tipped off by an undisclosed source and friend, pepito and christine skipped out on work early per chance to strike it rich. nestled in the bowels of the downtown oakland marriott, unannounced auditions for NBC's "the weakest link" transpired this week. a dozen or so other individuals seeking the elusive dream of nationally televised wealth were present including: an NRA-supporting former female olympic shotputter, a previous gameshow contestant of "win ben stein's money," and a sketchy, eccentric man with a suspicious facial tick. sadly, after a brief interview and a rapid fire preliminary quiz, all of us were eliminated with the exception of jolly old "stu." however, before being quickly ushered out of the room, pepito wisely grabbed the photo opportunity of a lifetime with this soon-to-be household name and face.

on thursday, eugenia brought over an unreleased rough copy of justin lin's controvertial asian-american film "better luck tomorrow." a low budget indie shown at the sundance film festival that had the likes of roger ebert defending it, "better luck tomorrow" is a slick yet compelling film that reveals that not even ivy league bound over-achieving asian american high school honor students can escape the tedium and nihilism of suburban life. in between racking up 4.0 GPAs, playing varsity sports, and boasting impressive extracurriculars, these uber-kids test the murky, existential moral waters of vandalism, petty theft, cocaine, prostitutes, guns, and ultimately murder. this movie is a far better critique and commentary on contemporary asian-american culture than amy tan and wayne wang's incredibly trite and white-washed the joy luck club. bonus: the skyflakes are actually on the soundtrack. bonus x2: MTV recently picked up this movie for distribution. on an unrelated note, p and c also finally caught "monsoon wedding"-- an indian film chronicling one family's hectic, cross-cultural wedding in an explosion of bright colors, sounds, and characters, which also serves as an engaging allegory for the consequences of continuing westernization of modern Indian culture and society.

present whereabouts: pepito departs to chicago on friday. christine leaves for camping at the rubicon in a week. elbert continues his self-imposed exile in the land of stanford. shows will re-commence in july. new LPs, shirts, and pins in august.

june 16, 2002:

with the ho-hum NBA finals coming to an anticlimatic close and the diabolic evil vanquished from baldur's gate, the clarendon hills have begun to look elsewhere for their summer kicks. christine recently acquired a cheap riccar 1800 sewing machine and is putting her sartorial flair toward making pillow cases and skirts. on a whim, pepito picked up for half price MAD magazine's anthology "the complete casebook of spy vs. spy" at comic relief and is nostalgically reliving his adolescent days of classic literature. he is also spending far too much time with his other "band"-- practing constantly, touring relentlessly, and saving up money desperately to put out a debut radio single that will surely propel him to platinum record sales. the rockstar game is far too entertaining and way too addictive.

christine, mimi, and teresa hit the 26th annual san francisco international lesbian & gay film festival on friday night where our friend eugenia was having her drag queen documentary, "peaches christ superstar", screened at the castro in san francisco. pepito had a ticket, but couldn't go as he was running around trying to keep kids from flying out windows and the cafe lights from going out at the fleshies, the blottos, sexxxy, and before the fall show at the cafe. it was a magnificent show of hot, sweaty summer destruction. and thankfully, the albany city police were not mean to pepito when they dropped in to see what the racket was. afterwards, aaron cometbus rounded up a mean game of midnight punk basketball in the cool night air by the dumpsters of the clif bar corporate warehouse on fifth street.

in other news, elbert remains suicidally estranged and knee deep in test tubes, centrifuges, and yeast extract as he continues to prepare for his molecular pharmacology phd qualifying exam in early july. christine and pepito celebrated five years of living together without killing each other on thursday evening by going to trader joe's and indulging in an exorbitant vegan grocery shopping spree which included: a half dozen boxes of tasty bite brand madras lentils and jodhpur lentils indian entrees, 2 boxes of tofutti, trader joe's 2 bags of brand vegan chocolate chip cookies, and an arm load of tofu, spinach, herb ravioli, and thai vegetable gyozas.

the clarendon hills spent saturday afternoon recording two more songs. two more to go for the 10 song LP.

june 10, 2002:

with elbert slaving away in the lab and preparing for his phd qualifying exams (july 11th!), christine and pepito attempted a show going "grand slam" on saturday. up first was dropping by civic center in san francisco to see charmin play under an outdoor tent in celebration of philippine independence at the 2002 fiesta filipina. c and p quickly hopped back onto BART for the quick one-stop jaunt to 16th and mission in hopes of catching the blastrocks!!! at mission records. c and p only caught before the fall before succumbing to hunger. a 10 minute walk down valencia found c and p at the always tasty herbivore. p treated c to dinner in celebration of her straight A semester at uc berkeley. stuffing their faces on bruschetta with sundried tomato, lemon grass noodles, veggie ravioli marinara, and vegan carrot cake, c and p ended up missing the rest of the show at mission records. no time for regrets though, as they raced home to sneak some baldur's gate: dark alliance in before the andrew wk show at slim's. pepito also picked up the new before the fall 5 song tape on RISK. its good. like crimpshrine meets pinhead gunpowder. so unmistakably east bay.

the wall outside of slim's was plastered with leather-clad "old school" punks sporting mohawks coming out to represent the SF crust contingent as the casualties opened. the crowd at slim's was radically different from the small, motley collection of kids who turned out for AWK show at bottom of the hill a few months back before his recent media blitz. nonetheless, AWK was simply cathartic the second time around. sadly, that's probably the last time c and p will see him play live. and ultimately there just werent enough hours in a day for christine and pepito to complete their "saturday grand slam" of shows. AWK ended too late, as c and p were hoping to dash over to BOTH to rollerskate and bunny hop to SF's kindercore band call and response. they also missed an opportunity to dance to laptop electro-duo i am the world trade center who were opening for c.a.r. oh well.

sunday was spent in the hot, stuffy upstairs at the BFI compound recording yet more songs for the upcoming LP. this upcoming week is more pick-up basketball and soccer on the weeknights in the berkeley hills. summer time is so splendid.