Life, Death, Rebirth; mostly music related

Man, this week has been full of ups and downs.

Brandon got me aware of the fact that Killswitch Engage had a new album coming out soon so I went and listened to it and shit. Well okay a quick history on this band for me.

Killswitch Engage was one of the first bands that made me say holy shit as a teenager. They and Hatebreed showed me that you could be super heavy as fuck and not lame. But KsE also did the whole melodic thing really well.

To this day one of my favorite albums of all time is Alive or Just Breathing with their old singer.

They then came out with The End of Heartache with a different singer who is really really awesome but just didn't have the same feel as the old guy. I liked that one too but not as much Alive or Just Breathing. By this time everyone and their mom was copying KsE's style and they decided to come out with something so generic and halfassed that it was like they were on the verge of sliding into self parody. As Daylight Dies is good on paper but it lacks any urgency or creativity. It's missing an umph that the earlier stuff had in spades. I hated that album and still refuse to carry it with me.

So needless to say I wrote them off as another one of the many bands that I admired back in the day who just lost it. Lamb of God's new album? Sucks. Chimaira's new album? sucks. God Forbid's new one is amazing but that ratio isn't favorable. So by this logic KsE's new one should too.

Wrong.

Their new one is fuckin awesome. It's like they found their focus again. It's almost as good as Alive or Just Breathing. That was so fuckin exciting to hear them back in top form. It's been days since I listened to it and I'm still excited when I hear it. Giddy is the word. Welcome back.

So now on to the next subject:
MICHAEL JACKSON.

I'm gonna keep this one short because I can't express exactly how I feel about this in words.
When I heard he died I was shocked but it didn't really hit till I was watching the MTV marathon of videos and people talking about him. He's so goddamn influential. NOBODY will ever be as big as Michael Jackson. He's like the Alexander The Great of music. Everyone respects him, everyone dances to his songs and I will always love MJ for his contributions to society, music and pop culture.

So I also saw Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. I sat there watching it, knowing it was going to be big bloated summer Michael Bay fest but Christ it was awesome. Yeah it was like 40 minutes too long and yeah the roommate character is THE MOST ANNOYING sidekick in the history of sidekicks and a horrible idea but there were simply too many old school Transformers throwbacks and like a zillion more robot on robot fights then I could ever ask for. It was so badass. If I had to listen to the annoying as fuck roommate in order to see 17 robot rights then so be it. Loved it.

Also I really would like a job. One that doesn't suck. This week I'm starting to feel like it.
I'm actually starting the Bengal and Rourke pilot for real. It will be awesome. It's hard to write it right now though. I don't know why. Maybe a bit of a funk?
I love how I just ramble on this thing with no consideration for anyone reading it. It must be real A.D.D.

PS I'm diggin my iPhone 3GS

Update Uplate

Howdy.

Since I've left Texas I guess I don't hear my subliminal quota of Tex Slang. "Howdy", "Ya'll" and dare I even say " I want a coke" and not have it mean coke a cola. So now I find myself saying these things. Is it because I don't hear them as much and need them to be said by me or anybody? Or is it because I usually say these things? Don't really know.

So I was really excited at the beginning of the week because out of the 60 something emails I had sent out asking for jobs, I had actually recieved an email back asking for an interview and I freaked out. It was for a really cool special effects makeup company.
So I went in for the interview.

When I first showed up I realized even though I was wearing jeans, sneakers and a button up white shirt tucked in, I was grossly overdressed for this place. Everyone seemed to be in casual work clothes, t-shirts, shorts etc. Damnit.

Some young guy a few years older then me interviewed me and I guess I've just been ruined by years of corporate style interview prcoesses, becuase I realized I came off really dry and dare I say boring. I was saying all the right things but I was aying all the right things eveybody else says.

So I've been waiting all week to hear back and at this point I haven't heard anything back.
I don't think I got the job.

I also really really like the beaches here in Cali. So far Venice is my favorite. I saw a dude do a front flip over 10 people. Nuts.

That's about it on that front, back to sending emails and scouring the internet for jobs.

A few quick notes before I go:

Transformers 2 this week. AHHHHHH nerdgasm.
Kat Candler is gonna be in town for the LA filmfest.
Buying my new iPhone 3GS today. That's cool.
I also realized I need to get out of the house in order to get any writing done. Gotta find a cool SpiderHouse-esque place to do that at.
Bengal and Rourke is moving along slowly but steadily. It's actually gonna be pretty good. Badass, emotional, funny, over the top, cool as shit, are some of the terms I'd use to describe it.


This is funny:

I Made A List

So it's a lazy Sunday (hangover, see above.) but apparently downtown LA is the place to be if you want to have yourself a good ol' fashion small scale riot. Sounds cool. Looks crazy.
But alas all I did today was sleep, eat and BBQ.

The last few days have, at the very least, produced a varied amount of topics and material to which I specifically thought: Hey that'd be some great crap to talk about on my blog.

Not that I've been SUPER busy lately; Quite the opposite. I've been uber lazy for the better part of the week. Sure I sent out tons of emails and called a bunch of places about internships but they had their minds made up to not hire me already. Or return my calls or emails.

But for example I did watch HEAT for the 1,234,983 time. Which I have no qualms about doing.


I also am prepping my HEAT tour of LA. Gonna go find all these great places they show in the movie.

I also went and saw the BGO (Battlestar Galactica Orchestra) downtown yesterday and it was pretty damn awe-inspiring. This awesome group of top notch musicians playing top notch music in such a cool way. I dunno, it was a night of many mad nergasms. Bought a frakin' cool poster as well:

Isn't that cool?
Makes me miss BSG so bad.

Here's one thing I won't miss->
Twilight
Just watched it with my roommates, or as they say roomies. Overall I just have to say one thing about Twilight and I don't want people to think that I'm knocking it in anyway. Here goes: I just don't get it. I get it literally; it all makes story sense (not really) but I guess it just went way over my head.


While we're on the topic of things going over my head, check this out. I noticed recently that almost everybody I encounter here in LA is in some way always all the time selling themselves. My pharmacist. Yep he's got a record label he's starting up. The cute chicks in the elevator? Actress's working on developing a show. Take a card. The bartender/model at the really fancy wine bar? Writer/Actor. Yeah you guys should totally hook up and work together sometime.

I just don't believe in whoring myself out all the time. I prefer to do it when I feel it necessary. Which is not all the time. On the other hand, I really am starting to fall back on my old belief that I'm gonna have to make my own work and make people want to work with me not the other way around where they decide on hiring me. That's where Battlehouse Pictures comes in. More on that at a later date. Contradiction? Maybe...

Also just on one more weird random note.
I've been hungering for music lately from like early high school. Hatebreed, Pantera, Poison The Well, etc.

That shit rules ass.

PS
I know my punctuation is bad.

6 in the morning isn't late it's early to some people

For anyone living under a rock, I'm living in LA in this badass little house. Actually it's kind of big.

Anyway all my roommates seem to be pretty damn cool and interesting:
A fashion major from the mid-west.
Actually three of them.
A musician/singer from Austin now going to USC.
and an Actress who isn't retarded but pretty smart.

I'm a big believer in what I like to call Roommate bonding time. It helped me bond with my very first roommate Diego who let's just say couldn't be anymore different then me. We both came away with a strange sort of respect and friendship that I couldn't have seen happening before then. Same thing with PTom and Senviel. Didn't know them all too well and now I love the guys to death. Same with Austin and Brandon is my best friend so that doesn't even need to be said.

So of course my new roommates and I stayed up drinking till 6 in the morning. The weird thing is: I realized I haven't bonded with new people I didn't really know in a really long time. Is maybe that why I was getting into my funk back in Austin? Had I just not gotten thrown out of my shell? These are the things I went to bed thinking as the sun continued to rise.


I woke up at 1 in the afternoon only thinking about how I was still caught in that last little bit of hangover. I wasn't going to get about half of the stuff I had on my TO DO list done. Way to go. But totally worth it in the end I feel.

In fact since I've been in LA now for almost 3 weeks alot has happened that I could never have thought of a month ago.

KOTA's roommates are some genuinly awesome people. My roommates are. I went to the beach with Kelly and Good God that beach was beautiful. Wish I had taken my camera. It was surreal.

My point is that if I was Stella and I was in the process of getting my groove back this is how it would be happening. I'd meeting new people and pushing myself to open up.
I think that's what was really ultimately negative about the past few semesters at UT was that my own way of handling the fact that school in no way at all challenged or pushed me was the that I still had to go to it and sit through it so what was I going to do? The answer is shutup. To clam up. To not speak up.

That's not me at all. I'm vocal. I have an opinion. I like people to know my opinion. It's so frakkin' refreshing. It's getting me pumped up. It's giving me drive. I haven't had real genuine drive in a long damn time. Honestly this is just me speaking really glib at this point but right now if I had to go back to school or stay here I'd have to stay here based solely on the fact that at least I'm forced and challenged in all the right ways here.

Now if I could only get an awesome job...
That's for another post.

WHOA! AN UPDATE?! WHAT!?!?!

Wow, I haven't been keeping up with this at all have I?
Where to start?

First things first:
Living out of your truck and on friends couch is cool, it really is.
But it sucks too.

Second I'm sorry I didn't keep my update daily thing while on the road up. That fell through bigtime. Lo Siento.

So I finally got all my stuff moved in.
Before that happened, that one person who was kind of on my mind finally told me what was going on and even though I'm not the biggest fan of what she said I understand it and actually feel better that she told me. BUT I still think she does. Because no one can resist. Once you go Zach You Don't Go Back. I don't know in reality but I feel alot better about it, which is how I hope she feels.

It's the new thing to say.

So yeah, I got all moved in. Well moved in for what I brought, which wasn't much. I like the house. My roommates seem cool and the house is in South Central LA near USC so that actually is kind of exciting. I'm reminded at least once a night that LAPD uses their helicopters to great effect.

Hmm.. what else? Alot.
But I'll try and keep it short. Basically a few nights ago I was homeless and hanging out at the Oakwoods with Andy at our friend Ellen's place. She's cool and all and then one of her roommates asked if anyone watches that Galactica show cause she had an extra ticket to go to this thing:

Needless to say I almost fainted from trying not to shit my pants in excitement about this. So cut to today. I'm fresh and so clean clean and dressed all business casual and we go and I just have to grin ear to ear for the most part. It was really cool. That's a huge understatement. I can't even tell you. And to top this whole thing off this girl besides being cute is actually kind cool so we spun the night into a cool adventure of looking for late night spots to eat.



I gotta say that I really dig LA. Things change here quickly and all the time. Keeps you on your toes and it's really beautiful and all but I have to say that I left my heart in Austin. It's my favorite city of all time. Always will be.

But then again Austin doesn't have 30 foot tall posters of this: