~ i just woke up on the couch in the studio, because the ‘playground design’ class rudely began two feet away from me. without acknowledging any of them, i get up and walk to my desk, where i find that someone has left a sign that says ‘this is revolting’ on the roof of one of my models. i know that who the culprit must be, because i saw someone put the same sign on her crap last night. she is the biggest waste of space and resources in the studio, and she has decided to also be the most annoying by bringing a freaking german shepherd into class everyday – everyday that she actually shows up – for the past week. it lies on a drenched sheet of cardboard and slobbers into a huge bowl of cottage cheese that has been lying unrefrigerated for days. i couldn’t take looking at it anymore, so i pushed all of the dog’s crap back under her desk and covered it with the cardboard. i don’t know what possessed her to think that i wrote the sign, but i am intrigued as to whether she actually approaches me about it.
   it is revolting.

~ three more days before i can start enjoying los angeles again.

~ i go home at 5h30am and try not to weep as i set my alarm for 7h30am, knowing that i will have a painful lack of sleep before i have to get up and drive to the freaking valley. i lay on the couch and cover my face to keep phobos from harassing me, and i am asleep in minutes…for a little more than an hour. at this point, the freaking dwp [w] shows up and starts annihilating the street immediately in front of my living room. why would anyone find it to be appropriate to tear into the street with jackhammers at seven in the morning, especially as they know that they could be costing someone, like me, 25% of his night’s sleep?

~ why do they have to compound the noise by doing it on the same day that the garbage trucks arrive?

~ why, after waking up an hour early, am i still 30 minutes late to my class in the freaking valley?

~ the firestone on la cienega is definitely my new favorite place for having my flat tires plugged. the mechanic pulled the tire from the trunk and pointed at the screw that was poking out of the rubber and said, ‘all i can do is put a plug in here, as the tire is obviously no good.’ he indicated the fact that there is no longer any tread visible on the tire. in the past, los angeles tire dealers have refused to repair my flats, as the tire ‘wasn’t worth it’.
   me: how long is this going to take?
   saul: i can do it right now.
   me: so i can wait?
   saul: yep.
i wander and wonder around the parking lot, confused as to why he didn’t send me away until tomorrow, as most tire dealers are prone to do. the tire is back on car in minutes, and i am only 30 minutes late to work [w]. i get all this for only $10.

~ i did not attend today’s thesis research presentations, as their organization was both absurd and insulting.

~ i come in at 09h30 to present my ‘west hollywood living’ project – a fiasco – and i check my email, and i see a note from my thesis advisor stating that we have a presentation the next morning. twenty-four hours before the presentation, the advisor informs us of it. why this advisor could not tell us two weeks earlier or one week earlier or even one day earlier is beyond me. surely, this advisor knew his one plans for leaving town before this morning and could have told us the schedule. then i remember that this the same i have given this advisor three copies of my thesis proposal, and i have had zero of them returned. this is the advisor who has met with the group six times in a fifteen week semester; this is the advisor who told me that i was to wait in the hall to see if there was time to meet me, though i had an appointment a half hour earlier. this is the advisor who sent an email at 8am to cancel a 10am meeting, which was the first in two weeks.

   so, my thesis research course at sci-arc has been a sore disappointment. i don’t think that this is always the case; some people consider themselves very fortunate to have the advice of their instructors. i suppose it is just my bad luck and bad planning to become involved with someone who either is more concerned with getting his or her face on a poster than with answering students’ questions. perhaps, though, this advisor really wants to help, but just does not know enough to be of any benefit to anyone; perhaps, then, this advisor, through, ignorance, believes that a great deal of successful advising is going on. however, this does not explain the advisor’s arrogance and antagonism when concerns about the class are voiced; perhaps, then, this advisor does know of his own shortcomings and is trying to hide them behind his snide comments. no, this advisor is not an educator; this advisor is an architect. this advisor’s work is as ‘brilliant’ as the instructing is lackluster.
   at least i will have the chance to spend this summer writing my proposal again, after i fail this semester…

~ for those who relish the intensity of the lifestyle, as though architecture school will bring you to the brink of existence, you should appreciate the ordeals of the past 24 hours: i was a participant in a minor car accident which deposited a number of swallows of very fresh coffee onto my face, neck, chest, and stomach; i managed to pick up pneumonia, though the temperature is in the 70’s in los angeles; my car had its third flat tire in a year, so, being too exhausted to change the tire at 4am, i slept in the parking lot. i don’t feel such intensity.

~ for those who feel the need to respond to something in this freaking log, the place to do it is here; the place is not my at desk, or in the classroom, or in the computer lab, or in the hallway, or especially during my lunch, when i am covered with iced tea and salsa verde.

~ a woman from the studio accused me of ripping off vir2l [w], because we – vir2l and i – both use cubes and squares on a line; we looked at the sites, and i tried to explain that they are organic, fluid, and sentient, while i am mechanical, clumsy, and naive. all the while, i felt i was ripping off ziggen [w]…

~ i was waiting for hermann hertzberger to lecture at sci-arc [w] for weeks, excited to hear from the man with the greatest understanding that folks are going to have to live in ‘our’ building. shocked at how close some of his words came to the words that i had just written for my thesis advisor to ignore, i go back to studio to mull over his lecture, wondering if i could use a transcript or a video of it for my thesis research bibliography. i walk into the lecture hall to see that he has already gotten out, and the crowd has dispersed. i see a former instructor of mine fumbling with an accordion of paper.
   me: have you seen that old man who just gave that lecture?
   him: i don’t know; he wants me to have dinner with him for some reason.
   i see them at the end of the hallway.
   me: there he is. i see that he’s already been mobbed.
   him: well, if you want to talk to him, this will probably be your only chance.
   this will be my only chance not only tonight, but for the rest of my life. i follow the instructor over to the dinner party; he begins speaking with the other guests, leaving hermann free. i push between hermann and an old woman, and i ask for permission to ask a few questions. he smiles and lets me begin. i gush and fumble, trying to focus on the words that will interest him the most. when my awkward performance ends, he answers.
   hermann: yes, i have two books for you.
   i grab something on which i can take notes, as he rattles off the titles of the two books which he himself has written. he is carried away by the mob; i stand in the hall scratching my chin.
   i wonder what else i could have expected from someone who looks at slides of his own work and says ‘nice’.
   nice.

~ lest the angry red planet suffers more accusations of thievery, i have sought my own photo of angelyne. she is located on highland, in the middle of my very long friday drive from west los angeles to the freaking valley.

~ all of the images from the angry red log have been placed into film strip; start and stop on the photos which you would like to view movie. flash required.

~ star sighting: weeks ago, i was driving through koreantown with an out-of-town-guest, trying to turn left onto pico, and waiting for the traffic to clear. a pink corvette comes across the street, forcing me to wait longer; before it passes, i get a look at the bumper, upon which is emblazoned the name ‘angelyne’.
   me: look! look! it’s angelyne!
   guest: what?
   me: and she’s in the freaking corvette!
   guest: (repeatedly) who is angelyne?
   me: actually, i don’t really know…she’s on billboards everywhere, so she’s famous, but she’s only famous for being on billboards…
   finally, was able to steal from one of my students, a picture.

~ mailbox: two very thick copies of ‘driver side airbag’ [w], the eclectic compilation zine by los angeleno m. halchin.

~ i’m about to fail thesis prep, flat depth has me seeing red, and i haven’t worked on studio all weekend; i’m burning at both ends to get some degree of useful freaking work done. the most appropriate response to a predicament like this is a redesign of the angry red planet. take a look at version 4(*link removed), but please remember that it is very much in progress, from hour to hour, between the 864 freaking marks i am making to find the value of erasure… expect some pieces to still be closed at this point, but if you find a broken link or image, why not tell us?