San Francisco during the daytime SUCKS

San Francisco during the day is kind of like hell, except your body has to suffer along with your soul. If you’ve ever ridden on a bus in the city of San Francisco between the hours of 1 PM and 4 PM you’re probably a nasty ass crusty homeless person with a fistful of awful where your face used to be.

Awesome Bomb returns next Tuesday with me and Mattfiesta playing at a nice little spot called Otis. No complaints there. I’m here, I’m alive, and I’m makin’ beaucoup money.

And if you’re feeling sad, here’s a picture of me drinking a root beer float.

Bye!

I Get Around

I’ve been DJing for a little over a year and I can say with zero ego or hyperbole that I have become one of the best DJs to have ever set foot on this planet.  Here are some flyers accompanied by stories about a few things I have done recently.

Awesome Bomb: Mattfiesta and I fart around playing Real McCoy and the Mortal Kombat soundtrack to a room full of 10 people we guilt-tripped into being there and a couple Mexican dudes who are usually in the middle of some kind of “transition” process.

Indie Mart: We got there before the bar was even open, but Indie Mart was radcore! I played an all-female indie/riot grrl set that, obviously, ended with TLC. Everyone involved in the planning and execution of Indie Mart needs to have their Chucks painted gold and sent to the Awesome Hall of Fame.

Dumb Roofie-ass College Party: This happened a few months ago. One of the promoter’s friends played a mini-set in the middle of mine and he sucked. But at some point I got drunk and decided that playing Animal Collective  would be a good idea so I ended up sucking too. But at least I didn’t play a techno remix of Queen like that dork. I still got my $150 and used it to pay down my credit card. I wish I had a cooler story about what I did with that money, but you know what, being responsible with your finances IS cool.

High Five: THIS is happening tomorrow. It will be fun. Like the flyer shows, there will be lots of cool black dudes high-fiving a bunch of skinny white nerds out of pity.  There will also be a b-boy show. Has anyone else noticed that in spite of how difficult and athletic breaking is, all b-boys just do the same thing and it always gets boring after 3 whole seconds?  Oh yeah,  everyone noticed that. UPDATE: Mattfiesta played Roller Coaster Tycoon during his set and some lady told me that she and her friends would leave if I kept playing Hall & Oates. Sorry, but if you don’t like Hall & Oates then you can just go back to goddamn Armenia.

Proteinface

Proteinface (my glorious concept but a term coined by the beautiful and talented Amanda) is a super funny disease which afflicts dumb guys who lift weights and drink lots of protein. What happens is their bodies get all beefy and gay but their faces become totally fat, because you can’t work out your face, Tyler. Related illnesses are: Bluetooth, tank top, hilarious post-high school downward spiral and marketing job. Also liver failure,  not from the protein but from getting punched in the liver by me.

The champion pictured above has what a proteinface would look like but I’m not sure if it’s an actual proteinface because I think he’s just fat.

How to Get Me to Love You

The following is a list of my favorite types of people.

1. Black Hipster

Some people are the opposite of dicks and I call those people black people. I like black hipsters because they’re cool and tough but you can borrow and wear their clothes without being made fun of by old Arab guys. If you are a black hipster you are the best of both, no, every world possible.

Probable transcript of me talking to a black hipster:

Wait, you have a favorite Pixies song? But you’re black!?! Wait, you watch rugby but you don’t play it? BUT YOU’RE BLACK. And you’re drinking coffee, holy shit.

2. Old Guatemalan Lady

I love old Guatemalan ladies because I have pale skin and dark hair and they think I am magic.

Probable transcript of me talking to an old Guatemalan lady:

Why yes, you would do well to turn over your crops, livestock and children to me. Lest you be struck down by God or whatever fucked up snake monster you worship for no good reason.

That’s really it. These are the only two kinds of people I like.

Actual Useful DJ Advice

Um, I don’t feel like I should have to do this but this past weekend has brought me to the would-be depressing-if-I-wasn’t-so-fly realization that most people who get paid to DJ in San Francisco do in fact suck at DJing. So here is some advice for you, sucky San Francisco DJ scene.

1. Beatmatching

There was a time when every DJ HAD to do this.  It’s not that hard, you just use your pitch faders to make sure your next record is going at the same tempo as the one playing over the speakers and at an opportune time, do some volume/EQ adjustments and let them play together before crossfading over to the next song. If you’re DJing with a computer there is no excuse not to do this as the program will sync the songs up automatically, provided you prepared them properly.

If you’re playing any song wherein the beat wasn’t laid down by an off-his-tits-off-of-that-Peruvian-white drummer, this is the only acceptable way to introduce a new song into your mix. Scratching the beginning of the next song and cutting out the current one is dumb and nobody has cared about scratching for almost 30 years.

Note: this does not apply to my fellow DJ and gentleman, Mattfiesta. You keep doing you, Mattfiesta, you’re gorgeous.

2. Tasteful Fading

If you’re not going to use the mixer for it’s designed purpose, that is, MIXING things, you may opt for the fade-in/fade-out technique, which isn’t technically DJing but can be acceptable if you play good songs and maintain a decent mood. For instance, most Rolling Stones songs don’t beatmatch but dagnammit I want to hear them when I’m drinking Oly and marveling at the fact that I am cooler than 99 percent of an entire metropolitan city, that remaining one percent being San Francisco’s black people. Just make sure you follow it up with some more butt-rocking madness like  Cheap Trick’s “Surrender” or something by The Kinks and not some bullshit like “Louie Louie” (which is what one pissant DJ had the gall to do this weekend).

If you’re playing New Order (whose songs ALWAYS beatmatch, but nevermind) there are only three bands you can follow it up with: Depeche Mode, The Cure or Joy Division. Maaayyybeeee the Smiths. Anything else will piss people off. Playing the Violent Femmes, with their inappropriate-for-anything-outside-of-a-Washington-State-dork-party-in-1994 stylings is not okay.

3. Hip-hop and electronic music.

ALL hip-hop and electronic songs beatmatch. They’re made with drum machines ferchrissakes. If you don’t mix these kinds of music properly it just shows that you have no dedication to your craft and nothing but contempt for your audience and you have given me permission to take a flamethrower to your whole shit.

4. Mohawks

If you have a mohawk, I’m going to request Rancid and you better play it, out of respect. If  I request Rancid, you better not respond with “I’ve never heard of Rancid.” Eff. Oh. Dee.

These are all irrefutable, hard and fast rules. Stop sucking, San Francisco.

How to Piss Me Off When I’m DJing

Some kinds of “people” can just ruin my night with all their dicks.  Here are the top three of all time.

1. Sad old pervert guy who is obviously from L.A.

I understand that you’re cool and you appreciate artists as wildly divergent as the Smiths and Dr. Dre, but it’s 2009 and you should have died 20 years ago.

How to get him to go away: tell him there’s a strip club down the street and if you tip handsomely enough they’ll let you play that game where you get to throw knives at girls.

2. Pale, skinny guy who is creepy as hell and probably has dynamite in his carpenter jeans.

I know they’re amazing, but we are not in your weird ass dungeon and I am not going to play GODDAMN SIGUR ROS.

How to get him to go away: Tell him that on the bar is a thimble, a chalice and a question mark and the fate of the universe depends on him using these items to drill a hole into the center of the earth.

3. Asian guy.

No, I’m not using Serato. But your parents were poor farmers in some Laotian mountain town and only came to America to escape either a war or an oppressive totalitarian regime so shut up.

How to get him to go away: kill him.

I got the hook up. Holla if you hear me.

How to Decide on Which Club to go to

Do you ever have a hard time deciding on where you would like to go to waste your money on booze and get rejected by beautiful women who, in all likelihood, used to be men? Follow these instructions. It’s easy! Unless you were raised in America’s bustling inner cities and therefore cannot read.

1. Count how many Asian guys are in line.

If there are more than zero, DO NOT GO.

Unless you want to talk about math or being desperate and boring.

That’s really it. Enjoy the subsequent and inevitable shame spiral from realizing that you only drink because you are an insufferable human being.

PS Asian guys who are actually from Asia are cool. I think it is because hanging out at In-N-Out and having a car as your default facebook picture is frowned upon in those countries.

How to get the Ladies

unless you're the gentleman in the middle, you will need help

The ladies are kind of like sausages. Once you understand how they’re made, you will get scared and want nothing to do with them. But, as with sausages, understanding the process might make it easier for you to devour them with your ravenous, manly hunger. Follow these instructions. To where, you ask? (matter-of-factly) The love shack.

1. Don’t be even mildly attractive.

Don’t bother being attractive in any conventional sense because it will make the ladies think you are one of those gays and there will be absolutely no convincing them otherwise no matter how manly your DVD collection is.

2. Don’t be Asian.

If you can trace your familial heritage to China, Korea, Japan or any other Asian country, it is safe to assume that no woman will ever want anything to do with you and you are free to pursue your true passion of who cares.

3. Do have weird emotional issues and agonize over what your friends think even though your friends are not real.

The ladies love it when you tell them things like “I can’t commit to you because I have modeled my life after the libertine existence of Vincent Chase, fictional movie star.”

4. Be a vampire.

Or Dr. Andrew Weil.

Do it to it, Lars.

How to be Cool

You’ve seen that one cool guy who walks around the city and makes you think “damn boy, you’re cooler than my insulated lunch box from fourth grade”. Well, that guy could be YOU, provided you follow these instructions.

1. Listen to the Beach Boys on your iPod REALLY LOUD.

Like, turn it up until your ears bleed. Women and people on the bus love the Beach Boys on iPods and they love it when your ears bleed from listening to it.

2. Wear a headband.

The purpler the better. Actually, wear five.

3.  Tell people about the crippling  guilt you feel over the insignificant  role you played in the accidental childhood death of your brother.

It worked for Ray Charles and countless others.

4. Pretend to know who Simone de Beauvoir is.

It will make you come off as classy and distract people from the embarrassing shortcoming called your entire life.

5. Die while eating a sandwich on the toilet.

There you go. Prego! Which is greasy fat Italian for “you’re welcome”.

Lap it up, assheads.

How to be a Successful DJ in San Francisco

First post. Welcome to my b-log. I’m a DJ in San Francisco and I’m pretty sure I can do life better than you so I’ll be here explaining it all, like Melissa Joan Hart. The first topic is easy. So you wanna be a DJ? Do you have what it takes? Follow these instructions and you will.

1. Be Asian.

In order to become a successful DJ in San Francisco, you had to have been born into some kind of Asian family. People with surnames like Wong, Tang and Kim usually fit into this category. If you have a Mexican-sounding last name like Rodriguez or something, make sure you’re Filipino.

2. Be fat.

To be a DJ, at least in San Francisco, you have to be fat.  If you’re skinny you had to have been fat before.

3. Be bald.

Or at least balding.

There you go, lemmings. You are welcome.