(Originally published on Helloooooo.com April 14, 2009)

Ladies and Gentlemen, Boys and Hipsters: Coachella is almost upon us. With that, there are certain responsibilities and acceptable behaviors that one must abide by when attending The Festival of All Festivals. Count your blessings because the Commandments below are ten years in the making from the same folks who brought you the Ten BBM Commandments. Also, if you have not started starving yourself yet, then by all means go get yourself the largest cup of Ultra-Extreme-Columbian coffee 7-Eleven sells, kick your feet up, and pay close attention. Without further ado, Gilberto, Shok and The Doc present The Ten Coachella Commandments…

1. Never ever let your friends convince you to put down the $5,000 security deposit on your rental home. All the “I promise to pay you back”‘s in the world will not magically take money out of your friends’ bank and land it into your over-drafted account. (Side note: If you are renting a home from a family by the name of ‘Zimmerman,’ return your deposit and tell them to go fuck themselves — trust).

2. Don’t tell anybody you have bought your ticket or even done anything that would remotely suggest that you have your plans figured out…this could put you in a position to figure out their plans too.

3. Don’t be seen in the “Beer Garden” — people might think you are broke, the recession has affected you, and you cannot afford VIP.

4. Be cautious when taking the biggest SUV among your friends down to the concert; though you will get the most bang for your buck (read: Artist Parking Pass), you can expect a great deal of arguing as either a) one of the 12 people in the car’s ecstasy wears off, b) one friend wants to stay for Felix the Cat (who?), or c) you are lucky enough to be with one of “those” people who can only use hotel toilets.

Gilberto’s 2006 Coachella Ho

5. Don’t be caught dead putting “House of Hype” as your blackberry status — even if you are staying there.

6. Don’t forget to fill up your house’s kitchen with the basics: Gatorade (orange, obviously), tequila, flour tortillas, cheese, water, Crown, club soda, Doritos (red), eggs, cold cuts, and of course beer (for those annoying “how do I know you?” guests who roll up empty-handed).

7. If any of your friends is adamant that they are not going to Coachella, they for sure are going. If they call you in the days before the festival, they for sure are trying to “crash on your couch.” Our advice: Don’t answer their calls or open their BBMs. Again — trust.

8. Don’t complain about the line-up and how three years ago was soooooo much better. Shut the fuck up, put on your American Apparel tee, and enjoy the show. And while you are it, for the love of God don’t come to the event at 3 and think you are coming fashionably late…everybody knows not to come before 6.

9. Ladies, this one is for you. It is not OK, under any circumstances, to think that it is cool to wear cowboy boots in the 110-degree desert weather. No, you are not in Austin and the amount of bacteria that is cultivating inside your shit-kickers is probably enough to kill a small village. Or at least the entire Sahara Tent.

10. And last but not least, don’t ever trust any friend who tells you he can make you a VIP or Artist wristband. That might have worked back in the day (aka 2001)…but those days are long gone, Mr Greenberg. Also, don’t bother showing up to the event without an Artist Parking Pass. You might as well not buy a ticket and spend Coachella in the parking lot listening to your eight-track player, watching your fellow ragged commoners.

The LA Times ran a very interesting article today on an LA-area classroom of 10th graders that were challenged by their teacher to put away all electronics — BlackBerry’s, iPhones, iPods, etc. — away for a week and journal their results. Snippet from the article:

Cesar Rodriguez knew he was addicted to electronic devices. But the Los Angeles 10th-grader had no idea just how sick he was.

“I can’t stand it,” he wrote in his journal on the second day of a one-week attempt to survive without television, iPods, cellphones, BlackBerrys and computers. “I woke up last night but I was still kind of asleep and I was having a dream about my phone and I started to bang my head against the pillow. I AM GOING CRAZY!!!”

Cesar, I feel you brotha.

(photo credit: Christine Cotter/LA Times)

OK, so the phone is not an official Los Angeles Lakers product by any means, but I know my main man Kobe would approve. So would Jerry Buss. Shok made it official the other night that it is time to start thinking about Coachella, so this is the first move I think I’m gonna make on my mission to gear up for the desert. Make your own rendition at www.colorware.com. And at a price tag of $149 – $189, you may want to really try and not drop your phone wrecklessly on the concrete…again.

Several millenia ago, Moses triumphantly brought us The Ten Commandments and gave civilization a solid moral standard to live by. Many generations (and blunts) later, the Notorious B.I.G. blessed us with his Ten Crack Commandments, finally laying to rest the age old question of whether or not we should we get high on our own supply (we should not). Today, in 2008, we find ourselves in a  BlackBerry world and with that, the greatest communication apparatus of the 21st century: BBM or Black Berry Messenger for you uncivilized touchscreeners. As with any blessing, however, there comes heavy responsibility. With that said, ‘the doc’ and I present to you THE TEN BBM COMMANDMENTS. Please PING!!! responsibly…

1. Thou shalt not steal bbm symbols and abuse their usage so the original owner can no longer use them

2. Thou shalt never use more than 2 letter variations (Ä®ç) in your BBM name

3. Thou shalt not change your status to signify places you will be at for less than one hour (i.e. drycleaners, no; Lakers game, yes)

4. Thou status should be breif, to the point and above all funny/clever/witty

5. Thou shalt not change your name more than three times in a single 24-hour period

6. Thou shalt post your new PIN for at least one full day upon swapping thy Berry out (or risk a Board-approved deletion)

7. Thou shalt always PING!!! those who (believe) they are above PING!!!

8. Thou shalt add friends that send you their pin via text; it is rude and unacceptable to respond back to a PIN text with your own PIN

9. Thou shalt not make your status unavailable unless at the following places: a funeral, a flight, in class, getting massagey (regular and special), and of course, “in a meeting”

10. And last but not least, if you have a heart in your name and you are a male, you are gay. If you have a heart in your name and you are a female, you are a slut. (Unless of course you are related to us, which in that case, change your fucking name) ]]> http://www.helloooooo.com/2008/12/the-ten-bbm-commandments/feed/ 22 http://www.helloooooo.com/2008/12/an-incurable-case-of-the-runs/ http://www.helloooooo.com/2008/12/an-incurable-case-of-the-runs/#comments Mon, 01 Dec 2008 13:30:04 +0000 gilberto http://www.helloooooo.com/?p=629 Continue reading →]]>

I suffer from a chronic, incessant and hands-down obnoxious disease. It affects me everyday, whether I am at home or on vacation, at high altitudes or low, watching a movie or sacrificing a baby lamb to the Blackberry gods. Recently it has even begun to affect those around me. I suffer from what I like to call “batterhea.”

Batterhea [bat-uh-ree-uh] can be defined as the constant and streaming loss of battery life. My phone cannot hold its juice, so to speak. A daily melodrama I have to deal with that almost makes me want to kill someone. Whether at work, at home, in my car, a luau, a baptism, a circumcision party, or in line at the DMV–my battery indicator is blood red. My phone drains battery like its going out of style. If battery life were executive bonuses, my phone would be Lehman Brothers Exec–just dishing it out with no consequence. I own so many home/car chargers stashed all over the place that the Justice Department investigated me for trying to corner the market. The whole thing is ridiculous.

Deciding that enough was enough, last week I went to my local, cheery AT&T store for the THIRD time to swap out my Bold for a new one, still convinced it is impossible that a brand new phone that took 23 years to develop and incorporates materials collected from Mars’ surface cannot last me past lunch time. Of course my problem was an isolated one, “Timmy” the manager insisted. “But sir, why the hell is my battery life so crappy?” I asked. Timmy replied that the 3G network can often be “difficult on the battery life.” Great, the whole reason they made the damn phone had just been prescribed as the source of its own downfall (and eventually mine). I though that I could either a) tell Timmy what I thought he could do with his 3G network or b) gouge out Timmy’s right eye with the sharp end of my courtesy plastic holster. Not wanting to cause a scene, I decided to exit quietly. Besides, I had a brand new phone that needed to be charged.