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Something is happening in my world...

Charles Francis Richter would be impressed with the momentous shifts, some detectable by the human eye, and some not, that are going on in the life of one Reverend Juli Crockett of the Evangenitals! To list but a few, I've suddenly decided to move from my (way too expensive) South Pasadena apartment that I have loved and lived in for over 2 years into a place that is WAY less expensive (literally half the price), bigger, and I love even more. Huzzah! And I'm going to be roommates with one of the Evangenitals' biggest fans, which is awesome. And perhaps a little weird, but more awesome than it is weird.

Patrick and I will be packing up our joyful, art-filled, vegan lives and our joyful, energy-filled vegan dog and taking this show on the road... just 5 miles away, but it makes all the difference in the world when I don't have to sweat about the rent payments and can focus on a life dedicated to making art -- outside of any semblance of a 9 to 5 job. I LOVE IT!!!

We're skipping school tomorrow to pack. :-)

Last Friday night Lisa Dee, myself, (that's Evangina!), guitarist Henry Bermudez, and Timothy Sellers of Artichoke all jumped in a car and drove to Austin to catch a taste of SXSW and play a day show on Sunday. It was a much-need breaking out and breaking away from the day to day, and also a grand display of willingness and mild insanity. The whole thing made me indescribably happy.

Brian and Jerimi, a WONDERFUL couple who restore any lagging faith that any of us could have in humanity and the generosity of the spirit, put us up in Austin and took great care of us. I barely know these folks, and yet they opened their hearts, ears, home, and fridge to us... for fun and for free. Incredible. I also discovered that Austin has free health insurance for musicians and the audiences actually TIP... what am I doing here? I love LA. It's twisted.

It was great to play with Izzy Cox. I've missed her. She is a powerful performer and I look forward to doing more shows with her when she comes out to LA again. We also DEFINITELY plan to return to Austin next year, if not sooner. Now that Henry is going to be playing with us, we are indeed a road-hungry band... we want to play play PLAY and bring the Evangenital joy to every pair of ears that will listen.

I'm going to be posting the photo-journal from the Austin trip on Flickr real soon. I'll post links here when I do.

Tonight we played a fundraiser show with Veruca Salt in downtown LA and we debuted a never-before-seen/heard Evangenitals lineup featuring Joey Ninja of Ninja Academy on bass and the aforementioned Henry Bermudez on lead guitar. It rocked my socks off! I am excited to be revisiting our old tunes with new energy and explore and reinterpret them -- stretch 'em to the snapping point and see what their spine looks like. Constantly changing, exploring, questioning, enjoying, refreshing... I dig it. "The Hole" almost burst into a Reggae jam tonight, people. It was AWESOME!!!

So, the short version is: the flow is flowing once again, the universe is giving me the green light on all things, it seems, and I am revved up and ready to GROW! The party is about to get started, and you're all always invited.

Love, always and already,
Juli

I friggin' LOVE my apartment in South Pasadena, but they keep raising the rent!! Arrrgh! So, I'm now looking for something affordable anywhere betwixt Hollywood and Pasadena (as in under $900, and the more under the better)

It would be for myself, my man, and our vegan dog Wookie.

Any ideas?

If you haven't notice, The Evangenitals are on a bit of a hiatus. Brett is working a film editing gig, the Valentine's Season has meant that Lisa got consumed by her Flower Industry job, George has been makin' bucks playing with Cash'd Out, and I've been trying to get my life in order and figure out what I really want to be doing with it at this point in time. I think everyone needed a big 'ol break after the Road to Oprah tour. Although, I am already excited about the next tour we take. I really liked touring, which is a good thing, considering that we're the type of band, I'm told, that is really going to make our mark (and money) on the road. I'm glad I'm cut out for it!

I just finished watching a BBC documentary about the Ocean called "The Blue Planet".  It's friggin' incredible.  This segment was on the "Open Ocean" -- sharks and dolphins and all kinds of other hunters and predators out there in the seeming wasteland that is the open ocean.  I saw bigger schools of sharks than I've ever seen on film before and seabirds that were sounding to depths of more than 15 meters.  Absolutely incredible.  Watching stuff like that always makes me really happy that I'm a vegan now. :-)

I'm really stoked to get back to watching Patrick's "Prehistoric Beasts" DVD's that he brought.  That series (also by the jolly 'ol BBC) is friggin' incredible as well.  So much good stuff to watch and learn!

We had our first improv practice today for our newly formed super-group "Hammerspace" that is going to be performing at the iO WEST on March 8th at 11:30pm in the Andy Dick Experimental Black Box.  Save the date!  Or don't... cuz I'm sure to be reminding everyone with ears when the time grown nearer.  That show is about a week before Lisa and I go to SXSW, and I hear there's a chance that Joey Ninja of Ninja Academy might be coming along to play with us, which would be ludicrous. 

Practice was really good for a first practice, even though Patrick and I both felt super-stiff and utterly bland.  Ah well, that's what improv class is for, and I've got mine tomorrow night!  I'm also starting a NEW (additional) improv class at PCC next week, and I'm pretty excited to be going back to a campus.  Yay for school libraries!  We're also hoping to take advantage of some of the open rehearsal space there for both improv practice and the History of Water piece.  Yay for resourcefulness and low-budget living!

My student loan money finally came in today, so I was able to do really important stuff like pay my rent... FINALLY!  Tomorrow I am in desperate need of a smog check, as my registration tags are expired and I've already racked up TWO "fix it" tickets that have to be settled by the end of the week.  Aye!  I hope I pass.  Also on the list of things to do is tune-ups for our bikes and buying student metro passes, right after I pick up my student ID, so I can stop driving that dang car anyhow and start riding bikes and taking the train as many places as possible.  Hooray!

I stopped by Evangenitals drummer George Bernardo's place today and got to visit for a bit.  There are some exciting developments on the horizon... such as a music video we're planning with Den and Nika Serras of Matterworks and some new recordings of tunes from the Road to Oprah tour to accompany the HUNDREDS OF HOURS OF VIDEO that has been shot. 

There's a chance that I may start performing with the Johnny Cash tribute band Cash'd Out, whom Georgie has been drumming with, filling in as their June Carter for the LA & OC region.  This, of course, would be like wet dream #4 come true for me, so I'm pretty friggin' excited at the prospect.  I'm currently working on learning the parts for 30+ Johnny Cash, Carter Family, and June Carter tunes, and I've almost got them all down.  Some day soon, if lady luck shall shine upon me, I will be up there crooning them oldies with probably the greatest Johnny Cash tribute band there is.  Glory be!

And to top it all of, I'm writing new songs, reading new books, and working on telling the world about The 1 Second Film.  Amen.

Today I did something I hardly ever do... I wore underwear. Why, you ask? Well...

I was having a theater-filled day with my main squeeze Patrick to celebrate the closing of the play (that he was starring in, that's right!) and one of the stops on our tour of Los Angeles theatrical offerings - right after seeing Del Arte's production "The Golden State" at the 24th Street Theater was the smash-hit sensation "Point Break Live" going down on weekends at Charlie O's Bar at the Alexandria Hotel in Downtown Los Angeles on Spring Street. Aww yeah...

Now, if you don't know already... Point Break Live is a live theatrical version of the awesome classic movie "Point Break" in which the Keanu Reeves character is picked from the audience. I had been invited to the show by friends involved with the production (Bill and his wife Anne - who's sister is the producer of the show) so I was real excited to go. My friend Shaughn Buchholz had recently gone and gotten picked to play the lead role of Johnny Utah, so I had a general idea of what we were in for.

So, the underwear. The underwear was for the rare chance that I got up the nerve to "audition" for the role of Johnny Utah AND was the audience favorite AND got picked by the director to play the part. If all of that HAPPENED to happen, then I would need to be able to do costume changes backstage... thus, the underwear.

As for why I never wear underwear... that is for another blog post.

As luck would have it... I *DID* muster to courage to audition for the role, and much to my surprise, I got it. That's right folks. For a few hours tonight, my name was Johnny Utah. I had to wear a wet suit, was soaked, smacked, fondled, tackled, squirted, and otherwise abused much to the delight of the crowd. I did exactly as I was told and delivered a most monotone and deadpan performance, only speaking what was on the cue cards, and only moving when told to move. I got to hang from the ceiling in a harness, chase a man through the streets with a gun, yell a lot, and learned to surf in the mix. It was exhausting and awesome.

I highly recommend the show. Tobias Jelinek, who plays Bodhi (the Patrick Swayze character) and Jennifer Jean who plays Tyler/the Lori Petty character (and studied improv at Second City AND we've had the same teacher - Scot Robinson of The Lampshades) were friggin' inspired. And Christi Waldon who was my personal PA and helped me survive the whole show was absolutely adorable.  I will be eternally grateful and in awe of her energy. 

Great cast, great concept, a great friggin' time at the theater. Thumbs up, yo!  What's more... I got the whole thing on tape! Woo-hoo!

All in all, today was a very good day.  I'm exhausted, I'm inspired, I've got fake blood in my hair.  It's a wonderful life indeed.

Of course your up set about this whole moving garbage.Check out these shirts I've made on Cafe Press.http://www.cafepress.com/noklahoma Together we can all say Noklahoma!!!If you don't know anything about this check it out at nba.com or espn.com.This fool is really actually trying to move MY team. what a stupid jerk.

So I was sitting at home starting to doodle on some music for this "History of Water" piece that I'm working on and I decide to try to play "WATER" on the guitar.  I figure the best way to do this is to convert the word to Spanish (AGUA) and play the nearest chords to those letters (I substituted "D" for the "U", since a "D" is like a "U" that fell over against a wall)... 

I ended up jamming for about an hour on what turned out to be a variant way of playing the Rolling Stones' "Sympathy for the Devil"

1. A call to adventure, which the hero has to accept or decline

2. A road of trials, regarding which the hero succeeds or fails

3. Achieving the goal or "boon," which often results in important self-knowledge

4. A return to the ordinary world, again as to which the hero can succeed or fail

There's a lot going on in Juli/Evangenitals land these days. The "day job" is just crazy as hell, so I won't go into that particular mouth of madness at the moment. The rest of it is full to bursting and only getting puffier every day.

This past weekend I went up to Vegas to meet up with my brother, Jaisen Crockett, the bomb-ass photographer, who was flown out there from New York to shoot a band -- KOR! Kinetic Origins of Rhythm (website, myspace page, and really awesome band photo taken by my brother forthcoming). I also got to see "Spamalot" which was lots of fun, play some video poker, go to the Ghost Town Calico, and take a bunch of silly photos with Ptryxxx, who was paying his first visit ever to sin city and did not leave disappointed.