2012 m. balandžio 23 d., pirmadienis

If anyhing... I miss Rhythm Junkies like crazy.

My home band Rhythm Junkies just had a bad ass tour with some bad ass Lithuanian music project Ball and Chain by Jurgis Didžiulis and Erica Jennings. RJ kicked ass! Check this out:

Can't wait to perform my number live to Let's Misbehave.......



..and here's one of my favorite songs of all times:

2012 m. balandžio 17 d., antradienis

Killing an Impressionist in me



I have a non-secret obsession - I like to paint on furniture. But mostly without sketches and I don't usually pick the color - the color picks me. Like it happened today. On the last day of moving into the new apartment we found a dresser on the side of the street and since we were looking for one, we picked it up. But the piece was shabby and boring, so I repainted it with the leftover paint. So this surreal heavenly blue picked me, cause this was the only color besides white. I got sea sponges to make this piece look not so plane, but the sponges happened to make an impressionist sky look. WTF? So I covered half of the top with solid blue. Stay tuned if you wanna see what will it become..



2012 m. balandžio 16 d., pirmadienis

Monday works for me

Although the place is still in boxes but it's Monday and I feel inspired to do some work for local swing dance community that is just starting to rise from ash with a big passion coming from Josh Gomez and beautiful Marisa Garcia. I have just met them but it feels like that swing dance is a very strong bond between us.. here is what we are gonna do in near future!

                          

After the dance last night me and Jason went to an amazing restaurant Gjelina with the ceiling that reminded me of the cozy Suflerio Budelė... good times there around this time in 2009:

photo by Flekis Fliakis, irgi geras Kaunietis. Kaunas yra meilės miestas, visada pagalvoju. O šiaip, kas gero Kaune? Ar jau pavasaris? Ar jau hipsteriai ant kiekvieno kampo, ar dar ne visai? Kas už tai, kad kada nors netolimoje ateityje pagyvent Kaune?

Inhabiting Santa Monica

I never thought my first home with somebody else will be so far from Vokiečių street.. Oh well, just until the middle of June for now I will wake up in a beautiful 1920's apartment with a dream sofa, lots of daylight and views to all four cardinal directions.. here is how it looks -->




2012 m. balandžio 14 d., šeštadienis

L.A. BIZARRO test

The beautiful morning after yesterdays storms and here I am looking for some adventures. Remembered the forgotten autumn fun book by A. Lovett and M. Maranian "L.A. Bizarro", which has some good ideas where to go in LA - the city that could sometimes look so vain and lazy on one side and busy crazy on the other. It's the city where there is an obvious difference between cool hippie and relaxed hippie :) and where hipsters are my parents' age...

Me and Jason went on a scavenger hunt for some objects in the book and had a fun experience. I will come back with some stories from the places we saw later...
 

2012 m. balandžio 13 d., penktadienis

Rainy day in SoCal

On a rainy Friday the 13th in Los Angeles I remember my last autumn experience between the 17 mile drive and Big Sur... 


2012 m. balandžio 7 d., šeštadienis

Easter... right?

or "how far can you go?"

This morning I got my breakfast egg in shower. I think this is a pretty cool Easter preparation.

2012 m. balandžio 6 d., penktadienis

Ši-ka-go, ši-ka-go...

arba kaip Paplaitis per jūras ir marias muilą nešė

As you must already know I am safe again in Los Angeles and will be soon enjoying a nice walk on Santa Monica beach, but before that let me tell you how did I get here this time...

I was teaching a jazz dance workshop with Mindaugas in Cracow, Poland last weekend and had amazing time there at Swing Era Festival (worth a separate blog entry for sure). I had my ticket booked from Warszawa on 4th of April so I was hesitating to go home in between. When I finally decided to go together with Mindaugas on the 2nd of April, we had a very late dinner and almost missed our flight. But wait! The flight got canceled and we both had to return to the hotel and have another goodbye dinner.

Mindaugas left Cracow on early morning of the 3rd of April and I have moved to the other hotel for one more night. I was ready for a long journey...

April 4, 04:00 am - The alarm comes on.
04:40 am - I'm in the taxi, going to the trains station in Cracow.
05:00 am - they change the train track, I feel anxious, there are more ppl than seats.
05:18 am - got on the train and have a seat, yes!
08:10 am - my dear friend Michal picks me up with a taxi to the airport in Warszawa (thank you so much!)
Around 9 am I'm at the airport and waiting for my flight to London.
12:20 pm - on the half empty plane - 2 extra seats for my feet! yeah!
Around 2 pm I'm keeping calm and carrying on at London Heathrow airport.

5 something pm I slide through the security interview and get on the plane.
The flight seems to be ok, sitting next to a nice guy with the urbanears headphones in teal color. We chat almost through all 8 hour flight. I wonder, how ppl around us have tolerated that. I also have a book: The Prague Cemetery by Umberto Eco. Not sure if I like it yet..

Around 8 pm - get off the plane in Chicago airport. I will remember this day for quite some time :) go to the line. The line is not moving, the time is ticking, the ppl are late and nervous. My flight to LA is in an hour. I make it to the booth... and they take me to the security room.

Around 09:20 pm I tell jazz dance history to the customs security officer. I seems to be a nice guy so I don't stress out. He asks me to dance before he gives my passport back, so I do some jazz in the security office. Just like that.

My flight is in 30 minutes, so I find my suitcase and run. Ppl are helpful so I make it to the gates right on time. The flight is 10 min. late. I sit down and wait until they anounce that the pilot did not arrive and they delay the flight until tomorrow. Great, I think.

Arround midnight Chicago time I'm at the business hotel. What the fuck?




05:00 am - I'm at the lobby ready to go back to the airport. Let's try it one more time!
08:00 am - we're boarding, at last! I did't have a drop of coffee since I April 3rd Cracow time, still holding my addiction.
08:20 am - we're waiting in the plane.
08:30 am - we're unboarding! Seriously? yes. they forgot to clean and check the freakin' plane. Still no coffee for me.

Around 09:30 am we start to leave Chicago airport, the pilots are bursting with some smart jokes. For some reason ppl don't find it funny... they give out sandwiches for the economy class ppl. how generous.

April 5th, at noon Los Angeles time we arrive to the airport and wait, until other planes move out of the way. Pilots are happy: "yay! we made it to LA! have a good day and good life. Forget everything what happened to you during these two days! Think it was a film". I LOL, cause I'm surprised.
Strange that my suitcase arrived too.

I appreciate the amount of miles American Airlines sent to me after this craziness of 41 hour.
I had 48 h before, which was even worse. But knowing that sometimes it's just 18 h, makes me feel better and not dream the nightmares before the long travels as I did before this one.

Yours,
Wandering Spirit G.