Finding your way in Los Angeles

It is already 3,5 weeks now I am living in Los Angeles. To be honest, it is easy to adapt to the Californian lifestyle. Starting to like this!
As promised in the previous blog, I will use this blog to write down what is happening here in Los Angeles during my 5 month stay. Kick of this time is 'project car', so fasten your seat belts!!

                                               Project Car 2

The research for a convertible almost turned into an obsession; I probably visited every car sales website in and around Los Angeles. Finally made a selection and went over for test drives as well as a connection with the car salesmen and their companies. Every piece of the puzzle came together at LA Cars Repo 2, except the website maybe...: a pleasant car salesmen (he still texts me to ask if everything is fine), a solid Saab 900 S convertible, a good price and last but not least...While walking up to my car they played 'Man At Work - Down under', an all time Aussie favorite of me and my girlfriend.

What's happening?

In the process of moving to LA a lot of people introduced me to people they know. Several funny introductions have passed, but this one I definitely want to share with you:

Hey John,

A very cool friend of mine is relocating from Amsterdam to LA for the next 5 months and his interest is to network into gay midget porn! HAHAHAHAH - just kidding.

Thursday February 9th I was invited by the manager of Pretty Lights for the premiere of the Re:Generation Music Project: 

FIVE DJs TURN THE TABLES ON THE HISTORY OF MUSIC

Follow DJ Premier, Mark Ronson, Skrillex, Pretty Lights and The Crystal Method as they remix, recreate and re-imagine five traditional styles of music. From the classical perfection of the Berklee Symphony Orchestra to the bayou jams of New Orleans jazz, these five distinctive DJs collaborate with some of today's biggest musicians to discover how our musical past is influencing the future.

The premier was in the amazing Chinese Theater in Hollywood. While watching the documentary I found myself sitting among the artists involved with the project and Tommy Lee, LeAnn Rimes, Erykah Badu and the existing members of The Doors. After the premier we went to an afterparty where I met the talented Eskmo and bumped into Eva Mendes. What a way to start!!

The night ended very funny by the way: since my car was not ready yet, my roommate Jillian gave me her car this night. As you might remember from my previous blog, she is an instructor for Pet-CPR so her car looks like this:

The event was sponsored by Hyundai, there were a lot of limousines and there was valet-parking at the afterparty. While waiting on my car - as everyone else who left the party - I was talking with the guys from The Crystal Method when suddenly this 'dog car' arrived: everyone had a blast and The Crystal Method declared this car to be 'the coolest car of the party' - you have only 1 chance to make a first impression!

Friday February 10th I was invited to go bowling with the crew from CSI:NY. It was a long time ago I did this and definitely not my best shot...

The weekend ended with the birthday of Josephine Vandergun in the Pacific Palisades. Met some great people, played some music and watched the Grammy's. What a great view she has!!

                

Hein & Nina
Thursday February 16th Hein Meurer & Nina Poot arrived in Los Angeles. After picking them up from the airport we had lunch at Gjelina. Nina was very happy to sit next to Josh Hartnett. After some Santa Monica shopping we had a beer at the rooftop of Hotel Erwin in Venice.
Postponing to go to bed for their jetleg, we had dinner at Sunny Spot with the Deus crew. I was sitting next to a member of Empire of the Sun (again an Aussie favorite): we went for some more drinks afterwards, great guy!!

Friday February 17th we had lunch with Jordi Bouman, who introduced us to Maor Cohen: a very unique designer. That night Deus opened their 1st shop in the US (Venice): very cool place where I will definitely be hanging around the next couple of months.

After a short meeting on Friday with Touriya Haoud & her husband Greg Vaughn we all had dinner together on Saturday night @ Katsuya in Brentwood. We had a lot of fun and hopefully we will meet again soon.

The introduction with Maor Cohen lead to a meeting on Sunday morning again. This took longer then expected, which almost made Hein & Nina miss their flight. Unfortunately I received my first parking ticket but fortunately Hein & Nina made it just on time to get their flight. Thank you two for these exciting and energetic couple of days! Hope to see you both back soon 

Funny
O yeah, almost forgot...While sitting on 1 of my favorite spots in Venice, Steve Kardynal asked me to be part of 1 of his legendary YouTube videos, skip to 2.56...

Music

The 1st blog showed the Ringer end scene which featured the track of 'Eelke Kleijn & Astrid Kunst - Cold hands'. Because of the overwhelming requests for this track, we have decided to release it. It will be available on iTunes, Amazon and Spotify soon as well. 

Listen to the track now by clicking on the picture.

This blog I would like to end with a mix I have made for Proton radio, Groovecollection podcast and for VRIJ Festival, Enjoy!