Jai Al-Attas

Welcome To Paradise

2007-12-01T16:07:00.000-08:00

I really can't be bothered blogging my last week 3 weeks in LA. We finally finished shooting our film with the Green Day interview, took a bunch of meetings for it, saw a bunch of movies and watched The Hills season 1 & 2 back to back on DVD. We also saw some bands like Silverchair, Say Anything, Hello Goodbye, Young Love, New Found Glory and had our first Thanksgiving with our friend Amanda and the Young Loves.

Here is a preview of the film.

99 problems and a bitch are most of dem...

2007-11-11T21:41:00.000-08:00

OK so by now you realize that i only really blog when i am overseas. Fortunately for you, the fans, i have spent half of my time out of Australia this year which means lots of interesting stories for you to get caught up in. This blog is going to be a quick look at my last 7 days, and HERE WE GO....

Sunday - Flying to LA today at Midday. Pretty hung over from Nizas bros engagement party in Cronulla the night before(The Shire. I vomited everywhere when i crossed that stupid fucking bridge). My upgrade to business is once again denied, fuck you Qantas. 13 hours later i arrive at LAX. Through immigration and to Dollar to pick up my Dodge Charger. I've decided to roll pimp this time. Being under 25 makes this shit really expensive. But i look cool so what. Get to Adrians where i am staying. Have a sleep and miss brunch with his homeboy Ariel who used to sing in the ska band The Hippos. Good band. That night we catch up with Tom Gates who manages Brand New, we head to the show with him and have a good time. Brand New are so fucking good it's ridiculous. Head backstage after the show and say hi to the band, they don't know what i am doing there i say i saw on Myspace they were playing a show so i flew over to see them. I think they believe me?????

Monday - WGA writers strike has started today. Basically the unions have called a strike on all writers for TV and film because the networks and studios aren't paying enough royalties on DVD and new media. This shit is pretty serious. All late night TV shows have been put on hold, so Letterman and Leno are all running re runs. No one is working. I decide to strike with me fellow WGA friends. I don't even write an email today. Have a few meetings during the day and head to Virgin Megatore by Laurel Canyon to buy some cheap films. Next i am off to Il Sole to have dinner with Tony Hawk, his wife Lohtse , Bill Silva and Adrian. Apparently this place is pretty styling. This is the first time i have met Tony who has agreed to narrate my film, i am kind nervous but he is a super nice dude. Tony Hawk rules.

Tuesday - More meetings. I go out to lunch with Pat Magnarella who manages Green Day, i show him the short for my film and he really digs it. He calls Billie Joe and arranges a time for me to interview Billie, which is really exciting and is my last interview before i finish the film. Everyone seems to be digging this trailer and it's causing quite a buzz around town. That night i catch up with my friend Trinity and we go see the new Wes Anderson film Darjeeling Limited at Arc Light. It's fucking amazing. I love Wes Anderson. For those of you a little disappointed with Life Aquatic, forget about it this film is great. It seems all the reviewers who are hating on it are retarded or something.

Wednesday - My last day in LA for this short trip. I get 4 meetings in today with a few labels and film agents. Adrian takes me to lunch on Geffen(Thanks Geffen) and then i am off to Bill Silvas office. Bill has arranged for a screening of the new Joy Division documentary(Not Control) at his friend Tom's house. Tom is the manager for New Order and made this documentary, we watch it in the screening room of his 1920's Spanish mansion. The film is really cool and just premiered at Toronto. I am now in a rush to the airport to get my flight to New York. Mother fucking Red Eye.

Thursday - I get into New York at 8am. I am super tired and really uncomfortable. I get to my friend Jackis around 10am and my first meeting is at Midday. I have a sneaky 1 hour nap and head to my meetings. That night i come home and watch Californication on Demand. Probably my new favourite show.

Friday - Today is better. I am fresh and New York is on. It's cold but it's cool. I have meetings all day, then that night fly solo to see American Gangster with Denzel Washington and Russel Crowe. It's really long but it's pretty cool. Then i meet up with my friend Laura, we head to the West Village to hang out with my bro Tony who has just finished shooting his first feature and is currently editing. We have some beers, meet Lauras friend Lauren and some doppleganger that i was calling Copperfield but resembled more of a GOB character from Arrested Development and not aesthetically because he looked like a young version of Rodney Dangerfield(When i say young he was 50 or something). Anyway the bar eventually closes and i go home to sleep.

Saturday - Today we are going to New Jersey to see Bon Jovi. My friend Jacki who i am staying with has work to do because she works for Island Records, the good thing is she has 2 AAA passes so i get to hang backstage at a Bon Jovi concert in his hometown of New Jersey. We are heading to the show with Masa from Japan who is like the Japanese version of Molly Meldrum, he is interviewing Jon today before the show. Masa rolls in style and we get to head to the show in a private SUV limo. So pimp, i can get used to this. At the show i can go anywhere so i get some much needed food from catering and then head to check Bon Jovi do soundcheck. Richie Sambora(the guitarist for Bon Jovi) calls out to Masa which we find amusing. "MAAAASSSAAAA". Masa is stoked. Then the interview. I am hanging in the room to watch the interview. Jon walks in and says hello to everyone. I actually have no reason to be in the room but try to look like i am meant to be there. The whole crew is Japanese except me and i watch the interview and eat cookies. Jon looks at me a few times probably thinking "who the fuck if this guy eating cookies and laughing". Later Jacki tells me what i wasn't allowed to be in there. All American Rejects are opening tonight so i catch their set and it's really good, they have super hot model girlfriends and stuff. Then Bon Jovi comes on. Seriously it was one of the best shows i have ever seen, they play You Give Love A Bad Name and the crowd of 20,000 is going crazy. My AAA pass lets me watch from side of stage so i am feeling pretty special now. It's super fucking cheesy but Bon Jovi is alright. Next we head back to Manhatten to Wendy and Todds house warming party in the West Village. Eventually we head home and listen to heaps of Cat Stevens before passing out.

Sunday - 3pm and i wake. FUCK. I don't feel like doing anything today. Andy who is Jackis flatmate has invited us down to his studio. Before we go Jacki asks me if i would like a ticket to Jay-Z tonight in concert. FUCK YES I DO. So we go and see Andy at his studio in Chinatown, get some great Chinese food, head to a bar and then to the Jay-Z show. I have never been to a real hip hop show before and all i can say is that it FUCKING ruled. Man, Hip Hop shows rule. The crowd which was predominantly black were going nuts, dancing, singing, rhyming and having a good time. He had a lot of guests on stage and everyone went berserk when Puff Daddy came out to Jam. One of the best shows i have ever seen. We leave before the end so we can get a taxi home. And here i am. Sitting in a great apartment in the East Village writing my blog. Tomorrow is my last day in New York before heading back to LA for a few weeks.

It's all pretty good right now.

x

Jai-Z

Minotaur in Paris

2007-09-15T22:27:00.000-07:00

Shit, this is kind of delayed as it has been almost 2 weeks since i last updated it and i have been back in Sydney for a week now. I'll try my best to piece together the rest of my trip.

So the day after Moulin Rouge in Paris, we goto the Louvre to see Mona Lisa. It's quite a small painting and obviously the most popular in the museum this is made apparent by a line to see the painting(which is enclosed in a glass case) and it's own personal security guard. People are allowed to take photos of it, so everyone is just taking happy snaps. I'm not. I head to the Egyptian part of the Louvre to see all of the ancient Egyptian artifacts and tombs. It's pretty cool and parts of my year 10 ancient history lessons are coming back to me. Today is our last day in Paris before heading to Venice. After the Louvre i head to a music store and pick up the 2 DAFT PUNK dvd's interstellar and D.A.F.T. Both are awesome especially Interstellar 5555. I'm pretty happy. As tonight is our last night in Paris, we decide to goto a bar for happy hour around St Germain and then head back to the Eiffel Tower and drink a bottle of vino on the grass.

Venice: We were pretty lucky to get 1 cent flights from Paris to Venice with Ryan Air, little did we know that Ryan Airs airports are so far from civilization. With no public transport to the one in "Paris"(i say "Paris" because it definitely wasn't in Paris) we had to get a 140 Euro taxi to the airport. Lame. After a quick flight we are in Venice, we get on the bus and head to the island where we are staying. We rock up and have no idea where we are going, but wing it and luckily find our hotel which is in a little side alley near the Grand Canal. Actually everything hear is side alleys, there are no cars or bikes in Venice just Gondolas and Ferries. As we walk into the Hotel at about 11pm, there is a little Italian man with fake teeth and white hair sitting at reception, he looks up and says "ALATTAS". I nod and try not to laugh. Laura just starts laughing. "We have been waiting for you ALATTAS" he says further. We put our bags in our room and then go and have dinner at a Pizza restaurant. Venice is amazing, it's kind of surreal in a way and i have never experienced anything like it before.

Day 2 Venice: So today we decide to buy a ferrie day pass and just see the island. We travel on ferries for awhile, getting off every now and then to check out some more alleys and lanes. At about 3pm we decide to go back to the hotel to have a rest before going out later(I'm getting old, I need afternoon naps). Turns out the last ferry is coming at 3pm and there is a massive queue for it. We are pretty well positioned and i think we have a good chance of getting on, that is until Lauras bag gets tangled on some old lady and the old lady starts yelling abuse at her in Italian, the next thing we know the old lady jumps on the boat and they pull the bar down so that we can't get on. Stupid old lady. I wanted to throw her into the water. So we are on the other side of the island and no way to get home, turns out it's only a 30 minute walk - so we take a scenic walk through the streets of Venice. Which is really fucking cool and I'm glad that we do this instead of catch the ferry(I still hate the old lady though). We get back to the hotel eventually and i have a nap. We decide that tonight we will go on a Gondola, so after dinner we try and track one down, we hear they are pretty expensive but you can barter with them. I unsuccessfully barter with one and his 100 euro price for a 3 minute Gondola ride doesn't change. Oh well, we go on the Gondola and it's pretty fun. Apparently there is only one company in Venice that runs the entire Gondola business. After our "informative" ride, we pay the man and buy some vino and drink on the banks of a canal until we eventually run out of wine and goto sleep. When we get back to the hotel, we get in trouble by the man downstairs for coming in late, i feel 15 again. Back off DAD.

HANG OVER. Today we are leaving Venice for Stockholm. I go and buy 2 presents for my friends Mark C and "Flattie of the year" Niza, i buy Mark a pair of boxer shorts with the dick of David on them and i buy Niza an apron with the dick of David on them. In Venice the dick of David is a really popular item and features on post cards, t shirts, boxer shorts and aprons. So next we are off to the airport to fly to Stockholm on another 1 cent Ryan Air flight, because my bag is so heavy i decide to take my camera case out of my bag. Unfortunately my camera case also looks like a bomb and as we are going through security, i get stopped so this metal container can get checked properly, by the time it's checked everyone else has boarded the plane and they are just waiting on me before taking off. I hear a beautiful Italian girl call my name over the PA. I fell in love briefly.

For some reason on all these flights i have never been seated next to Laura, which doesn't really bother me too much as the other 23 hours of the day are spent with each other and it's good to have some "quiet time". I believe she feels the same way as i am an annoying jerk most of the time. We get into Stockholm and somehow the plane has managed to land an hour earlier than expected??? The pilot was on mad speed. We get an hour long bus ride to the hotel which turns out is a Hilton. I am vert excited by this, i did book it, but i didn't realize it was a Hilton and it's smack bang in the centre of town. Score. After checking out our very nice room, i decide to goto the hotel bar for a drink by myself and have a lost in translation moment. Laura stays in the room. I buy a beer and it costs me 50 kromer WHICH IS THE EQUIVALENT OF $10 AUSTRALIAN. FOR A FUCKING TAP BEER. I stop at 1 beer and goto bed.

Ok so the next part of my story may sound kinda weird, but it's cool OK. I had made a friend on Myspace who lived in Stockholm and today HE was going to show us around and take us to come cool bars. Kaine, is an Australian guy that has been living in Stockholm for the past 5 years. I am not sure how we became friends on Myspace but i am very glad that we did. Oh before i go into this i just need to say that Stockholm has the most attractive people in the world, EVER. Every girl is the hottest girl i have ever seen and they are so stylish too, everyone wears super cool street wear, it's like the white version of Tokyo. Anyway so we meet Kaine after he finishes work and i'm kind of nervous because this is like a blind date but with a dude. Straight away it's like we have known each other for years and are best friends. He takes us to some really cool bars and shows us some shops that we will be hitting up tomorrow(and Laura will be spending the rest of her money at). We get very very drunk and decide to call it a night, Kaine heads home and Laura and I back to our Hilton Hotel.

The next day is shopping day. I fucking hate shopping. I mean i like buying things but i hate people that come upto you and are like "HEY DUDE WASSUP MAN YEAH THOSE JEANS ARE DOPE BRO YOU SHOULD TOTALLY GET THEM THEY LOOK SO SWEET MAN LIKE WOAH GOT ANY PLANS THIS WEEKEND YEAH JUST CHILLING YEAH MAN SO ARE YOU GOING TO BUY THOSE JEANS BRAH BECAUSE I HAVE A DAILY QUOTA TO MAKE AND I REALLY HAVE NO INTEREST IN YOU AND HOW YOU ARE DOING OR IF YOU LOOK GOOD IN THOSE PANTS" You know the type? Anyway fuck clothes shopping. But Stockholm has the BEST stores i have been too. I goto the Cheap Mondays store and pick up 2 pairs of jeans for dirt cheap and then we head to American Apparel and clean the shop out. There is a sneaker store called Sneaker N Stuff which is incredible, i don't purchase anything though, but it has a cafe inside the sneaker shop and is a cool hang. So yeah shop shop spend lots of money eat food go back to hotel to meet Kaine.

Tonight Kaine has organized for us to goto a magazine party to see Jens Leckman play. He takes us on a scenic detour of Old Town which is amazing and gives us a brief history lesson on Sweden. We get to the party and surprise loads of good looking stylish people here, yep so many in fact it's really hard to move. Jens comes on and we can't even see him, so we opt for a couch and listen to him in the background. After that we are heading to see Sahara Hotnights DJ but for some retarded reason, some clubs in Stockholm have a drinking age of 23 and over. Laura is only 21 so we can't goto this club. Instead we opt for the equally cool Debaser which is a really good venue/club. We sit out on the patio, drinking beers and chewing the fat. Once again it's time to say goodbye and this is the last time we will be seeing Kaine on this journey. It's quite sad really. Kaine if you are reading this, thanks so much for showing us around Stockholm and hanging out. Made our trip.

The next morning we wake up knowing that today is the last day of our trip. We check out of the hotel and have a few hours to kill, so we check out this store that has the best shit ever in it. I buy a ridiculously expensive pair of sunglasses but they're bad ass so it's ok. Off to the airport, we get the taxi driver to take a picture of Laura and I which is one of the only photos that we are actually both in. Our flight to London is pleasant but i never look forward to landing in Heathrow, that fucking customs line is a shit. So we get in to Heathrow and what do you know, it's a 1 hour wait in the customs line. I hate Heathrow. After we eventually get out, we decide to stay really close to the airport as we are both flying our seperate ways the next morning. By the time we check in it's about 10:30pm and we are pretty buggered, an early night is had by both. Good night.

Last day: We wake up and check out. I am flying back to Sydney today and Laura is flying to Borneo to meet up with her Mum. I had made a request with Qantas a few weeks earlier to get upgraded to business class from London to Sydney using my Frequent Flyer points. When i check in, i see that i am seater in Economy. Fucking Qantas. By this stage, Laura and I are in different terminals. Bye Laura, have fun in Borneo. It was fun. I head to the lounge and ask if there are any spare seats in Business class, they tell me that there are 2 spare. MMMM i wonder why i didn't get upgraded then. 5 minutes later and i have boarded the plane, i ask to speak to the customer service manager on board about why i didn't get upgraded. She tells me that there are no spare seats in business, i tell her there are as i just found out from a sales manager that there were 2 left. She is annoyed by this and goes on to explain how the Frequent Flyer works. Fuck off i feel like saying. Stupid uppity bitch. Anyway i don't get upgraded. Boy am i looking forward to my 24 hour flight home to Sydney....

OK so there were some positives on my flight. Good films. Unlike my last long flight, the entertainment system worked this time(Fuck you Qantas). I watched and highly recommend the following films: This is England, The US vs John Lennon, Surfs Up and Strummer.

Finally i get off in Sydney, buy some shit from Duty Free and walk out to see "Flattie Of The Year" Niza waiting there to pick me up. It feels good to be home. I still hate you Qantas, fucking Arseholes.

Until next time

x

Jai

Lots and lots of BOOBZ

2007-08-30T15:23:00.000-07:00

The title will make much more sense once this reaches the end OK? Ok. I haven't really had a chance to update this in awhile and still there are no photos. To be completely honest with you, i don't think photos will ever show up here. I just hate photos. I hate taking them and i hate being in them. Sometimes i am jealous of people that can just pose so easily for photos, they wear the same face in every shot. It's almost kind of creepy. But alas i am not a photo person...

So after my flight from LA to London(which i slept all of) it takes me 2 hours to get through customs. Not that anything was wrong, the line just went forever. Boring. So as i come out Laura is waiting for me in tears, i mean i know i have this affect on girls but so soon? Kidding. No she was crying because she had her wallet stolen while waiting for me in Heathrow, from this moment onwards i am known as jaiTM. So we leave Heathrow and head to Stu and Chloe's whom we are staying with for the next couple of days. A great sleep later and we are on our way to Reading for the Carling Weekend: Reading Festival. The Scare are the first band on the NME stage and i walk in just as they finish their last note. Fuck. I was so angry. We decide to head back to the hotel we are staying at to meet Stu and Chloe who are staying in the same room. We meet up with them and head back to the festival, where we meet up with The Scare who are pissed at me for missing the set. Granted. Next i see my brothers from Gyroscope who are in England recording their new album. We go and watch Jimmy Eat World together who are amazing. I don't really remember much else of this day because i got kind of drunk, but i do remember spending a lot of time in the VIP area drinking Grolsh and seeing Butch Vig walking around. We leave the festival to party back at the Hotel we are staying at. There is a bar downstairs where everyone hangs out i guess. The singer from Interpol is down there and getting his tour manager to pick up chicks for him, unfortunately it's not going to well at first but eventually he does OK. Dude, it was probably because you were wearing a dickies hat. I mean usually you are one of the smartest dressed dudes ever, but when you're just chilling you look like the dude from Puddle Of Mudd. No offence. We drink alot, talk alot of shit and around 7 in the morning have all passed out.

Day 2: Reading - So i found it hard to wake up today. Very hard. Laura found it so hard to wake up that she didn't even goto the festival on this day. I got there at around 7pm, just in time to see Digitalism who were pretty good but not amazing. Then i went and chilled for a little with Matt and Carly before watching a little Red Hot Chilli Peppers. Chilli Peppers fucked up their first song 3 times in a row and John and Anthony had a little fight on stage, with the mics on!!! Flea must have been really confused or angry so he started screaming into the microphone "Raaaahhhh" "Rahhhhhhhh" "Raaahhhhhhh". Then someone through a beer into the crowd and it went on my head and i realized how much i fucking hate festivals and people that goto them, so i went back to the hotel. Tonight nobody was partying at the hotel, so i went to sleep.

Day 3: Reading - Today was a busy day for me. Lots of bands i wanted to see and interview for The Jai Show. We got there really early to see Hello Goodbye who were really good. Next we saw Operator Please, who had a really good crowd in their tent. Then we retired back to the VIP area to drink more beers, we shot an interview with Chad from New Found Glory and then Laura went back to the hotel. Please note that she got really sick on the first day and didn't have the energy to keep up with an energizer battery like myself. On the 3rd day i also ended up seeing Fall Out Boy, Klaxons, Smashing Pumpkins, Nine Inch Nails, New Found Glory, Gallows and CSS. I also shot a bunch of stuff for The Jai Show which will air on Channel [V] in October. Smashing Pumpkins were probably the highlight, they played Today really early on and that stoked me out. Once again not a party night, Carly lost her wallet so was kinda bummed out and 1 drink in the hotel bar later everyone had retired to bed.

The next day was fucking crazy. After a nice breakfast in the hotel, we check out and walk down to the station to see a 3 hour line to head back to London. Fuck that. We think maybe a cab will be the answer, but for $180 pounds($450AUD) that's also not a great idea. We are tipped off that it will be quicker to get a bus to Heathrow airport, then a train to Paddington and a tube to Queens Park(where we are staying). 2 hours later and it beats the 3 hour wait on a train full of hung over festival goers. We get back to Stu and Chloes and i crash out. When i wake up Laura has a vistor over called Liam, apparently he knows me from Sydney but my mind is blank. After awhile i work out that i do know him and that we had an argument once at the judgement bar in Sydney. What a fine establishment that is. Eventually he leaves.

The next day is really boring so i don't want to even bother typing it. Up early. Meetings all day with Matt. The Scare play at Brigton Bar which is their last show in the UK before flying home. Great fucking show. They are on fire. I leave after they play to see my friend Dan from Young Love, who are also playing tonight. I walk in on their first song. I love Young Love. They are so good, i only heard about them this year at SXSW but Dan and I became friends pretty quickly. Great set. I hang out with Dan for awhile after the show and head home. Tomorrow i fly to Paris.

Paris - Wake up angry. Call Mel, she counsels me. I feel better. Head to Heathrow, security is INSANE. British Airways club is the best. Get drunk in there. Board the plane. Fall asleep straight away and next thing i know arrive in Paris. Get the train to our hotel and then we are off to Eiffel Tower to meet up with a bunch of Lauras friends from Melbourne. Cool people. We don't climb it but rather sit on a grass patch and watch the light show, it's pretty amazing. For dinner we have a savoury crepe and then back to the hotel. I fall asleep straight away.

Today. Get up early for breakfast in the hotel. It's good. I go back to sleep straight after and get up around 1pm. I am one lazy motherfucker(but i never have). We get the train to St Michel - Notre Dame, first we get a sweet crepe which is fucking amazing. I want another one now. We walk around the streets which is pretty cool. Laura takes pictures of everything she sees and gets me to take pictures of her in front of everything she sees. Then we goto into the Notre Dame cathedral, i am not a religious person but i do appreciate the architecture and grand size of the building. It's incredible and apparently took 200 years to build. Next we are off to Bastille to have a look around, we see a cocktail bar and get drunk. A few drinks later and it's back to the hotel to get ready for Moulin Rouge, where we are headed tonight. We are running late so dinner consists of Mcdonalds, i make up for that by ordering a Royal with Cheese(reference not necessary). Now i am not crazy about going to the Moulin Rouge, it sounds pretty girly to me and dancing and costumes don't really interest me. We get in there and are seated in the middle, tickets are 90 euro which is pretty expensive and i'm kind of bummed out about parting with that much money. BUT then it all changes. The girls are topless and theres heaps of them, and they're all the hottest girls ever. All the music is in French so i have no idea what is going on except there are dancing girls with no tops and g-strings on EVERYWHERE. Is this place the worlds best kept secret? I was kinda annoyed that i didn't recognize Nicole Kidman though. The show went for 2 hours and they give you a bottle of champagne. In between some of the dance segments, they had routines which were either funny or just hard to believe. All in all i was really glad that i did come and check it out. I may even watch the film now. Mouli Rouge for president.

After the show we head back to the hotel where i am now. We have 2 days left in Paris before heading to Venice on Saturday. It's bed time.

x

Jai

Last day in LA

2007-08-22T16:33:00.000-07:00

Ok quick blog in my last hours of LA. Tonight i fly to London for the Reading/Leeds Festival, The Scare and Matt/Carly have already left. I am booked on the Red Eye. 10 hour flight, not really looking forward to it but hopefully my fucking entertainment system works this time. Laura is going to meet me at the airport, she got in today, i hope she has a sign. Laura if you are reading this make a sign for me JAI AL-ATTAS. Thanks.

Alright so the past few days have been hilarious. Monday after our cars got towed, we head to Spaceland which is in Silverlake where The Scare are playing tonight. The Buzzcocks played this venue last Friday. The Scare are the first band on and the room id dead empty, we decide to wait 10 minutes and then people start rolling in. A few label A&R people are around which is a good sign. After the show Mick, Sam, Liam and I get in my PT Cruiser and head down to Newport Beach which is a good hour out of LA. We hear about a party down there and seeing as though i am going through my OC/Laguna/Newport obesession right now, i can't pass up the opportunity.

The one thing i will say about Newport is that it has probably the most beautiful rich people i have ever seen. It was crazy how hot everyone was. So we goto a club called Discoteca that Dexter puts on, once again Uffie is playing. She is seriously everywhere i go. The club closes at 2am and we hear word of an after party. Sam decides it's a good idea to follow these 2 girls that really don't want us to follow them, i came to this conclusion because i heard them say "No we don't want you to follow us, follow Dexter". Sam tells me that they want us to follow them still. Fuck it. I'll follow them. One of the girls has a ridiculously expensive Merc, i thought it was her families but it was hers(just paid for by the family). This is how kids in Newport roll.

What happens next is an insane car chase around the OC. The girl in front of us wasn't using indicators when turning and really trying to throw us off her tail. It was pretty funny, anyway she got away a few times but i caught up and eventually we stop at her house. I would like to say i am a great driver but to be honest, i fluked it, she was going SO fast. We get to the carpark of her place which is a fuck off apartment block. Amazing. She doesn't let us come upstairs and the 2 girls say they'll be down in 5 minutes and then we will head to the party. 40 minutes later they back down and Sam decides to ride with the girls so he can tell them to slow down and i can follow.

Another goose chase and we get to the after party. Which is basically just a bunch of people from the club chilling on couches and drinking wine in another fuck off Newport apartment complex. What excited me though was the girl whose house we were at had CDJ1000s in her living room, sweet, she let me play with them for awhile until i kept playing them too loud and her flat mate got pissed at me. Sorry bro. My bad.

At about 5am the party ends and it is decided that we will just drive back to LA. Liam and Sam take some anxiety pills and pass the fuck out in the back. After a 2 hour drive, many arguments and literally having to drag Liam and Sam from the back of my car, i get home around 7am and pass out. Newport was an experience, possibly one of the funniest nights of my life. Retarded.

Tuesday i have a few meetings. As i am driving back from one i see Travis Barker walking down the street. Yo Travis what's up dude. I then head to Casey, Shannon and Emmas new house in Beechwood Canyon. Amazing place. Right under the Hollywood sign. These 3 girls are Australian and Emma is acting out here, most notably she was in Entourage recently. Good one Emma. Then off to have dinner with our friend Louie Bandak, who has signed many a good band at Capitol Records. After dinner we head to Cinespace where The Scare are playing again. Tonight has a much better vibe than the Spaceland show. There is a huge line outside the club and we're all pretty excited. The Scare go on and play amazingly well. I think this was the first time i have seen Kiss smile since being in LA. Darren McMullen from The Lair on MTV has just flown in to LA and comes to the show. After the show many an after party is spoken about, i meet some random people from Wales who become my new friends for the night, we head to Steve Aokis after party which is at his new office. Danny Masterson from That 70's Show is there and they're all about to play poker. They invite me to play but at $100 minimum and me not having ever played with real people before, i decide to give it a miss. I bounce from Dim Mak around 4 and head home. Sleep. Adrian is in Chicago tonight with Lifehouse and Rooney, so i take his bed. Score.

Wednesday(Today). So we have a meeting with this guy called Chris who worked at Myspace records up until last week, now he works at Atlantic. Very cool guy. We have breakfast at The Grove and speak about bands and music and you know all that usual stuff. The whole time i just want to ask him about THE HILLS, because he was on it!!! You see the other day i was watching this episode and Audrina and Lauren go on a double date with this guy Chris and his flat mate. I didn't realize it at the time but it was the same Chris i was meeting with. So after my meal i say "Ok Chris, The Hills how did that happen?". He starts laughing. Then tells us how he hooked up with Audrina and how the producers of the show would make him say stuff. It was interesting to get an insight into my new favourite show. When we said our goodbyes i asked him if he could sign a copy of The Hills DVD for me. He replied with "Fuck Off".

Next, off to the William Morris Agency to see my bro Brian. As i am waiting in the lobby, Steve Aoki walks out with Uffie. See Uffie is EVERYWHERE!!! She will possibly be on my flight tonight. I say goodbye to Steve and ask him who won the poker game last night. He did. Good one Aoki.

And that my friends is everything, this took a long time to write and i probably missed a whole bunch of shit. But i actually have to leave now and drive to the airport. Traffic is going to suck balls. I love you.

xox

Jai

Superbad = Super GOOD

2007-08-20T16:47:00.000-07:00

Fuck it is hot in LA right now. Like disgusting hot. OK so here is what happened over the weekend.

The Scare got in on Friday. I had 2 meetings during the day, one with RCA and other with Columbia. I was really excited about the RCA meeting because it was in the SongBMG building in Santa Monica and for anyone that watches The Hills, you will know that one of the girls Audrina does an internship there. Turns out she doesn't, and it was just a PR stunt for the story. Bummer. Anyway so after my meetings, i organize for myself, Matt, Carly and The Scare to head to Teddy's that night. But before Teddys, i head to The Grove to see Superbad on opening day. All i am going to say is Superbad is one of the funniest movies i have ever seen. It's so fucking good. Like fucking amazing good. If you haven't heard of it, google it(or IMDB it), trust me. I just know that it's going to be this cult film similar to what Napolean Dynamite was a few years ago. Mclovin T-Shirts are coming, be prepared.

For those of you not down, Teddy's is a very LA scene bar. It's incredibly hard to get in and unless you know someone or are super famous, you won't be entering anytime soon. Luckily for me i know someone, so we head into the place. Unfortunately tonight our celeb spottings were few and far between at Teddy's and i think everyone thought that The Scare guys we're actually famous. In the past when i have been to Teddy's, there have been some pretty famous cats hanging tough there like Zach Braff, Kevin Bacon, Mischa Barton etc etc. We decide to leave and head to a warehouse party downtown and our new friend Dexter worded us up about. Matt and Carly leave us at this point and it's just me and The Scare in my PT Cruiser.

The party downtown is in an awesome spot but by the time we get there it's pretty dead and there's an almost empty room with lasers and smoke playing ghetto trance. I decide to bail with Kiss and Liam, so we head the wrong way for 20 minutes towards Pasadena, stop for some Jack In The Box at 4am and drop the guys off and home for me.

Saturday morning is boiling! Matt calls me and tells me that Carly and him have got food poisoning and will not be able to drive down to San Diego where The Scare are playing their first US show. It is upto me to drive this massive beast of a van down to San Diego, what should be a 3 hour drive turns into a 5 and a half hour drive due to traffic. We get to the venue which is called Tower Bar, a tiny bar in ghetto central in San Diego. But the owner is this cool Australian dude who hooks us up with lots of free coronas. The venue itself is very punk rock, there is no stage, place fits about 70 people max and there is a tattoo parlour upstairs. The Scare play and go crazy. It's a very funny show. Kiss rips his shirt and makes dudes feel uncomfortable. Wez from Some Girls is in the audience aswell as the ex-Plot guys who have formed a new band called The Vultures also playing tonight.

The show ends and everyone is upto party except me and Liam who decide to go back to the hotel where we are staying at. The next morning we go and pick up Wade, Sam and Brock from Chucks place and Kiss has gone missing, as has his passport. Great. We finally track down his passport after driving all around San Diego and Kiss is apparently on his way back to LA?

3 hours later and i still haven't eaten. I get back to Adrians house and find Mick P sleeping on the couch aka my bed. He just flew in from Melbourne and is here for meetings before heading to New York. We all decide to head to Studio City for some sushi, after really not wanting Sushi Dan it turns out we settle for Sushi Dan. Then we head to The Grove to see Superbad but all the sessions are sold out so we see Bourne Ultimatum which is pretty bad ass. I dig it. Tonight we are heading to LAX, which is a club that DJAM and Steve Aoki DJ at on Sundays. It's a pretty popular night and Aoki has put us on the door. None of this lining up around corners deal for us. So we get in there, have some beers, talk some shit, Uffie does a surprise set and the dude that owns Ed Banger Records is in the crowd too. We see our friend Dexter and decide to bounce. As we leave, we see Wade walking up Las Palmas with some crew, they are off to Le Disco and myself and Micky P are going to head home.

That brings me to today. What another glorious stupidly hot day in the city of Los Angeles. Mick has a meeting at 1pm in Hollywood, he leaves the house and 2 minutes later comes back in telling me that both of our rental cars have been towed away. So after an hour of phone calls and trying to find out where the fuck our cars are, we find them and another hour later get a taxi to pick them up. We get there and it's like a jail. Except they have a little buggy and driver to take you to your car which is pretty sweet, i was kind of stoked about the buggy ride. US$180 later and i am driving back to Adrians. Now i am sitting on the couch infront of a fan getting ready to see The Scare tonight at Spaceland. Should be a fun show.

Fuck i need to sleep again, this weather is grossing me out.

Hell looks alot like LA

2007-08-17T01:35:00.000-07:00

First post of the trip. Unfortunately i don't have any pictures, so this may not be as INTERESTING to those of you who need visual stimulation to be mildly entertained. But let's be honest here, this blog is really just a self indulgent "journal" that i can read back at later dates and say to myself "Man I'm one cool Playa".

OK so the trip started in my second home, The Qantas Club at Sydney Airport. At the domestic versions of the clubs they don't serve alcohol until 1pm, which is whack. But at the International version it's self serve mother fuckers, so although it was about 10am and i was by myself i decided champaign would be my drink of choice. A few glasses later and i was on the plane already feeling kind of drunk but after taking my medication, i was feeling very relaxed. The people on the flight were a young married couple from Arizona and although nice, they wanted to talk and i wasn't really in the mood for chatting. But after it turned out that our 3 seats were super fucked up and our entertainment systems didn't work, we had no choice but to drink many bottles of white wine and chat. You know what? FUCK QANTAS. I fly with them so much and i had to fly 13 hours without any movies, TV shows, anything. It was hell. They wouldn't move me and they wouldn't fix it, i am going to write a letter complaining actually. There were really good films on the flight too, for those of you who know me well you'll be pissed to know that Music and Lyrics was one of the films and i couldn't watch it!!!!

Actually, i won't be so MELODRAMATIC. One movie did work, it was the "hilarious" star studded Wild Hogs. You know i don't think i laughed once, but i knew if i watched it it would cut 90 minutes from my trip. Inane. So 13 hours, 1 terrible film and no sleep later i arrive in LA. I get into the Customs line and see my new best friend Ian "Dicko" Dickson from Australian Idol(for those of you who don't know, we had a run in at Splendour In The Grass where he told kids on the bus that Kisschasy sucked live. I butted in and we became friends). I didn't get a chance to speak to him this time unfortunately. But if you are reading this Dicko, "Hello Mate, How was your flight?".

My car this time is a Cruiser which is pretty sweet. It looks like it was taken straight out of Gotham City(Batman reference). It's actually pretty gay but i got it for the novelty factor. Then i am on the road, first stop is Stefanie from Drive Thru's house where i am going to have lunch with her and Richard. We eat at this pretty sweet Italian place(Thanks for lunch guys) and then i am off to Interscope in Santa Monica via Malibu, which is such a nice drive. First of all i go and see my international best friend, Adrian Amodeo who i am staying with and who works next door to Interscope at Geffen. I am pretty tired by this stage and have been awake for over 24 hours now. After my Interscope meeting i fall alseep on Adrians couch in his office for a few hours, while he "works". Turns out Adrian now lives in the best part of West Hollywood, right near THE GROVE. I love The Grove. I am stoked. It's a 1 minute walk from his house, so we go to a Greek Restaurant for dinner there with his friends Amanda and Jenny. Thanks to expense accounts there is another free meal for me. Thanks Geffen and EMI publishing.

Now is the best part of my trip so far. We get back to Adrians sweet pad and on his 200 inch plasma television, we get the best television EVER. First of all is the new season of The Hills which is AMAZING. Followed by Real World Sydney which is AMAZING. Then to top it all off, a new series of Laguna Beach titled Newport Harbour which is super friggin AMAZING. Holy shit. The best 3 hours of television i have ever seen, and i was really tired and wanted to pass out really bad as by now i had been up for 30 something hours but this was too good to miss. Australians reading this. Real World Sydney is incredible, i don't know if and when it will air back home but you must see it.

SLEEP....

Da Jai Show Returnz

2007-08-13T00:40:00.000-07:00

Rumours have been spreading around the internet for awhile now but i can finally confirm that THE JAI SHOW will be making a comeback for 1 show only, tentatively titled "Jai's hour of power".

The show will be focussed around the Carling Reading Festival in the UK, which one of our bands THE SCARE are playing at alongside nearly every other important band in the world right now including The Smashing Pumpkins, Nine Inch Nails, Arcade Fire, Klaxons and Fall Out Boy among others.

This special episode of THE JAI SHOW will air exclusively on Channel [V], after a long and hard bidding war ensued among the television networks in Australia to sign me up.

I will also be blogging again while i am gone at http://jaialattas.blogspot.com. On Wednesday i leave to LA for a week and meet up with THE SCARE who are playing a few shows. Then i am off to the UK for Reading Festival and then a holiday/honeymoon with Laura which will see us visiting Paris, Venice and Stockholm. This is my official holiday and although it seems like my life is a holiday(well it is) this is my first official "overseas" holiday EVER.

So start reading my blog again and be prepared for the best television you will likely ever see with the return of THE JAI SHOW. Oh and for those of my club fans, MC2 will be looking after my record spinning duties by himself while i am gone.

See you next time Sydney

x

Jai

HelloWorld.

2007-06-26T05:56:00.000-07:00

Wow. An update from me. I am trying to finish my film. Being my first feature film ever it's alot harder than i originally anticipated. I find Sydney really uninspiring though, however over the next couple of months i won't be here much. This idea excites me.

I promise to keep this thing upto date as my life starts to get exciting again. I am just chilling at the moment.

Stay tuned.

x

Jai

Home SWEET Home

2007-04-13T20:47:00.000-07:00

So today i type to you from my lovely apartment in Elizabeth Bay which i get to live in for 2 more weeks. I am not getting evicted anymore but must leave "voluntarily" on the 30th of this month due to the trouble our absence caused.

This might be my last blog for awhile seeing as though i am back in Australia now and not that much exciting really ever happens here(for me anyway). So i guess i will start this one with my trip home, which lasted around 4 days.

Tuesday - Still in New York. We goto the premiere of "Aqua Teen Hunger Force" which was pretty funny, head to the after party at Pop Burger which was awesome, free hamburgers and open bar tab. I blocked the toilet again. Whoops. Then we hurry off to the Bowery to see the last few songs of The Klaxons, our friend Adrian had a hand in signing them to Geffen so we get free tickets. Sweet deal Adrian. Next we're off to that after party at Home Sweet Home, it fucking sucked and was crowded and gross. Cool bar though. So we decide to head over to Sing Sing on Avenue A which is my favourite Karaoke bar in the world and where i spent $200 the previous night, it's me, Trinity, Andy and Matt - then Laura and one of the dudes from The Klaxons show up while i am singing REM "Losing My Religion", they leave shortly after. We stay here until closing time which is 3am and then go for a super early breakfast at 7A before our Cab comes to take us to JFK.

Wednesday - Get to JFK around 5:30am for our 7:30 to London. We have had no sleep and i stink. As soon as we are on the plane, Matt and I both pass out only to wake moments before landing at Heathrow. As we are clearing customs, the dude doesn't want to let Matt into the country because he doesn't believe we are only staying for 1 night. Matt gets held for about an hour before they finally let him through, then we are off to Stu and Chloes where we are staying the night and where i have my last shower before coming home. Gross. Stu is drunk and tries to push me down the stairs. Jerk off. We sing Young Love and everything is good.

Thursday - Back on the train to Heathrow. Wow this is pretty fucking boring actually. Ok so we land in Tokyo on Friday morning. FAST FORWARD.

Friday - Still haven't showered. My undies are stuck to me. Ok so we are in Tokyo now, i LOVE TOKYO. Only here for 12 hours so need to make the most of it, get a bus into Shinjuku where the city scenes in Lost In Translation were shot. We get lunch at some place that doesn't understand english but we point to the pictures and end up with chicken soup, sweet. On another train to Harajuku which was the best shops EVER. I get overwhelmed and start buying a bunch of shit but i find a second hand Dogtown t-shirt and Thrasher sweater, so i am stoked. I also buy a limited edition pair of Nikes, Japan is the sneaker capital of the world, and it's the best ever - it's just not cheap. I have never spent so much money in so little time before, shit is expensive. So on the train back to the airport, takes around 90 minutes. This is where my life just becomes the best. When we check in i find out that i have been upgraded to BUSINESS CLASS. Score. First time ever. Matt unfortunately doesn't so i try not to speak about how excited i am while we wait in the club for our flight. First of all because there is no First Class on this flight, we are the first class. We get to board before everyone and get champaigne on arrival. YAY. My seat turns into a fully horizontal bed, so after dinner and a bottle of Sake i pass out in my air bed. So happy right now. I land in Sydney, get through customs without any hassles(usually they ask me a million questions) and wait for my Mum who is meant to pick me up. I can't see her so i get a taxi home. Get home, call her and she is at the airport. LOLIRL. First thing i do when i get home is see the Little Tiggs aka my cat, she is abit annoyed at me for leaving for so long but she will open up in the next few days.

Mum drops me off at Elizabeth Bay and here i am at the end of what has been a whirlwind adventure, i go back to "work" on Monday at Below Par and am pretty excited to get back into things. I am also back at Hot Damn this week with Mark C Tech #1 or whatever his fucking name is these days. Make sure you come down to see him wearing a sweet TSHIRT that i picked up for him on my travels.

Until next film
x

Jai

Entourage

2007-04-08T16:57:00.000-07:00

So it's been awhile since my last update. I am currently in New York where i will be until Wednesday before heading to London on Wednesday, Tokyo on Thursday and home on Saturday. Finally. We have named our film ONE NINE NINE FOUR, last week news of it leaked and it's on every website on the internet it seems from Spin to NME and it was all taken from Punknews.org. Pretty excited but they keep having photos of Green Day, when in fact we have not yet interviewed Green Day. We also set up a myspace page for production company, ROBOT ACADEMY FILMS. Click here to check it out and add us.

So here is what has happened in the last week in LA. We stayed with Tim Armstrong while he was finishing off his solo album(which sounds amazing). He has a raccoon that lives on his roof that stalked us a few times, it reminded me of the dude from The Bravery. We lay pretty low that last week, on the weekend went to The Rosevelt with Kate and her friend Tara, turns out Tara is in the new Ice Cube vehicle "Are We Done Yet?" - when i found out i couldn't stop making jokes about the trailer i saw and the previous film "Are We There Yet?". I'm sorry Tara. So when we were leaving, Kirsten Dunst comes out and looks super wasted but super HOT. Then Owen Wilson and Kate Hudson come out and drive off in a Porche. Next is us in our fucking Kia, so embarrassed we put our hoods on and bail mega quick. Monday night we see Rooney at The Roxy, pretty good. Tuesday night we see Brand New at The Avalon, awesome awesome set. They played Deja in it's entirety from the first song to the very last. Thursday we head to Redondo Beach to interview Fletcher from Pennywise, he is awesome and we go for lunch after the interview. He tells us some of the craziest fucking stories i have ever heard in my life and they are hilarious. If Fletcher ever writes a book, it will make "The Dirt" seem like Playschool.

Friday morning we fly to New York. My bag gets lost. Fuck. Get into our friends Jacki, Cheryl and Matas place where we are staying. Lay low that night. Saturday morning, Delta have found my suitcase and return it to me. Thank god. Tonight is Cheryls birthday party, we are all excited. They throw the best house parties. For lunch Jacki, Matt and I goto the Burger Joint - SO GOOD. They serve these mini hamburgers for a dollar each. So anyway fast forward a few hours, the party has started and lots of people show up. The Bravery guys come over and everyone is getting super drunk. Then Dan from Young Love comes over. I love Young Love. We start playing Young Love at the party and i start singing while Dan is dancing, so funny. Party ends at around 5am and we hit the sack. 4pm the next day we rise.

Tonight is the start of new season of Entourage(or the start of part 2) and we are so excited. We just spent the last few hours watching the last couple of episodes before the end of part 1. Anyway i have to go and get ready, this shit is going to rule. I hope hope hope they take Ari back...

The Jai Show at SXSW

2007-04-03T02:28:00.000-07:00

2nd episode of THE JAI SHOW starring my friends: Josh, Stephen, Matt, Adrian, Andy, Andrew, Marvin, Marnie, Patrick, Justin and Jon.

LAgain

2007-03-29T14:11:00.000-07:00

My head hurts. OK here is how last week went, probably our most productive couple of days shooting we have had this entire time.

Thursday - We goto pick up Jarrod from the Sunset Marqui, where he is staying for the night. Then over to North Hollywood where Mark and Travis's studio is. The studio is fucking AMAZING. I would like to point out at this stage that it seems everyone has a studio, like EVERYONE. We meet Fred who is the +44 tour manager and he introduces us to Mark. Mark is super nice and super funny too. He is exactly like he is on stage and in videos and stuff. We do a great interview with him and swap contact details. Yep i am officially friends with Mark Hoppus now. YESSSSSS. Then it's over to Hollywood to interview the surfer Tim Curran. Tim is also making a record so we interview him at the place where he is recording. Tim is once again a super nice guy. After the interview he plays us some of his music and it's awesome. I think i see a tear coming out of our DOP Jarrods eye. This is possibly the best moment of his life. Jarrod has no place to stay tonight so i message Tim Armstrong to see if he can stay there with us, i tell him Jarrod is a BMX dude from Santa Cruz - Tim flips out and calls me asking if he's cool and if i trust him, i tell Tim that he is cool and that he will love him. Turns out, Tim does love Jarrod and all is sweet at The Armstrong residence. We go for dinner at a Mexican place in Silverlake that night with Tim and John, who is Tims engineer. This is the start of our sober week.

Friday - Wake up feeling great. Today we are off to San Diego to interview Tom Delonge and Rick Devoe, who managed Blink 182. We are cruising down the 5 listening to Young Love. I would like to also point out that ALL we listen to now is Young Love. If you haven't heard it yet check it out here. SOOOOOOOO good. Dude used to sing in Recover and now he's a pop master. Anyway we get to Toms studio which is also the Atticus/Macbeth office, warehouse and out back is this massive room with clouds and planets painted all over the walls with a blue neon light shining over them. This is the Angels and Airwaves, hang out, studio. The band are currently making their new record, Tom plays us a new song and it sounds sweeeeeeeeeeet. Tom's interview goes really well, i'd say it was one of the best interviews we have had. Tom is also really funny and he still speaks about dicks alot. Then we interview Rick, who is one of the nicest people ever and we are off back to LA. That night we get back to Tims and just chill, no going out for us, we are sober now.

Saturday - Wake up feeling great. Again. Today we are interviewing punk rock royalty. Brett Gurewitz and Greg Graffin from Bad Religion. Brett also owns Epitaph. We head to another studio where Bad Religion are making their new record. We meet all the Bad Religion guys and they are cool, Greg Hetson is on Myspace haha. Actually i am going to add him now i think about it. Cool added. OK so we interview Brett first, he is great and then we do Greg Graffin. We are probably at the studio for a few hours when Brian Baker comes up and asks if we live at the studio, i say "No we don't we are actually from Australia, we have just been here for a few hours to do the interviews"... After the interviews Jarrod leaves us to head back to Santa Cruz which is like a 5 hour drive north of LA. We will miss him. We have our man hugs and he is gone just like that. Bye Jarrod. Once again no alcohol intake as we are flying to Maui at 7am the next morning.

Sunday - Up at 4:30am. Dude. I only went to sleep at 2:30am(i was editing The Jai Show). Tired as shit. So we are flying to Maui, Hawaii today because we are going to be interviewing Dexter Holland from The Offspring who is out there making the new Offspring record. We get in at 9:30am and get a Mustang convertible hire car. Sweet. Then off to our hotel which is the Kamole Sands, pretty sweet place. Our hotel is more like an apartment, it has 1 bedroom, 2 bathrooms - so we each have our own space. Right now it is just Matt and I. Our crew are dropping off like flies. Tomorrow is our interview so today we just cruise around the island and take in some sights, Maui is beautiful, we drive along the cliffs and it's just so chill. The speed limit is like 20mph.

Monday - We have adopted Dennys as our place of fine Hawaiian cuisine. Anyway off to Haiku to the studio where Dexter is. We rock up to this amazing house that overlooks the ocean and this is where they are recording. Sweet deal Dexter. We meet Bob Rock who is producing the record, Bob Rock is a big deal he has produced records for bands like Metallica and Motley Crue plus he played Bass on the last Metallica record and was in their documentary 'Some Kind Of Monster'. Bob is cool and introduces himself to us, i'm thinking the whole time "Yep i know who you are BOB ROCK". Today because we have no crew our sound guy is called Mic Stand and we are shooting on my little Panasonic 3 chip, Matt Wardle plays the role of DOP today and i interview as usual. We look SO unprofessional. Oh that's right, we are fucking unprofessional! Dexter is cool and once again we hit the road. It's our last night in Maui - so we go and get 1 cocktail and then off to bed again.

Tuesday - Back at the airport flying back to LA. We should just live in LA or at airports because it seems all we do is fucking fly. The flight is 5 hours but goes by really quick, they give us a movie to watch and unlimited tomato juice. Thanks ATA. Back to Tim's house where we left all of our stuff. We get in pretty late and Tim is asleep. We then fade off to bed not before listening to hilarious comedy from David Cross.

Wednesday - Ok this week in LA is kind of weird for us. We have 1 more week to shoot 2 more interviews, Pennywise and Green Day. Once these are done we will have finished shooting and get to go home. Yay. So today we go and pick up another hire car from Hertz as the one we hired last night was too expensive, our luck with good cars has run out and we get a fucking Kia. It doesn't even have central locking. Fuck you Kia. Tim has 3 days to finish his solo record so we have to stay with Casey and Shannon for a few days, our friends from Australia that we met in LA. They're awesome and very very hospitable friendly people. Thanks Casey and Shannon. They're also the ones that live in Jim Morrisons last residence. We head to CPK for lunch, in the lift the kid that plays Stacy Peralta in Lords Of Dogtown is in the lift with us. What is even funnier is that morning i got an email from the real Stacy, so as soon as i get home i email Stacy and tell him i saw the fake him(Stacy Peralta directed Dogtown & Z Boys, and is one of my biggest influences). Tonight we are going to see The Ataris with Adrian at The House Of Blues. We get there WAY to late and they are about to play their last song. I'm kinda bummed out as i grew up on this band in high school and it was at an Ataris show that i first got to go backstage in year 11. Then they come back out and do a 5 song encore of stuff only from "Blue Skies" YEAH!!! I'm stoked, i think we got here just at the right time. It was pretty sad though because the venue wasn't even half full and i'm not sure exactly what happened. Then we are off to the Whiskey Bar at The Sunset Marqui, some dude hits on Adrian so we leave and head to the Rainbow where we drank til half past 2(Ataris reference), actually no they kicked us out at 2am because they were closing. I am super drunk at this stage, first time in a week and vomit everywhere. I think i may have started crying again. I suck.

My head hurts.

The Jai Show

2007-03-27T12:59:00.000-07:00

Aloha

I have uploaded episode 1 to You Tube. This aired 2 weeks ago on Channel [V] in Australia, i think episode 2 will air this week or next. It's meant to be every Thursday between 4 - 5pm on What U Want.

I will upload Episode 2 and 3 soon.

PS - My last day in Maui :(

Homeless

2007-03-23T23:05:00.000-07:00

So i'm meant to be coming home soon but i don't think this is going to happen. I am not meant to be in LA still, but i am. I don't know where i'll be living either...

Jim Morrison was ere...

2007-03-21T17:46:00.000-07:00

Ok so it's been CRAZY lately. I am now back in LA again from New York where we were for about 4 minutes. Not sure how long we will be in LA for this time as now we have to fly to Hawaii to shoot Dexter Holland from The Offspring, as he is there making a new record. So here's what happened in the last few days.

Sunday - Flew to New York, passed out on the plane, i was still drunk from SXSW. Get to our friend Jackis house in New York where i always stay, she lives in the East Village right across from Niagra, it's an awesome spot. Today is Matt Wardles 22nd Birthday, so we goto dinner with his parents uptown, get really drunk on red wine and eat good food. Next we meet up with Jacki and Cheryl at Miu, then off to Employees Only which is fun. In another taxi. Now at Niagra, it's about 3am. Oh what i'm vomiting in the toilet, 2 dudes walk in and ask if i'm OK, i say sure rub my eyes. I think i'm crying. Get back to the apartment and start emailing Australia, i fall asleep at 6am.

Monday - 3pm my phone rings and wakes me. It's Tom from Universal Records, i have a meeting with him at 6 today. Shit. Outta bed and head up to Universal, takes me an hour to get home on the Subway(?) and i walk into the apartment and see Trinity there talking with Mata. Hi Trinity. Then her friend Irena comes around, she's a lawyer at MTV. Next is Laura. We all go and eat at this amazing Japanese/South American fusion place and eat lot's. It's myself and 5 girls, that's just how i roll. No big deal.

Tuesday - Up early again and back to JFK to fly to Los Angeles. So tirrrrreedd, i'm going off another 4 hours sleep. Once again i pass out on the plane. When we arrive, Tim Armstrong who we are meant to be staying with, is busy tonight and we need to find a place to crash. But first we are going to a fashion show for designer Joey Tierney in Culver City, we have never been to a show before and are on the list because our friend Mata did the jewelery for the show. Hot girls EVERYWHERE. Holy shit. I decide it's better just to look at the ground as i'm overwhelmed. Then we see Juliette Lewis walk in, next is Dustin Hoffman. They have front row seats on the cat walk, Dustin is shouting at the models as they come down the cat walk. Pretty funny. The show ends and we get invited to the after party. Thanks Mata. We get in touch with our friends Casey and Shannon who have given us a place to stay for the night in West Hollywood. Thanks Casey and Shannon. They live in the last residence of Jim Morrison from The Doors and there are Doors posters everywhere. Now off to the after party at Joeys house. We get in, lots of models around and a bar outside. We opt for the bar outside and drink about 500 tequila cocktail things. Man i'm drunk. Mike Dirnt of Green Day comes over and says hi, he gives me props on my hoodie. Nice guy. Party ends and we head to the after after party at Parc in Hollywood. I get in and sit in a booth with some of the models from the show tonight, they're really cool and we hang out for the rest of the night. When they leave some dude tells me that those girls i was speaking too were Sting's daughters. Woah. The Police are one of my favourite bands EVER. Matt is hanging out with Mike Dirnt all night and eventually we stumble out and head home. Once again DRUNK. I had my camcorder with me all night filming stuff for THE JAI SHOW, so expect some funny stuff once i get around to editing.

I don't know how long we will be in LA for but we are staying with Tim from tonight. Still have a bunch of interviews to shoot this week including Mark Hoppus, Tom Delonge, Tim Curran, Trevor Keith, Brett Gurewitz and Greg Graffin. Dom and Chalker have left us, so our new DOP is Jarrod from Santa Cruz. We just met him today and he's a BMX rider and makes BMX films. Cool dude. Oh check out what we are driving now in LA, we got a free upgrade :)

Our car the Dodge Charger.

Jarrod aka the new Dom.

Blurrrrr

2007-03-19T13:42:00.000-07:00

Todays writing comes from New York City. I am currently extremely hung over at my friends house in the East muvafukn Village and i have to head to Midtown in 15 minutes for a meeting. Man i feel lame.

Anyway so the last week i have been in Austin, Texas for SXSW. Here is what i can recall from it, excuse me if i tend to be a little broad as my recollection of the festival isn't the best right now.

Wednesday - Flew into Austin with my bros, Stefan Wade and Matt Wardle. See Josh Pyke at LAX, he's on a different flight but heading to the same place. I love Josh, he's my bro too. Get in late - we are staying at the Sheraton with Stefan, meet up with our other bro Tex Perkins - then head to see Lily Allen but it's packed and we can't get in. We go and see Scanners at the Dim Mak showcase who are awesome and then head to see MXPX, their sound sucks so we decide to go home but stop off at The Bravery first, watch 2 songs and leave.

Thursday - My brain is killing me right now trying to remember what i did on this day. I know i got really really drunk but the exact order of events has left me. Fuck. OK no i remember. Get up real early and have breakfast with Adrian at the Driskill, he's cut off his glorious curly locks. Go and see Limbeck do an acoustic show for Xfm, head back to the hotel for a nap, wake, meeting at the Hilton, go to Pats showcase and see Ronnie Day. Bump into my friends Chris and Chris and also see Pat. Start drinking, drunk, drunk, gone.

Friday - Wake up hung over around Midday. Meet up with Adrian the drunk, he's still drunk. Goto the Aussie BBQ and see Children Collide who are awesome, get a sausage and leave to the Nylon/Diesel/Dim Mak house out of town. Honorary Title are playing, Limbeck are chilling, Matt and i start drinking free Vodka Red Bulls. Bad idea. I'm drunk again 3 and half minutes later. Ok so the rest of the day i think goes like this, got free jeans from Marnie. Thanks Marnie. Met up with Andy Jackson. More drinks. Back to the hotel for a bit. Dinner. Go see Hot Rod Circuit at Ellis showcase. Then off to the Diesel Party. See this awesome band called Matt and Kim. Leave there to meet up with Adrian. He just got a tattoo of a pig on his arm. He is wasted, it's hilarious. Head to the Pure Volume party with Laura at around mid might, i sing 90's punk rock songs with Andrew from Receiving End Of Adrian(sirens) for about an hour. Some girls try to interrupt us but we keep singing. I'm still drinking Vodka red bulls. Oh bad. Been drunk for 12 hours now. Jacki messages me, she's at a room party at the Hilton. Meet up with her, she's there with Matt, Dallas Crane and Trevor and Dan of Young Love. Leave around 4 or 5am. Get back to the Sheraton and wake up Stefan. I think he's angry with us. Night.

Saturday - Awake. Oh hello again hangover you fucking arsehole. Today is St Patricks day, i quit drinking. Have lunch, then off to see Love Drug at the Paste/Militia party. Frozen margahreta. Yuk. Back to the hotel for a nap. 8pm, Laura and Alex come over - we head to the Nylon party again. Marnie is playing. Vodka Red Bulls again. Jai drunk again on 1st drink. Hang out with Trevor and Dan again. Young Love play, they're my new favourite band. Soooooo good. Hang out in the vip room for some unknown reason with Mickey Avalon, he's a pretty nice dude. Then he starts playing. Good set. Hanging out again this time with Spank Rock. They play. AWESOME. Why am i even talking to these people? Matt and i walk back to our hotel, stop by some house party on the way full of metal heads, find some roller chairs and ride down the road. Get to sleep around 4am... 6am BRIIIIIIIIIIIINNNNNNG ALARM TIME. Oh shit no, flying to New York now. Still drunk. I'm a shit head.

zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Los Angeles is burning

2007-03-12T22:44:00.000-07:00

Ok so our last week in LA. Chalker leaves us tomorrow morning at 5am. Dom, Matt and i all leave on Wednesday morning. Sad times ahead as this has been our home for the past 6 weeks and Dom & I don't even have a home to return to in Sydney. Woe is me and such is life. Whatever.

So here is my round up for the past however many days since my last blog.

Thursday morning we wake early to drive to San Francisco, we are heading up there to shoot some second unit footage of Fat Wreck Chords and Gilman St. Get to Fat. Awesome offices. We meet Mark there and everyone is super cool and nice, Fat's offices are pretty punk. Fat Mike has this zebra patterened carpet that actually hurts your eyes to look at. I think everyone there(excluding him) hates it. We finally find the correct Golden Gate Bridge and drive over it Full House style. Head back to LA and take a few wrong turns which adds 2 hours into our already 6 hour trip, boring. Get home and go meet our friends Emma, Shannon and Kasey for drinks at La Pourbelle. I love this place. It closes and we head back to our place for more drinks, Dom brings some dudes back who turns out is in Maroon 5. Night turns messy.
I bail. Dom is still up in the morning and the photos must be seen to be believed...

(Matt and the Golden Gate bridge, not the shitty Bay Bridge. Fuck that bridge)

Friday i have a meeting with my friend Chris who manages the All American Rejects, who we became bros with on the Simple Plan/Kisschasy/AAR tour back in 05. He works with Pat Magnarella who manages Green Day, i hang out with them both and ask if Green Day will be in our film. I have to get some footage to Billy Joe. Then off to LAX to pick up my friend Jacki, she's in town for the weekend. Get caught in traffic for 3 HOURS! Hey Jackson, thanks for flying in at 5pm!!!! Anyway drop her off at her friend Kates house, she lives in the same villas that the show 'The Hills(or poor mans Laguna Beach)' is shot. That night we head back to La Poubelle. I LOVE this bar. The bar does not love me back :(. Another after party, i fall asleep before it begins.

(the legendary 924 Gilman St)

Saturday is our BIG house party day. I'm excited. We have a sweet pad for house parties and a whole bunch of people have told me they're coming. I decide we should start it at 4pm, while the sun is out and have it on the patio. Good thinking Jai. Logical, right? WRONG. Nobody shows up for the first 4 hours, then my friend Brian rocks up with this girl Angela. I think she got too drunk and had to leave at this stage Dom and Chalker also leave, it's now branded "Jais party" because no one else wants the bruise to their self esteem from having a party no one shows upto. At about 11pm, Jacki and her crew come around. There are about 15 Australians in our house now including Tex Perkins and some dudes from Powderfinger. Everyone is cool, we leave to another party across the road that belongs to the dude that plays guitar for Tenacious D.

(My set up of snacks for the successful "house party")

Sunday is pretty chill, Dom, Matt and I go for lunch at the Mustard Seed in Loz Felis. Our friend and Something With Numbers manager, Stephen Wade get's into town and we go have dinner by the Troubador. We are heading to the Australian showcase there tonight and our new friend Tex Perkins put us on his guestlist. Thanks Tex. We see Henry Rollins is at the show, i'm super tired so i go home and watch American Hardcore - which has Henry all through it and footage of him bashing some dude. Sweet shorts Henry.

(I made this mess myself because there was no one else to make mess)

Monday, i wake up to Stephen Wade in our lounge room. I don't think he has many friends in LA. We then head to Epitaph where we are interviewing Rancid today. We have interviews set up with Tim, Matt and Lars. We are greeted by our new friends in the lobby of Epitaph which is this awesome old train station or something and do the interviews. Lars has us in stitches, he is fucking hilarious. Matt kept speaking about the Wiggles and Tim is Tim, one of the coolest guys ever and offered for us to stay with him when we come back to LA after SXSW. We took him up on his offer. Thanks Tim. That night i get home and speak to Tim Curran the pro surfer/musician on the phone, we were meant to interview him today but will be doing it next week instead. I eat In and Out Burger for dinner. I love that shit. Then my friend Martin aka PHDJ comes over at 1am with Stephen Wade. I guess Stephen does have 1 friend in LA. Tomorrow morning Stephen Chalker leaves us for New York. I will miss you friend. Photos below.

(Hanging out with Rancid at Epitaph. Dom is way more punk than Lars)(Kidding Lars)

I'm getting EVICTED... but i have my own TV show now

2007-03-07T12:22:00.000-08:00

So first things first. Yes you read correctly, Dominic and I are being evicted from our beautiful apartment in Elizabeth Bay - even though we haven't been there for atleast the past 6 weeks. Apparently all the parties we were having in LA were SO loud that they travelled all the way to Sydney and pissed off our neighbours. Anyway i thought the situation could be rectified with our real estate agent seeing as though the noise complaints actually have nothing to do with Dom and I, but instead our friends that were living in our apartment while we were away. Turns out there were quite a few noise complaints made before the termination notice was sent to us and that "we" had been abusive to the other residents in the block. LOOK I KNOW WE'RE FUCKING ARSEHOLES SOMETIMES, BUT WE DIDN'T DO THIS, PLEASE JUST LET US STAY IN OUR HOUSE, STRATA... PLEASE. I DON'T WANT TO RETURN TO SYDNEY HOMELESS(or worse have to move back to Bexley). The funny thing is, i found out about this 2 days ago and i couldn't write about it because i was already having bad anxiety about the film and other stuff in my world.. But today i woke up and i was in a really positive mood, so i thought "WHY THE HELL NOT?".

Oh but what's this about my own TV show? Well, kind of. Channel [V] have asked me to do a weekly episode of my adventures abroad, we just finished editing and compressing the first episode the other night. I have called it THE JAI SHOW. I believe it airs every Friday on What U Want between 4 and 5pm. I don't write scripts or anything so we just kinda winged the first one but i think it turned out kinda cool and it's cheezy as hell haha. The other episodes will have me at SXSW, then New York, London and Tokyo. I'm going to be doing 6 all up. I'll try and get them online for those of you who don't have Channel [V], but hey EVERYONE SHOULD HAVE CHANNEL [V](wink).

I only have one more week in LA. It's kinda a bum out but this place is driving me mental anyway, i'm looking forward to leaving it for awhile and Austin is always FUN.

Until next time, you keep reading and i'll keep writing ;)

More than meets the eye

2007-03-05T00:05:00.000-08:00

I'm obsessed with Transformers again. When i say again my last Transformers obsession ended when i was about 11 or 12, i kinda went in and out as a kid, listening to Michael Jackson and having mad battles. In the last week i have bought 11 Transformers from stores and bought 5 today off EBAY, i also bought 2 Transformers graphic novels from a comic book store on Melrose. Who needs girls when you have Transformers?

I'm kinda nervous about the Transformers film coming out in July this year. Michael Bay is directing it and there is a huge cast of HUMANS. Seriously who wants to watch a Transformers live action movie with fucking people ruining it? Also Megatron isn't a gun in this. I know some of you may think it's stupid that Megatron was a gun to begin with, but he was an awesome gun and i don't want him to be some sort of fucking plane. When i direct Transformers: The Movie 2, i am going to return him to a gun and get rid of all the fucking people. Google the trailer.

So this week in a wrap because i have alot of photos i want to share. Tuesday interviewed Joe Escalante from The Vandals, Wednesday caught up with my friend Karen from Australia went to a shitty club called Mood in Hollywood(i'm getting over shitty clubs) to get in she said she was our manager from Australia and we were called THE SCARE, straight in, famous like that. Thursday some other Australian friends came to our place to party, Emma, Shannon and Kasey. Friday, i don't feel well and i am not in love unlike Robert Smith. That night we go and see Zodiac at Arclight, it's reaaaaaaaaaaaaallllllllllyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy long and keeps you interested until the very end when nothing happens and you feel cheated. Saturday, went to Universal Studios, bought some more Transformers and went on 3 "attractions" - Back To The Future, Studio Tour and Terminator 2 show. That night had awesome Japanese with Karen and the entourage, went out to the Scorpion bar, then hung by the pool at the Rosevelt for a little while and then to the Beauty Bar. Caught up with my friends Laura and Adrian. Sunday, Adrian called me(sober) and we went to Los Feliz for lunch, cool area, we laugh about how we are both pathetic losers and then head over to Target to buy some toys. I indulge in Transformers while Adrian gets some Ninja Turtles. I am 22, he is 27. Whatever. In and Out burger for dinner tonight and we bid farewell to Karen.

Photo time:

Dom and Chalker on Thursday night enjoying the party.

Sign. Great. Grand.

What a dreamboat..

Fire at the Jaws "Attraction".

War Of The Worlds set, that's a real plane.

Dinner time at Tama Sushi. Best Japanese EVER.

Hello.

No i don't leave them in the packaging. I take them out and have battles. True story.

Channel [V] and photos

2007-02-27T00:12:00.000-08:00

(Dom and I in Newport Beach, home to the hit television show "The O.C")

So tomorrow in Australia i will be on the phone to Danny on What U Want on Channel [V]. Tune in to hear my voice on your TV. Sweet deal. I think it may be live?

My head is getting lost in LA. I'm not really doing all that much(i don't think) but days are becoming blurs. We call our house the big brother house without any females, it stinks, we have rats, we are going insane and see each other ALL DAY/EVERY DAY. I think people are slowly starting to crack...

Weekend was lowkey, went to Area again on Saturday night saw Dennis Rodman roll in. As i was heading into the club i got stopped by Aaron and Angel Carter, who thought they had to go before me. I think Aaron is 13 this year. He has a mad goatie(yes i can grow one, no i am not jealous). I got really drunk spent alot of money and fucking danced for some reason, apparently there was a circle of people around me watching me bust out.

Sunday was Oscars day. Dom and I went to Silverlake for Breakfast at 3pm. Silverlake is cool. It's got a real community feel and seems like abit of soul exists here. Then Dom and I went down to Hollywood, i got interviewed by some TV station about The Oscars about who i thought was going to win - i said Al Gore. Dom filmed me getting interviewed, then Dom filmed his little toy Smartcar around the streets for a few hours. I got real bored. That night Dom and I watched The Oscars in bed together. GO SCORSESE YEAH!!!

Today we had an interview with Rob Cavallo, who is the guy who signed Green Day to Warner Brothers and produced Dookie, Insomniac, Nimrod and American Idiot for them. His house was very nice. I took some photos.

When we got home after the visit to the mansion, i lay in bed to try and get some "work" done. No, i mean emailing people. Anyway this random cat decided to come and join me in bed. We're not sure if it's a boy or a girl. I took a photo of the million dollar cat. (LITTLE TIGGER IF YOU ARE READING THIS I LOVE YOU WAYYYYYYY MORE, ACTUALLY I DONT EVEN LOVE THIS CAT. I MISS YOU XOX)

So what else is coming up? Tomorrow going to hang out with my friend Marnie, Wednesday going to a Magazine party where Linday Lohan is DJing(?) i might try and recruit her for Best Friends DJ Crew. Interviewing The Vandals and AFI. My friends Karen and Laura are coming to town from Australia and New York respectively. Blah blah blah blah... Tired.

Hymns for the non believer

2007-02-24T12:04:00.000-08:00

What is 'Hymns for the non believer'? Find out for yourself here.

Welcome to my Saturday morning where i blog from bed. I am currently sharing a bed with Dom for the week(we have a rotation), but he didn't come home last night. Last i saw he was necking with some girl in a bar in West Hollywood. Hey but i can't complain, look at it this way last night i got the bed ALL TO MYSELF which means i could watch TV all fucking night!!! Dom you should totally neck(girls) more often.

So this week. Monday i have no idea what we did. Oh we went to Malibu. It was nice but cold.

Tuesday night went to Cinespace, Uffie played a secret set. Then we headed to the infamous Bar Marmont on Sunset, first of all the valet told us that the bar was closed(it wasn't), we told them we knew it was open, so they finally took our car. Then we get to the bar and outside the bouncer tells us it's closed or something, we tell him it isn't and our friends are in there. "No, they left just before" he tells us. "Um, no they didn't" we reply. We try calling Dom and Chalker, no answer. Security let us in and right next to the door is Dom! "Why the fuck didn't you answer your phone?". Anyway they've been hanging out with some girls from Australia, i know Emma from Sydney - who was in The Scare video and who's mum did the catering. Yum. Bar Marmont is kind of cool i guess.

Wednesday we went and hung out with Brian at William Morris in Beverly Hills. I think Beverly Hills is the only clean place in Los Angeles. Anyone agree? That night we went to the BPM magazine launch party at Social. We see Frankie Munz aka Malcolm from Malcolm In The Middle, dude is sporting a mohawk! Yeah, none of this faux hawk rubbish. Kid means business. We have a few drinks, look at the ridiculously good looking people(no that doesn't include Frankie. Sorry bro) and leave before Uffie plays.

Thursday we have an interview with Kevin Lyman in Long Beach at the Taste Of Chaos. Kevin, is the guy who started the Warped Tour and still owns/runs/rules it. He also owns/runs/rules Taste Of Chaos. We need to find a place to shoot the interview and our only options are between The Used and 30 seconds to mars backstage rooms. Both are gross. Someone makes a joke about 30 seconds having 2 rooms, 1 for the band and 1 for Jarrod. We chuckle. We decide to do the interview in a canteen instead. Then we head off to have lunch with our friends at The Militia Group, on the way home we get caught in a 3 hour traffic jam and almost neck ourselves. That night i start work on the first trailer for our film.

Friday, another early start. Today we are interviewing Matt Messer from EMI publishing the guy that signed Blink 182 to the company. He's a dude and gives us some great quotes. We head to Santa Monica for lunch afterwards. Boring. That night we head to Sake on Franklin for some Japanese dinner and of course a bottle of Sake. Not the smoothest Sake i've ever had. I'm eating alot of sashimi lately, i guess it's in my blood ROFL. Birds for a drink and then off to Jones' Bar in West Hollywood. Not my favourite place to hang out. I stop drinking and opt for Apple Pie and Ice Cream instead while the others go and mingle. I stay in my booth until close, can't wait to get home and WATCH ALL THE TV I WANT because Dom is not coming home. Yay.

Oscars are tomorrow. No i'm not going. Our film isn't finished yet, maybe next year :)

Here is a rough version of the teaser/trailer that i put together on Thursday night. Click here to watch.

Are you having a laugh? Is he having a laugh?

2007-02-19T00:05:00.000-08:00

(hummer, boy band stylez)

Due to popular demand(haha) i am Sunday night blogging. The past 5 or whatever days have been amazing, surreal and crazy. I'll start post vegas, Aight.

Wednesday - We get home from Vegas and crash out. Wake up later that night, hungry as shit, so Matt and I head to Sushi Dan but it's packed like a mofo. So we opt for the Hawaiin bbq place next door, it's terrible. Matt orders Mahi Mahi, it reminds of Bio Dome and further reminds me of Pauly Shore. What the fuck happened there?

Thursday - We have an interview this morning with Scott Russo from Unwritten Law. He comes over to our place and we shoot it in our lounge room, he's a cool dude and gives us a great interview. Then we are off to shoot a short joke message blah blah joke thing for Barry Dickens, our subject is a guy called Jim Morey(Nothing to do with Morey Bodyboards), we have no idea who he is but it turns out he used to manage Michael Jackson and Mariah Carey. Later on my friend Marnie picks me up in a white hummer to go and see LA band, I'm A Robot. The singer sounds like a cross between David Bowie and Jello Biafra in a full body suit. They were cool, Heath Ledger is standing next to us. Next we are off to a club called Teddys, it's only Dom, Marnie and I. Apparently this place is a real Hollywood hang out with lists and shit. Walk in and see Jessie McCartney. Then Zach Braff is chilling, i think of Rohan. Eric from Entourage must be following me because he is there aswell(yes, i know his real name is Kevin Connolly but i prefer "E") and then Dom cums in his pants when he meets his "hero" Vincent Gallo, who is good friends with Marnie. I get bored and we go home.

Friday - I wake up to a phone call from Tim Armstrong of Rancid/Transplants/Hell Cat fame. We are finally meeting up with him today at the Epitaph offices in Silverlake. We get ready and head to Silverlake to have lunch with Tim and Chris who runs Hell Cat Records. They take us to this amazing Vietmanese place, Tim is the coolest nicest person in the world. We speak about the film and he is really excited by the project. We just can't get over how cool Tim and Chris are. Hell Cat buys us lunch(Thanks Hell Cat). We then go back to the Epitaph offices and they give us some plastic bags and hook us up with a bunch of CD's and DVD's. They give us a grand tour and then Tim introduces us to Brett Gurewitz who owns Epitaph and plays in a little known band called Bad Religion. He is playing some of their new demos and they sound incredible, i ask if that's the recording and Brett says it's just a demo he did in the basement. It sounded HUGE. That night we head back to Teddys, except for Dom who is chilling out because he is going to Vegas at 7am. When we walk into the lobby, Kevin Bacon walks past us. We head into the club and see Allyson, who is helping us out with the film. She is chilling with Misha Barton and asks if i want to be introduced to her but i decline the offer. Sorry Misha maybe next time. We hang out here for awhile and buy US$14 Vodkas, this is fucking ridiculous. The club closes at 2am and we goto Pete from Fall Out Boys house. We arrive and he is leaving, we still hang out for awhile while Bruce Willis/Demi Moores daughter is chilling on the balcony by herself? We get tired and leave before Pete returns with his entourage. They just had a party or something, i can see our house from his mansion haha.

Saturday - I go and see the film MUSIC AND LYRICS. This movie has been a joke to us since we arrived because it's advertised EVERYWHERE, and we're like there is no way this is going to make money. Terrible name. Terrible poster. Terrible trailer. Turns out the cinema is sold out and the movie is fucking great. Hugh Grant is funny. That night we are off to a club called Area which is another one of those Hollywood only kinda places, no cover charge, no lines, but if you're not on a list you are not getting in. There are lots of people hanging around outside the club including an army of paparazzi. We find our way to the door girl, who knows we are coming and she lets us into the club. I feel cool for 1.5 minutes before getting in and realizing it's another place that has $12 vodkas. Sigh. Anyway we chill out at the bar, Matt meets Aaron Carter(?) and i see the drummer from 'that thing you do', which is a dope movie. We hang almost until close and then goto In and Out Burger for some late night snacks. I fall asleep watching 'Kiss Kiss Bang Bang'.

Sunday - I don't feel inspired today. It's a long weekend in America and we don't have any interviews for a few days. I get up at Midday and everyone is asleep. So i clean the house and then start editing the Barry Dickens piece and start work on my first trailer. I don't get far. We go for lunch at the Best Western diner on Highland where Chalker and Matt spot somebody from some movie. But i don't fucking know what they're talking about. We then goto Mayfair market, where Matt secretly puts a home pregnancy kit in Chalkers basket and Chalker almost buys it without knowing before Matt lets him in on the joke. Fucking hilarious. We get home and watch 'Extras' which is quickly becoming my favourite show. Holy shit season 2 is amazing and we have all adopted the catchphrase 'Are you having a laugh? is he having a laugh?', it brings me to tears every time. Tonight we go and see Silverchair at the El Ray, it's one of 2 sold out nights. The El Ray is a modest venue and it's so awesome to see Silverchair play in a room like this, which is probably a little bigger than the Gaelic Club but is a much nicer and intimate feel. They play great and the crowd loves them. It's also Ben's birthday. Happy Birthday Ben Gillies. We contemplate going out but kinda feel burnt and sleep could be good for us at this stage. I stay in and do this blog. Dom gets back from Vegas with Rollerblades(?), I don't think he got the memo that Rollerblades stopped being cool about 3 weeks after they were released on the market in 1991. And no they are no ironic. Bye Bye Bye.

PS - This week i decided to buy some CD's i bought the greatest hits from Boyz 2 Men, Backstreet Boys and N'Sync. Shut the fuck up.

Vegas Baby, Vegas!

2007-02-14T23:00:00.000-08:00

So in a last minute decision we decided to head to Las Vegas last night. Diesel were having a party for something with an open bar and DJ AM and Travis Barker playing, we found ourselves on the guestlist and headed to Las Vegas, Nevada after a late afternoon shoot.

We were already running late, so Matt thought it would be a good idea to drive around 90 - 100 miles per hour, with the speed limit being 70. We started speaking about what happens if you get caught speeding in the US, we were all talking about spending a night in lock up haha. Anyway not a minute after the conversation ends, we get pulled over by the cops and Matt is issued a ticket. No jail time. Sweet.

We get into the MGM grand where we are staying for the night at about 10pm. The party has already started and we don't want to lose the opportunity to get super drunk for FREE. We take a cab to the palms where the Diesel party is, see our friends Marnie and Molly who work for Diesel and we are now passed security and heading into the party. Place is packed. Drinks are free. Good times. DJ AM starts spinning but Travis is nowhere to be seen, this kind of bums us out as we really wanted to see him play. Anyway too many vodka red bulls later and the fact that we ate no dinner, doesn't do any of us any justice. We all find ourselves seperated and end up meeting back at various times in the morning. 11am we have to check out, so the 3 of us super seedy and sleep deprived, get in our soccer wagon and head back to LA not before stopping at this huge factory outlet place in the middle of the desert. It was strange and kind of depressing but they sold Air Jordans for like 40 bucks.

What saved the trip home was an awesome mix CD i made featuring Hilary Duff, Boy Meets Girl, Justin Timberlake, Aerosmith, Phil Collins, The Killers, The Police, Jessica Simpson and a few others.

I now am going to sleep. Happy Valentines day world. xox

GRAMMY AFTER PARTY TIME

2007-02-12T03:37:00.000-08:00

OK so i just happen to be in town for the Grammies. I didn't get invited but not to worry. Anyway my pal Adrian had a plus 1 to the William Morris Agency party after the Grammies. So we first we rock upto the wrong party, we are downtown at the Warner Bro party and are denied access. Shit and i just saw My Chemical Romance walk in. A phone call later we realize shit is wrong and head to the correct party on Sunset. Well the car park is on Sunset anyway. We walk through 3 fields of security, cross our names off, get our wrist bands and take this shuttle bus to some mansion in the hills where the party is.

So we get in and everyone is staring at us. Adrian and i are dressed pretty chill, while everyone else is sporting tuxedos and shit. Lame. We are now surrounded by good looking people. Drinks are free, so we take advantage. Run into John Watson who manages Wolfmother, they just won a grammy. First Australian band since Men At Work, 25 years ago. Next P Diddy walks past us with his entourage. Funny. I walk into the big tent and see the dude that plays Eric from Entourage, i love that show. Next we see Leonardo and then Juliette Lewis. Pretty crazy party right now. See Harry, my pal from Australia and his boss Gudinski. The night is pretty good. Kid Rock walks in like people actually care? I have no idea of any of his "music" or if he makes it. The singer from Nickleback headbutts Adrian and we start cracking up. Dude from said band is stoked on feeling tough for 3.5 seconds, we laugh at the fact that he's 45 and ripping off Kisschasy songs. We see some guys from Armor For Sleep that Adrian is friends with, dude is pretty cool. 2am hits and it's decided that the party is over. What? LA finishes fucking early. We walk out with crew handing out free boxes of Krispy Kreme donuts. We take the shuttle bus back, not before seeing Weeman from Jackass making out with some girl who was trying to hit on Adrian 5 minutes earlier. I get home, write a blog and fall asleep. I feel pretty LA right now friends...... xox

Dom gets the shits

2007-02-10T20:31:00.000-08:00

OK weekly update.
Currently listening to Hilary Duff - Coming Clean(theme song from Laguna Beach).

Monday - Recovered from the GAY superbowl party. Still constipated. I feel bad for teasing those old people now on the metamucil ads. Sorry old people, i now feel your pain(literally).

Tuesday - Shot a short video message for one of Bills friends, Barry Dickens who is apparently the biggest booking agent in Europe. We had to pretend we were the biggest band from Australia our name was "sex and free beer", something that has definitely not been happening on this trip. Had a meeting with some lawyers afterwards about our film, good people.

Wednesday - Drove 6 hours to San Francisco to interview Fat Mike and Joey Cape. We rocked upto Joey Cape's place and started setting up. Joey was awesome and really hospitable, it was an honour to meet this guy as i have been listening to Lagwagon forever. 10 minutes later Fat Mike rocks up and we interview him first, i was kinda nervous but he was just farting all the time so it put me at ease. Fat Mike is awesome, we get a picture with him and Joey and he leaves. We then go downstairs into Joeys home studio and interview him down there. Joey "Map Quest" Cape, shows us how to get to our "hotel" for the night and we are off. GHETTO, is all i'm going to say about our "hotel". Let's get the fuck out of here. Please.

Thursday - Early morning. Chalker is really fucking sick. Not so good. We try and go over the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, but miss it and go over the Bay Bridge instead. The whole time thinking isn't this piece of shit meant to be red? Now on the way to Tony Sly's from No Use For A Name. Tony has a sweet place in San Jose. He greets us at the door, does the interview and hooks us up with free NUFAN t-shirts. Thanks Tony. We take the shorter way back to LA and arrive sometime that night. Dom, Matt and I got a really cool restaurant/bar called Birds for a late night dinner. We leave. Dom stays...

Friday - Today we have a busy day. Firstly we go and get haircuts at some awesome place in Hollywood, our hairdresser Vanessa is great. Then we are off to Bel Air to interview John Feldman from Goldfinger at his house. Feldman is pretty well off he has an awesome big house and has gold and platinum plaques all over his walls from artists like The Used, Story Of The Year and Hilary Duff. We get shown around his home studio which is bigger(and probably better) than most studios i have seen in Australia. He has just been working on the new Used record and has The Veronicas coming in next week. However today was Dom's Doomsday HAHA. So first Dom doesn't come home on Thursday night, he has been on an all night bender. He comes in and we are pretty pissed off, saying no partying before shoots. He says he is fine and is bouncing off the walls. That is until he starts vomiting. First he stops shooting mid interview to excuse himself to the bathroom, apparently he has diahrea. Once we leave Feldmans, he starts vomiting next to our car. Gross. We decide we would do what any good friends would do and start taking photos of Dom baiting. Now we are on our way to Glenwood Studios where we are getting some tracks mixed for Kisschasy's new record. We were so lucky to get Jerry Finn to do them for us(the first record he ever mixed was Green Day "Dookie" and has since done Blink 182, Rancid, AFI and Morrissey). Anyway not 10 minutes on the 101, Dom starts spewing again this time in the van into a plastic bag. He then lets us in on the fact that the bag has a hole in it and is "leaking". Great. Anyway after holding my breath for 15 minutes, we get to the studio and meet Jerry - who is a super nice guy and did the most AMAZING mixes on these tracks. In the studio next door to ours is Alicia Keys making her new record and W.illiam from the Black Eyed Peas is in there with her. We slap some skin and exit. Friday night we don't do much. My new buddy Tim Armstrong calls and Chalker and I watch Jerry Mcguire.

Saturday - Wake up early again, this is starting to feel like a fucking job. Today we are on our way to San Diego to interview Scott Russo from Unwritten Law. We get to his house and nobody is home, he calls me soon after and apolagizes and says that he is actually in Hollywood, where we are staying haha. We get some food and try to shoot some 2nd unit footage around San Diego. Weather turns to shit. We get nothing good. On our way back to LA, our friend Adrian calls and he is in San Diego. We head to some town where only dudes live to go have a drink with him and Jordan. We can't find the bar, buy ice cream instead, i buy the new FOB cd and a book on Russel Simmons, finally see Adrian and end up dropping him at Jordan's house. Today was a bummer. We finally get home and we are now planning our night out(that's if we end up going out at all). Thanks for reading. Enjoy the photos.

Dom. Blurrrrrrrgggghhh. SPEEWWW.

Pre haircuts with Tony Sly.

Post haircuts with John Feldman.

My first GAY superbowl party

2007-02-06T19:58:00.000-08:00

(this photo is amazing, Justin from Limbeck)

Ok so i have abit to cover, and i think this is going to be slightly out of order but i'll start with the cream. The gay superbowl party.

The gay superbowl party was a party we went to on Sunday. We were the only 3 "straight" guys at this party out of around 40 dudes, and there were NO women. So we're sitting around watching the game and no one is really interested until half time hits and everyone runs inside to see PRINCE perform, or more importantly to see what he is wearing.

As i have been on pain killers for the past week, one of the side effects was that i was constipated. Anyway i goto the bathroom, and i am in there for no less than an hour sending Chalker messages on my progress one of the messages i send him "oh oh" refers to the toilet being blocked by my internal(now external) wasteland. I can't fucking flush the toilet. There is no fucking plunger or even toilet cleaner in the bathroom. I consider alot of things but i think if i can sneak outside and get a stick i may be able to break it up and send it on it's way. NOPE. Didn't work. I had to take defeat and leave the bathroom to be laughed at by my new homosexual friends. BUT it doesn't end there, then one of the guests Steve Miller decides to tell everyone that me and some dude had gone off together, as we have been gone for the same amount of time hahaha. Damn you Steve Miller. Turns out he went to get coffee while i just blocked the toilet and left a stick hanging out of the toilet bowl. I've since decided to stop with the pain killers. That night we goto a club called LAX, we get in LA style ie. no waiting in line, as my buddy Steve Aoki is djing and hooks us up. Sweet deal.

Tomorrow we head to San Francisco to interview Fat Mike from NOFX, Joey Cape from Lagwagon and Tony Sly from No Use For A Name. The drive is about 6 hours, so we're all staying in tonight. Back in LA on Friday.

Photos below

This is our LA dude, Adrian. He manages Limbeck and drives a sweet Volvo. Notice his natural curls.

Limbeck VS the star of David.

Limbeck doing their thing.

Kids love to dance to Limbeck.

...So do Adrian and Jordan.

Justin and I. His hair was really sweaty. Yuk.

Driving home from San Diego. I'm tired.

Panic on the streets of HOLLYWOOD

2007-02-04T12:58:00.000-08:00

Today is superbowl day. HAPPY SUPERBOWL.

The past couple of days have been quite surreal in a way. Thursday we went to The Roxy to see Peter, Bjorn and John from Sweden who were really good. They played "Young Folks" at the end and all i could think of was Martys 21st(Sorry Mart i didn't get their autographs).

Friday night we went to see Morrissey in Pasadena courtesy of free ticks from Bill Silva(thanks Bill). This was awesome.I had never seen Morrissey live before, HE WAS AMAZING. Firstly he opened with "Panic", holy shit, i almost blew. He continued to play about 6 Smiths songs(including "girlfriend in a coma", "william" and "how soon is now?")and all of his solo classics. He also took his shirt off not once, not twice BUT THREE TIMES. This was hilarious, Dom may have got a boner(?). Another thing worth noting is that his fanbase is predominantly Latino, i would say out of the few thousand people in the audience atleast 90% of them were Latino. I later found out that Morrissey is a phenomenon in the Latino community. Cool huh.

Saturday we did some second unit shooting for the documentary, we went to Warners and Santa Monica to shoot outside of labels like Geffen, Interscope and Columbia. We then headed into Santa Monica to do some shopping, i went to the GAP haha. Anyway while i was buying some other stuff i get a phone call from an unknown number, the person on the other end introduces himself as Tim Armstrong from Rancid. FUCK. This is kinda crazy and i can't concentrate with the sales clerk and the purchasing of my goods. Anyway we get talking and Tim is a dude, he invites me to hang out with him and really wants to help out with the film. Sweet. We arrange a time to speak at a later date for the film. I tell Matt Wardle that Tim Armstrong just called me and he starts laughing, we're both big Rancid fans. On the way back to our house, Tim calls again to exchange email addresses and we talk some more about the film. I really like Tim(first name basis).

Saturday night we are heading 3 hours south to San Diego to see our friends Limbeck play at a college. Adrian, all around good guy and manager of the band picks us up and drives us down to the show in his sweet new Volvo. We finally arrive and catch up with the Limbecks and they play a great show, the show they are playing is a benefit for peace in the middle east or something but the funny thing is that on the poster it says Limbeck and surrounding it are stars of david haha.

After the show we meet up with Jordan and Chris, who are friends with Adrian. Jordan sings in the band New Found Glory and Chris works for his manager Rick Devoe, and looks after Angels and Airwaves. We are meant to goto this bar called Yardhouse but Jordan leaves his ID at home and can't get in so we opt for "The Local" instead. It's not bad and thanks to Adrians expense account(he works for Geffen, who New Found Glory are signed too) we have a good time. Thanks David Geffen. Turns out Jordan knows a bunch of people in Australia that i know quite well. Hello Katie. Hello Mel. He even knew Joel from Kisschasy. Hello Joel. We leave around midnight for the trek back to LA, i get home, pop 2 pain killers and pass out watching the NBA. Oh my new hobby is popping 2 pills and watching the basketball, it's the highlight of my night.

And today is SUPERBOWL. The Bears and Colts are playing. We don't know shit about either team and have 2 parties we have been invited too. Not sure which one we'll get too. I'll have photos up soon. Might goto LAX tonight, it's a club on Hollywood, meant to be good - Steve says we can get in if we say we're buddies with him. Thanks Steve.

Shower time ;)

Photoooooooooz

2007-02-01T16:19:00.000-08:00

A bunch of random photos taken over the last week or two.

A cool sign at Sundance. 20 MINUTES MAN!

Matt Wardle chilling at Denver Airport. HELLO!

Our Media pass for the Warped Tour at the Rock and Roll Hall Of Fame.

Bad Religion at the Hall Of Fame

Our sweet ride for the next 6 weeks. Soccer mom stylez.

Our LA pad from the outside.

Lounge room in our LA home, Chalker and Matt chilling.

Christ is on the wall in my bedroom, it kinda creeps me out.

Oh what won't they draw?

This is me in my office, arm in sling, pain killers taken.

The guy on the right is Bill Silva our executive producer, he's tight with Sting.

How cool is this? Unwritten Law supported by Blink(before the 182)

The view from our office on Sunset Blvd. Right next door to The Rainbow and The Roxy.

I'm addicted to pain killers, i'm so LA right now!

2007-01-31T18:22:00.000-08:00

Pain. Fuck.

So we got into LA last night after our BACKWARDS flight via Dallas. Thanks AA. Not. The good news is that because of my broken collar bone, i got priority seating right up the front while Chalker and Matt were up back.

So we get in, get our sweet hire car and head to our home for the next 6 weeks in the Hollywood Hills. We are at the bottom near Universal Studios and the Hollywood sign. Only problem is there are only 3 beds and 4 people, so we have a roster of 2 people sharing. This week it's Dom and Matt sharing the master bed(wink wink).

Last night we went to this cool club called Cinespace on Hollywood blvd, we were on the guestlist but still had to wait in line whilst all these cool LA types just walk in off the street. Whatever. We get in and the club is awesome, Steve Aoki of Dimmak fame is DJing and kids are losing their shit on the dance floor. This club is growing on us and we decide we're going to hang out here every Tuesday. Bars here close at 2am, so Matt and I decide to bail - on the way out we meet Steve Aoki briefly who is a nice guy.

Today we wake up late for a lunch with our executive producer, Bill Silva on Sunset. Bill has given us some office space in his office block on Sunset Blvd right across the road from the Hustler store and in the famous strip. Sweet set up. Allyson, who works for Bill is awesome and has hooked us up with a free pair of shoes each and is taking us to see Peter, Bjorn and John tomorrow night at The Roxy(you know that song "young folks").

Now we're at home chilling. Photos soon.
x

Ouch. I broke my collar-bone.

2007-01-28T18:27:00.000-08:00

True story.

I did it today snowboarding on only my second run, was running good down the mountain hit a bump, caught my edge and fell on my shoulder(and head, thank you helmet). I lay on the ground for awhile thinking it wasn't that bad and maybe i had dislocated my shoulder. I took my board off and walked about 50 metres to ask someone where the medical centre was, 5 minutes later ski patrol came and picked me up, strapped me into the sled on the back like a dead corpse and took me to the medical centre. Everyone was really nice and helpful, i got an xray and it turns out that i had broken my left collar bone - they actually call it snowboarders shoulder. So they gave me a sling, an ice pack and a prescription for some pretty powerful painkillers and sent me on my way. I had to catch the bus home and the pain started to get worse as time went on, i get in and Chalker is just about to get in the hot tub(doctor has banned me from the hot tub) he hurt his knee today too. Sophia called me, which was nice and was the first person i've spoken too on the phone since i've been here.

Anyway this is the first bone, i've ever broken, spending my teenage years playing football, skatboarding and bodyboarding i find this quite surprising. Off to LA on Tuesday for the beginning of our 6 week shooting window for the film. Luckily i'm only the director and not the cinematographer, hopefully Dom doesn't fall tomorrow on his ski's.

New photos below

Bad Religion, Justin Timberlake and Mandy Moore

2007-01-28T00:42:00.000-08:00

So what do these 3 have in common? The last 3 days of my life, that's what. So a quick update i am still in Park City, Utah for Sundance actually i just returned today from Cleveland but more on that later. Let's go in chronological order here.

Thursday
Matt Wardle and I get up really early to get some tickets to some movies we want to see today, we got tickets to The Good Life(written and directed by pro skater Steve Berra) and Sk8 life(one of the worst movies i have ever seen). Today is the first day we decide to hit the slopes and go snowboarding, fuck we are terrible. We decide to ditch the lesson because we are pretty crap skateboarders and think fuck it we can do this. We were WRONG. First of all we don't know how to strap ourselves into the board or get on the chairlift, 10 minutes later and we are at the top of a pretty big mountain. I decide to go first and fall pretty quickly, actually i fall as i am coming off the lift. Dom drops one of his Ski stocks from the lift onto the ground. Matt and I go one way and Chalker goes another. BIG MISTAKE. Matt and I actually went on the advanced path, shit. I ate alot of snow, have a few million bruises and 2 hours later we had made it down the mountain. Feeling like kooks we decide to give it one more shot, take the lift up but this time take an easier route and in 10 minutes we are down the hill with minimal falls, this leads to a big confidence boost but unfortunately the lifts have shut for the day.

Friday
Another early morning. 5:30 to be exact. Matt and I have to fly to Cleveland, Ohio for the Warped Tours induction into the Rock and Roll Hall Of Fame. America shits me. The security at airports is so anal and you always have to take connecting flights. BORING. We get to Cleveland and check into our hotel aka THE MARIOT. No big deal. The Rock hall of fame is amazing, Kevin Lyman the founder of Warped hooked us up with Media passes so that we could film the induction for our film. This was exciting for us, but what was more exciting were the bands performing. Bad Religion + Pennywise + Bouncing Souls + Paramore. I filmed some of the bands sets and got to watch these bands play in a museum infront of about 200 people. A couple of emo teenage girls think that we're famous and ask for our autographs, i signed some girls report card. We head back to the hotel, to sleep for another early morning flight back to Salt Lake City, Utah.

BUT WAIT... While we had left, Dom and Chalker stayed at Sundance. My good friend, Jacki came to visit us and took the guys to the Little Miss Sunshine/Netflix private party. Mandy Moore was at the party and her and Chalker shared a kiss, at first i could not believe this but it turns out it's true. Through mutual friends they ended up hanging out and Jacki told Mandy it was Chalkers birthday, so that is when they had their kiss. I was insanely jealous by this story and thought that her and Zach Braff were dating, right? Well the same morning i walk past a newsagent and she is on the cover of Jane Magazine with the title reading "MANDY MOORE: SINGLE AND LOVING IT". At this moment i pushed everything aside and declared that Mr Steven Chalker had won at life. In another story, Dom also picked up a girl(or should i say woman) who claimed to be 31 but stories say more like 41 nicknamed "The Cougar".

Saturday
It's Saturday night right now. Not a real eventful day, we went to a few terrible fucking bars and am now sitting in the loungeroom of our townhouse trying to work out where we went wrong. Tomorrow is the last day of Sundance, but everyone has left anyway. Oh hang on you want to know my celebrity spottings, ok they are: Justin Timberlake, Jena Malone and Zooey Deshanel. Everyone has been here though from Bono to Lindsay Lohan. Tired, tired, tired. Going to hit the slopes again tomorrow, hopefully i get better at this snowboarding shit.

Jai

25 hours, 4 airports, 3 flights and no sleep

2007-01-24T17:00:00.000-08:00

So what a day(or was it two?). We left Sydney at 9am on Tuesday morning, arrived at 6am on Tuesday morning in LA, waited around a couple of hours and flew to Dallas, waited a few more hours in Dallas and then flew to Salt Lake City. We eventually arrived to Park City, 25 hours after we had initially left Sydney.

So did anything interesting happen on the flights? Fuck no. I watched 5 films on my way to LA, i saw Kenny, Mulholland Drive, Traffic, Who Killed The Electric Car? and Miami Vice.

However one thing that was interesting was on my flight to Dallas i sat next to this 19 year old kid, who liked Halo. We got talking and i told him that i was on my way to Sundance, he told me that he had just got back from Iraq where he was stationed for 6 months and was on his way to a training base in Florida before heading back to Iraq. This kid was 19 years old. I didn't give him my opinion on the war but was more interested in finding out his perspective on what life was like for a soldier in Iraq especially as a kid, it was surreal but he was a nice guy. He told me that not much had been happening there where he was stationed, except for the odd homemade rockets that Iraqis would fire at their vehicles. He also made jokes about the 2 soldiers that had to carry shotguns because he didn't understand why they had to carry them when the others got to carry M16's.

So after arriving in Salt Lake City, we get a taxi to Park City where we are staying. HOLY SHIT, this is the best place i have ever been to in my life. Our accom for the week is a 3 level townhouse on Park Ave, about 3 minute walk to the chairlifts and a 5 minute walk to main street where all the films are. Not only is our townhouse 3 levels, but it also has 3 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms and a hot tub on the balcony. So what did we do? 3 of us dudes all got in the hot tub together. Yay. At the moment out entourage consists of myself, Matt Wardle and Chalker, Dom is flying here from London and we have no idea where he is. Turns out he comes into town, gets Chalker while Matt and I are asleep and they goto a gay bar for an after party of some film showing. They had a good night.

Today is Wednesday, we awake at 2pm. I don't feel jet lagged. We go pick up our festival passes and have a nice lunch. We goto our first film tonight, it's called 'Weapons' other movies i really want to see while here are: Chasing Ghosts, Sk8 Life and The Good Life.

Okay well i'm off to have another Hot Tub. Check out photos below.

From top to bottom: Salt Lake City airport, our townhouse, Matt and I in the hot tub, the view from our balcony.

Packing

2007-01-21T21:02:00.000-08:00

So i leave to Utah tomorrow. I can't wait to get out of this shit heat and into the snow. Sundance should be fun, today we heard there is this documentary screening called "Zoo" that is about this ring of men who have sex with horses, it's apparently really graphic. Matt Wardle got excited by this.

On Saturday we did our first interview with Larry Livermore, he's the guy that started Lookout Records, signed Green Day and Operation Ivy and taught Tre Cool how to play drums. I think it went well, i was pretty nervous but am stoked about the outcome. Nick was my DOP for the day as Dom is still in London and we meet up with him tomorrow.

I still haven't packed. SHIT MAN.

Jai

Welcome to my blog punx!

2007-01-15T21:00:00.000-08:00

Hello. This is my NEW personal blog, i will be contributing to it as often as possible while i am in the US making my debut feature film. I guess as the blog continues, more information about this project will become clear.

I leave next Tuesday.
I'm fucking anxious.
First stop is Sundance Film Festival in Utah.
I'm fucking excited.

Speak soon,

Jai