countessian

(Are you ready for December?)

Bobby says this is his favourite photography of himself drumming, ever.

Drummers are the best musicians to photograph because they generally a) have the most photogenic equipment and b) get the worst lighting. I’m always extra super duper happy if I can get sharp shots.

Sometimes having a camera in Los Angeles feels a bit too easy.

Once upon a time, the Red Hearts played at Spaceland with Pansy Division and The Avengers.

Then I failed the post the pictures for a zillion years, but the lighting looked so good you’ll just have to forgive me.

Linkedin.com. Yes.

In other news, sobriety makes me dream of lemondrops.

This is Babygirl Garcia, lead singer of Christina & The Christinas.

This is Jennie, a gorgeous girl who takes gorgeous pictures — you can see some of them at JennieWarren.com.

(Some of my favourites were taken on the Naughty Bodies Be Good Volume One set, and there’s a super-duper cute shot of Babygirl Garcia on there, too.)

Last night we braved the post-Thanksgiving chill to celebrate her birthday in exotic Highland Park with sophisticated dresses, exceptionally competitive card games, a cheese-thieving and somewhat murderous cat and a midnight performance from Christina & The Christinas.

The birthday girl and I wore matching nail varnish. You really can’t go wrong with bright red.

Noni cooked turkey, mashed potatoes and the like. Irina made фкусный borshch and her parents brought over beet salad. Anya provided escargots and Ray passed around the Jameson’s. Amanda made her lemon-meringue pie so entirely by hand that she pretty much did everything herself ‘cept grow the lemons, and then drove (stick shift) with the whole thing on her lap.

Yum.

I don’t think I fully understand why Thanksgiving is only one month before Christmas. How much crazy eating and spending time with relatives can one tolerate? Maybe Thanksgiving should be in summer.

(OK, OK. It’s a harvest festival, I get it. And for a large chunk of the country, winter is very long and painfully cold. Maybe it’s just out here in the land of eternal sunshine that it seems odd.)

Anyway, while I’m at it: How come in America you can dress as anything for Hallowe’en, instead of only scary things?

So, the best part was the cowboy-hatted middle-aged men climbing over the fence from the
polka-blasting party next door to show of their fast footwork to the hipsters. Then we fought our way inside and upstairs to see The Prayers, who Juanita ended up comparing to baby deer (not sure why).

Second best was Sally Fay starting the world’s most cramped and crazed dance party when The Strange Boys played at the top of the stairs. (Not at all best was me contorting myself under mic stands and smooshing myself up against speakers to try to take pictures of fast-moving boys illuminated only by fairy lights, but I s’pose I like a challenge.)

Double second best was the Naughty-Bodies-premiere-party-Brother-Reade-danceathon replay. It was so good I took off my coat.

Weirdest was that girl getting really over enthusiastic about Jesse Camp filming Sally Fay, then telling her she looked like an actress from Gossip Girl on our way out.

I was sitting on the bus once when Jesse Camp, and a random fan started declaring his love (this is the only reason I’m aware of who Jesse Camp is.) They had a long conversation about what he’s been up to since his MTV fame waned (answer: nothing good).