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clunky glasses and a reservoir dogs suit








spent the weekend in coachella with my sister. but first we went hiking 4 hours through griffith park, climbed up near the hollywood sign. then to get sushi in little tokyo with Anthony, he was in town from san anto, 'cuz his jaina had an interview. picked up Felipe from LAX, and drove straight there, met up and stayed with friends, up until 6am talking about school reform and beer. after swimming the next day, dropped Era at the festival, it was 106 degrees so screw that, i didn't stay. hung out in air conditioning, ate an organic feast my sister bought.
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Roy and Felipe got back from the Claremont conference, where they presented their critical media literacy program and their Purepecha students showed a video made in class (should've gone to that conference, but i slept instead). finally drove Roy and my sister to the festival. bought tickets from some guys walking. they make you walk a mile, we were still tired of walking from the 4 hour hike the previous day. but made it in time to see many good bands, including arcade fire, !!!, ghostface killah, gotan projekt, the good the bad and the queen, ozomatli. we also saw part of red hot chili peppers - but the mix was bad, the guitar was sloppy, we were a quarter mile away, and oh yeah, they're tired and old. you could tell they wanted to be good, bless their hearts.
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so we walked over and listened to mike relm, a dj we'd never heard of. but he was scratching video tracks together, mixing them with vinyl, and the crowd was stunned. music so precise, clever, and big. on stage, mike relm plays a character: a vaguely-asian nerd with clunky glasses and a reservoir dogs suit. but then after 6 songs he spoke into the mic for the first time, and we all realized he ain't a nerd at all. he's charismatic and funny, as on-point with words as he is with turntables. the video scratching, Era is familiar with it (he's in paint by numbers, a san anto hip-hop group), but all reports are that mike relm takes it to a new level. he built an entire breakbeat/d&b song from 5 seconds of video dialog from Office Space (keeping with the nerd theme). he turned an instructional swing video into some kind of dub-hop epic.
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the arcade fire, still, was the highlight for me. neon bible is a great standalone album, but this has so be seen to be believed. bombastic, shameless, over-the-top melodies to wrench your heart, always weird enough to keep you off balance. and that voice, wavering near the pitch like conner (sp?) oberst, but with much more air, more power behind each note. with oberst, you kinda want to tell him to chill out, it's gonna be fine, pat him on the back. with arcade fire, you don't want to touch him or say anything at all, 'cuz you're kind of scared to. can indie rock really be this preposterous and sincere at the same time? sign me up to drink the koolaid. non-metaphorically, i didn't get anything to drink: pepsi was $4, and heineken was $7.
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the good etc. announced "we're going to play our album." and nothing else, and in the same order. i think i get it now. still hate their band name. they wore swank top hats, the dude from gorillaz ("the queen" in the band introoductions) had a red satin shirt under his tux. they herded the 60,000 of us like cattle toward the parking lots. after we escaped the L.A.esque traffic, headed back to Magdalena's. she was still out at that train-shaking bar, so i forced open the gate to her backyard. Felipe forced open the chelas. the neighbor had left the hose on and flooded the backyard, but it was drying by then. the thirteen lemons Coree and Maggie picked were inside, so we had it straight up.
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Maggie got home, and a bunch of her friends arrived. dancing ensued, from los temerarios to nelly. and it wasn't long before cazadores was the only option left. the mañác provided entertainment for all, until admitting "there's a big difference between dancing and, you know." so the party died down within a few hours. next morning, Felipe cleaned the kitchen and Maggie's mom cleaned the pool (dirty from the neighbor's hose flood), but i didn't clean anything. woke up and met for a debriefing: breakfast at Andy's Tacos, best vegetarian omelettes in the coachella valley. while Roy and Era headed back for the 3rd day - to get down with cansei de ser sexy, cry with damien rice, and rage with rage (the bands we missed are more impressive than the ones we saw, but whatever).
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Coree and i, we took the 10 to inglewood. stopped to pet the dinosaurs and windmills. but skipped joshua tree until next year, my legs are still sore from the hollywood hiking.

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