson singing with the Doobie Brothers (soon to be a Bootie Top 10 exclusive!)

The crowd was kinda insane ... and definitely having a good time. We had a little over 800 people there over the course of the evening. A lot of new peeps, but familiar faces in the house as well. A totally fun night ... including the after-party at our house until 7 AM. Can't wait for the 3-Year Anniversary Pirate Ball next month!

So much to do over the next four weeks!

Of course, putting together this Bootie 3-Year Anniversary Pirate Ball is going to be kinda crazy. Gotta mix and burn 500 CDs, send out press kits, set up a liquor promo, make new decorations, just a zillion little things.

And Smash-Up Derby is mounting a fucking mashup rock opera! It's been a dream of mine to do a theatrical interpretation of the Green Day bootleg album Dean Gray - American Edit. It's sorta started off as a joke, but now it's taken on a life of its own. And then Foxy Cotton did this epic performance art-like lip-sync to "Dr. Who On Holiday" at our first Bootie at DNA Lounge back in March, and I just saw all these possibilities. So now Foxy and I are conceptualizing this mini rock opera. I know we're over-reaching here, and what I visualize is so ambitious, that there's no way we're going to be able to pull it off as nearly as epic as I envision. But even if we get half-way there, it's still going to be really cool.

Smash-Up Derby is in the studio!

Besides that, Smash-Up Derby is also in the midst of recording a ton of new mashups. Last night we were at Coast Recorders until 3 AM, laying down all the basic tracks. We got 11 songs down before we burnt out. Tonight we start working on overdubs, vocals, basic mixing, etc. Hopefully, in a month or so, we'll have everything mixed and mastered.

As it stands right now, the plan is to possibly release this as a full-length CD. Of course, for what we're doing, song licensing is a bothersome nuisance, so we'll probably be doing this underground style -- at least until we can find some sucker who wants to pay all the publishing companies and lawyers that represent the songs we're bastardizing! Where's our rich sugar daddy who wants to bankroll Smash-Up Derby?

I should be SO be on Rock Star: Supernova

My latest TV obsession has been the second season of Rock Star, the rock singer version of American Idol. Last year, it was basically a talent search for the new singer for INXS. Kinda creepy, but it made for great television. This year, it's a search for a singer for a new band called Supernova, formed by Tommy Lee (Motley Crue), Gilby Clarke (Guns 'N Roses), and Jason Newsted (Metallica).

Watching this show is an exercise in frustration and masochism though. You see, back in March or so, I checked the Rock Star web site, to see what was up with the second season, and what one had to do to get on the show. That's when I found out that I had missed the San Francisco auditions by just a week! FUCK!

At the time, I was like, "oh well, whatever." But now that the show is airing, and I'm seeing who made it on to the show, I'm so mad at myself for blowing my chance to audition! Adding insult to injury, Storm Large, who used to live in San Francisco (she's now in Portland) and who my old band, Blue Period, played with a couple of times, is on the show! She's an amazing singer and she totally DESERVES to be there -- and I hope she wins -- but to see a colleague of mine on the show just rubs salt in the wound. Grrrrrrr....

And most of the people who made the final 15 contestants kinda suck. The women are interesting, but most of the guys are kinda generic, and half of them can't sing or have zero stage presence. I should SOOOO be on this show! I'm not saying I'd win ... I may have attitude and personality in spades, but Storm can easily sing circles around me. But I have a feeling I'd get pretty far -- and just think of the boost it would have done for Smash-Up Derby's career! DAMN. Oh well, maybe there's next year. Not sure how many more "rock star years" I've got in me, but ... y'know ... botox and dreadlocks keep you looking young!

Another year, another Burning Man

It's been no secret that I have not exactly been looking forward to Burning Man this year. This is going to be my 14th year on the playa, and my 12th year of publishing Piss Clear, my Black Rock City vanity project-turned-alternative newspaper. And frankly, I guess I'm a little burnt out. There are already too many good things going on in my Real Life right now ... therefore, another trip out into a pretend desert dystopia just ain't what it used to be.

Still, I'm going anyway. And in fact, I'm finally starting to warm up to it, after nearly a year of being a big sourpuss about it. Eric Shutterslut has assembled a whole team of gay boys to camp with us ... so many, that we may as well call our camp "Piss Queer." The best part? They're bringing a nice 16-foot dome for the front of our camp, so we'll have a much nicer "meet-and-greet" area than we usually do.

My printer deadline for Piss Clear is much earlier than it usually is, which sucks. I'm really going to have to hustle to get everything finished, and I'm not looking forward to the inevitable all-nighter I'm sure I'll end up pulling to get it all done. However, the good news is then I'll have two weeks of relative calm before we head out to the desert, and I'll need that time to do all the pre-production prep for Bootie and Bootie LA, before I go check out of Real Life for a week.

Oh, and I plan on checking out! Me and D both need it! Last year, I had the flu for the first few days of Burning Man, and it sucked. This year, I plan to make up for lost time, and I'm going to party like crazy the first few days ... and then become more sober as the week wears on. We're doing Bootie BRC out there, and I'm looking forward to actually DJing on the playa. How crazy is it that there are so many DJs out there, yet we've never spun a set at Burning Man?

Okay, that's more of an update than I've done in MONTHS. Now it's time to get back to work!

It sucks to have so many opportunities

2006-07-01T03:21:40-07:00

"Yeah, it sucks to have so many opportunities." *said in jaded sarcastic tone of voice*

This has been the catchphrase of my life these past few months. I've been busy as all get out, just keeping my head above water, really. Remember when I used to update this blog? And there's been so much lately ... gigs, shows, trips, clubs, blah blah blah... SF, LA, NYC, DC, Seattle... did I leave anywhere out?

Basically, if you've seen me, it's because: A) you were at a party or club that I was working at ... either working, like DJing, or "working," like promoting; B) you're in my band, C) you work at the Bay Area Reporter, or; D) you're Deidre.

So much good stuff ... but a lot of stress and drama that goes with it, along with two near nervous breakdowns. All the while trying not to bitch about any of it because, let's face it, even if it sometimes really does sorta suck to have so many opportunities, no one wants to hear about it.

Anyway, suffice to say, a big long update should be coming soon ... or at least some edited highlights with pictures and stuff. As much as I like to write, I'm sure not very prolific at it. At least not when there are CDs to mix, flyers to design, songs to learn, parties to promote, mashups to make, etc.

More to come...