LAgain

My head hurts. OK here is how last week went, probably our most productive couple of days shooting we have had this entire time.

Thursday - We goto pick up Jarrod from the Sunset Marqui, where he is staying for the night. Then over to North Hollywood where Mark and Travis's studio is. The studio is fucking AMAZING. I would like to point out at this stage that it seems everyone has a studio, like EVERYONE. We meet Fred who is the +44 tour manager and he introduces us to Mark. Mark is super nice and super funny too. He is exactly like he is on stage and in videos and stuff. We do a great interview with him and swap contact details. Yep i am officially friends with Mark Hoppus now. YESSSSSS. Then it's over to Hollywood to interview the surfer Tim Curran. Tim is also making a record so we interview him at the place where he is recording. Tim is once again a super nice guy. After the interview he plays us some of his music and it's awesome. I think i see a tear coming out of our DOP Jarrods eye. This is possibly the best moment of his life. Jarrod has no place to stay tonight so i message Tim Armstrong to see if he can stay there with us, i tell him Jarrod is a BMX dude from Santa Cruz - Tim flips out and calls me asking if he's cool and if i trust him, i tell Tim that he is cool and that he will love him. Turns out, Tim does love Jarrod and all is sweet at The Armstrong residence. We go for dinner at a Mexican place in Silverlake that night with Tim and John, who is Tims engineer. This is the start of our sober week.

Friday - Wake up feeling great. Today we are off to San Diego to interview Tom Delonge and Rick Devoe, who managed Blink 182. We are cruising down the 5 listening to Young Love. I would like to also point out that ALL we listen to now is Young Love. If you haven't heard it yet check it out here. SOOOOOOOO good. Dude used to sing in Recover and now he's a pop master. Anyway we get to Toms studio which is also the Atticus/Macbeth office, warehouse and out back is this massive room with clouds and planets painted all over the walls with a blue neon light shining over them. This is the Angels and Airwaves, hang out, studio. The band are currently making their new record, Tom plays us a new song and it sounds sweeeeeeeeeeet. Tom's interview goes really well, i'd say it was one of the best interviews we have had. Tom is also really funny and he still speaks about dicks alot. Then we interview Rick, who is one of the nicest people ever and we are off back to LA. That night we get back to Tims and just chill, no going out for us, we are sober now.

Saturday - Wake up feeling great. Again. Today we are interviewing punk rock royalty. Brett Gurewitz and Greg Graffin from Bad Religion. Brett also owns Epitaph. We head to another studio where Bad Religion are making their new record. We meet all the Bad Religion guys and they are cool, Greg Hetson is on Myspace haha. Actually i am going to add him now i think about it. Cool added. OK so we interview Brett first, he is great and then we do Greg Graffin. We are probably at the studio for a few hours when Brian Baker comes up and asks if we live at the studio, i say "No we don't we are actually from Australia, we have just been here for a few hours to do the interviews"... After the interviews Jarrod leaves us to head back to Santa Cruz which is like a 5 hour drive north of LA. We will miss him. We have our man hugs and he is gone just like that. Bye Jarrod. Once again no alcohol intake as we are flying to Maui at 7am the next morning.

Sunday - Up at 4:30am. Dude. I only went to sleep at 2:30am(i was editing The Jai Show). Tired as shit. So we are flying to Maui, Hawaii today because we are going to be interviewing Dexter Holland from The Offspring who is out there making the new Offspring record. We get in at 9:30am and get a Mustang convertible hire car. Sweet. Then off to our hotel which is the Kamole Sands, pretty sweet place. Our hotel is more like an apartment, it has 1 bedroom, 2 bathrooms - so we each have our own space. Right now it is just Matt and I. Our crew are dropping off like flies. Tomorrow is our interview so today we just cruise around the island and take in some sights, Maui is beautiful, we drive along the cliffs and it's just so chill. The speed limit is like 20mph.

Monday - We have adopted Dennys as our place of fine Hawaiian cuisine. Anyway off to Haiku to the studio where Dexter is. We rock up to this amazing house that overlooks the ocean and this is where they are recording. Sweet deal Dexter. We meet Bob Rock who is producing the record, Bob Rock is a big deal he has produced records for bands like Metallica and Motley Crue plus he played Bass on the last Metallica record and was in their documentary 'Some Kind Of Monster'. Bob is cool and introduces himself to us, i'm thinking the whole time "Yep i know who you are BOB ROCK". Today because we have no crew our sound guy is called Mic Stand and we are shooting on my little Panasonic 3 chip, Matt Wardle plays the role of DOP today and i interview as usual. We look SO unprofessional. Oh that's right, we are fucking unprofessional! Dexter is cool and once again we hit the road. It's our last night in Maui - so we go and get 1 cocktail and then off to bed again.

Tuesday - Back at the airport flying back to LA. We should just live in LA or at airports because it seems all we do is fucking fly. The flight is 5 hours but goes by really quick, they give us a movie to watch and unlimited tomato juice. Thanks ATA. Back to Tim's house where we left all of our stuff. We get in pretty late and Tim is asleep. We then fade off to bed not before listening to hilarious comedy from David Cross.

Wednesday - Ok this week in LA is kind of weird for us. We have 1 more week to shoot 2 more interviews, Pennywise and Green Day. Once these are done we will have finished shooting and get to go home. Yay. So today we go and pick up another hire car from Hertz as the one we hired last night was too expensive, our luck with good cars has run out and we get a fucking Kia. It doesn't even have central locking. Fuck you Kia. Tim has 3 days to finish his solo record so we have to stay with Casey and Shannon for a few days, our friends from Australia that we met in LA. They're awesome and very very hospitable friendly people. Thanks Casey and Shannon. They're also the ones that live in Jim Morrisons last residence. We head to CPK for lunch, in the lift the kid that plays Stacy Peralta in Lords Of Dogtown is in the lift with us. What is even funnier is that morning i got an email from the real Stacy, so as soon as i get home i email Stacy and tell him i saw the fake him(Stacy Peralta directed Dogtown & Z Boys, and is one of my biggest influences). Tonight we are going to see The Ataris with Adrian at The House Of Blues. We get there WAY to late and they are about to play their last song. I'm kinda bummed out as i grew up on this band in high school and it was at an Ataris show that i first got to go backstage in year 11. Then they come back out and do a 5 song encore of stuff only from "Blue Skies" YEAH!!! I'm stoked, i think we got here just at the right time. It was pretty sad though because the venue wasn't even half full and i'm not sure exactly what happened. Then we are off to the Whiskey Bar at The Sunset Marqui, some dude hits on Adrian so we leave and head to the Rainbow where we drank til half past 2(Ataris reference), actually no they kicked us out at 2am because they were closing. I am super drunk at this stage, first time in a week and vomit everywhere. I think i may have started crying again. I suck.

My head hurts.

The Jai Show

Aloha

I have uploaded episode 1 to You Tube. This aired 2 weeks ago on Channel [V] in Australia, i think episode 2 will air this week or next. It's meant to be every Thursday between 4 - 5pm on What U Want.



I will upload Episode 2 and 3 soon.

PS - My last day in Maui :(

Homeless

So i'm meant to be coming home soon but i don't think this is going to happen. I am not meant to be in LA still, but i am. I don't know where i'll be living either...

Jim Morrison was ere...

Ok so it's been CRAZY lately. I am now back in LA again from New York where we were for about 4 minutes. Not sure how long we will be in LA for this time as now we have to fly to Hawaii to shoot Dexter Holland from The Offspring, as he is there making a new record. So here's what happened in the last few days.

Sunday - Flew to New York, passed out on the plane, i was still drunk from SXSW. Get to our friend Jackis house in New York where i always stay, she lives in the East Village right across from Niagra, it's an awesome spot. Today is Matt Wardles 22nd Birthday, so we goto dinner with his parents uptown, get really drunk on red wine and eat good food. Next we meet up with Jacki and Cheryl at Miu, then off to Employees Only which is fun. In another taxi. Now at Niagra, it's about 3am. Oh what i'm vomiting in the toilet, 2 dudes walk in and ask if i'm OK, i say sure rub my eyes. I think i'm crying. Get back to the apartment and start emailing Australia, i fall asleep at 6am.

Monday - 3pm my phone rings and wakes me. It's Tom from Universal Records, i have a meeting with him at 6 today. Shit. Outta bed and head up to Universal, takes me an hour to get home on the Subway(?) and i walk into the apartment and see Trinity there talking with Mata. Hi Trinity. Then her friend Irena comes around, she's a lawyer at MTV. Next is Laura. We all go and eat at this amazing Japanese/South American fusion place and eat lot's. It's myself and 5 girls, that's just how i roll. No big deal.

Tuesday - Up early again and back to JFK to fly to Los Angeles. So tirrrrreedd, i'm going off another 4 hours sleep. Once again i pass out on the plane. When we arrive, Tim Armstrong who we are meant to be staying with, is busy tonight and we need to find a place to crash. But first we are going to a fashion show for designer Joey Tierney in Culver City, we have never been to a show before and are on the list because our friend Mata did the jewelery for the show. Hot girls EVERYWHERE. Holy shit. I decide it's better just to look at the ground as i'm overwhelmed. Then we see Juliette Lewis walk in, next is Dustin Hoffman. They have front row seats on the cat walk, Dustin is shouting at the models as they come down the cat walk. Pretty funny. The show ends and we get invited to the after party. Thanks Mata. We get in touch with our friends Casey and Shannon who have given us a place to stay for the night in West Hollywood. Thanks Casey and Shannon. They live in the last residence of Jim Morrison from The Doors and there are Doors posters everywhere. Now off to the after party at Joeys house. We get in, lots of models around and a bar outside. We opt for the bar outside and drink about 500 tequila cocktail things. Man i'm drunk. Mike Dirnt of Green Day comes over and says hi, he gives me props on my hoodie. Nice guy. Party ends and we head to the after after party at Parc in Hollywood. I get in and sit in a booth with some of the models from the show tonight, they're really cool and we hang out for the rest of the night. When they leave some dude tells me that those girls i was speaking too were Sting's daughters. Woah. The Police are one of my favourite bands EVER. Matt is hanging out with Mike Dirnt all night and eventually we stumble out and head home. Once again DRUNK. I had my camcorder with me all night filming stuff for THE JAI SHOW, so expect some funny stuff once i get around to editing.

I don't know how long we will be in LA for but we are staying with Tim from tonight. Still have a bunch of interviews to shoot this week including Mark Hoppus, Tom Delonge, Tim Curran, Trevor Keith, Brett Gurewitz and Greg Graffin. Dom and Chalker have left us, so our new DOP is Jarrod from Santa Cruz. We just met him today and he's a BMX rider and makes BMX films. Cool dude. Oh check out what we are driving now in LA, we got a free upgrade :)



Our car the Dodge Charger.



Jarrod aka the new Dom.

Blurrrrr

Todays writing comes from New York City. I am currently extremely hung over at my friends house in the East muvafukn Village and i have to head to Midtown in 15 minutes for a meeting. Man i feel lame.

Anyway so the last week i have been in Austin, Texas for SXSW. Here is what i can recall from it, excuse me if i tend to be a little broad as my recollection of the festival isn't the best right now.

Wednesday - Flew into Austin with my bros, Stefan Wade and Matt Wardle. See Josh Pyke at LAX, he's on a different flight but heading to the same place. I love Josh, he's my bro too. Get in late - we are staying at the Sheraton with Stefan, meet up with our other bro Tex Perkins - then head to see Lily Allen but it's packed and we can't get in. We go and see Scanners at the Dim Mak showcase who are awesome and then head to see MXPX, their sound sucks so we decide to go home but stop off at The Bravery first, watch 2 songs and leave.

Thursday - My brain is killing me right now trying to remember what i did on this day. I know i got really really drunk but the exact order of events has left me. Fuck. OK no i remember. Get up real early and have breakfast with Adrian at the Driskill, he's cut off his glorious curly locks. Go and see Limbeck do an acoustic show for Xfm, head back to the hotel for a nap, wake, meeting at the Hilton, go to Pats showcase and see Ronnie Day. Bump into my friends Chris and Chris and also see Pat. Start drinking, drunk, drunk, gone.

Friday - Wake up hung over around Midday. Meet up with Adrian the drunk, he's still drunk. Goto the Aussie BBQ and see Children Collide who are awesome, get a sausage and leave to the Nylon/Diesel/Dim Mak house out of town. Honorary Title are playing, Limbeck are chilling, Matt and i start drinking free Vodka Red Bulls. Bad idea. I'm drunk again 3 and half minutes later. Ok so the rest of the day i think goes like this, got free jeans from Marnie. Thanks Marnie. Met up with Andy Jackson. More drinks. Back to the hotel for a bit. Dinner. Go see Hot Rod Circuit at Ellis showcase. Then off to the Diesel Party. See this awesome band called Matt and Kim. Leave there to meet up with Adrian. He just got a tattoo of a pig on his arm. He is wasted, it's hilarious. Head to the Pure Volume party with Laura at around mid might, i sing 90's punk rock songs with Andrew from Receiving End Of Adrian(sirens) for about an hour. Some girls try to interrupt us but we keep singing. I'm still drinking Vodka red bulls. Oh bad. Been drunk for 12 hours now. Jacki messages me, she's at a room party at the Hilton. Meet up with her, she's there with Matt, Dallas Crane and Trevor and Dan of Young Love. Leave around 4 or 5am. Get back to the Sheraton and wake up Stefan. I think he's angry with us. Night.

Saturday - Awake. Oh hello again hangover you fucking arsehole. Today is St Patricks day, i quit drinking. Have lunch, then off to see Love Drug at the Paste/Militia party. Frozen margahreta. Yuk. Back to the hotel for a nap. 8pm, Laura and Alex come over - we head to the Nylon party again. Marnie is playing. Vodka Red Bulls again. Jai drunk again on 1st drink. Hang out with Trevor and Dan again. Young Love play, they're my new favourite band. Soooooo good. Hang out in the vip room for some unknown reason with Mickey Avalon, he's a pretty nice dude. Then he starts playing. Good set. Hanging out again this time with Spank Rock. They play. AWESOME. Why am i even talking to these people? Matt and i walk back to our hotel, stop by some house party on the way full of metal heads, find some roller chairs and ride down the road. Get to sleep around 4am... 6am BRIIIIIIIIIIIINNNNNNG ALARM TIME. Oh shit no, flying to New York now. Still drunk. I'm a shit head.

zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Los Angeles is burning

Ok so our last week in LA. Chalker leaves us tomorrow morning at 5am. Dom, Matt and i all leave on Wednesday morning. Sad times ahead as this has been our home for the past 6 weeks and Dom & I don't even have a home to return to in Sydney. Woe is me and such is life. Whatever.

So here is my round up for the past however many days since my last blog.

Thursday morning we wake early to drive to San Francisco, we are heading up there to shoot some second unit footage of Fat Wreck Chords and Gilman St. Get to Fat. Awesome offices. We meet Mark there and everyone is super cool and nice, Fat's offices are pretty punk. Fat Mike has this zebra patterened carpet that actually hurts your eyes to look at. I think everyone there(excluding him) hates it. We finally find the correct Golden Gate Bridge and drive over it Full House style. Head back to LA and take a few wrong turns which adds 2 hours into our already 6 hour trip, boring. Get home and go meet our friends Emma, Shannon and Kasey for drinks at La Pourbelle. I love this place. It closes and we head back to our place for more drinks, Dom brings some dudes back who turns out is in Maroon 5. Night turns messy.
I bail. Dom is still up in the morning and the photos must be seen to be believed...


(Matt and the Golden Gate bridge, not the shitty Bay Bridge. Fuck that bridge)

Friday i have a meeting with my friend Chris who manages the All American Rejects, who we became bros with on the Simple Plan/Kisschasy/AAR tour back in 05. He works with Pat Magnarella who manages Green Day, i hang out with them both and ask if Green Day will be in our film. I have to get some footage to Billy Joe. Then off to LAX to pick up my friend Jacki, she's in town for the weekend. Get caught in traffic for 3 HOURS! Hey Jackson, thanks for flying in at 5pm!!!! Anyway drop her off at her friend Kates house, she lives in the same villas that the show 'The Hills(or poor mans Laguna Beach)' is shot. That night we head back to La Poubelle. I LOVE this bar. The bar does not love me back :(. Another after party, i fall asleep before it begins.


(the legendary 924 Gilman St)

Saturday is our BIG house party day. I'm excited. We have a sweet pad for house parties and a whole bunch of people have told me they're coming. I decide we should start it at 4pm, while the sun is out and have it on the patio. Good thinking Jai. Logical, right? WRONG. Nobody shows up for the first 4 hours, then my friend Brian rocks up with this girl Angela. I think she got too drunk and had to leave at this stage Dom and Chalker also leave, it's now branded "Jais party" because no one else wants the bruise to their self esteem from having a party no one shows upto. At about 11pm, Jacki and her crew come around. There are about 15 Australians in our house now including Tex Perkins and some dudes from Powderfinger. Everyone is cool, we leave to another party across the road that belongs to the dude that plays guitar for Tenacious D.


(My set up of snacks for the successful "house party")

Sunday is pretty chill, Dom, Matt and I go for lunch at the Mustard Seed in Loz Felis. Our friend and Something With Numbers manager, Stephen Wade get's into town and we go have dinner by the Troubador. We are heading to the Australian showcase there tonight and our new friend Tex Perkins put us on his guestlist. Thanks Tex. We see Henry Rollins is at the show, i'm super tired so i go home and watch American Hardcore - which has Henry all through it and footage of him bashing some dude. Sweet shorts Henry.


(I made this mess myself because there was no one else to make mess)

Monday, i wake up to Stephen Wade in our lounge room. I don't think he has many friends in LA. We then head to Epitaph where we are interviewing Rancid today. We have interviews set up with Tim, Matt and Lars. We are greeted by our new friends in the lobby of Epitaph which is this awesome old train station or something and do the interviews. Lars has us in stitches, he is fucking hilarious. Matt kept speaking about the Wiggles and Tim is Tim, one of the coolest guys ever and offered for us to stay with him when we come back to LA after SXSW. We took him up on his offer. Thanks Tim. That night i get home and speak to Tim Curran the pro surfer/musician on the phone, we were meant to interview him today but will be doing it next week instead. I eat In and Out Burger for dinner. I love that shit. Then my friend Martin aka PHDJ comes over at 1am with Stephen Wade. I guess Stephen does have 1 friend in LA. Tomorrow morning Stephen Chalker leaves us for New York. I will miss you friend. Photos below.


(Hanging out with Rancid at Epitaph. Dom is way more punk than Lars)(Kidding Lars)

I'm getting EVICTED... but i have my own TV show now

So first things first. Yes you read correctly, Dominic and I are being evicted from our beautiful apartment in Elizabeth Bay - even though we haven't been there for atleast the past 6 weeks. Apparently all the parties we were having in LA were SO loud that they travelled all the way to Sydney and pissed off our neighbours. Anyway i thought the situation could be rectified with our real estate agent seeing as though the noise complaints actually have nothing to do with Dom and I, but instead our friends that were living in our apartment while we were away. Turns out there were quite a few noise complaints made before the termination notice was sent to us and that "we" had been abusive to the other residents in the block. LOOK I KNOW WE'RE FUCKING ARSEHOLES SOMETIMES, BUT WE DIDN'T DO THIS, PLEASE JUST LET US STAY IN OUR HOUSE, STRATA... PLEASE. I DON'T WANT TO RETURN TO SYDNEY HOMELESS(or worse have to move back to Bexley). The funny thing is, i found out about this 2 days ago and i couldn't write about it because i was already having bad anxiety about the film and other stuff in my world.. But today i woke up and i was in a really positive mood, so i thought "WHY THE HELL NOT?".

Oh but what's this about my own TV show? Well, kind of. Channel [V] have asked me to do a weekly episode of my adventures abroad, we just finished editing and compressing the first episode the other night. I have called it THE JAI SHOW. I believe it airs every Friday on What U Want between 4 and 5pm. I don't write scripts or anything so we just kinda winged the first one but i think it turned out kinda cool and it's cheezy as hell haha. The other episodes will have me at SXSW, then New York, London and Tokyo. I'm going to be doing 6 all up. I'll try and get them online for those of you who don't have Channel [V], but hey EVERYONE SHOULD HAVE CHANNEL [V](wink).

I only have one more week in LA. It's kinda a bum out but this place is driving me mental anyway, i'm looking forward to leaving it for awhile and Austin is always FUN.

Until next time, you keep reading and i'll keep writing ;)

More than meets the eye

I'm obsessed with Transformers again. When i say again my last Transformers obsession ended when i was about 11 or 12, i kinda went in and out as a kid, listening to Michael Jackson and having mad battles. In the last week i have bought 11 Transformers from stores and bought 5 today off EBAY, i also bought 2 Transformers graphic novels from a comic book store on Melrose. Who needs girls when you have Transformers?

I'm kinda nervous about the Transformers film coming out in July this year. Michael Bay is directing it and there is a huge cast of HUMANS. Seriously who wants to watch a Transformers live action movie with fucking people ruining it? Also Megatron isn't a gun in this. I know some of you may think it's stupid that Megatron was a gun to begin with, but he was an awesome gun and i don't want him to be some sort of fucking plane. When i direct Transformers: The Movie 2, i am going to return him to a gun and get rid of all the fucking people. Google the trailer.

So this week in a wrap because i have alot of photos i want to share. Tuesday interviewed Joe Escalante from The Vandals, Wednesday caught up with my friend Karen from Australia went to a shitty club called Mood in Hollywood(i'm getting over shitty clubs) to get in she said she was our manager from Australia and we were called THE SCARE, straight in, famous like that. Thursday some other Australian friends came to our place to party, Emma, Shannon and Kasey. Friday, i don't feel well and i am not in love unlike Robert Smith. That night we go and see Zodiac at Arclight, it's reaaaaaaaaaaaaallllllllllyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy long and keeps you interested until the very end when nothing happens and you feel cheated. Saturday, went to Universal Studios, bought some more Transformers and went on 3 "attractions" - Back To The Future, Studio Tour and Terminator 2 show. That night had awesome Japanese with Karen and the entourage, went out to the Scorpion bar, then hung by the pool at the Rosevelt for a little while and then to the Beauty Bar. Caught up with my friends Laura and Adrian. Sunday, Adrian called me(sober) and we went to Los Feliz for lunch, cool area, we laugh about how we are both pathetic losers and then head over to Target to buy some toys. I indulge in Transformers while Adrian gets some Ninja Turtles. I am 22, he is 27. Whatever. In and Out burger for dinner tonight and we bid farewell to Karen.

Photo time:



Dom and Chalker on Thursday night enjoying the party.



Sign. Great. Grand.



What a dreamboat..



Fire at the Jaws "Attraction".




War Of The Worlds set, that's a real plane.



Dinner time at Tama Sushi. Best Japanese EVER.



Hello.



No i don't leave them in the packaging. I take them out and have battles. True story.