Jennifer Maerz is out there around town getting some music for us. Lots of horns being thrown.
This round of writeups begins withÂ…..Slayer.

Or more specifically, Slayer Parking Lot at the HP Pavilion in San Jose. I'm totally down for a good tailgate party. There's something so American about being able to drink beer with your buddies in the late evening sun, stereo blasting, standing around on the blacktop -- even your buddy's pregnant girlfriend can come out for the show (that's dedication).

Seriously, though, everyone I met in the parking lot was really cool and really friendlyÂ…not that there were the Hessian throngs I was hoping to discover. The Law (or, I should say, the rent-a-law) cracks down on such delinquent behavior in these paranoid times. Luckily there are always rulebreakers.

Lots of tattoos to be shown, appreciated, studied.

These cool dudes were from Petaluma. They told me that if I "found myself in any kind of trouble" during the Slayer show to come find them and they'd take care of it Â… guardian "Angel(s) of Death" if you will.

Teenage girls got all the style.

Fanatical front row Slayer fans minutes before the band took the stage (I wasn't allowed to take photos of the opening acts but lemme paraphrase a friend who called this tour a "shit sandwich" - with killer sets from Mastodon and Slayer bookending a little Lamb of God).

I was standing in a small space between the almost-ready-to-pass-out loyalists (sporadically fed water from the security guards like gaping-mouthed baby birds) and the gigantic boots of Kerry King, a no man's land for a couple real photographers (and um, me). We were only allowed to inhabit that space for the first three songs but the whole time security guards were yanking moshers over the rail like they were rescuing survivors from a capsizing ship.

Slayer put on just the kind of show you'd expect - 200 percent aggressive, with lots of inverted crosses and skeleton imagery. Dependably manic and amazing. And since I am still new to the whole "live rock photographer" thing, a couple live blurs of the band.

A couple nights later we got our sweat on to a totally different beat from DJ Funk, a Chicago dude whose primary region of concern is the booty

Funk's released a couple gems with titles like "Bootyology" and "Booty House Rhythms," the kinda music that you throw on when you want to get yer air grind on.

His stuff gets tagged as ghetto house (similar to Detroit's deliciously crass, ass-obsessed ghetto tech) but really, throw a bunch of short-attention-span songs about titties out there on a Friday night -- when the club is hot like Indian summer in Miami -- and it loosens your shit up right.

Although some partiers preferred to finish their drinks first.

I finally got to meet Kid 606 that night. Love that dude's music (he does it all - experimental techno, thrash breakbeats, goofie glitch, indie electonica).

606 and my friend Tracie got good 'n' sweaty that night (as did everyone within a mile of the DJ booth).

There was a little dancing at the kickoff party for San Francisco Fashion Week (which happens at the end August, but for some reason the pre-party was the last weekend in July). Saw some fun styles.

saw some Miami Vice in the house (the movie did just open that weekend)

met Miss California (or Miss somethingorother, she was some kinda beauty queen..the lady one on the right)

Â…and "met" this douchebag bouncer dude who worked for this bar called Otis. The fashion party thing was directly in front of Otis; Otis was the only place to really pee; I'd been in Otis to pee like a half hour before; and yet all of a sudden this was Manhattan and Otis was Studio 54 and this dude was king of shit hill -- a place I was suddenly denied entry to because I was not a "member" of shit hill. I didn't even want to be a member of shit hillÂ… I just wanted to pee.

So we went where the real fashion show was happening, the bathrooms of the Four Seasons, to stage a very serious shoot inspired by all the hoopla around us.

Serious self-portrait of peeing at the Four Seasons.

Serious portrait of my friend Brock escaping mean Otis bouncers in the hotel elevators.

And then, fuck it, time for the Phone Booth -- no membership required.

Where it was totally cool to crash this dude's birthday

and yet we didn't leave the realm of Crockett and Tubbs completely.

{moscomment}

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