there's more to life than this

What the hell was the name of the girl on Temptation Island who ended up with a gig on MTV? You know, the red-head in a band? Yeah, anyway -- I saw her at the convention I went to on Saturday. She had some small entourage and was probably there to promote her latest thing.

I saw lots of famous folks on Saturday, but they were mostly the people behind the scenes of "music"-making. The producers, engineers, etc. I ran into the only two people there I was likely to know, but for the most part wandered around and checked out the panels and exhibits on my own. At one point I checked out their museum to vinyl (which included the Edison wax cylinder machine, o' course) and was accosted by one of the young volunteers working the door. He is from Chicago but excited to move to LA -- and for whatever reason started asking me about what clubs he should go to, and the only thing I could think of was the Smell. He looked a bit emo and told me that his all-time favorite band(s) are the Smiths and Morrissey. I apparently looked young and hip enough (with those red Chucks) to warrant an opinion on good clubs to go to. I told him to check out the station, gave him the URL, etc. Talkative chap.

Then, after drinking too much coffee (which for me is *any* amount of coffee) I sat down with a beer to counteract the coffee and took in some soothing live jazz. I was just about to leave and one of the two people I knew there asked if I wanted to go to some party one of the vendors was putting on. Before I knew it I was in West LA rubbing elbows with a bunch of music industry types in the 3-story sound studio I was told is the only place Stevie Nicks will go to record. There was free drinks and snacks and hot chicks and cool cats -- I spent most of the night chatting with this sound engineer who has lately taken up composing music for video games. Neither one of us knew very many people at the party, so we wandered around eating, drinking and talking a lot about his life and his girlfriend. The place looks like it was built back in the 20s, and had several different sound studios. Surreal highlight of the night: Suge Knight walking into the studio and standing somewhat ominously behind me in the corner. Of course this increases my hip-hop cred exponentially. Awww yeah.

I have noticed that I have been using the word "exponentially" a lot lately--perhaps an example of my tendency to exaggerate, or possibly a valid assessment of how lots of things seem to be accelerating in the world?

I have also been buying waaaay too many books lately. I am going to have to start paying/bartering for people to read them for me...