Local Indie Duo Branches Out with Latest Album

Oak and Gorski must raise $10,000 by this week (Oct. 1st).

They’re at around $9000. It’s pretty much an all or nothing deal. Please help them not fail. Thanks.

Oak and Gorski Album/Music Video/Press/Tour KICKSTARTER CAMPAIGN.

After you make your “contribution,” watch Ed shave his luscious locks and donate it to a charity of your choice. And/or have Ken come to your place during their tour and give you a private cello lesson. (No innuendo. It’s an actual cello lesson.) Hell…BUY Ken’s cello off him if you can. These guys have. no. limits. Nor shame for that matter.

Help them out if you can. Please. It’s for a good cause. =)

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Originally published in the Daily Trojan. (No longer archived on the DT website.) This is also the unedited version I originally submitted. I didn’t have any problems with the changes my editors made…except for them altering the entire perspective of the article by changing it from present tense to past tense. (Also, they asked for 1000 words. I gave them 1900…so yeah…cuts/edits obviously had to be made somewhere.) But yeah…this is how it originally felt.

Ken Oak, in a white long-sleeve shirt, jeans, and slightly messy hair that covers his face a bit, sits in a dimly lit, small, cozy Los Angeles cafe near Koreatown, nervously fidgeting just a bit. Ed Gorski, his bandmate, dressed in a moderately wrinkled grey button-down, cargo shorts, and a scruffy beard, leans back casually in his seat, one arm hanging loosely behind his chair. Both have faint but noticeable bags under their eyes — effects of the successful release of their new album at the Hotel Cafe in downtown Los Angeles earlier this month.

They are waiting for this interview, and this article, to get started as the cafe barista very slowly prepares the three mochas. The drinks arrive, Oak sits up, Gorski remains in his casual pose, and the interview gets underway.

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sneakerbeast

This morning, after hanging up my Adidas Star Wars Stormtrooper Superskates on my bedroom wall, while slipping into and admiring my laser-etched Jordan V’s and glancing over at my Olympic-colorway Jordan VI’s, Space Jam “Hare” Jordan I’s, exclusive-colorway Kobe IV’s…I realized that I’m NOT a “sneakerhead” — even after scanning through all the ridiculous prices for each shoe on ebay. (I, of course, bought them for much cheaper…mostly at the store.)

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Warm-Up

Write for 10 minutes. Introduce a character, a conflict, and end the mini-story with one of the provided phrases. (I chose “And then she closed the window.”)

Victoria sat in her room, staring out into the cold, winter day. She was very sad, but it was a different sort of sadness. She wanted to feel sadness, absorb every facet of it, use herself as a prism through which to reflect all of it through, to see and know the entire spectrum of it. She sat in the bed for a short while, her eyes wandering around her room and back out the window. She took in all the immense, blank, sad emptiness contained in the thin skeleton of trees scattered on the sea of frigid, unwelcoming grains of ice. But she kept noticing the drops of melting ice incessantly dripping from a branch of a tree. And within each individual drop she saw that they, for a brief moment, held the warmth of sunlight — everything that contrasted the bleak world around their tiny, coldly opaque bodies. Each drop flew through the air, splashing and spilling out their brilliant glory on the white, powdery canvas stretched out below them. And then she closed the window….

Song of the Day:

Radiohead – “Fake Plastic Trees”

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Shades

Awkwardness comes in many infinite shades,
like pretty faces.
Or homely ones.
Or senses of humor.
Or laughter.

And it’s merely a matter of finding a shade
that catches your eye.
Or mind.
Or taste.
Or touch.

Your awkwardness is what drew me in,
from your hidden corner, valiantly hoping against all hope
that no one will notice your very personal shade.

For now, this is all I need to find enjoyment.
I could see what other wonderful shades you have
later.

Songs of the Day:

Matt Nathanson – “I Saw”
Stars – “My Favourite Book”

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Take Off

City
lights
emulate
the night
sky, offering
up glowing
balls of
varying size arranged in systematic
constellations. Meteors with cone-shaped tails travel backwards
in long, predictable two-way paths. As the aeroplane soars higher
into the cold clouds of the night, I stare at civilization,
slowly but
surely, being
reduced to
empty
lights next
to dancing darkness.

Songs of the Day:
Teitur – “Poetry and Aeroplanes”
Elton John – “Rocket Man”

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