I have no photographic evidence of this because I met him while he was shooting a scene in his boxer briefs.

There was a lot of hubbub surrounding me meeting David Duchovny from my family and friends. They remembered what a hopeless, pathetic X-files nerd I was between the ages of 10-19. My Dad’s girlfriend, who works on Californication, told me to have my mother ship out any X-files paraphernalia and David would gladly sign them when I met him. My Mom would have happily obliged if I asked her. In fact, she spent most of the week leading up to me meeting David Duchovny telling everyone in our hometown.

As a 28 year-old who previously worked for celebrities, I would never in a million years walk up to David Duchovny with my Australia edition of the Rolling Stone that features he and Gillian Anderson in bed together or my Agent Mulder action figure from Fight the Future and ask him to sign it. That is not a freak flag I want to freely wave to the world anymore- especially at David Duchovny.

I don’t have a large story surrounding my meeting with David Duchovny other than that he walked up and introduced himself to me and he’s a very nice man. He’s also quite handsome in real life. I got to sit next to the director and watch Hank and Runkle converse at Runkle’s pad. The rest of the cast and crew are extremely nice and welcoming. Actually, having been used to working on sets where there was a lot of ego and drama, this production seemed void of it. The rumor is Duchovny is very down to Earth and chill.

Meeting David Duchovny got me thinking a lot about my former life as an X-files nerd. It took up a third of my life. Nine years of drooling over poorly written fan fiction. Nine years of hunting down magazines from all over the world that have the slightest mention of Mulder or Scully. Nine years of holding my breath one hour a week out of hopes that Mulder and Scully would finally suck face. I forced my friends to call me “Spooky” and to reenact episodes in the schoolyard. I was a very unforgiving and unapologetic X-files nerd, maybe even teetering on aggressive. These are all memories I like to forget, but luckily my Mom made a scrapbook to remind me.

The only solace I’ve received through the years is knowing that there are respectable adults who were once like me. I’ve met a lot of them and I got some of them to share their stories with me:

Were you an X-files nerd too?

Adrienne Breaux- writer at Apartment Therapy and 2Modern

Let me explain what a “shipper” is. The formal definition will say something about folks who enjoy the romantic chemistry between two characters in a television show more than say, the overarching mythology or plot. But that’s a weak, watered down version of that word. A real shipper is someone who sleeps, breathes and eats the will they/won’t they relationship of two protagonists in a fictional television show. Tuning in loyally every week to a new episode for scenes with two beloved and usually good-looking characters simply ISN’T ENOUGH.

Back in the day (late nineties) when the X-Files took a fierce hold on my psyche and my fantasies, we didn’t have behind-the-scenes extras and special apps for our smart phones that were an acceptable fix for TV addicts. Hell, we didn’t even have YouTube and the ability to watch poorly edited together segments of every side glance, arm touch or kiss while Sixpence None The Richer’s “Kiss Me” played. There was only one way to satiate the desire to spend more moments absorbing any and every trace of delicious innuendo and teasing between two characters: fan fiction. Yes, I used to read entirely-too-explicit-for-my-age X-Files fan fiction at one point in my youth. And occasionally, just for laughs, or when I miss Mulder and Scully’s banter too much, I still do.

The definitive place on the Internet for X-Files fan fiction (in my opinion): the still updated, easy-to-search fluky.gossamer.org.

Emily Louise Church- writer at Without Obsession

The X-Files. Where to start with a programme that was such an integral part of my childhood? My earliest memory of the show was watching it with my dad, a somewhat hardcore fan, probably even more passionate than me. The first episode I can ever recall was ‘Terms of Endearment’ starring the one and only Bruce Campbell as a demon desperate for a human baby. Though mildly terrifying viewing at such a young age, I quickly became an X-Files nerd, and I even planned out my career as a top FBI agent. It’s hard to put in to words how much I adore The X-Files, how much it touched my younger self and stayed with my, now fully grown, adult self. To this day, I still watch the show whenever I’m looking for my fix of spookily supernatural shenanigans or just a heavy dose of wanton sexual tension. So to Chris Carter, thank you for enriching my life, and to David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson, thank you for bringing to life two of the most complex and entertaining characters ever to grace the small screen.

CJ Morgan- DJ at KLBJ 93.7

Friday nights at my house meant one thing: The X Files. After I finished watching the latest episode, I would head outside to re-enact what I had just seen on TV.  The bushes were a Russian forest, the cellar was a secret government base and my clubhouse turned into the Lone Gunman’s trailer. Lurking around every corner was the Smoking man, Krycek or the oil-eyed alien hybrids. On one particular night, I turned my two-story clubhouse into a submarine using ladders, life jackets, old Christmas lights and nine volt batteries to simulate the eerie red lighting. When friends would sleep over, we’d spend most of our time outside on patrol for government agents or searching the night sky for signs of life.

Jordan Cooper- musician & writer, creator of Write a Song About Me

My parents are finally moving out of the house that I lived in for about 20 years of my life. I came over to take care of some of my old things that had been gathering dust in my childhood room. It’s not surprising that about half of these things related to X-Files. Books of X-Files trading cards I obsessively collected, old Entertainment Weekly’s with X-Files articles in them, Unauthorized guides, the X-Files soundtrack (“Songs in the Key of X”), X-Files comics (which were really quite good!), including issue #4, where my young mind was blown by seeing my own fan letter printed in the back. However these things were never part of my “past”, because they are still very much part of my present. Not long ago I attended an X-Files viewing party (the only kind of party I’d feel comfortable at, no doubt), where I brought a new $50 flashlight to shine on the screen any time Mulder or Scully pulled out theirs. I created a new X-Files party game! I love X-Files, and I Want To Believe that everyone else does, too.

When I lived in Los Angeles I avidly volunteered.

I began volunteering out of selfish reasons of being lonely and bored, but once I saw the deep impact volunteering had on all parties involved, I became hooked.

The organization I volunteered most frequently for was in a dilapidated house in the area between Echo Park and Downtown LA. I guess that area would still be considered Echo Park, but it’s not all the hipsters and bars that one thinks of with that area. It was a moderately dangerous neighborhood that once boasted beautiful houses and elegant businesses. Now the houses have bars on their windows and a smoky smog sheen covering the paint. Broken car window glass litters the street. When I pulled into a nearby convenient store to accurately locate the nonprofit house on my GPS, I watched a stream of rats run alongside my car. In LA, rats aren’t as common as in NYC.

The nonprofit I was going to temporarily houses children from Mexico and Central America who have crossed the border solo. Some were as young as 9 and had made the trek simply to be reunited with their mother or father now living in America. None of them could speak English. Though the home was in a tough neighborhood, the organization did their best to make the facility warm and welcoming for the children. We typically met the kids in a large playroom filled with couches, arts & crafts tables, books and toys. The children approached with apprehension; they were constantly introduced to a stream of individuals who did not know their language. All they wanted was to find their parents. The first 20-30 minutes of the meetings could be challenging; we spoke to the children in hand gestures and felt like fools for not knowing Spanish. I’ve lived in Southern California and Texas for the past eight years and I don’t know a lick of Spanish. I hate that about myself.

The more the children would get comfortable with us, the more smiles we would see spreading across their faces. By the end, the smiles were all around and I found myself often tearing up as I left. The strength and courage these children had to cross dangerous and terrifying terrain by themselves is something that none of us can understand. Being disconnected from your parents at 9, 10 or 11 and finding yourself in a foreign house in the middle of Los Angeles is something we’ll never understand. I hope these children were reunited with their families. Just sharing an hour with them once a week changed my life.

Since living in Austin I’ve found that I don’t volunteer as often. I’ve volunteered here or there but it has been for more arts/farmer’s market-related activities. Now that I’m a freelancer, I have all the time in the world to volunteer and yet I haven’t done it. I’m not exactly sure why.

I would like to start volunteering more. If you have any recommendations on people or animals-related organizations in Austin that can use the help, please let me know.

I feel that it is so important for all of us to volunteer. In our busy lives it’s easy to say, “I don’t have time! Here’s $25!” but I can honestly say there is nothing more effective than one-on-one volunteering. Connecting with other human beings is what life is all about.

The man has definitely still got it.

Here are some classic black & white pics of one of the hardest working musicians in the industry.

]]> http://www.hipstercrite.com/2012/05/14/happy-birthday-david-byrne-pictures/feed/ 0 http://www.hipstercrite.com/2012/05/14/happy-birthday-david-byrne-pictures/ http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Hipstercrite/~3/5MKuJFKmkio/ http://www.hipstercrite.com/2012/05/14/i-miss-la/#comments Mon, 14 May 2012 14:36:37 +0000 hipstercrite http://www.hipstercrite.com/?p=4991 Visiting LA was amazing and confusing. I never imagined that I would miss LA, but I do. I think?

This week I visited Los Angeles. It was my first extended trip since I walked away from the city of wandering angels.

I met up with old friends and revisited familiar locations that I abruptly left almost four years ago. Jumping into the past is both energizing and intimidating. Will I feel disconnected from my old friends? Will I want to stay in the past? Will this trip trigger an existential crisis that will leave me curled up in a ball screaming, “Who am I?!?”

The longer I’ve lived away from Los Angeles the more I’ve romanticized it. I conveniently forgot the aimless journey I was taking there, long nights crying myself to sleep or staring at the ocean sky hoping life would finally happen.

I moved to Los Angeles when I was 20 after being offered an assistant position at an actor’s production company. It took me five years to realize that I didn’t want to put someone before me for the rest of my life, and I moved to Austin to take a stab at the one thing I knew for certain I enjoyed — writing. Though I still have a very long way to go, I can’t believe that a goal I set out to achieve (becoming a professional writer) has actually materialized. I would not have been able to do this in LA. Austin has brought me more professional and creative joy than I ever could have dreamed of in Los Angeles.

CONTINUE…

The wonderfully quirky world of Venice, California quickly became my favorite part of Los Angeles once I peeled back the sticky layer of sweat, sand, liquor and God knows what else that covers the town and saw what lies below the surface.

Windward Ave.

Venice has not changed a bit since I left four years ago. The only exception is now there is a medicinal marijuana store everywhere you turn. The employees wear green scrubs with marijuana leaves on them and scream at you, “The doctor is in!” It’s only $40 to get your medical marijuana card.

I even saw many of the same street performers who have been performing tricks on the boardwalk for years.

This street performer jumped onto a pile of broken glass

It’s as if Venice has been pickled in time.

I hope it always stays that way.

One of my favorite boardwalk homes designed by Frank Gehry

I relived my regular routine of parking near Washington Pier and walking down to the boardwalk to take in the sights and sounds as if it was my first time ever.

I spoke with the friendly cast of characters that hang in the area, watched kids and adults skate at the new skate park and looked at the ocean as if it were our last rendezvous together. There weren’t a lot of people on the beach because the temperature has been considered cold (low 70s). Already experiencing high 90s in Austin, the ocean breeze felt like an IV straight to the soul.

Sitting next to the sea forces you to be present and for the first time in awhile, my head and body felt clear and free. God, that sounded new-agey, but it’s true. As much as I absolutely love living in Austin, I dislike being land-locked immensely.

Happy camper on Venice Beach

The highlight of my day was meeting one of my favorite writers and bloggers Laurenne Sala from Humans Are Funny. Like a dumbass, I forgot to take a picture of her. If you’re not familiar with Laurenne’s work, start here. Here she writes with equal parts heartbreak and humor about her father coming out of the closet and subsquently committing suicide. She’s a fantastic writer and a fantastic girl. She just completed her first novel and I have no doubt it will be wonderful!

Intelligentsia Cafe on Abbot Kinney. Felt like I walked into a Dwell Magazine layout. Seats are made out of concrete, there are no plugs and iced tea is $5. I don’t miss LA.

Today I will be catching up with old friends in Hollywood and tomorrow is Californication!

The view from where I’m staying in Redondo Beach

It’s not because I didn’t want to. I’m an adventurous eater and will try anything. I was born in a small town in Upstate New York which, for a long time, was about as ethnically diverse as Yanni concert. I grew up eating the food of first and second generation Italians and Greeks. We didn’t have options like Thai, Indian, Mexican or Ethiopian. My small hometown JUST got their first Mexican restaurant a few years ago and the majority of people who have never left said town are afraid to go in there out of fear that their taste buds will explode from tasting spice for the first time in their lives.

Even when living in Los Angeles, I didn’t eat Mexican food often. Unlike Austin, Mexican food is not as commonly celebrated in LA. It wasn’t on my radar because I was sidetracked by the exorbitant amount of sushi restaurants that city has.

When I moved to Austin, everything changed. As compared to Los Angeles, I feel that Mexican culture and history is appreciated more. There is more integration here, where in LA, everyone is segregated, even from their own feelings and morals. In Austin you have no option but to eat Mexican food at the minimum of four to five times a week. I quickly learned that trying to hunt down a bagel for breakfast was a moot quest. Breakfast tacos should be the official state flower of Texas.

Mexican food rules in Austin and the taco has become a symbol of hope, dreams and pride…and many drunken nights wandering down 6th Street pretending that you are Mario or Luigi and you must battle evil mushrooms and turtles.

Below is a compilation of some of the best taco tattoos on the web. I wouldn’t be surprised if these tattoos all belonged to Austinites.

Which one do you think is the best?

Sometimes I think my writing would be much more interesting if I were still a wandering soul.

I used to decry that as a confused early twenty-something my stresses prevented me from thinking creatively. Between the ages of 20 and 25 that I lived in Los Angeles, I did little to release my artistic passions. I was drowning in my self-made cocktail of existentialism and narcissism. Sick of hearing myself talk about my petty, but nonetheless troubling issues caused me to move to another city to “find myself”.

Which I did.

Now I’m boring.

I work from home, forget to change out of my pajamas and garden poorly.

I wouldn’t say that “I’ve figured it all out” though. Who ever does? In many ways, we’re ambling spirtis our entire lives; always searching, always learning and always changing.

However, I’m a far cry from the girl I was five years ago.

The girl at 23 didn’t know what she wanted in a career or in love. She thought she always knew herself, but for the first time in her life felt like a stranger to her actions and thoughts. She was saying and doing things that she thought was so unlike her, but in reality she was coming into herself the entire time.

At one point I was a really conflicted person. Not in a, “I eat heroin and have orgies with struggling musicians” kind of way, but more of a, “I’m going to drink here alone in my bed and drunk dial everyone I know, especially ex-boyfriends, until I pass out” kind of way.

I spent a lot of lonely and drunken nights writing nonsensical journal entries about wanting to be held by someone, then taking snapshots of my numbed and droopy face. Living in a city known to be alienating while working as a personal assistant to famous people did not bode well for my social or dating life. After working 10 to 12 hour days, I’d be too exhausted to leave the house and found more solace in my bottle of Grey Goose and camera than anywhere else. When I did date, I found men who weren’t interested in actually dating me and I told myself that I was ok with that, that I was looking for the same thing. Little did I know how much I was betraying my then hidden, but still alive somewhere deep down sense of self-worth and desire to have a healthy and loving relationship.

That girl longed to be the person she is now and sometimes I long to be that sad girl again. Only in a creative way. I’m realizing now that though I was paralyzed by my emotions and did little to express them creatively, it has created great fodder for my writing. At 23 I felt I didn’t have the life experiences to create anything worthwhile. Now I have an arsenal of them. I’m creating life experiences as I type this!

I don’t miss that girl because I want to be her again; I’m happy with the way my life is now. However, maybe I’m just longing for my youth. Those early days of holding onto hope and wonderment, of holding my breath and waiting for my life to happen to me. Or maybe I’m sad I wasn’t more of a mess, that I don’t have wild stories of debauchery and careless behavior to feed into my writing. No long list of one night stands, stories of drug-induced drives to Mexico or moments of near-death and spiritual awakenings to reference. I’ve always been the good girl, even when I wasn’t.

As an artist, it all seems so romantic, doesn’t it? Being a mess.

I just have to remind myself that it’s not.

In this week’s CultureMap article, “More than Trader Joe’s in store: Seaholm development targets ‘urban bohemians,’” managing partner of Seaholm LLC, John Rosato, used the titular term when describing the sort of clientele they want their future tenants to cater to. A lot of you thought the phrase “urban bohemian” sounded like the verbal equivalent of dragging your nails across a chalkboard, but I have news for you, it ain’t nothing new.

Try on this word for size: Bobo. Bourgeois bohemian. Does that make you want to throw up a little in your mouth, too?

“Bobo” was coined by David Brooks in his 2000 social commentary, Bobos in Paradise: The New Upper Class and How They Got There. The book describes the rise of upper middle class and their penchant for spending big bucks on organic food, brand new electric cars and all-American clothing.

They are a hybrid of the “liberal idealism of the 1960s and the self-interest of the 1980s” a.k.a. hipsters with money. Bobos are essentially good people, but their image evokes a twinge of jealousy and hate from the rest of us in “lower middle class.” We “lobos” (lower middle class bohemians) try to partake in the ideals of bobos, but only when we can afford it.

Thank God for food trucks.

If you’re not sure if you’re a bobo, here is a self checklist to find out…

CONTINUE

A love that dragged me through the valley of extreme highs and absolute lows.

My relationship with LA is one I’ve romanticized in my writing, my dreams and very somber moments drinking alone. She turned me from a child into an girl; a girl with worn edges and heavy heart.

At some point last year, I realized that girl metamorphosed into an adult. All the hopes and dreams the girl cried for in her loneliness came true.

She loves someone now, and she knows her path career-wise.

I think about the girl often and in random moments I miss her.

I mourn her passing when watching an episode of Girls or hearing a song by M83. My new adult way of thinking tells me I’d never want to be her again, but there is a part of her that still calls to me.

The girl used to lie on Venice Beach at night, staring at the stars wondering when it will all happen for her.

She never thought that day would come, but it’s came, and I’m going to run back to that beach next week full-circle.

I will be seeing old friends and former employers for the first time in years. I’ll also be on set of Californication. Hopefully I won’t say something incredibly stupid to David Duchovny.

LA, we meet again…

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