jeffrey + upstairsloft

If I don’t scan and post the 7 sets that are long due by next week, I will perform self-castration.

Yeah, another one of those damn metaphors. Anyhow, several years ago, when I was living in Milpitas, I crawled into my own little social cave. I shared this with a few people, Kate, Jun and Paul to name a few. My relationships with other people were muddy so I just shut myself out from all of that until I moved to Sacramento.

It’s not as easy as I thought it would be to re-adopt that introvert lifestyle. I’m a bit too flamboyant of a character to just completely stop behaving the way I do. I don’t want to stir anything up. I want to get by this last semester without having to deal with people—if you catch my drift.

I guess another reason (amongst the other thousand reasons) I yearn to live in a big city is because they are far too big of places to consistently cross paths with others. I won’t have to close myself in since there’s far too many people for anybody to give a damn about what I am doing.

Aside from my social standing with people, design-wise, things are coming along pretty well. I’m heading over to Dallas for a Student Show and Conference and submitting my portfolio into national competition. Sure, I’m out of a job due to political squabbles but I will have time to focus on polishing up my portfolio into the work world.

Anxious. Nervous. Excited. 3.5 fast-paced months and counting.

There are several thoughts I replay in my head from day-to-day for the past half year or so. Everyday I replay memories of my Uncle Raymond and family parties at his house. Everyday I anticipate the DVD release of Science of Sleep. Everyday I replay how completely content I was, pretending to live in New York when I was in New York, sharing breaths of the city with Kate. Everyday I struggle with choosing to live across the states or living close to home. Everyday I wonder how I will survive financially.

It’s official! Science of Sleep is set to release on DVD Februrary 6. I love that movie! Serendipity and Science of Sleep are the two movies I will yell out first among my lengthy list of faves when asked, “What are your favorite movies?” Parallel Synchronized Randomness.

Happy New Years. To really get this year off to a good start, Incubus performed at the Warfield last night and it was the best fucking show. Kate and I slept in from our early morning class to re-sync our bodies with the natural world. Last night’s show was a transcendent.

My back is tied up in knots, my neck is about to fall off, my leg is cramped up and I was elbowed at least three times in the head but none of that matters. All of that stuff is petty. I joked around with Kate saying I couldn’t have been injected with AIDS and the show would be well worth it.

The crowd was awesome and the band’s faces lit up several times to acknowledge how loving we are. During Sick Sad Little World, of all songs (my all-time fave that I will take with me to the grave) Brandon through a water bottle right over my head and it landed in Jun’s jacket. People were grabbing at him and when I was reaching for it to help him out, somebody’s hand already beat me in between his legs. Sounds wrong, I know. It’s Jun. Who cares. But Jun has that bottle.

I can go on and on and on about how badass the show was and how all single boys and girls could just hook up at any one peak of the song and just conceive a baby out of sheer passion for Incubus’ music, but I won’t.

The other mental trip is the mind games you play. I woke up last morning and was excited as hell. I had a final presentation for a class, which we nailed, but all I can think of was the getting to the show. Fellow classmates and the teacher commented for a well-delivered speech but it was really out of my passion for Incubus.

The whole trip from waking up, sitting through 4 hours of class, then presenting in the last 30, driving to SF, waiting in line (we were 2nd in line) being rubbed up against as you constantly claim your spot at the security rail, sitting through the opening band, waiting for Incubus, and you wonder, “Am I really hyping up Incubus for myself? How can they possible outdo their last shows. How can they possible reach new heights for me to just take my love for them into the 12th dimension? The hints of doubt start to reoccur in your mind.

Then the show starts. The timing in which each song was played, the energy of the band, the energy of the crowd, killer music and being just a couple of feet away from Brandon, all that went away. I was tripping out (I don’t do drugs, I swear) but I was on a music high. During “Sick Sad,” I spaced out and I was just floating—literally. There was so many crowding around and pushing that I can lift my feet off the ground and use that pressure to hold up this 150lb. filipino.

I couldn’t carry on with the day without replaying the concert in my head. It doesn’t seem real. I keep wanting to revisit the magic of the night and if I didn’t have any prior commitments for today and tomorrow, I’d be at the 2nd show at the Warfield right now. That crowd has a tough one to follow. We were awesome.

Top Shows
1. Incubus @ the Warfield
2. Sia @ Bimbo’s
3. Zero 7 w/ Sia and Jose Gonzales @ the Fillmore

*2 and 3 are tied. 2 was pretty emotional for me at the time with the whole mood of Sia’s music and the death of my Lola. Emo, I know, but it’s real.

Groupie love
During Albert’s bands’ (guitarist of the Strokes) performance, I spotted Mike in a dimly lit corner, offstage, while he was scoping out the openers; I waved and he waved back I knew he waved at me because I was the only one staring at Albert Hammond Jr’s gigantic shadow towards the right end of the stage, which led me to spot Mike.

Brandon’s water bottle.

Kilmore spotted me when I gestured “Yo!”

Brandon and I locked eyes during “Nowhere Fast” during the breakdown. Brandon looking eye-to-eye is a rarity since he either stares into space or has his eyes closed when he sings.

I almost had Jose’s tom head until the towering white guy twisted it out of my wrist. I had one hand on it and he had two. I should have let my wrist snapped; he would have let go.

Paul got Mike’s blue tortex pick (recall when I got Mike’s green tortex pick from the HP Pavilion show 2.5 years ago).

I’m shaky and excited. In 12 hours, the show starts. In two hours, ideally, I would be in line to enter the Warfield. The occasion? Incubus. Still, for 7 years, my all-time favorite. The way people were obsessed with the Police, the Beatles, Zeppelin, that’s Incubus for me. Thank you Paul for holding down a spot in line by yourself while I get this presentation crap out of the way. I am shaky, and totally excited to join you. Incubus! I even picked out what to wear and bring with me to the concert. This is probably what women feel like the day they’re about to get married. I have butterflies.

While preparing for our group presentation tomorrow, for our Cultural Anthropology class, a group member asked me what my major is. I told her Graphic Design. She chuckled and replied, “Hmm, yeah, that has nothing to do with graphic design.” She didn’t mean it in a harsh way. It just got me to rethink this. It’s not a new concept to grasp that most people do not know how interrelated graphic design and anthropology are (as well as design and literature, sociology, etc). It just caught me off guard; sometimes I assumed it’s that simple to understand. So I am taking a step back to address this.

Anthropology allows us, umm… humans, to understand cultures and their development. Graphic designers design a way of transporting a message to the audience. This doesn’t just magically happen. Anthropology has an awesome process. It teaches us how to understand things objectively and evaluate with substance. It promotes weaving, crossing, interrelating and connecting the dots out of tons and tons of data. So, Anthropology and Graphic Design may not be connected at the hip like a VCR repair course and a VCR repairman, but they are closely related.

I think anything we harness has everything and anything to do with what we do. The things we learn in class, out of shitty experiences, out of successes, failures, and whatever, it connects to whatever it is we do. I digress. My point is, Kate and I had other choices of what class to take to fulfill our upper division requirement to graduate and we chose wisely. Education is only as valuable as we make it.

I’ve been contemplating little changes in my life, like applying for Fasttrack, which is a prepayment method of paying for any of the bridges in the bay area. But forget it. The toll booth people are nice and computers shouldn’t take over the world.

Almost there. All throughout this past semester, I did not shoot a single roll of film. I did not allow myself to shoot a single roll of film until I managed to develop the three rolls I had laying around and until I scan in the five I had from after the New York trip. Two days ago, was a glorious and momentous occasion—I finally developed those rolls of film. They date back to August. Damn! I owe myself an hour and a half to scan in these 8 sets. Yeah, it’s been a while. Once that’s done, I’m bringing out those lovely hunks of metal (oops, in some cases, plastic).

Despite my boring adventures on the weekdays of hustling for design projects and sitting 5 hours straight of class, my Wiikends have been awesome. We have lost track of time countlessly, playing Wii. What would start off as something of an event would turn into over-the-top video game bonanza. Me and Jun have never done so much trash talking; we were playing newbs, given that Paul just got back form the Philippines and they are now just introducing the Sega Genesis. Kidding. Kidding. The Wii saves me from mental deterioration; it brought the fun back in my life. One more semester.

Wow, my 1000th post on blogger. Happy New Years all. Finally we reach 07. Big changes for this year. I graduate. I move. I become a professional. I turn 24, which also means I was a freshman in high school a decade ago (holy crap). All the changes due this year are positive life changes. Like I said, 2006 is done and this is probably the last time I will publicly refer to the year which we do not speak of.

To launch of the year, what better way than the upcoming Incubus concert at the Warfield, next Tuesday? Exactly.

Upstairsloft.com will also be dedicated to my portfolio in the upcoming weeks/months. Paul and Jun (if I can get it working) will be holding down the long forgotten Upstairsattic. Exciting.