First, a photo essay...then other things

last night we went to the murikami exhibit at moca in downtown LA. i was excited.

before we went there we drove by some weird store that had a wall of machine guns on display. i drove around the block so we could see it again. some of us thought it was for reelz. others said no way. the picture didn't turn out.

we couldn't take pix at the murikami exhibit. but it was INSANE. insanely awesome and totally trippy. huge murals and character sculptures that screamed for climbing. walls covered in his flower and eyeball designs. i also super enjoyed the japanese commercials featuring a little alien boy. a section of the exhibit is devoted to murikami's collaboration with louis vuitton and crazy rich people were actually buying purses. best of all it was FREE because it was a thursday. sweet.

also free was the adjacent japanese american museum. we could take pictures there and much fun ensued. i should put all the pictures into a slide show, but let's face it, i'm feeling pretty lazy this friday afternoon.

i liked this elephant painting.

but this is the one that caught my full attention. it was a mural that covered the entire wall (this is just a small portion of it). my favorite portion. because as i was staring at it, i saw that what i first thought was just a boom box, was actually a skull. (now i see more skull less boombox) there were also chinese stars thrown in haphazardly all over the mural. seriously cool.

the evening concluded with eating in little tokyo and entertaining ourselves with a statue of a man on a park bench. seriously. that slide show would so come in handy right now. anyway, super fun night.

I also wanted to mention that the movie I saw the other night, "Just Another Love Story," was very enjoyable. It's Swedish I think. The first word I thought of at the end was "brilliant." When I see a movie like this I'm like, how did someone think of all that? (writer-wise) I am thinking/hoping it will be the "Lives of Others" for 2008. We'll see.

I'm getting ready to go see the Charlize Theron project "Sleepwalking." Not sure what to expect with that. Tomorrow I get to see "U2-3d" and I'm stoked about it. apparently it just makes you feel like you're in the front row or something. we'll see. They have assigned Gerrad to that red carpet at Sundance. I'm still planning on going. Oddly enough, they've assigned me to cover a Tom Hanks red carpet. It will be the first time I meet him, so that will be fun.

Editor's note: All pictures in this post courtesy NDG. Who's really Nicole. And awesome.