Harry Potter and the YOU CAN GO FUCK YOURSELF

* DISCLAIMER *
please do not continue any further if you have not yet but fully intend to finish Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows.


with a nice big fat check safely deposited in her bank account, J.K. Rowling should have titled the 7th and final edition of the most successful children's book series of all time Harry Potter and the You Can Go Fuck Yourself; because that is basically what she told us, the reader, to do. "go fuck yourself," she said in her merry, British accent. sweet.

as a long time Potter fan, i naturally pre-ordered a copy months in advance and anxiously awaited the book's release. i was more than disappointed when my eyes couldn't stop scanning back and forth over the poorly written prose that haunts seven hundred and some odd pages of recyclable paper. the plot was slightly predictable in places (Harry ultimately ending up with Ginny, and Ron with Hermoine, Harry kills Voldemort, blah, blah, blah), yet completely preposterous in others (belittling Dumbledore's integrity, confirming that James Potter was not a respectable man, making Snape out to be the hero, and so on)

Rowling killed off lovable characters such as Fred (or was it George...), Lupin and Tonks without batting an eyelash. now i'm not saying that they should or shouldn't have been died - it was simply the lack of description and detail regarding their deaths that left me little time to actually understand what happened let alone mourn the loss. she might as well have written, "and then they were dead."

lack of imagination, loss of steam - i don't know what the real root problem was. and maybe i'm being harsh and didn't really have time to let things sink in due to the quick pace in which i finished the book, but for fuck's sake.

or maybe i just hate it when things come to an end. i wasn't a huge fan of how the Sopranos ended either, but i'll take a Journey tune and a fade to black any day over this waste of space on my bookshelf.

remember me?

holy shit, it's been a while, eh kids? i guess the past few months have been busy, to say the least, but that doesn't mean wacky things haven't been processing through my head for your enjoyment. a recap of recent events:

i moved. yes, it's true - i'm once again a resident of The Deuce. it's actually not that bad. i love my little house, and Lu is a great roommate. we have a red light in the bathroom. i painted my room a toxic shade of yellow so every morning when i wake up i feel all happy and sunshiney inside. well, either happy or sunshiney or i'm pissed that i live in a neon cube. i've yet to wake up hungover in said room, but i'll be sure to let you know how that goes.

and i work too much. there, that's the last six weeks in a nutshell... i moved, and i work too much. what an exciting life i lead.

on a completely different note, do you know any 30 year old virgins? i'm thinking about making a documentary about the life of 30 year old virgins. if you do know one, please pass along my contact info. what? he/she's a Mormon? even better...

the Ducks are dicks

we all knew that the former "Mighty", now just Ducks of Anaheim were assholes. talented? unquestionably. no one is denying that they have immense talent on the blue line and a deep bench, but bottom line is they are assholes. this was further proved when Detroit's Tomas Holmstrom required 13 stitches on his forehead after his face was lovingly smashed into the glass by both Rob Niedermayer and prodigal son Chris Pronger, who wasn't even penalized. bullshit. this is taking a lot out of me, because those of you who know me well enough know that i in fact am not so fond of the Red Wings, either, but enough is enough.

the only thing missing (which could have potentially caused me actually vomit on the spot) was Bryan Hayward's nagging voice explaining how it was Holmstrom's fault that he was lying flat on his back bleeding...

I Contracted the Syndrome

The Deadly Syndrome, that is.

When I told my friends I would be trekking out to Anaheim’s own Chain Reaction last Tuesday night, most assumed I was excited to catch Silverlake darlings Monsters Are Waiting. They were partially correct (though no partial credit was given), as I wasn't about to pass up an opportunity to see the headlining act for a mere ten bucks. But really, I was giddy to see my latest obsession: The Deadly Syndrome.

This quartet of lads may appear your typical skinny-jean fad-loving pack of Indie Rock boys, but thirty seconds into their set it is apparent that their sound is anything but. What some may call pop-ish, others might classify as folky. Whatever you want to call it, The Deadly Syndrome’s catchy guitar hooks mixed with decisive beats and nimble piano lines leave you little chance of standing still when they are on stage. If lovers wear their hearts on their sleeves, singer/bassist Chris Richard bottles the essence of his soul and sells it by the glass when he performs. His haunting falsetto and utter sincerity throughout "I Hope I Become a Ghost" reminded me why I fell in love with music at the tender age of nine.

The venue's staff was clearly incapable of keeping track of time, as the show was already running late when The Deadly Syndrome took the stage. They were forced to cut their set short before having a chance to play crowd favorite "Eucalyptus," which often warrants all four members gathered around the drum kit in an all out free-for-all. Still, broken drumsticks or not, once again these boys proved why they were picked up by L.A.'s Dim Mak Records.

Word on the street is their debut album will be released in the fall, likely followed by a tour which will only help spread the Syndrome. In fact, get ready for an epidemic.

our flight from the devil's version of heaven

i'm not much of a morning person, which is why i am just as surprised as you are that i was bright eyed and bushy tailed when my alarm went off at 5:00am. but i was. and so was Nikki. one thing was apparent: we were muy excited.

Danielle graciously dropped us off at the Alaska Terminal of LAX because that's what our iterniraries read - Alaska Airlines. but as the rude Alaska employee pointed out after we failed self check-in, "Operated by American Airlines" was written in a non-descript font near the bottom of the paper. WTF?

after a nice hike across LAX, we wish we were actually flying Alaska (which was DEAD) because American is bumpin'. Nikki flirts with one of the TSA guys, we skip the baggage line. we loudly whine while conveniently near another TSA worker that we may miss our flight, we skip to the front of the security line. things are finally looking up, and the memory of running past Hal Fishman and his creepy camera man is almost out of my mind. "let the good times roll," i say to myself.

well, come to find out, the only thing that would be rolling is the old man on the floor that was sitting two rows in front of us. i seriously thought he was having a heart attack, but maybe he shouldn't have tried to go to the bathroom while the plane was making it's initial ascent and the fasten seat belt sign was still on.

we are sitting in the very last row of this god damn airplane and Nikki often has an ass or a crotch (either gender) in her face when the line from the lavatory exceeds more than one person - which is 99% of the time. FYI, i could stick my finger in mouth right now if i really wanted to. that lucky bitch managed to fall back asleep again.

the knock off version of Three Six Mafia is sitting to our right - how many "hard core" gangsters do you know wear a white mesh fedora with Quiksilver shorts? yeah... me neither.

there is a lovely waft of piss scent that comes out of the air ducts every once in a while due to the fact that we're practically sitting in the bathroom.

our seats do not recline. sitting straight up and trying to sleep next to an odd man that keeps turning my reading light on for me much to my displeasure is not an easy task.

the in-flight movie is "Charlotte's Web".

my diet coke tastes likke it has arsenic in it. not that i've ever tasted arsenic before, but something definitely does not taste right and i'm tired and mellodramatic so if i want to say it's arsenic, i will.

(wow, talk about being a brat...)

the entire plane cabin wreaks of old people. if some one were to bottle a scent and label it "geriatric", this is for sure what it would smell like. there must be an entire retirement home on this freaking flight.

my iPod is about to die. are we there yet?

every once in a while the old man sitting in the row directly in front of us (not to be confused with the old man tworows in front of us who ate shit earlier. i still can't quite grasp what actually happened to him.) stands up, i have the distinct pleasure of seeing his ass crack. apparently the low rise jean trend does not have any age/gender barriers. sweet.

the only bright spot is that "Rockin' to Life" by These Guys just came up on random play on my soon to be dead iPod. you're just in time for the fun train? i wish...

one thing is now apparent: i need a drink.


NOTE:this blog entry was originally scribbled on a combination of torn out sudoku book pages and airplane napkins due to the lack of an electronic device with a normal battery capacity but perhaps most importantly to preserve the authenticity and explicit attnetion to detail of the above mentioned events.

let the bodies hit the floor*

yesterday i was virtually useless. i'm pretty sure i was still mildly stoned, and possesed the energy of a bumble bee that clearly already stung some poor sap and is about to die, so i'm not quite sure what motivated me to get off the couch at 7:15pm in hopes of making it to The Echo with Danielle by eight o'clock. but something did - clearly.

for a good part of our drive, i force Danielle to listen to Movin' 93.9 - it was awesome. i think she loved it. correction. i know she loved it.

after a patch of weird traffic, we arrive at The Echo. or at least we arrive in the vicinity of where The Echo should be. you see, neither of us had ever been there before so we're basically driving up and down Glendale Boulevard looking for any sign of a show - boys in tight jeans, underage kids coughing as they don't inhale their first drag of a Marlboro Light, anything. i tell Danielle to turn down an alley that i hoped would mysteriously lead us in the right direction, but it actually turns out to be an odd, long driveway to a Christian Education Center. we turn the corner into the actual parking lot where we find a small Asian boy with a gun. no, it was not a real gun (at least i told myself it wasn't real), and no, in no way did i make any sort of connection between this little boy and the Virginia Tech shooting. but yes, i was honestly scared. i got hot in the face, the whole nine yards. how would you feel if you saw a kid holding a fake gun in a dimly lit parking lot in Echo Park? that's what i thought...

we manage to escape the clutches of the armed child and realize that we need to enter on Sunset - NOT Glendale (thanks, Patrick) - but the line is already huge. i'm talking over the bridge, around the corner, that's what she said HUGE. so we did the only logical thing that we could do - we cut. and not just a few people. we managed to become like the 15th and 16th people in line. Danielle was flawless. i on the other hand was visibly nervous, but looking back, i'm once again going to blame the child with a gun and maybe some pot-induced paranoia. but seriously, all it took was a little talk about an ice cream truck, how we used to like the Pink Panther things with the gumball eyes, lo and behold some dude is actually eating a Pink Panther thing with the gumball eyes. i don't know how it all worked out so perfectly, but it did. except for the whole waiting thing. that wasn't very perfect, because we stood outside for a good two hours. but let's not talk about that anymore.

once inside, we proceed straight to the bar. Danielle orders us doubles, and we start the night off right: sipping a glass of vodka. The Deadly Syndrome are already playing, we start dancing, and i begin to forget that i could have been shot (with water, a nerf missile - WHATEVER).

but also at this point, i decide the pain in my feet is no longer worth the extra two inches of height which my shoes are conveniently providing, so i take them off. i know what just went through your head: i'm standing in a crowded bar/club/show with weird creepy people and am now barefoot. disgusting. trust me, i wrestled with the idea in my head for a good twenty minutes before throwing in the towel. had i not stood in a line for two hours outside waiting to get in i'm confident i could have withstood the entire evening in those heels. but i did stand in line for two hours, and i was well into my second drink so i felt ok with the idea of being sans shoes.

that is, until i stepped on broken glass. once Klaxons came out, the already creepy crowd grew progressively creepier by starting a faux-mosh pit. the three hundred pound man to my left started throwing his weight around, and the possibly-gay-possibly-straight thruster to my right kept on thrusting. Danielle and i are wide eyed and giggly, spilling our drinks on anyone within a five foot radius when all of a sudden i feel a sharp pain in my right foot. i'm debating if this is an aftershock of my pre-existing foot woes, or if this is brand new. oh, it's brand new. i quickly realize this when i look down and see glass shards on the floor. in the midst of all the moshing-but-not-moshing, some one apparently got excited and threw their beer bottle on the ground. so i tell Danielle "i think i stepped on broken glass" which led to the best line of the night: "are you sure it's not ice?"

wow, this is really taking a lot out of me. a lot more happened than i originally remembered, and sitting here detailing the events to you has opened the flood gates in my head. i wasn't prepared for this. i've probably slept a combined total of 7 hours (if that) the past two nights. this is too much. i quit.

* the title of this post may not seem relevant, so allow me to explain. last night when i was stuck in the middle of the sea of pseudo moshing, that Drowning Pool song "Bodies" popped into my head and has been there ever since. don't ask. i never do.

420: the aftermath

wow. what a night. what a strange, glorious night.

first, let me start by recognizing that at more than one point last evening i was definitely not ok. like wickedly bugging out not ok. luckily, i managed to stay awake and some how rallied through a self imposed state of dementia. but seriously... so not ok. almost to the point that i feel inclined to apologize to any one that saw me. or not. maybe not that not ok. but almost.

some of my favorite moments (that i can actually remember) in no particular order:

- Miles and i were outside on the front balcony smoking a cigarette. both of us were so beyond stoned that we just stood there in complete silence for what seemed like 25 minutes (in actuality, it was probably two and a half - three tops) before he managed to speak. i don't remember what he said exactly, but i laughed and then ran away giggling "i have to get out of here".

- Chadrock bought pizza. a lot of pizza.

- Katie was telling us how she's going to record an internet game show today where she has to answer true/false trivia and hope that the World's Smartest Chicken doesn't show her up. Nikki and i found this to be hilariously retarded. and then Nikki asks, "what happens if the chicken gets it not wrong?" umm... you mean, what happen if the chicken gets is right? maybe you had to be there. or maybe i conjured the laugh. i don't know. i think i'm still stoned.

- we had kiwi strawberry jello shots.

- Chad the cousin passed out for an undisclosed amount of time on the couch. he also cradled a roll of paper towels as if it were his first born child.

- Dave kept eating the pot candy even though he was already fucked up. at one point, he pulled a melty wrapped candy bar out of his pocket and offered me a bite. i accepted. but it was weird and melty from being in his pocket and after it was already in my mouth i wished i hadn't accepted.

- every one kept telling me that my eyes were small. "Cori, why do you look so Japanese tonight?" or "Cori, why aren't your eyes open?" were some FAQs thrown my way. none of which i had an answer for.

and that's about all i can recall. i know a lot more happened (for heaven's sake, you people didn't leave my house until 4:30am), but as previously stated this is what i can remember.