Roots, Rock, Reggae

Went to the Hollywood Bowl to catch the Bob Marley Roots, Rock, Reggae Festival this past Sunday, and like always had a blast. Not much to report other than not to pack shit in your carry-on when flying. Shit, in fact, don't "carry-on" period! Fuckin' Terrorists!

Here I am enjoying one of my favorite beers when a friend calls me up to tell me what went down this past weekend. Tales of getting drunk and shit-much of which never changes-were told. "What did you get drunk off?" I asked. "Bud, MGD and some Heineken I guess" He responded.

Now for some reason I don't drink beer in an effort to get shit-faced like I used to. Before any 'ol beer would have done it for me. Now I actually like Beer, much the same way wine aficionados get fixated to taste and color and all that, I am too. If I really want to get buzzed, then a couple of shots of Grey Goose or a swig of some Old No. 7(Jack Daniel's) usually does the trick. There's no reason to get all bloated and be pissing every minute drinking some cheap ass beer which claims to be European but which is actually bottled in Van Nuys, CA.

I drink my beer much the same way coffee lovers drink their coffee, we sip it! I like to sniff the beer before I take a sip. Since so much of the experience is through your sense of smell, there's no reason not to take it in before you drink. And when I take my sip, I let the beer wander through my mouth before swallowing. That way I can truly enjoy good beer. And I mean good beer now. Not that stuff you buy in a 12 pack next to the wine selection at your favorite supermarket. The beer I'm talking about is usually hard to find, with specialty stores about the only ones who carry it. I usually end up paying more than what is considered normal for beer, but then again, this isn't your everyday beer. Luckily I have such a store down the street and they have a nice assortment of good beers.

I tend to like darker beers than lighter beers(lagers, pils, ambers and ales). My favorite style so far is Irish Dry Stout. Much of you heard of Guinness, Murphy's and Beamish which make up the big three, but there are some really good American Brewed Dry Stouts that are better. A favorite one is Black Sun Stout which is brewed in Indiana. If you're ready to move up the ladder and graduate away from all the high school beers and don't mind stuff like Guinness, then I'm sure you'll enjoy Black Sun Stout. Another style which I enjoy, but which seems to have gotten popular with the trendy folks is Heffeweizen. I really like the one pictured above which is a Dark Weihenstephaner Hefeweissbier. It's actually a Dunkel Weizen, or dark-heffeweizen. I always hear people say they like Heff, but they really don't know what they are talking about and order crap like Pyramid or Widmer Bros., just so that they can seem cool not drinking a Miller Lite at a club.

Another thing I do is to have special drinking glasses for my beers. It makes the hobby more fun pouring your favorite beer into the right glass. Having the right glass actually makes a difference. Certain beers stay better and remain better if served in the correct glass, a lot like how you have red wine glasses for red wine and white wine glasses for white wine. I have Mugs, Pilsner glasses, Pint glasses, Weizen glasses and even Goblets for my beers. Shit I have a reason to go to Crate&Barrel now. I just skip all that mass-produced cookie-cutter furniture and go straight to the glass and stemware section. I've always had this secret urge to want to grab a bat and go nuts smashing everything, but I'll leave that for some other time.

I still get sick when I see people order Corona and stuff at clubs. Why on Earth would you ever pay $6 bux for what I like to call Mexican skunk piss?  You can get a six pack for like $5.99 at any supermarket. I don't usually like Mexican beer, only Bohemia, and Negra Modelo being the only ones I'd touch. It's Interesting considering they are known as Vienna Lagers as in Vienna, Austria. But most of the other Mexican Beers suck! It's no wonder people put lemons in their Coronas, to mask off that skunk taste! Shit, why don't you put two, three, five even if you have to drink that shit. Same goes for all those others, Pacifico, Sol, Dos Equis, Tecate, you name it. Heineken is another crap beer I can't understand why it has gotten so popular. It really is gross, but hey, people will always form their own opinions.

  When I drink my beer, I like to take my time and actually enjoy it. I don't subscribe to all that machismo "real men don't baby sit their beers, they gulp it down!" bullshit! Like I said earlier, I don't drink my beer to get all fucked up. Fuck all those little boys and their baggy pants who think it's cool to gulp piss water down. Much like drinking good coffee which has caffeine as a nice kick, getting a little buzzed after enjoying a fuckin' really good beer is a nice bonus. So next time you're at the bar ordering that Corona-DON'T!

Three's Company

About 2 years ago, I started hanging out with a female friend quite often during the summer. She lived by the Beach and about once a week I'd drive over, pick her up and head down to beach to relax and enjoy the sun's rays. I briefly dated this girl about a year earlier. We met at a club, and in fact she came up to me while I was on my way to the head(bathroom) with the line "don't I know you from somewhere?" It was strange, but then again, I'm sure guys must look really stupid to girls when they do the same at clubs and stuff. Anyhow she was a real Cutie. She probably stood no more than 5 foot 1, but she definitely had spunk and attitude. One that I would like for sure as I always enjoy a challenge. Anyhow, it seemed to go okay until I managed to withhold some information from her that she felt was important to her at the time (information which I will not share with you, btw). After that little incident we drifted away and it wasn't until a year later that we managed to speak and even see each other again.

All of this which leads back to the beginning of this story in where we started hanging out more often. There was one slight problem thou and that was she was living with her boyfriend. She told me all of this before I picked her up and couldn't help but feel weird. We would go out the whole day and I would drop her off in the evening. Before I dropped her off, she would give him a quick call and he would come downstairs to greet her. He waived, surprisingly smiling and I just waived back. This went on for weeks during the summer and every evening or night, he would come down and greet her and walk her in, and always smiling! Now I don't know about most guys, but if some guy was picking up my girlfriend and taking her out and having fun with her all day, I'd surely want to know what his intentions were. I mean, isn't that reasonable? Wait a minute, why the fuck would I even allow some guy to take her out at all?

To be honest, I was still attracted to this girl. Yes we did have the we were just friends talk and and I mostly operated under those rules. I don't think I ever acted inappropriate to her while we were out and I wanted to let her know she can trust me. But here's the thing, if you're a women(attractive one) and think you can have a pure platonic friendship with guy who isn't your boyfriend, then you must be crazy! Either that or you're fat and ugly in which case he most likely doesn't want to be more than just friends! I mean just cuz we were friends or she had a boyfriend did not make her any less attractive. Hey and if she wanted to hang out with me, enjoy my company, and have fun, who am I to complain? Shit, didn't I mention she was a Cutie?

So after all this, I started to wonder what it was she was telling him about me? She told him everything we did. I mean we laid out on the beach together, her looking really hot in her bathing suit btw, we went to dinner, a total no-no if you ask me. I mean lunch with a male friend is okay once in a while. Lunch, Dinner, and Drinks alone, I don't think so! But hey, we did it! And somehow I don't think he seemed to mind. One day I finally bugged her about it and asked her what he was really telling him about me. She would just say "nothing, we are just friends, that's all!" Then I asked her, "did you tell him I was gay or something?" She gave off a funny smirk, A-HA! No wonder he was okay with it. I mean he didn't feel threatened at all! While she never admitted to me that she told him I was gay, she also never denied it. Why would she lie to her boyfriend and tell him I was gay? Why risk lying to her boyfriend,  just so she can hang with me, who's just a friend!? Or if she never told him that, what was he really thinking? Oh well I haven't spoken to her in a bit so I guess I won't know till I ask.

Now that I had time to compare how it is living in two giant megalopolises (L.A. and N.Y.) I wanted to share some interesting statistics between the two. They deal with the Economy, Cost of Living, Climate, Crime and all that. Now let's see what the real differences are between living in LA and NY!

First of all, NY is the most populous city in America. It has more than twice the population of Los Angeles at an astounding 8,104,079. Damn 8.1 million people jamned into an area that easily fits inside LA's city limits which itself has a population of 3,845,541, making LA the United states second most populous city. LA has about 7,900 people living in a typical square mile. NY has freaking sardine packed 26,650! One square mile in NY probably has more people than a large percentage of small towns in America. How many people live in your town? Don't answer that. I always thought NY had a greater Latino population then LA with it's huge Puerto Rican, Dominican, Cuban, Central American, South American and Spanish Caribbean Population. I mean there's a Nice variety of Latinos in NY. However LA has close to 47% of it's population as Latino. Compare that to NY's 27% of Latinos living in the City. LA has slightly more Asians at 10% vs. 9.8%. What's interesting is that while LA may not have the population of NY, it easily has the largest land mass. Anyone who has flown into LAX knows what I'm talking about. The greater LA Metropolitan area stretches for 80 miles east-west. That's like a straight line distance from Manhattan to Philadelphia. It's pretty big.

Sales tax in NY is 8.63%, LA has 8.25%. The typical age for a home in NY is around 50 years old. LA's homes are a bit younger at 39.8. Now the next one to me is a shocker. The typical Median home cost in NY is $469,700. The Median Home cost in LA is $480,000! How could this be? Doesn't it cost a boat-load to live in Manhattan? Like I said before, NY is much more than Manhattan. There's the Bronx, Queens, Brooklyn, all of these contributing to the Median Home cost for NY. Will you find a home in Park Avenue for $470,000? Hell no! But, you can find one in the Bronx for a bit less:) Compare these to Houston where the Median Home cost is $110,700! Are you kidding me? I think I may have to put up with Texans and move to Houston...nah, I don't think so!

This should come as no surprise that LA does not have great Air quality. Believe it or not, the Air Quality in Los Angeles has gotten better in the past twenty years. We can thank tough legislation, cleaner burning vehicles, and the fact that most of the worst polluters, Chemical, machinery plants, and all that Industry has moved to Fuckin' CHINA!!! Oh well I guess they can pollute themselves to death. Even with the large stacks depositing large sums of black crap into air in NY, LA still has worst air pollution. We really love our cars! On A scale of 1-100 with 100 being best, LA got a 1! LoL, a fuckin 1! NY got a better grade at 12. LA has better water quality thou, Woohoo! I guess?

With all the stereotypes of crime for both cities, violent video games based on them, movies like "the Warriors" and "Colors", what I can say is that they both have just about the same amount of crime. Hey, they're big cities and unfortunately, crime is a part of living in a big city.

It's also no surprise that the cost of living in NY is high. Not much higher, but still higher than Los Angeles on most aspects like Groceries, Utilities, Health and transportation. Oh and let's not forget going out in NY isn't cheap! Dining-out, movies, and buying clothes will cost you more than in LA.

Believe it or not, but a typical commute to work in Los Angeles is about 30 minutes. I'm not sure where they came up with this figure, but they must not have driven to the Westside. In fact I hate the Westside. I don't know how people even get around on time over there. The 405 is the worst freeway in the Nation I don't know how many times in a row now! In NY, a typical commute time is 41 minutes? Weird. The percentage of people in LA who drive alone to work in their own cars is 66% vs NY's 25%. Yes we Angelenos Love our cars. New Yorkers still use mass transit much more than LA people do. A whole 42% more! Like I said we love our cars, and well LA doesn't exactly have a great mass transit system for a major metropolis. Oh, did I forget to say we love our cars?

Probably the largest reason people stay in LA is the weather. I cant say we have perfect weather, but it is really nice most of the time. Very low-rainfall, lots of sunny days and mild temperatures year long are typical for LA. We do on occasion get strange weather. We have this strange phenomenon called June gloom, where it will usually be hazy and somewhat cool in the morning, only to burn off before lunch and get all warm in the afternoon. A light sweater is all you need. Hot in LA is low humidity and high temperatures that occasionally peak over 100F. In NY it may be 85, but the Humidity is up kickin above 50% and then you feel like you need to shower and you haven't even made it to work yet. Winter is Cold, and you get freak Thunderstorms that like to sneak in and fuck shit up. Actually I think NY weather sucks, but if 8 million people can put up with it, I guess so can I! 

Listening to:

La Kalle 105.9 New York

I think it's gonna rain tomorrow night, but not sure. That probably means it'll get more humid. Yuck! I find that I spent too much of my time at Penn Station. I also find that as I commute to Kings Point from Woodbury everyday, my radio has been on mainly 105.9, or "La Kalle 105.9" to be more exact! It's a spanish station that plays mostly Reggaeton. Unlike Los Angeles where it's predominately Rock and everything that evolves around Rock, it's kinda nice to hear different kinds of Spanish music from all the various Latin American cultures present in this region. I usually dont like spanish music which back home mostly consists of Mexican music. I cant stand Mexican Music, or more specifically that stuff called Banda. I know I'm Mexican, but I guess it's just not my cup of tea.

That reminds me, I haven't spoken this much spanish to people in a long time. The other day, a friend and I were speaking spanish at a mall in Queens. I guess a group of girls caught me speaking and asked me "Y tu donde eres?", basically Where you from? I told them I was from L.A. They said I had a funny Spanish accent. The girls were Puerto Rican. I was hungry in Manhattan and went to a cart. I asked for a Hot Dog and the cart owner said "you mean you'd like a Frank". I told him I wasn't gay, and he just looked at me like I was crazy. That's been happening quite a bit here, people looking at me like I'm crazy. Oh well, Like some people say here, "Ya tu sabes!".