I am in LA. I was in LA yesterday. Yesterday was when I experienced a string of awesome failures, coupled with good times.

I woke up yesterday and went to go shower. Which is when I discovered I failed to pack underwear. I have never done this before, save for once when I forgot to pack a few undershirts. This was a bit worse. I laughed, though it did mean a detour during the day. Not a big deal, but it count as failure #1.

R’s grandfather lent me his car so that I could drive down to Hollywood and see friends. Which is what I did. Met a friend at Sabor y Cultura, my coffee haunt from my time in Little Armenia. We walk out 45 minutes later and I notice that the lights appear to be on. Which is odd, because 1. I didn’t turn them on and 2. they should have turned themselves off, regardless.

This all becomes less fascinating and more frustrating when the car won’t turn over. The battery is dead. My friend has a set of jumper cables and we spend 30 minutes getting her car arranged next to mine and jumping it. This also involves an angry man in a truck cursing us for blocking an alleyway (though there was another exit), multiple phone calls to my father and me stressed because it is the grandfather’s car.

But we get it running. And go to Target so I can buy some underwear. Yes, this is truly a vacation of the highest order.

Friend leaves and I go to the Grove to have lunch with Sam and Josh. According to the car, when I park on the 6th floor of the parking structure, in the shade, it is 91 degrees. It is hot. We eat and wander and it is really great to see them.

Then it is off to get Keren, drive to the valley to get R and back down to go to Jumbo’s Clown Room for a pre-dinner drink. Will and Jen skip out so we have 1 drink and head over to their house to see them and meet Barkley.

Then it is a race to drop off Keren and get back to the valley for a 7pm dinner. Except as we walk out of the house, I notice something. Bad. As I begind cursing and crying, Keren and R trade confusions.

We have a flat tire. A super flat tire. Seeming created by a lovely nail in the tire.

A borrowed car, a dead battery, a flat tire.

Oh — the car is parked on a steep incline. With about a foot between us and the car behind us.

I have never changed a tire on an incline. I have no desire to change a tire on this car. I have done enough. R calls AAA. 30 minutes later a guy shows up. 5 minutes after that, the tire is changed.

On the hill, piece of a cake. Of course, his jack was way better than the dinky one found in the trunk of the car. Nonetheless, it was impressive.

Drop off Keren. Run by the gas station to put air in the spare, as it looks low. “Free Air” it says. 1 minute later, I realize that the air is not free and while I thought I was adding air, it was, in reality, letting it out. Now the tire is much more flat. Great. Put in 75 cents, fill the tire, get gas. Oops. The “system is down,” which apparently means that I can’t buy any gas. So we have to go to another station.

The rest of the evening is fine. Especially since it consists of driving to the valley, eating takeout food and sleeping.

The plus side is seeing people and having fun. The downside? All the stupid stress from dealing with absurd situations — having to buy underwear, having the dead battery and the flat tire.

Oy. I’m tired.

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So a recent project has been to move most everything I have on video (VHS and DV) over to true digital bits — which explains these weekly posts of video projects. This one was shot in 2003, when I just had a camera with me and decided to shoot as I drove down Sunset in the rain.

No narrative, nothing but lights and darkness. The soundtrack is “Weak Become Heroes” by the Streets. It’s actually what the original soundtrack was on the video, but since there are a couple of cuts, I just threw the track over the original sound. It’s also apropos because I was still rocking the hell out of that album then; this was shot at the end of my love affair with it. (And by love affair, I mean I probably listened to it once or twice a week at least.)

I didn’t do a ton of LA specific shooting while I lived there; this is one of the few pieces I have that puts me right back in the heart of that city. And yeah, sometimes I really miss it down there.

l.a. in the rain from tripp millican on Vimeo.

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I thought of a list that Wikipedia didn’t have covered: mentions of Darryl Gates in song lyrics. I have a playlist with both “One Blood” and “Typical American” on it and hearing them back-to-back made me wonder what songs actually reference him. There aren’t nearly as many as I expected, which is somewhat disappointing. I can’t believe Cube and T were the only guys actively speaking out against him.

If you know of other songs, please, add away.

Ice Cube – Wicked

A horse is a pig that don’t fly straight
Doin Darryl Gates but is Willie Williams
down with the pilgrims
Just a super slave
We’ll have to break his ass up like Super Dave

Ice Cube – When Will They Shoot (Ice-T verse)

Darryl Gates got the studio surrounded
Cause he don’t like the niggaz that I’m down with
Motherfucker wanna do us
Cause I like Nat, Huey, Malcolm, and Louis
Most got done by a black man’s bullet
Give a trigger to a nigga and watch him pull it

The Goats – Typical American

I’m paralizing punks with a positive pedigree
For those who choose to love me, I’m the M-A double D
For those who choose to hate me, I negate like their full effect
Feelin’ ready and willin’ ta break Darryl Gates’ neck

The Game – One Blood (Remix) (Rick Ross verse)

Keep white in the office, call it Jerry Heller
Lettin’ off a hundred rounds, let the barrel pick
And we gon’ sit here, wait for the Darryl Gates

Ice-T – Cop Killer

Fuck the police, for Darryl Gates.
Fuck the police, for Rodney King.
Fuck the police, for my dead homies.
Fuck the police, for your freedom.

Oftb – I Ain’t From Compton

You wanna make a change and roll with my crew?
And Chief Darryl Gates, FUCK YOU!

Jughead’s Revenge – Burn

Thank you Mr. Darryl Gates
For all you’ve done for us
Now that we burned down all our jobs
I guess that took some guts

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Ah, the last of the movies from my 519 class. This one is notable for several reasons:
1. it stars my freshman roommate, Richard Bloom, who lives in LA, working as an assistant and art dept coordinator. He did acting as an undergrad, so it was fun to re-connect with this little piece, 8 years after we lived together.
2. it is certainly the video I think of when I think of the art I made over these years. Weird, static, unbalanced, closeup shots. A surreal, improvised story that is larger than what we end up seeing in the film.
3. I reshot parts of it as the final project for the class, so two version exist. This is the re-edit, which is marginally better than the original.

phone calls from the dead from tripp millican on Vimeo.

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I have been trying to throw up at least 1 creative piece a week. That started with re-running Puncland, then on to the mix cd, then on to the DJ mix. This week, I’m throwing up a little movie I made.

My first semester at USC was like getting thrown into cold water. It was all intro classes and many were grueling. Well, one especially. 519/521. I don’t remember the name of the class but everyone had to take it. And why was it so intense?

You have to make 4 movies in a semester. The class is split into 3 groups. You have one week to write a script and cast. One week to film. And one week to edit. At the end of the three weeks, you crit it in front of the class and start over. You do this 4 times and then, in the final weeks, you have to pick one of your four movies and reshoot/reedit based on what you have learned.

Needless to say, this class doesn’t usually produce the most amazing pieces of work ever. If you can’t shoot it in a weekend, by yourself, it’s a bad idea. The only upside is that you aren’t supposed to use sound — though this “rule” was thrown out by my professor almost immediately. This explains why this first film has sound effects, though I guess 3 of the 4 don’t have dialog in them.

Anyway, this is the first one I made, shot in Santa Monica at Yoffy and Amy’s house, weeks after I moved to LA in the fall of 2002. It’s cheesy, but for a little 3 minute piece, maybe you’ll be amused.

stubble from tripp millican on Vimeo.

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just bought a plane ticket to l.a. for next fri/sat. i haven’t been back in almost 18 months now. seems so long.

i already have a full itinerary, full of silliness, fun, people and places i have missed.

i think this is going to be very good for my mind.

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there is something weird about living here in mountain view. it isn’t an all-the-time feeling, its less than that.

in la, i learned (badly) how to have celebrity radar. there was easily a celebrity viewing once a week between my friends; i would get calls or txt messages saying ‘i just saw ____ at _____’.

then i moved.

now its much more confusing. i recognized immediatly that this radar served me no purpose. i wasnt good at it anyway, but always enjoyed when i did see people i knew. (carter reminded me on sunday that we saw robin williams in golden apple comics on melrose one day. the two of them made eye contact, he kept shopping. and she couldnt stop laughing. i almost wish i had said something now, looking back. i mean, robin williams.)

(im typing this in starbucks, part of my morning ritual, sadly. i get up, exercise, get ready for work and then walk across the street to the ‘bucks for an hour worth of writing. then i walk to work. it kills me that my local coffeeshop is starbucks, but it just is. and being able to walk is more important to me than driving to a a nonchain store. anyway, im sitting here and the cup my short cap (ug) came in has a quote on it. this is true of starbucks cups, they have some ‘insightful’ quote from someone on the cup. and mine? today? yeah. jason f-ing mraz. ‘it takes no time to fall in love, but it takes you years to know what love is.’ really? it takes years? im calling bullshit on that, mraz. though i agree with you on the first part. anyway, the anger i have for mraz has once again bubbled up to the surface.*)

back to not celebrity spotting in mountain view.

but now, there are new celebrities to spot. these people come closer to ‘real’ people i admire — people whose work i critique, use, draw inspiration from. and they are faceless and nameless. sadly. i see people here in town (even here in starbucks) with google shirts on. as i type this, the guy sitting next to me has a book on his lap — ’space mission anaylsis and design – third edition’.

youre kidding, right? there are actually textbooks for space missions? there are things i love about this world. and when things are done right, its an amazing place.

but its sad that i rarely get the opportunity to thank people for the influence they do extend to my life. that i get to talk to people about the impact they have on me.

in la, i could sit next to a singer, an actor, a porn star and know it. i got to shake matt groening’s hand and say ‘thanks’. here, i could eat next to the founders of google and i probably wouldnt even know them. part of it is the media — i see ‘celebrities’ on tv/film enough to pick them out. ive rarely seen computer/internet superstars in motion. but part of it is culture too. so now i turn off the celebrity-spotting and i simply wonder who it is deisgning space missions, sitting next to me in starbucks.

* kady and matt gave me a framed picture of a topless mraz from some magazine last year. it moved with us here, for some reason. then i took to hiding it in the apt, placing it on top of roxy’s things as we unpacked. so every day, she would go to empty a box and find this picture sitting there. this went on for at least 2 weeks until she finally said something to me. and i laughed. hard. then we boxed the picture up and mailed it to carter in new haven. the cycle of life continues.

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