A bit of housecleaning in this post. But first, a plea for stuff:

The CHICAGO ork poster is world famous by now; and finally they’ve heard my plea. The LOS ANGELES ork poster is out.

For $22 (with a portion donated to charity, for your guilt-free buying needs) you can buy me this poster for my living room….cause I don’t feel like tattooing L.A. or CA on my other arm just yet, and I really want this!

Speaking of local pride: I saw Tilly and the Wall tonight here at the Echoplex and they were great! (i’d seen them opening for Neva Dinova at Knickerbockers in Lincoln before and both shows were so much fun, Tilly i mean, I don’t get Neva Dinova. I think they kinda suck.) But I’m aboslutely in love with their single “Pot Kettle Black” and am thrilled that another Omaha band have finally broken through. And Kianna Alarid is gorgeous and has the voice of a young Belinda Carlisle. And just to namedrop; both Blake Sennett and Jenny Lewis from Rilo Kiley were there. I swear I see her around town AT LEAST once a month, for real. (at a Cursive show, at Beauty Bar last week, by a salon in Silverlake…)

We got lots of posts in the works, We got a namedrop on the world famous Splattercast from our friends over at DEADLANTERN.COM, had a massive spike in hits, some graphic updates to the site and will reveal the winner of The Who contest this weekend. More contests to come (cleaning out our closets).

Stay tuned.

Waiting for the #72 bus after work today, an ad at the bus stop caught my eye. It was an advertisement for Tru:Blood, a “synthetic blood nourishment beverage”. I was taken aback that there might actually be an alcoholic beverage that catered to freaks like me who have an obsession with interest in vampires. With a tagline like “friends don’t let friends drink friends”, I had to get a closer look. Upon further inspection, I saw that the ad was actually part of a marketing campaign for the new HBO show, True Blood.

Alan Ball, “Six Feet Under” creator, returns to HBO with True Blood, a series based on the Southern Vampire Mysteries books by Charlaine Harris. The show details the fictional co-existence of vampires and humans in a small Louisiana town after Japanese-made synthetic blood – “TruBlood” – becomes available for purchase. Anna Paquin stars as Sookie Stackhouse, a telepathic waitress at a diner who falls in love with one of the vampires, Bill Compton, who is played by Stephen Moyer-yeah, I don’t know who that is either. But hey-check out this giant piece of man. He plays Liam. Not that I know who that is, but apparently he’s a tattooed, sex-addicted vampire, so consider me interested.

The show’s premiere on September 7th has been prefaced with a viral marketing campaign, based at BloodCopy.com. This has included setting up multiple websites, encoding web addresses into unmarked envelopes mailed to high profile blog writers (I’ll assume my unmarked envelope got lost in the mail), a wikipedia entry collating info, and even a MySpace account (username: “Blood”) complete with video postings.

Author Harris admits that her vampire is a metaphor for minorities, and how they are perceived in society. In the show, vampires have decided to ‘come out of the coffin’ (their terminology, not mine), upon the advent of TruBlood. This is where the show seems be different from other vampire shows and movies-the focus is not on becoming a vampire, but the integration of vampires into everyday society, and the distrust and racism (mortalism?) that inevitably follows.

So…I’m pretty sure the marketing campaign is going to end up being more interesting than the actual show. Although I did learn a new word researching the show: Fangbangers–women who sleep with vampires. Loves it!

Eh, I’ll still watch it, I’m sure. But if it’s super lame, I’m gonna be pissed that it got picked up, and a second season of Moonlight didn’t.

[intr0vert’s Additional images: L.A. - click to enlarge]

So my roommate and I ventured off to the Northwest Side (represent) to eat us some ribs and watch us some bands. The Republic Tigers were the first band of the day, and most people were still wandering into the area, the grills were just starting to fire up, good smells and good sounds were soon to follow. Of course, the second the music started, the sky opened up, and Heaven had a good cry. Sprinkles soon turned to tsunami rainfall within minutes. We sought shelter under the tarp where the makeshift sound booth was, while others stood in the pouring rain, their umbrellas making a laughable attempt to keep them dry. See the wetness?

Considering all the PA speakers were covered in blue tarps, and the weather was on the verge of apocalyptic, the sound quality was impressive. The band themselves rocked on, every now and then edging further and further away from the stage front to avoid the inevitable flooding. After about 15 minutes, it was deemed a lost cause and unfortunately, that was the end of the show.

They definitely have an indie-rock flair, but there’s something delicate amidst the rock. There’s a nice contrast between the soft acoustic sounds, and almost 80s-ish keyboard sounds, and that’s what made them so appealing. They definitely kept the attention of the crowd, which was everyone and anyone. They did come down and take time to meet everyone afterwards, very personable (and attractive) dudes.

I managed to stay mostly dry and have a good time. Although I can’t say much for the ribs (or the 6 dollar funnel cake), the band was definitely worth the trip. I wish they could have finished their set, or better yet, had a later time slot, and therefore a much bigger audience to impress.

*sidenote: In the picture, the two girls in the orange Republic Tigers t-shirts couldn’t have been older than 14, and absolutely gushed over the guys. It was sickeningly adorable. One of them flew into Chicago from Tallahassee to see them, after stumbling across them on XM radio a month prior. Now that’s a fan.

Here’s a quick email interview I did with the Republic Tigers before the show, questions answered by Kenn Jankowski, lead vocals/keys/guitar guy:

Avanttrash: Tell me about your influences in music.

Kenn Jankowski: We have many individual influences. But collectively, I’d say we all really love most of the “headphone” bands, like the Flaming Lips and Blonde Redhead. It’s not enough for bands to have beautiful recordings though. We mainly enjoy the ones that have obvious threads of classical influence within the chord flow and melody.

AT: What is the Kansas City music scene like? How does it differ from what you’ve seen in other cities while touring?

KJ: Massively supportive. If you don’t like our band, but you explain to me what kind of music you do like, I can introduce you to a Kansas City band that meets your demands. I see trends within cities, when we travel - it usually seems like 80% of any given city’s music all sounds similar. Where as, Kansas City has Ssion, In The Pines, Namelessnumberheadman, Deep Thinkers, The Rich Boys, Roman Numerals, Ghosty, Ad Astra Per Aspera, Be/Non, Olympic Size, Paper Cities, Beautiful Bodies, Vedera, Bacon Shoe, and American Catastrophe just to name a few.

AT: How does being from the Midwest influence your sound?

KJ: Occasional twangy pronunciation. That’s about it.

AT: Any old bands? What do you bring from those past experiences to Republic Tigers?

KJ: He who smelt it, dealt it.

AT: What’s next after Ribfest?

KJ: Finishing out the tour with Nada Surf - Indianapolis, Columbus, and Cleveland. Then we go home for a few weeks and play a benefit show in KC on June 28th at Crosstown Station. West coast touring after that. Not really sure beyond.

Moral of the story: Good guys, good music, catch them if they come to your area. Pray for sunshine.

Geez yo, I haven’t posted here in forev! Not since intr0vert’s/my joint postings (and by joint I mean me throwing in my two cents while napping on the couch as he typed) during my visit to Hollywood. Speaking of, I thought maybe some of yous (anyone?) would be interested to know about my goings on in the city of angels and dirtbags.

intr0vert was an excellent tour guide and host, my experience wouldn’t have been half as enriched if he hadn’t been my guide. I must admit, when he made the trip to Chicago for my birthday, I probably wasn’t the best tour guide-I’d only been there 7 months and didn’t have my tour guide/public transportation chops up to par yet. (I’ll do better next time, I promise!)

Let me share with you a few misguided misconceptions I had about L.A.:

-You can’t smoke anywhere in L.A.

Mostly I got this idea from Sex & the City, when Carrie goes to L.A. to meet with a production company , and is prevented from smoking wherever she goes, even on the outside deck of her hotel room. (”I have an addiction sir!”) I guess I also had this impression because of the whole Hollywood health/physical appearance obsession that I read about in the news on Perez all the time. I was surprised that a few places we went to had smoking rooms, some were not even open air. Chicago is not down with that shit. You can’t even smoke in outdoor seating areas here. Anywho-doesn’t really affect me, just an observation.

-Nobody walks in L.A.

Again, another thing I’ve heard through the grapevine of pop culture media. I was assuming that since everyone drives in L.A., that nobody walks. Not so, my friends. Oh, we drove almost everywhere…but then we parked 10 blocks away. Parking in L.A. is just as bad as most parts of Chicago. Any parking you find here is either permit parking only or will cost you $50. Not a big deal, I don’t ever wanna be the girl that bitches about how far away the car is, but it did limit my cute shoe options. You see, its a delicate ratio. Typically as the cuteness of the shoe goes up, its comfort level goes down.

On a side note: I also thought that there was no worthwhile public transportation there. I met an actual human being that took a bus to work everyday. Even intr0vert was considering trying the train out as a daily commute. And my experiences on the subway were fairly pleasant. Although, I’m not sure the idea of an underground train on a fault line sits well with me. I’m just sayin.

-Everyone in L.A. is beautiful and glamorous (thanks to Fergie, I can spell that word now).

Oh, there were plenty of beautiful people there. But there were a lot of really unspecial people there, too. The air in Hollywood was thick with ego, which didn’t surprise me so much. What surprised me was that I was expecting the clothes to make the man a little more. Actually, the woman. The chicks there seemed to fall into two categories: The strapless tube dress complete with hooker shoes (do hookers call them ‘work shoes’?) and makeup applied with a paintball gun, or cutesy, hipster chicks. I’m typically the type of girl that prefers to be overdressed, rather than under dressed. And don’t get me wrong, I wear a lot of makeup. A drag queenish amount. On a daily basis.

So…famous people. I was promised by intr0vert at least three sightings. The first was only half a sighting, as it was just Jael from America’s Next Top Model a couple seasons ago. She was a hot tranny mess on Hollywood, trashy outfit, crazy pink furry hat, and I’m sure was operating on one or more psychiatric drugs. We also saw Janeane Garafalo walking in Studio City and Vincent Kartheiser (from Angel-I’m a vampire nerd, remember?) at the Magic Castle. Some others too, I can’t remember. Some dude from a teen movie bummed me a smoke. Good shit, huh?

I will have to make this a to-be-continued post. Even though it was like two weeks ago. Lots happened, and I’m sure people are riveted by my recounts of my vacation. Long story short (too late!), Hollywood did not disappoint. More soon, I promise.

AliUptown is in town from Chicago this weekend! I’m trying to give her the optimum L.A. experience. She’s having nappy time already, i tuckered her out. Last night we went to Beauty Bar (you’re so great, why are you dying?), Boardner’s (the bar side, not goth night) and finally Tiny’s (where 10 cops walked in and arrested 2 HUGE bikers from the “Mongols” MC. After they passed by I turned to AliUptown and said, “So 10 cops walk into a bar…” and the girl next to me was cool enough to say, “…right!?” and dish the High-5. It was a moment.

So far today we walked by Hollywood & Highland to see the costume freaks and Grauman’s to get our coffee (i live 2 blocks away), we went up Beachwood Cyn by the Hollywood sign, cruised half of Melrose (i finally got a haircut), and had lunch at the Village Idiot. Now its rest time because we are going to CBS in Studio City to check out the taping of the PILOT episode of “David’s Situation” by Mr.Show geniuses Bob Odenkirk and David Cross. Not sure what the plan is for later tonight; maybe Los Feliz, maybe the Strip. I think we’ll hit the beach tomorrow and Silverlake tomorrow night.

Anyone have any suggestions?

It’s gonna knock my dick in the dirt.

Time is running out, stock up while you can!

Apparently the hallucinogenic herb salvia is being targeted by lawmakers as ‘the next marijuana’. Eight states, including Illinois, have already placed restrictions on salvia-classifying it as a controlled substance, and 16 others are considering a ban.

Salvia is sold on the internet or in certain smoke shops and herbal stores, for $15-50 a dose, depending on potency. It is produced from a Mexican plant used by Mazatec Indians for healing and ritual prophecy.

No known deaths have been attributed to salvia’s use, but it was listed as a factor in one Delaware teen’s suicide two years ago-although the autopsy found no traces of the drug in his system at the time of death.

Most people think that this commotion over the drug is overblown. As soon as you make something illegal, people are just going to find something else. One Florida state representative has already introduced a bill to make possession of salvia a felony punishable by up to five years in prison. Bill LB840, which would make salvia divinorum illegal in Nebraska has moved to the floor of the Legislature, but has seen little activity as of yet.

California Attorneys for Criminal Justice, an organization of more than 2,000 criminal defense lawyers, opposes such bills because the group says it criminalizes behavior without sufficient scientific evidence, such as whether the drug is addictive or harmful to the body. The group advocates public education about the drug-what a concept.

Many scientists believe the drug has “real promise,” particularly with treating mania or bipolar disorder. Others say it has potential for slowing the transmission of HIV. Who knows. Maybe we never will, with such drastic knee-jerk reactions to a pretty little plant.

AliUptown is now technically AliHumboldtPark. Doesn’t roll off the tongue quite like the former. Anywho, I’ve since moved into my new apartment, and am “borrowing” internet. My arms are too

tired to even type, so this’ll be a short one.

The movie “Humboldt Park” is finishing up production in Chicago. In case you didn’t know, everyone is in that damn movie. Freddy Rodriquez was totally in Neiman Marcus a few weeks ago, and yes, he’s quite lucky I didn’t club him and drag him back to a fitting room to have my way with his petite self. I’m still mad I didn’t catch any filming of “The Dark Knight” here this summer.

Ick. I’m done. I sleep now. I dream of Wray.

Today I was working on an Ad that might make it into Playboy. If you’ll remember, this happened a month ago when I had a Sex in the City DVD Ad that was chosen by their art directors, went through revisions, approved to release, went all the way to Mechanical (which means it was prepped to deliver to the printer) and just as I was going to upload it, HBO killed it. They don’t give us a reason when they do that stuff beyond our estimation that they don’t have it in their budget to do so. Wack.  So I was bummed because of course I told everyone to watch for it and counted my chickens before they were hatched and also because I would have actually been proud of the Ad. I received all of these messages saying, “Congratulations!” and all for nothing. The Ad I was working on today is up against 5 other ones and I don’t think I have a real shot. The concept is pretty good but I actually hope it doesn’t make it because tagline they gave us is a lie. Their tagline is, “It’s Juno for the horror set”. Some asshole in marketing came up with it. Its not true because the movie we are making the ad for sucks, a lot. Piece of shit. Seriously. They had us read the script before they even started filming and i nearly pissed myself being incredulous. I thought, “There’s no way a script this bad will actually get made!” But sure enough, I screened the movie yesterday and it was verbatim. Christ. So many good horror scripts out there (Hello, Ali and I struck gold with Dormstalker?) and they have to make that piece of dung.

I’m not going to tell you what the movie is or which studio is putting it out (Straight to DVD of course) because I’d probably get in trouble. But needless to say it is NOT in any way, shape or form “Juno for the Horror set”. There are no pregnant teenagers in it, there are no A-List Actors in it, It is not an Academy Award-winning script written by a former stripper in Minnesota, it will never play in an arthouse theatre, it will never play in a multi-plex, the female star is not the next big thing (she was on Growing Pains) and it will not lead to the rise in sales of orange tic tacs. If this film were reviewed on a Horror site such as DeadLantern.com, it would recieve a 3 out of 10 for looking semi-professionally done for a horror movie on DV Cam with massive points deducted for not being bloody enough nor giving the audience nearly enough of an interesting plot to suspend their bloody disbelief. (And Deejay would deduct points for not showing tits)

Gah. If they pick my design and keep ANY of that Tagline then I am going to barf on my keyboard for knowing that the first large circulation consumer Ad of mine to be released would be for a movie that bad. And so you know, the tagline from the Sex in the City Ad beat out 4 designs was all mine. It was certainly better than “It’s Juno for the Horror Set”.

The other terrible thing that happened today is that I just now finished the screener for Fred Claus. Thats right. I’m working on the DVD design for Fred Claus. I hate working on Christmas films. ESPECIALLY IN MARCH! Can’t I enjoy my Lenten season without Jesus or Santa Claus?

(Hey Ali, I think they filmed some of Fred Claus by where you work. I’m totally sneaking your apartment into the design.)

Ok I feel better now. Merry Christmas everyone.

Please give welcome and take note of the 2nd author of AvantTrash. AliUptown is a lovely Latino-American (more on the soft taco side) who holds a BS degree (thats a Bachelor of Science) in Fashion. She is currently the Queen of all things Chicago where she lives, loves, and commutes the windy city with fingernails that shine like justice and eyes that burn like cigarettes.

You can email her at: ali@avanttrash.com

If you come visit me in Chicago, I’ll probably feel obligated to take you for some classic deep-dish Chicago style pizza. But if you care about me at all, you’ll let me skip over the typical touristy crap, and take you straight to Kuma’s. The name may be Japanese, but this place is straight up American comfort food. Actually, the word ‘Kuma’ means ‘bear’ in Japan, which is where the spot’s namesake (the restaurant owner’s 8 year-old Akita) originated.

Kuma’s Corner is a dark, cozy, cave-like place, with an atmosphere that made a freak like me feel right at home the minute I first walked in. There where paintings of half-naked women with top hats and whips, the Blues Brothers movie was playing on the flat screens, and of course, heavy metal music was booming over the speakers.

Oh yeah, did I mention, every burger (giant, 1/2 pound monsters that would make a vegetarian tremble and weep at the sight of them) is named after a heavy metal band? That’s right, you can have an Iron Maiden, a Judas Priest, or even a Goblin Cock (if you dare). My first time, I had the Black Sabbath-blackening spice, chili, pepper jack, and red onion on a pretzel bread bun. It was a veritable meat party in my mouth (interpret that however you wish). ‘Multiple orgasms of the mouth’, I believe was my comment to my roommate. I didn’t even want to wash my hands when I got home, they smelled so heavenly. We’ve made a vow to never get the same thing twice, until we can check them all off the list.

This place is definitely packed on the weekends, or after any local metal or punk show in the area, but it is always worth the wait. In the summer, they have outdoor seating, and if you get bored waiting for a table (which I doubt is possible), chill at the bar and order a drink (I recommend the Mother Puncher or the Angel of Death).

Long story short, if you happen to be in Chicago, do yourself a favor and forget about Gino’s or Giordano’s. Get on a Belmont bus and hit up Kuma’s. And bring me with. It’ll knock your dick in the dirt.