My Eventful Weekend
Aches and pains sustained in the quest for a good time
The other night, I was chatting with my friend Camilla over DMs. She’d sent me a flyer to a show she was DJing at a bar in Silverlake, and I told her I already had a ticket to another show but that I’d try to make it out after. She thanked me for making the effort, but then asked me a very flattering question.
“How are you always at everything?”
I’ve received this question more than once over the course of my life. To people on the outside, I guess it can seem that I’m a bit of a party animal. Multiple nights a week you can find me at a comedy show, a concert, a movie, a play, an art exhibition, a spoken word event. You’re also likely to spot me posted up at the end of a bar or sat around a dinner table. Even right now, I’m writing this from my local coffee shop where I go to catch the flow of the world around me.
So how do I do it?
The Democratization of the Art Patron
Back when I co-ran an arts organization, my partner and I used to talk about cultivating patronage. The not-so-dirty secret of making things for people to consume is that you need consumers. And when it comes to the creation and dissemination of art, that consumer is the patron.
Patronage is commonly thought of as the parlance of the wealthy. For centuries, they were the only people who could afford these higher-end experiences like paintings and concerts and someone else to cook their food and choose their wine. The rest of us only had more lowbrow forms of entertainment, like Shakespeare and opera (😏). But just as we now live in a democratized era of art creation—with phones that can make movies, tablets that are digital canvasses, and free social distribution platforms that provide audience through algorithm—we also live in an era that makes it easier than ever to patronize and support the things you love.
Balling on a Budget
You may have a misconception that these things are frivolous, that they’re indistinguishable with so-called “lesser” activities like partying or watching sports (we can have another conversation on the misconception that leisure activities are somehow frivolous). Yes, oftentimes there is booze imbibed and dancing done when I go out to engage with art (sometimes the booze and the dancing is the art). But for me, the driving force is not distraction or dalliance, and I work hard to limit the amount of money I spend at these places. The point of going isn’t to pass the time, prevent boredom, or numb out the things in my life that I’d rather not focus on. In fact, patronage is how I find meaning in life. It’s how I find connection to the human inside me.
Patronage is my survival. And if you think it might be your survival, too, then I have some good news. All you have to do to be a patron is to make patronage a priority in your life.
Ditching Empty Calories
Think of it like working out or eating right. Have you ever spent a weekend doomscrolling down your social feed of choice in full dissociation, only to look up Sunday evening and realize you can’t remember a second of your weekend, and somehow you’re even more tired than you were on EOD Friday? Do you remember how terrible that felt? That’s the lifestyle equivalent of spending a weekend eating off the Dollar “Value” Menu at McDonald’s. Doing it every once in a while isn’t going to cause you long-term problems, but making it a habit will eventually add up to a pretty bad time.
Sometimes, the doomscrolling can’t be helped. I’m fully conscious of the fact that this newsletter is going out on a Thursday that’s two days after the election. Like many of you reading this, I spent all of Tuesday compulsively checking to see what the outcome would be. Even when I tried to distract myself with work or journaling or Chappell Roan’s performance on SNL, I was toggling back to the AP News Wire for updates and then over to Threads and TikTok for context and commentary.
But if that’s your everyday lifestyle, if you’re constantly moving between platforms designed for passive engagement for the slim reward of empty dopamine like the empty carbs of a Domino’s pizza, you are going to hurt yourself.
My Weekend Itinerary
Last weekend was a particularly busy one for my own engagement with art. Here’s a quick rundown of what I was able to do:
Thursday:
It started with Halloween. I didn’t really have the money to go all out on a costume, so I went closet diving and threw together an old classic:
The comedy theater I’ve started working with was having a karaoke party in Burbank, so I dropped by to show a little face and sing a couple of my go-to crowd pleasers. After that I skated over to Echo Park where my pal Tony was hanging at a house party. From there we went to catch a DJ at Zebulon, which was near to my house. The motivation here was to see old friends, make new friends, and engage in the time-honored art of great conversation.
Friday:
I went down to Culver City to meet up with my new friends Bryan and Nick. Bryan had snagged tickets to a three-hour marathon concert by King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard, a garage/psych/metal band from Australia. Bryan is a disabled veteran and needs a place to sit for shows, so he got us seats in a section right behind the sound man with an unobstructed view. For three epic and relentless hours, we rocked out, sang along, and took in an incredible maximalist light show.
Saturday:
After getting a bit of work done and prepping some simple meals for this week, I decided to drop in on another new friend of mine, Thiago over at Western Winds Tattoo Parlor. I wasn’t getting a tattoo from him (that was back in September on Friday the 13th, when a tattoo temporarily fell into my current budget), but I ended up hanging out with him and his wife the entire evening. We sat in his shop shooting the shit, then they took me to one of their favorite neighborhood spots before having me over to their home to listen to records and talk about everything under the sun.
Sunday:
Sunday was the main event I’d been leading up to all weekend: LCD Soundsystem at the Shrine Expo Hall.
I’ve been a fan of LCD Soundsystem since around 2005. To be honest, they’re a band I never thought I’d get to see. Even when they reunited after seven years away, they only came to my neck of the woods in the context of festivals that I didn’t have the time or money to go to.
One of the benefits of living in Los Angeles is that nobody skips this town. In the case of LCD Soundsystem, they booked an eight-show residency taking place across two venues over the course of two weeks. Thanks to this schedule, I was able to get a WILDLY cheap ticket at a tiny venue that was a simple 30-minute train ride away from my house.
The experience was nothing short of religious. Again I went with one of my new friends, Mars, and we stood maybe 20 feet from the front of the stage. I made friends with a group of dudes who were partying around me. We hugged and danced and sang and jumped. I even cried.
When I finally got home Sunday around 1am, I could feel the weight of my body’s 40 years of life. My knees creaked, my neck cricked, my shoulder blades ached. But I felt more alive than I had in ages. And I slept deep with peaceful dreams, waking up naturally to start my Monday at 6:45 in the morning.
The Wolves You Feed
What I mean to say with this event diary is that great experiences and an interesting life are within your power. You can be a patron of the arts at any budgetary level. You don’t have to settle for the McDouble of culture. If you’re willing to be curious, to look for deals, and to be the sort of friend that others want along for the ride, you too can ball out on a budget.
Now get out there and have a great time!
While living, be with death, so that you are a guest in this world. Have no roots anywhere and a brain that is amazingly alive. If you carry the burdens of yesterday, your brain becomes mechanical and dull. If you leave the psychological memories, hurts, and pains behind every day, it means dying and living are together. In that, there is no fear.
— Jiddu Krishnamurti