I snapped this photo after having pho with my friend Matt Saturday evening on Western Ave. It’s very rare that I see a rainbow here in L.A. that’s not a bumper sticker or on the doors of WeHo establishments and thankfully I had my camera on me. If you look closely you can see two rainbows. How fucking awesome is that? These were Eastside rainbows.

Today marks the last day of summer. Sigh.

Dear Summer 2007,

We failed each other yet again. See you in 9 (?) months.

all.the.best.

Terry

More on this later. I’m looking forward to the Fall. Hoodies, blazers, merino wool, productivity, here we come.

BTW - RECENT - Okkervil River at the Troubadour, LCD Soundsystem AND The Arcade Fire at the Hollywood Bowl, Cat Power and the Dirty Delta Blues Band at the Avalon. UPCOMING - The National at The Wiltern, Bright Eyes at The Hollywood Bowl, Rilo Kiley at the Santa Monica Civic Center.

This is brilliant, but not as brilliant as the time I sang “Against All Odds” at my friend’s B-Day karaoke party.

EDIT

The commercial was directed by Juan Cabral, an art director at Fallon. Those who are commercial savvy know that Cabral was also responsible for the excellent Sony Bravia Campaign, which featured bouncy balls and paint explosions

The great Italian Maestro Luciano Pavarotti passed away today. One of the most inspiring moments in my life was the first time I heard Miss Sarajevo by the U2 side project The Passengers in which Pavarotti belts out a beautiful verse in Italian. I never bothered to find a translation of his lyrics till years later, though the impact of the song’s new meaning was still profound. Watch the video. Lyrics will be posted in the comments section.

EDIT

Here’s the music video version of Miss Sarajevo. Back in high school I used to tape 120 Minutes every Sunday night and every Monday morning I would scan through the VHS before school to see if there were any highlights. This was one of the few videos I stopped to watch in the morning.

And here’s the raw concert footage of the performance. Pavarotti doesn’t sound as deep as he does on the studio recording, but it’s still a powerhouse of a performance.

The Miss Sarajevo single has one of the best live recordings of “One” performed by Bono, The Edge and Brian Eno for a War Child benefit in Modena, Italy. Unfortunately Youtube doesn’t have the clip, so here’s an inspiring performance of One by Bono as part of the Pavarotti and Friends concert of 2003.

Luciano Pavarotti, 1935 - 2007

Last week the beloved mural on Sunset Blvd next to Solutions Electronics and Repairs, which served as the Elliot Smith tribute wall, was grossly tagged by someone who goes by the moniker “Mouse.” The size of the tag suggests that the person must have used a fire extinguisher as opposed to your standard spray can. LAIST covered the story last week, too. The comments are pretty interesting.

This past weekend whilst driving from Chinatown back to my apartment in Los Feliz with my parents and brother, little Francis spotted another one of the Mouse’s tags in Echo Park off of Alvarado. I guess Mouse decided to be witty and a little more reckless in choosing the ethnic (and longer) name “El Mouser.”

Seriously, who is this person and how does someone like this get away with such vandalism? I’m a big fan of commissioned murals and can understand the importance of non-commissioned artists such as Banksy, but this Mouse person takes it a little too far. Hopefully this person can be brought to justice. And by justice I mean being forced to listen to Elliot Smith records 24 hours a day in solitary confinement. YEAH!

images courtesy of francis h