bhofmeister13

Edward II

2008-10-17T17:49:00.002-05:00

I went to see Edward II last night at the upstairs theatre of the Chicago Shakespeare theatre. The aforementioned link is to a review from the reader, which is a bit ambivalent, but I liked it very much. I would highly recommend this play to anyone. What was really cool was that half the tickets available were "promenade" tickets, where the audience sits amid the action of the play. The other half of the tickets were for what the director called "zoo seats," above the stage. It was very interesting to have the actors be sometimes inches from your face, yelling, crying, laughing sodomizing. Yes, I said sodomizing. That happened at the very end, and it was with a hot poker and it made a woman and her daughter walk out. The acting was excellent, the set design so moody and dark and the costuming made me want to change my whole wardrobe. Kind of a Polo Ralph Lauren meets Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome.

Tonight: Hercules and Love Affair at the Metro.

2 romantic things you can do for someone you love

2008-08-14T10:20:00.002-05:00

There are two really cute things that are pretty unique that you can do for someone you love right now. One of them, unfortunately for my out-of-town readers, is Chicago-specific, but the other anyone can do from anywhere they have an internet connection.

So, the first, which is Chicago-specific, is called Pink: A (love) Courier Service). Here's a link to a review on Oh! How Lovely. Anyway, this was really convenient for me, since it's located on North Avenue pretty much smack dab between home and work, at the St. Paul Cultural Center, 2215 W. North Avenue. Basically, you walk into what used to be a church basement and there are all these people dressed in factory-style get-ups of white with pink trim. There's this neon pink dotted line on the floor and it's a little meandering and they ask you to follow it exactly and there's this little curly-queue in the middle of a straight walk to the first "station" where someone greets you and tells you about the project and give you your stationary and a form to fill out, which includes a sort of release asking if it's ok if they print your letter. They then direct you to a station of old-fashioned typewriters and books of poetry collections that you can use for inspiration. You then write a love letter using this little typewriter. I must say, I was swept away by the whole experience and therefore laid it a little thick in my poetic license, but it was ultimately received "with the perfection with which it was intended (a direct quote from the letter, btw)," so I was pleased. Anyway, after you finish the letter, someone comes and takes it from you and tells you, "now this is very important. When I take your letter and put it on this clothesline, I need you to yell very loud 'love on the line.'" So she does, and I do, and all the little workers in their pink and white coats yell back, "LOVE ON THE LINE!!" It was all very cute.

After your letter is finished, they put it in a little glass bottle and then a shoe-box with other bottles in the same zip code and volunteer bike messengers hand-deliver them to their intended destinations. And all of this is for free.

As I finished typing this, I realized that I'm almost too late. Pink closes tomorrow. Maybe they'll extend it? Either way, you should rush out and check it out. It's Friday night tomorrow night. What better things do you have to do than express your feelings to someone?

The second thing is just as awesome.

A while back, I was friended on myspace by this band, Wrapping Paper. I kind of liked the name, so I decided I would at least listen to their music. A few weeks later, I finally did. I listened to their first song, Hold Up The Neon Sign, which I actually liked a lot, despite a not-so-great sound quality. It sort of reminded me of early The Arcade Fire. Anyway, it still wasn't exactl enough to let me friend them, and I put it off another week.

The following week, I checked them out again and I still liked the first song and the other songs were not as much to my liking, but I noticed that they were also a little simpler in composition, and I saw potential. But then I noticed a posting in their blog. Something about "Your own wrapping paper song!" So I clicked on it and they said that if you purchase their e.p. (for a mere $6.00), they'll write you a song about anything you want.

They also created a myspace page for songs written for people who bought the e.p. When I went to the page, he had a song called William the Wiener Dog, but it's gone now. It was really cute and had this part about all the things William the Wiener Dog likes and it made up my mind right there that I was going to do this. That song is gone now, but you should hurry and go listen to Kurt Vonnegut vs. Jane Austen, which is my current favorite song on their but I think it'll be gone soon. There's also a sloth song, which most of you know, is my second favorite animal. So that's pretty awesome.

Anyway, I bought the ep and sent a message right after and I thought for sure that he'd be all backlogged with requests and it would take weeks before I got my song. I sent him the message at about 9:30 am on Saturday. He sent me one message back a couple hours later saying he'd either have it that day or the next day, and he had the song to me the same day about 12 hours later! And it was awesome!

I gave him some specific details about my boyfriend and I thought he'd get creative, but he kind of used my words verbatim for a lot of it. I think if you're less specific, like in the sloth song and the Vonnegut/Austen song, he'll wikipedia the subject and sing some random things. Either way, they're cute songs and it's a super unique gift for someone special to have a song written about them.

So, go do those things now.

Hot Men of Lollapalooza 2008

2008-08-11T22:21:00.002-05:00

It's that time again. Here are some of my favorite hot men of Lollapalooza this year. Hope you enjoy.

This was my last man photo of the weekend.

I kinda just liked this guy's shirt.

Definitely one of the hotter Lolla staff photographers. The others, notably, were certainly not slouches, though.

Sweet tattoos and smile.

Dancin' Bears.

Cute guy with amazing tattoos.

One of my favorites of the weekend.

This guy totally caught me, but I totally caught him doing the same thing on this big muscley dude minutes later, so I didn't feel bad.

Hot duo.

My most-photographed photographer of the weekend. I just liked his style.

The super-hot bass player of Brazilian Girls.

Hot security dudes.

Band crush of the weekend: Ryan from Octopus Project.

These guys are totally cute. I know I see them around town sometimes, too.

I don't know who this guy was, but he was somebody. He kept popping up in the photo pits, but he didn't have a camera. Either way, it was nice bumping into him. ;)

Yum.

Kidzapalooza sound guy with a great smile.

This was my buddy's favorite for the weekend. A photographer for UR Chicago.

If one looks closely, one will notice that this guy is in my "hot guys of pitchfork 2008" too.

So, this was just my favorites. You can see all 144 images from this on my flickr.

Jolie, Again.

2008-08-11T13:22:00.001-05:00

I was at the car wash, of all places, and reading an interview with Angelina Jolie in Vanity Fair (which I love) and I all but broke down and cried because she was talking about the passing of her mother and having to explain it to Maddox. It was very moving. Why does everyone give her such a bum rap?

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Dental Damn

2008-08-11T12:21:00.001-05:00

Just got back from the dentist. Boo! How did 1 cavity turn to 3? At least I got a vicoprofren script out of it.

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My Inheritance

2008-08-10T13:33:00.001-05:00

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I'm published

2008-08-05T15:11:00.001-05:00

Here's the recap of Lollapalooza I wrote for Paste Magazine online. The words are mine, and despite losing 5 pounds and taking over 2000 photos, the only photo of those I took was of Perry Farrell and Slash at the very end.

no further evidence required that I'm a fracking nerd

2008-07-16T09:02:00.003-05:00

First, this morning I dreamed about meeting this guy who was talking about his dungeons and dragons character who was fighting these enemies and how challenging it was to kill them, until he realized they were undead and then he used a particular spell and they were much easier to kill. "Imagine doing 6d4 damage every time, with a real low-level spell," and so on.

Then, this morning on the way to work, an npr film reporter is talking about the new Batman movie and how there are two kinds of people in the world, whether they know it or not: Marvel people or DC people. Not only was I in agreement, but I even nodded my ahead and said, "oh yeah, he's right," aloud to myself in the car.
At the end of the report, a woman mentioned that the reporter writes under the Wildstorm imprint (which is a subsidiary of DC) and I literally got chills.

See? Proof. All you need.

Jolie Dream

2008-06-30T23:44:00.001-05:00

I woke up this morning at three o'clock from a dream and it took me forever to fall back asleep. It wasn't exactly a nightmare, but for some reason, it shook me awake the same way a nightmare does.

I dreamt that I met Angelena Jolie at a party. In the dream, I'd met her once before, too. And she'd borrowed a pen from me. Anyway, we're at this party and when I start talking to her, I'm kind of all starstruck and saying dumb stuff and I bring up the fact that we'd met before and how she borrowed my pen and I'm all like, "I leant Angelena Jolie my pen," and for some reason, she thinks this is a little creep but also endearing.

So we're talking more and she tells me that Brad has left her and now she's raising the kids on her own and I was really really saddened by this news and I keep thinking how big of a dick he is for doing this, but then I sort of talk about how she's a pretty independent woman and was she not really upset about having to raise the kids alone, but really she's upset about the failure of the relationship and all this stuff.

We had some real sweet moments and it was so weird and I later woke up and couldn't fall back asleep and I kept thinking of all the things I didn't ask her, especially about her tattoos because it is probably something we'd have in common and then I just kept thinking it's not like I'm gonna get a chance to actually talk to her, so what difference does it make what I did or didn't say?

2 strange dreams

2008-06-22T10:55:00.002-05:00

On Friday:
I was some sort of super-human. Kind of like a Superman or Supreme. I don't really remember much from this dream. I remember swimming or flying really low next to a character kind of like aquaman. And there was a boat. I'm assuming I had some "adventures" before getting to the crux of the dream, which was as follows.

For some reason, I feel compelled to eat a whole bunch of tomatoes. Like, crates and crates of them. A roomful. After I finish that, I'm in a room full of mechanical parts and scrap metal. I compulsively grab these pieces and sort of place them near my body and they somehow start fusing to me. Before I know it, I notice that I'm starting to take the shape of a small space shuttle. Somehow I work out in my head that the concentration of chemicals in tomatoes when processed by my body can create a small nuclear detonation, but because I ate so much, it will be a HUGE detonation. I also somehow realize that all that I'm doing is leading toward a kamikaze mission into the sun. Just as I realize this, I "take off." I scream loudly at the realization that I'm about to die.

The End

This morning:
I am a chef and owner of a restaurant as well as the mayor of a big city. My restaurant is three stories and the most successful and critically acclaimed in the city. There are a number of other restaurants in this dream too.

There is this sort of intrigue going on throughout the whole dream. I'm trying to find out something and it's as much a spy dream as it is a culinary one.

I remember on the third floor of my restaurant, the floor is a sort of patchwork of steel with gaps between that one could possibly fall through and all the waiters are so used to walking over the flooring and I'm trying to and really scared and they're all behind me kind of impatient, but also they're my employees so they have to be patient and helpful.

Another weird aspect of this dream is that all the restaurants, instead of serving desserts, they have at the back of the restaurant, "candy bars." Meaning, they have these bars where they serve a specialized type of candy (chocolate, caramel, chocolate mint, etc.). This actually strikes me as a great idea in reality. First of all, they were charging exorbitant prices. Like, $22 fora 2"X2" square of chocolate. You can get them served on a plate or in a fancy wrapper to take home and enjoy later. If a real restaurant were to do this, it would increase the chance of someone getting dessert from someone who's too full to eat it right there. In my dream, these candy bars are super in vogue and people would come to the restaurants just for the chocolates. It kind of reminded me of that chocolatier on Division called Coco Rouge.

The only other part I remember was when I was in one of the restaurants and the owner, a woman, gave me a plate of chocolates and I was thinking that she was either trying to impress me or she was trying to distract me. I really wish I could remember more of this dream because it was kind of epic.

$20 and Under Art!

2008-06-08T18:23:00.001-05:00

For the first time in a long while (and hopefully not the last time for a long while) I'll be participating in some visual arts stuff. My friend Ken has put together a fundraiser for an organization called Fusebox Art, which is the visual arts branch of a larger interdisciplinary arts organization called Household Arts.

Here is their website.

Anyway, the fundraiser is called $20 and Under and it's all art by artists of varied levels of accomplishment for under $20. I've submitted 2 pieces which will be sold for $15, but I will also be doing live painting at the event and will be selling those works as well. Here are images for the virtual flyer (front and back). Hope you can come.

Electronics: my friends/my foes

2008-05-15T09:34:00.002-05:00

For some reason, over a 24-hour period I had a breakdown on 4 different electronics items in my life and it was really annoying.

My television is one of those big-screen rear projection things and for about the past 4 years it's had this thing where sometimes the bulb doesn't ignite and when it does that, I have to take off the back panel, pull out the light, shake it a bit, put it back in, put the back cover back on, and then turn it on again. The other night, that process didn't work. I immediately was like, "oh no, I need a new tv." and also "oh cool, maybe I won't have a tv." Anyway, it ended up that it worked the next day, so, crisis averted.

The same day, my phone stopped giving audio notifications. Rings, text messages, etc. This isn't really a new problem, either. I usually have to just reset the sound settings in the preferences in order to kick them back on, but the lapses in sound are happening more frequently, lately.

Also, the flatbed cd loader on my computer at home stopped working. On a mac, you have an eject button on your keyboard that engages the mechanism. The button works and I know this because an eject icon appears on my screen when I press it. Just the loader doesn't open. This especially sucks because I just bought a record player designed for uploading records into my iTunes and I was so looking forward to getting those. I have albums that I've owned for 15 years that I've never opened because I've never owned a record player. But, I can't install the software needed for uploading the tunes. Bummer.

I have a feeling this will fall under my computer's warranty, but the next time I can go to the apple store is saturday, and I'm not that much of a glutton for punishment.

Also in technology news, I took a whole bunch of old dv tapes to Costco the other day to have them converted to dvd. They're all tapes of old band practices and concerts my band played. I'm hoping to find some songs that were never recorded by us. It's been over three years since we broke up and there are a couple songs which are now almost extinct memories. I'd like to be able to convert the audio to mp3s. Let's hope there's some jewels in those tapes.

Art + Music + Booze = Yay!

2008-04-14T16:35:00.004-05:00

We started the night off visiting one of the MFA shows for Columbia at the Book and Paper department. There were a few cool installations.

One of them, involved telephones with something like various incarnations of sexbots or something. The phones all had prerecorded monologues about women characters and why they were great mates, I think.

Ryan though Gertrude was scandalous.

This artist also had a performance, which was kind of cool.

Afterward, we went to a few galleries on Fulton market. The first place had these installations of resin flowers in color-field-like patterns.

We all posed in front of them, trying to color-coordinate.
Alex (Kringle) in red...

David Jacob exploding out of yellow...

RyRy in Blue...

And I took this white-ish one.

One day, I want to put a tiny-size me amidst this grove of resin flowers...

Later, we stopped at Noah's birthday and Kringle put pretzels in his eyes.

And there was a cute kitty.

And then we went up to the Jackhammer for Jinx Titanic's last show, where we ran into all sorts of hooligans.

Can you tell I'm a little tipsy at this point? So was the Duke.

Superstar band, The Joans opened. The Joans dress up like Joan Crawford in Mommy Dearest.
These pictures don't really reflect my memories of the night. Actually I didn't remember any part of the Joans' part of the performance besides the repeated line: "I'm not mad at you, I'M MAD AT THE DIRT." Other than that, it's all a blur.
Apparently, Jinx had some cute roadies to help them set up their equipment and film video:

Oh. And I took a couple pictures of the Jinx, too. He's looking a little drunk himself.

It was a fun night.

Last trip to Amoeba Records in San Francisco

2008-02-04T10:38:00.000-05:00

Tracy Chapman - self-titled
Led Zeppelin - Discs 1 and 4 of a box set
Hubcap Thieves - Awarding Misbehavior (Please note: I thought this was the band Hubcap with an album called Thieves. Oops.)
El Guapo - Fake French
The Twilight Sad - Fourteen Autnums & Fifteen Winters ($1.99!)
Stereolab - Space Age Bachelor Pad Music
Ex-Boyfriends - In With
Air Miami - Me, Me, Me
The Size Queens - Is It IN Yet? (bought for the title, alone; also, it's numbered: 40 out of 369 - collector's item!)
Cyndi Lauper - Twelve Deadly Cyns...And then Some
Saint Etienne - Good Humor
Brandston - Send us a Signal
The Saturday People - self-titled (filed under:Velocity Girl)
Cyndi Lauper - Shine (I didn't remember until just now that I'd bought two Cyndi Lauper albums on this trip; this one is a single with a song called "Madonna Whore" on it, though)
Veronica Lipgloss and the Evil Eyes - self-titled

All this for about $50! Not bad.

Passing

2008-01-16T18:46:00.000-05:00

This morning my phone started ringing at about 7 in the morning. A call was coming in from my father's cell phone.

"Hi, Dad," I said. It was a little early, but I was also too tired to notice that it was too early.

"Brian?"

It was my brother's voice. Again, I was too tired to realize how odd it was that my brother was calling me from my father's phone.

"Hey Teej (his nickname's T.J.), what's up?"

"Umm, I was just calling because, umm..."

He began in his customary unsure manner of speaking. He went on to tell me that he had woken up around his usual time to get ready for work and that he heard our father crying out his name from downstairs (they live together). My father was on the floor on the phone to 911 and handed the phone over to my brother. The operator informed my brother that my brother had called and was complaining of chest pains. An ambulance was already on the way, get my father laying on his side and try to make him comfortable.

An ambulance arrived within minutes and the operator stayed on the phone with my brother the whole time. My father seemed panicked, but lucid and then calmed down, but still looked "out of it," according to my brother.

The paramedics took my father into the ambulance while my brother waited outside. They told him the name of the hospital to which they were taking him

I told my brother I'd call my sister and that she'd then call him.

When I called her, she was immediately hysterical until I told her that he was fine and he was alive when he got into the ambulance. I would wait for her to call me back before I decided what to do. I'd just got back from vacation and didn't feel right not going back to work if my dad was all right.

When I got the phone call from my sister a couple hours later, he was not all right. He had actually passed on the way to the hospital, if not before. My brother said he'd seen them performing cpr and then attempting to revive his heart with the paddles, but that he couldn't really allow himself to believe what he was seeing.

Like I said, I'd just come back from vacation and I was feeling pretty good about life. I was rejuvenated and was making all these plans on enhancing my life. It's so weird.

My father hadn't told us about any health problems, but it turned out that he'd told a close friend earlier that week that he'd been having some chest pain. The friend told him to see a doctor, but of course my father didn't.

We'd all thought my father would die a slow death from lung cancer or cirrhosis of the liver or something. We'd forgotten that his father died at the young age of 58, before I was even born, apparently? My father was only 63.

At least he went suddenly and suffered little. My guess was that even if he sensed that chest pain was something bad, he'd rather not know and go suddenly than find out and live in dread of his own mortality. He was a very practical man.

Despite that, my siblings and I have found that he had no plan for his death. He'd set up a power of attorney in the case of his being incapacitated but living. No will. No instructions on his final wishes or what to do with his remains.

We're still undecided with what to do. My father had been a catholic, but hadn't been to church in years and years, We all feel that he'd want to be cremated and that he wouldn't want a big ceremony, but he was a teacher and my sister thinks something public might bring a student or two to pay their respects.

I feel like my father would say he doesn't care what we do and that everything that comes now is more for the living than for him, and I'm inclined to agree. Like I said, he was a practical man. I can hear him now, "whether you want to put me in a fancy box and fill up a church with people or you want to cremate me and have dinner at your sister's makes no difference to me. The way I see it, I'm already dead."

The Nature of Time

2007-12-20T19:01:00.000-05:00

This post was started a while back and has been sitting around waiting to get finished. Just thought I'd send it out.

* * *

I watched that show Journeyman last night. I have to say it's one of those shows that snuck up on me, but I like it a real lot. I think it had something to do with the fact that it came on after Heroes, and with Heroes being so bluntly spectacular and being an ensemble show and all that, Journeyman was naturally overshadowed.

Anyway, the basic premise is that it's a less campy Quantum Leap. This guy jumps backward through time and apparently fixes problems in the time-stream continuum. I say apparently because he doesn't know why he jumps, and has to use his instinct to determine why he's sent back and how to fix it. Each episode is open-ended but there is the over-arching story of how this is happening to him, and, to a lesser extent, why.

In the episode from last night, the lead character accidentally alters history by dropping a digital camera in the past. A side effect of the result - that technology advances on Earth at a much accelerated rate - is that his only child, a son, was never born, and instead he has a daughter. He spends the rest of the episode trying to get the camera back.

Another plotline, relating more to the over-arching story, is that he finds another "traveler." Up until now, he'd thought he and his ex-lover were the only ones (he runs into her on his "trips" and they sort of work in tandem). He helps this man find a woman who'd been his wife in another timeline and somehow "remind" her of a life that had never been. It was very interesting and got me thinking about the nature of time.

I've long had a theory that time is one moment, and it's only our limited perception that forces us to experience it over a length that we consider as time. My theory is that as we evolve, we'll be able to at first see backwards or forwards in time in some limited scope, and eventually we'll experience time as a moment. Think of how different life would be if at its inception everything about it was already known. What kind of concerns would you have at this stage? There would be no more fretting about what's to come, there would only be the knowledge of how a lifespan played out.

This theory kind of negates the idea of free will, which is scary, but I often think a man is measured not by what happens in his life, but how he deals with those things. If your consciousness were to be able to ruminate on the nature of your whole life before you live it, wouldn't you be able to think upon only metaphysical things? I know it sounds odd, but it's kinda how my mind thinks. The universe is full of contradictions, why not this one?

Another theory I have, this time about consciousness, is that when one dies (or, in some cases of extreme universal awareness as a result of profound meditation) one's consciousness immediately expands from one's physical location in infinite directions in an instant. At that instant, one experiences all of the universe and understands it for the first time.

These two theories sort of combine to form a third theory about the nature of multiple universes. If one imagines any infinitely small particle as having a "destiny," that particle travels through time-space in one line in one universe, but at the same time, at every infinitely small fragment of time, that particle goes in an infinite number of different directions in both space and time. Sort of imagine fireworks, except instead of the explosion being finite, it's infinite, and instead of their being one, they happen constantly and forever, creating basically a mesh of interweaving singularities.

Now, it's been so long since I started this that I don't know where I was going with it, but I'm pretty sure I had a point at some time.

Recent art

2007-11-18T15:32:00.000-05:00

Not sure if I've already posted either of the first two, but these here are some new pieces.
Dreaming Tree - watercolor and collage on panel under resin

Secret Squirrel - watercolor and collage on panel under resin

Free as a - Acrylic on found windows

Tree - Ink on vellum

Do Make Say Think

2007-11-11T11:30:00.000-05:00

We stopped by a friend's get-together before heading off to the Metro.

"What show are you guys seeing?"

"It's a band called Do Make Say Think."

"Milk Spider Clownshoe?"

* * *

Because we went to the party, we missed the opening act. It was actually kinda nice to get there and be introduced to the meat of the show. This was my third time at the Metro this week, and while the openers for Battles were all stupendous, the openers for Thursday were more just stupid (please note I'm using that word more for the alliteration - they were a little boring, but not stupid).

The bassist/guitarist/trumpeter started the set with a little anecdote. He said that the museum of natural history in Toronto has this giant wheel that children are allowed to spin. The result of the roll of the wheel indicates the percentage chance one has to randomly be born a human on this earth. He said that children would spin it and pretty much always would be born an insect, and everyone would go, "aww." He'd never seen it, but he assumed someone must have spun a human and everyone would cheer.

Then he said that the buddhist tradition has a similar story about the chance to be born human. There's an old blind turtle swimming in the ocean and every 400 years, he comes up for air. On the surface of the ocean is a hula hoop (I'm sure the buddhists didn't say "hula hoop," but this is what the guy said). The chances of the blind turtle surfacing into the hula hoop are the chances of a soul being born human.

He said that this indicated two things. One was that the museum thought we had better chances of becoming human. The other was that we should be reminded of how special we are and that we should all go out and do great things, and that he was sure there were many people in the audience capable of such a thing.

I turned over to my friend Ryan and said, "I feel like I've already gotten my money's worth for this show."

And then Do Make Say Think rocked my balls off.

I'm gonna go ahead and tell Gregor that he has every right to be jealous that he missed this show. I hadn't known what I was getting into when I was going. For some reason, I had it in my head that I not only had seen this band before, but that I also owned one of their cds. I've looked through old blogs and through my iTunes collection and can't find any mention of them. It was like Divine inspiration that I decided to buy tickets to this show. And I'm glad I did. I think it all comes back to the name. It is the best prescription. Do. Make. Say. Think.

I HATE HATE HATE the Metro's policy on no professional cameras. This band was so visually interesting to watch on stage. Two drummers, violinist, two guitars and a 5-piece horn section. One drummer and a couple of trumpeters were especially eye-catching, if you know what I mean). There was some instrument-swapping as well, but not a lot. At one point of the show there were seven horns, and they were all standing at the edge of the stage, like a clarion call. It was pretty cool.

By the end, I told Ryan that that was one of the best shows I've ever seen. He said that he thought Battles was better. I thought about it for a while. I thought battles was an excellent show, but there was something sublime about the Do Make Say Think show. There were these totally rolling kids near us who kept raising their hands in the air like they were praising Jesus and for some reason, the music made you want to do that. It just seemed slightly spiritual. And I liked that.

kotobuki

2007-11-09T17:25:00.000-05:00

It means "long life and celebration" in Japanese. I have a tapestry of it hanging in my dining room. Which is also my art studio. Which is also a mess.

Anyway, it's my new tattoo.

Max Brown from Revolution Studio did it for me. He was really fast and was able to create some brush stroke-type look from my sorta crappy original image, which I hadn't anticipated, but I'm glad he did.

Here was the mimeograph.

We worried a bit about the placement, but I think it looks really good from an outsider's point of view.

Tattoo update and look what I found

2007-11-03T17:39:00.001-05:00

So, I haven't made a post to my found blog in almost 3 years! It's such a long time. Oh yeah, it almost syncs up exactly with starting my business so I guess it makes sense. Anyway, I posted something there today. Maybe I'll continue to do so. Who knows.

I've finished the pencil sketch of the mobius band tattoo. I'm pretty pleased with it.

I have an appointment to get a small-ish one next week. I'll be asking my tattooist for some feedback on any tweaking I'll have to make on the design. You'll note that there are two areas that look really blank. Those spaces are where this tattoo will intersect with tattoos I already have. Theoretically, the tattoo will lighten to a more ethereal, washed out coloration and will intersect with the dots on my bass clef tattoo on my forearm and with words in the One, Other and Else poem on my upper arm.

Incidentally, here's what I'm getting on Friday (it's Japanese Kanji for "kotobuki," which means "long life and celebration; it'll encircle my left elbow):

Happy Halloweenie!!!

2007-10-31T13:59:00.001-05:00

Went to a Halloween in Gotham City on Saturday. All the heroes and villains were there.

There was (me) Spaceghost.

Actually, there were two. Everyone said I "filled out" my tights better, though.

The night was mostly harmonious in celebration of the Holiday, but that old rivalry between one of the wonder woman's and catwoman dies hard.

Cadillac, Tom Cruise and Feathers made the trip from Planet Unicorn, Heyyyy.

Lex Luthor pondered how to use the Sword of Thundera against superman.

Some 300 guys showed up and, thinking that "TONIGHT, WE DIE!!!, they couldn't keep their hands off each other.

But really, look at them, who can blame them?

Wonder Woman, 300 guy and Ugly Betty (Super Ugly Betty?) seemed to hit it off well.

Skeletor and the Joker were there. Being bad.

Also, Riddler. He looked crazy.

Fortunately Lion-O was there to protect us all. But wait, shouldn't that be the Eye of Thundera behind him?

Maybe the Bedazzler can help?

Everyone watch out, or Yuck will lift his mask, knocking you unconscious with his ugliness. Suck it up, Ugly Betty!

Look at the nice flooring. I think it's available at Home Depot.

There was no sign of the Batman, and it looked like Robin was cheating on him with some cowboy? Weird.

Hellraiser guy will punish him!!

Here's some more random pics.

Photo Essay of Chicago Botanic Gardens

2007-10-28T13:49:00.000-05:00

TRAINS!!!

live on time, emit no evil

2007-10-26T18:32:00.000-05:00

So, it's been a while since I posted, but it's my day off and if I can't find some time to write on my day off, then I'm further gone than I thought.

I took this personality test on a whim recently. The test is somehow linked with judaism or something. It's the atzmi test or something. Since I'm in tattoo mode, I've been thinking about my last tattoo (as in final, not preceeding), which is the tree-of-life, from Kabalah. Anyway, I've been more open to that kind of knowledge lately and when the test appeared in my gmail margins, I clicked on it. The results of the test were amazingly spot-on. Some of it was hard to deal with, or accept. Fortunately, alot of it wasn't so hard to accept because alot of my scores were good.

One of the bad things it said was that I have a limited vocabulary, both internally and in practice. At first I was like, "no way," but then I thought about it. I do have a tendency to think abstractly and in images rather than in words. And I also tend to not speak at all rather than practice erudition. I think I would've scored higher at this a few years ago, but I think I've gone out of the practice of writing. And unfortunately, everything that comes with that practice has gone away as well.

And so, here I am, practicing. Hoping it will somehow be the spark of a habit.

Back to what I mean by "tattoo mode."

Recent posts were about the LA Ink submission. Since I've gotten no response from them, I've decided to explore other tattoos. I still intend on having Hannah do the mobius strip tattoo, because her name is a palindrome and because I like her and I totally think her work is awesome.

I went in to make an appointment with Miles, who also works at Deluxe Tattoo (where Hannah worked before moving to LA). He recently did my friend Ryan's tattoo, which is a full-sleeve dragon and it's amazing. Miles and I also have a connection because the drummer from my old band and him grew up together so I'd already met him.

This tattoo is a modified woodblock print from the famous Hiroshige, who did what is supposedly the most well-recognized woodblock image in the world, the View of Mount Fiji or something, often referred to as The Wave.

The modifications were minor. It's sort of an homage to my mother, so I changed the color of the titmouse from a grey-green to blue. My Mom loves bluebirds. I also reversed the orientation so that it follows the contours of my torso better. After flipping the horizontal, I needed to flip the text back to forwards again, as well. Finally I changed the cascade of the poetry a bit. I hope Hiroshige's not mad at me.

Turns out Miles is booked until February 1st. Naturally I made the appointment, but I want something a little sooner than that, so I made an appointment with Max, from Revolution Studio, to do a small tattoo on my left elbow.

It's Japanese kanji, "kotobuki," or, "long life and celebration." I have a tapestry hanging in my dining room of this character, and I've had it for a long time. I've had this design ready for a few years. It's just time for me to start finishing what I've started with my own tattoos. I'm looking forward to the finished product.

Anyway, regarding the title of this blog, I've started the design for the piece I want Hannah to do. The design was so difficult for me to envision that I decided to make a model of it using ribbon, so I could see exactly how the image will need to twist and turn and how the letters would look while twisted into different orientations.

Creating the model turned out to be quite useful and inspiring as the pencil sketch of the tattoo is already finished. I wanna do a consult with an artist before I ink it and color it, though. I want to make sure that the dimensions are just right. I'm actually quite impressed with what I've come up with so far, the design is pretty complicated. More on that another time.

PIckles Update

2007-09-11T13:04:00.000-05:00

So, it turns out that though Pickles enjoyed her new surroundings, her new house wasn't going to work out. Her new house was a 1-story ranch-style house. In the warmer months they keep the windows up with screens, and apparently Pickles tried to escape the house through one of the screens when the owners weren't home. The considered kenneling her, and called Claude to ask him about that. He reminded her that when I kenneled her, she struggled so much against her kennel that she cut up her face and nose all over. So, Pickles is now back in Claude's care. He seems to think she'll be in better shape with him than with me because he brings her everywhere and because he has a back yard. I tried to remind him that she's jumped his back yard fence in the past, but oh well, it's his problem now.

bye bye pickles

2007-09-05T15:21:00.001-05:00

Everyone get ready to say goodbye to Pickles. I'm now actively looking for a no-kill shelter to be her new home. She bit me (not enough to break skin, but she bit me) today when I was correcting her when she was wanting to attack a dog behind a fence.

I'm just tired of living with constant anxiety.

I'll miss her. Racecar won't. He'll get his old, easy life back.

Flickr seems to be down, or else i'd'a posted that cute picture of her.

Sad days.

The Spider and the Fly

2007-08-29T09:03:00.000-05:00

It's my early day at work. Right next to my desk is a door we never use, so there's this hanging scrim between the door and the inside to create some privacy (it's a glass door) and block the sun.

I heard a persistent buzzing from behind the scrim and could see movement near some towels we use for insulation about the size of a large wasp.

"How'd we get a wasp in here?"

And then,

"Why is it buzzing so much? Is it dying?"

I pull the scrim to the side and look closer and the fly is struggling to escape a spider's grasp. It's amid spider webs hanging not in that perfect spiral but in an almost willy-nilly series of planes that remind me more of a stone quarry than of a spider web.

The violence makes me want to grab something and kill both of them. The fly to put it out of its misery (and to stop its buzzing, which I swear now sounds mournful - and causes me guilt/empathy) and the spider for perpetrating the murder.

Instead, I think about all the annoying fruit flies that've been hanging around this summer. And about the general annoyingness of flies.

That spider stays in its little house near a door we don't use. Indeed, if it was a place where we traversed on a regular basis, the spider couldn't have built its stone quarry web.

The buzzing stopped quite quickly as the spider receeded into a crevasse of the towel, probably to lay the fly, still alive yet paralyzed if I remember my nature channel correctly, next to some eggs.

LA Ink

2007-08-01T17:55:00.001-05:00

I know I haven't posted here in a while. I'm pretty sure no one's going to notice I'm posting now. But I just wanted to put this little video up. Enjoy, NoOne.

Putting Pickles Under...

2007-05-02T23:10:00.000-05:00

....Control, that is!

For about 2 hours last weekend I was pretty sure I was gonna put pickles down. To say she has some aggression issues with other dogs would be an understatement. It's been a pretty scary problem. Coupled with her Houdini-like ability to escape any yard, it's not a good combination.

After some consulting with super-nice Natasia, who also owns a pit, I decided to try for some obedience class. I was really nervous for her, because if the trainer said she wasn't trainable (and I really think he would've), she woulda been a dead doggie.

Tonight was the initial sort of consultation. The trainer worked with her for about 15 minutes to see if she was amenable to commands and pretty immediately she was under his command. It was pretty amazing to see.

Now, it's a long way from getting a dog to listen to you all the way to getting a dog to not be territorial and aggressive, but I think fixing one behavior - setting a good foundation - will allow other behaviors to come into place.

So, for now, Pickles won't be pickled.

New Paintings

2007-04-27T14:02:00.000-05:00

I recently finished a couple paintings that were sitting in my studio for nearly a year. I'm hoping that I will keep the ball rolling and work on some more, but in a smaller scale. The are covered in resin, which stinks to high heaven. And by high heaven, I mean to my upstairs landlord's apartment. So I'm hoping if I do smaller pieces they won't stink as badly for as long (it smelled for three days when I did these 18"x18" pieces).

They're mixed media on paper mounted to panel. They're untitled, so if anyone has an idea for titles, I'd be open to them. This is a format in which I'm not used to working, which is more free-form, so I'm not working from an initial concept, hence the lack of titles.

And here are some detail images.

San Francisco Pt. 3 - Takin' it to the Street!

2006-12-24T14:26:00.000-05:00

This is a random photo collection of the streets of San Francisco.

Here was a new community center being built. I liked this whatever it is.

And then here was some street art.

And then some more creative, funny street art on the street where I was staying.

And here's Chuck trying to look like a cool San Franciscan.

And here's a really racist book I found sitting on a newspaper box or something.

And here's the ghetto-ist cash machine I might've ever seen.

And here's Chuck trying to use it (he succeeded, by the way - Go Chuck!).

And here's a guy sitting in his garage.... Weird.

And here's my friend Chris, and pictures of our shoes, too.

And should you ever lose anything in San Francisco, you might want to check this handy lost and found near the corner of Guerero and 22nd.

San Francisco Pt. 2 - Let's Have Sex with Nature!

2006-12-10T17:20:00.000-05:00

We went out to The Sutro Baths. I guess they used to be a public bath, and were one of the biggest at the time.

While we were out there, some of Michael's employees were out with photo equipment and cute little outfits and he said they were probably taking MySpace pictures.

Here's one that I thought would be a good photo for Chuck's MySpace.

And here's one for Michael.

And one for Dawn (not very emo).

There was a cool cave nearby.

The ruins of the baths themselves, unfortunately, were just moderately interesting. Having been to the city of Bath, in England, and taking a tour and seeing the ruins of Ancient Roman baths, this paled in comparison. But being on the ocean was unique, so it was a new experience.

Like the rest of San Francisco, there was some grafitti.

And then we saw a tanker, which was kinda cool.

And then just nature in general was pretty.

Sunset

2006-12-10T17:07:00.000-05:00

Lookie.

Adieu, Coco, je vais te souvenir

2006-12-06T00:16:00.000-05:00

I'm pretty sure that's french for "farewell, Coco, I will miss you," but I forget (or perhaps never knew) whether the te goes conjugated or the infinitive.

Anyway, there I was, TRANNYSHACKED!!!

On my first night in San Francisco, what I most wanted to do was go see the show at Trannyshack, an ongoing drag night at a bar humorously named The Stud. Fortunately, this was no ordinary night at Trannyshack. No, it was the final show where reigning Ms. Trannyshack, Coco Canal, would be, um, reigning. The upcoming Saturday would be the night for people to decide who the next Ms. Trannyshack would be.

Anyway, since it was Coco's last night, I feel like she was putting on an extra-special show, and the air was tingling with all sorts of emotions.

The first performer of the night was either pretending to be a drugged out freak, or actually was one. Either way, the performance was totally fun and crazy. She was dressed as Dorothy.

She was popping pills and drinking from a full bottle of brown liquor. Her back up dancers were like retards, too!
The next few performers were good, but I'll let the pictures speak for them.

This one obviously had the most serious bod goin' on. It's obvious she's a newbie and really looking to impress the crowd (and also, Heklina said as much).

This one did a very challenging Yma Sumac piece.

Her lip-synching was very impressive. Very fast-paced portuguese.

In Coco Canal's final performance as Ms. Trannyshack 2005, she came out on stage with her tiara and a melancholy song played on the overhead.

As the song continued, different drag queens came out and removed her tiara, her sash, then her wig, her gown, her eyelashes and then her makeup.

When the piece reached its conclusion, it was very quiet and you could tell that although it seemed funny at first, Coco was sad to be going.

I was really glad to have seen the show. I felt like I got to see a special one.

Journey to the Lost City of Atlantis

2006-11-29T14:41:00.000-05:00

Have you ever heard the story that since most of the citizens of San Francisco are transplants from all over the world, and because they're all so different, but all so in tune with the location, that they're all the reincarnated souls of the lost citizens of Atlantis?

I went on a 6-day trip to San Francisco this past November. I was traveling with my good friend Charles, who had yet to visit SF, the new home of three of our closest friends, Mike, Dawn and Kristine. He'd asked me to schedule a trip at the same time as him, and that sounded like a fun ol' reunion type thing, so I did.

Charles was finishing up a business trip in Charlotte, North Carolina on the day we were to fly out of Chicago. His flight was coming into O'hare. Somehow in the excitement of getting ready for the trip, I neglected to double-check our airport of origin in our flight to San Francisco. It was Midway. Oops.

I sent the itinerary to Charles, but he denies it. But I have the e-paper trail to prove it. But anyway, what's done is done. Here's Charles being annoyed as we wait for the shuttle bus from O'hare to Midway.

After arriving at Midway, we started our vacation as quickly as possible.

We were waiting standby. Fortunately the next available flight was the same day and not terribly late, but we were afforded the opportunity of drinking in one of the world's more "ugly" airports for a good few hours.

Once we were on our flight, relaxed, Charles fell asleep while I enjoyed a delicious Coors Light (Frontier Airlines is based out of Denver and Colorado, I believe is home to Coors) and Chuck Palahniuk's Lullaby.

After a stop in the slightly better-looking airport in Denver, we were on our way again and before we knew it, we were found ourselves floating above San Francisco.

Bret's Halloween/Birthday Party

2006-11-09T18:14:00.000-05:00

My friend Bret has a party every year.

That's him. He's a photographer and an all-around pretty nice guy.

I'm just gonna say right now that there's a NSFW (Not Safe For Work) image below. Continue at your own risk.

This year I totally didn't feel like driving up to his party, but I did. At the last minute I put just SPIDER from MILK SPIDER CLOWN SHOE on. People seemed to think it was enough of a costume.

Joey and his boyfriend were little red and the wolf as grandma.

Mark and his boyfriend were cowboys.

David was a sailor and Hannah (a palindrome! - And an awesome tattooist!) was Rosie the Riveter.

Joey kept showing off that he wasn't wearing underwear underneath grandma's housecoat, so I couldn't resist taking a picture.

Mark carved an amazing pumpkin (he lives downstairs from Bret).

Pickles

2006-11-07T15:27:00.000-05:00

The other night, my ex found a dog. She's a female pit bull mix. Mix cuz she's a bit longer than the typical pit bull. She's really cute and affectionate and gives kisses. She was found with no tags or collar and we scanned her for a chip and she doesn't have one. A vet tech who lives near my ex told him that she's recently had her nails clipped and her teeth professionally cleaned, so someone was caring for her. It's been five days now. I posted finder her on craigslist and on fidofinder.com with no returns. We also put up posters around the neighborhood.

Anyway, I've named her Pickles. I'd been thinking of getting a second dog for a little while anyway, and if I did, I was going to name him/her Pickles, so looks like that's what might happen.

Gem Gem Gem Gem Gem Gem Gem Gem Sweater

2006-11-04T17:42:00.000-05:00

Leslie and the Lys performed at Funky Buddha on Halloween and it was a crazy blast.

I was accompanied by best gal pals Rachel, Liz and Lil' John.

Ran into all sorts of fun freaks.

Radiohead was there!

And the lovely and talented Teena Angst!

I kept taking pictures of this straight guy who was supposed to be wolverine. It was a total cop-out costume because I saw him at the last Leslie show and his hair/facial hair always looks like that. He was really cute.

Of course, I was MILK SPIDER CLOWN SHOE again.

Oh yeah, and then Leslie.

While Leslie made her costume change, her impersonator took over the show. She was great.

And then her crazy halloween style costume!

Halloweekend

2006-10-30T14:26:00.000-05:00

It all started on Thursday. The weather was atrocious and I was expecting all day for people to call or write and cancel out. And they did. I thought we'd have about 20 people going out to Reaper's Realm in scaarry Hammond, Indiana, but the final count turned out to be 7. What a lucky number we turned out to be, though. We had tons of fun. The haunted house was really scary and afterwards we had corndogs, cheese sticks and root beer. Here's the Duke with his corn dog.

Catty had a pizza puff. Yumm!

I was accompanied by the handsome and talented Paul who protected me in the haunted house. Isn't he cute? He was a big hit.

The next night, I had Haunted Bowling. It was time to unveil the ultimate costume: MILK SPIDER CLOWN SHOE!!!
See, last week, we'd been working all day on the party for Saturday and we were going to the Spirit store to get more supplies and I knew I wanted a costume for bowling and I needed another Spider for my spider victim costume.
So we get to the store and I find my spider and because he's poseable, I perch him on my head, then my shoulder and walk around with him on me. I notice a possible easy costume. It's a hat type thing in the shape of a milk carton with a whole in it, where your face comes through with the word "missing" above it. I thought that would be great because I could wear it and it wouldn't really interfere with bowling, so I put it on and look at myself in the mirror. I see myself with both the milk and the spider and BAM! I realize I could wear them together!
I guess it's at this point of the story where I should mention that before we left for the spirit store someone suggested we, um, you know, smoke. One person refused because he wanted to "stay focused" once we got there. I thought it was silly. What could possibly happen?
Well, MILK SPIDER CLOWN SHOE is the answer.

After I'd found the milk and the spider, I noticed that someone had carelessly left behind a single bright blue clown shoe. I put it on my hand and my costume was finished. Perfection! When I went to purchase my costume at the Spirit store, I brought MILK SPIDER CLOWN SHOE up to the register and the person behind the counter was like, "I can't sell you just one clown shoe. It has to be a pair."
"But there wasn't one there. Don't you see? You guys have one clown shoe, and I only need one clown shoe! It's a match made in heaven!" Yes, I actually used the phrase "match made in heaven."
"I'm sure the other one's over there somewhere."
"OK, fine, I'll buy a pair."
It was a big hit at bowling. Everyone looked at me like I was a freak. A couple people came up to me and said, "OK, I have to figure this out... Um, milk carton, Clown...spider...ummm..." It was pretty fun. I just kept saying, "I'm MILK SPIDER CLOWN SHOE" like it was the most obvious thing in the world. And then they'd say, "OK."
This is Paul when he bowls a strike.

I'd hate to see him angry.
This is Paul and Frank looking at the majesty of MILK SPIDER CLOWN SHOE.

I promised Paul I'd wear only MILK SPIDER CLOWN SHOE to bed one day. This, naturally, was considered to be very very sexy.
I had been entered in the costume contest, but had to leave to go see the Xiu Xiu show at the Logan Square Auditorium. Apparently, my bowling team shared with me later, the announcer was calling off contestants.
"Milk, Spider...Clown Shoe?" His voice raising into a question at the end of the word. My team was cracking up, but indicated that I had left.
"OK, apparently MILK SPIDER CLOWN SHOE has left the building.
I woulda won, I'm sure of it.
The Dirty Projectors opened for Xiu Xiu. They were pretty interesting to watch. I kinda felt like the band was basically a cult for the lead singer. He was one of those really weird-looking yet intelligent and charismatic people.

The band was fronted by him and two women, one of whom stared at him longingly whenever she could.

The guy who drummed for Xiu Xiu played a solo set with Drums and Vibraphone (Xylephone?) as Congs For Brums. It was a decent set for being one person.
And finally Xiu Xiu came on. Xiu Xiu is basically one guy and one girl. But even more basically, it's just the one guy. A gay guy, I guess. He's really talented, playing multiple instruments, and very passionate. His voice isn't perfect, but it's I guess what really sets him apart in a lot of ways too.

The guy and the girl in Xiu Xiu are really perfect examples of yin and yang. Throughout the show, the guy is moving around and crazy and thrashing and sweating while the girl is motionless and serene and her vocals are delicate and soft.

It was only at this moment that I saw Xiu Xiu as being a terribly taut relationship mired with an unconsummated desire.

See how he looks away? See her oral fixation?
OK, mostly kidding, but maybe they're in love and can't do anything about it? It's what I like to pretend. Makes them seem even more tortured.
There're plenty more pictures of the show at my flickr account. Go look, if you're interested.

On Saturday night, my friends Ivan, Michael, Ryan, Billy, Jeff and Ken and I all co-hosted the most off-the-hook party of the halloween season. For those who came, you know how blessed you are, for those who missed it, sucks to be you.

RACECAR as Superman!!!

Of course, there's a photoset at flickr with even more photos of the party.

Tortoise at the Empty Bottle 9/29/2006

2006-10-04T17:34:00.000-05:00

At the last minute, I was able to get into the sold-out Tortoise late show at the bottle last week.

They're up in the top 20-30 bands of mine. My respect for them grows every time I see them or they put out a new album. I don't know what it is, exactly. I just really groove on them. I'm amazed at their fluidity, their profundity, musicality. I dunno.

I'm just gonna post a bunch of pictures, because I think no matter what I say it's just best experienced.

As usual, you can go to my flickr account and see a giant set from this show.

I love their electronic xylephone soooo much.
The little LED lights illuminate with every strike of the mallets, and they slowly go out as a visual description of the resonance of the sound. It's mesmerizing. I was bummed this show because my view didn't let me look at them better.

Oh, and one of their keyboards was a little broken, but it was cute.

See how the key is popping up?
This one guy made crazy faces when he drummed. I took teens of pictures.

In Observance of the Autumnal Equinox

2006-09-23T00:34:00.000-05:00

Went to karaoke at the closet again on Thursday. It's turning into a weekly thing, I guess. This week I performed Friday I'm in Love by The Cure, which was a smashing success, as well as Punk Rock Girl by The Dead Milkmen, which was a favorite of many of my compatriots as well.

Here're some pics of the reglar gang:

Dee and Adam did My Humps. It was cute.

Adam and Frank did another duet whose name escapes me. As I told Frank, they've done better, but obviously their hearts were in it.

And then here're some of some newcomers.

And then here are some pics of lesbians singing/playing with a purple dildo.

Oh, also, in celebration/observance of the autumnal equinox, I got a new tattoo and shaved my head. Here're pics sporting both.

The placement came out better than I'd imagined. I'm very pleased.
I'll have more clear pictures of the tat once I take the time to take some.

The 1 year birthday of Chances was this week. It was a fun time. Here're some pics from that as well. I went with my friends Gregg and Michael.

As usual, there're plenty more pics at my flickr account, so go check 'em out if you're interested.

Criteria and Smoking Popes at the Empty Bottle

2006-09-17T21:59:00.000-05:00

So, Smoking Popes recently did a show at the Empty Bottle and one of my favorites, Criteria, were opening for them. Honestly, I think that for the Popes it was a reunion show, but I could be wrong. I don't know if they've been split up or not. I guess they have like five albums, but like three of them are live albums or something like that. How lazy.

Before the show started, Stephen Pederson (the lead singer of Criteria) walked up to this guy in the audience who happened to be standing right in front of me.

"Nice moustache," he said.

"I figure it'll be gone in about 16 hours. It reminds me of one of those big machines in the rail yards that take big loads off of railroad cars."

"Wow. Deep. I'm going to be thinking about that one for a while."

The guy he was talking to turned out to be the other guitarist.

Criteria started the set with the song that I think they have always started with every time I've seen them (like, 4 times, now?), which is It Happens. Their set was pretty phenomenal. I've always been a little more of a White Octave fan (Pederson's band before this one), but at this show, I think it was the first time where I wasn't thinking that Criteria was just second-rate White Octave.

My friend Mike totally worships this guy and it was also tonight that I really understood at least part of the attraction. Pederson's just a natural performer. His movements are so precise but never seem forced or contrived. He had no trouble hitting any notes while he sang, either.

I impressed myself with being able to take this picture of the bassist, who was on the other side of the stage from me.

This one's also good.

There're a whole bunch of pictures from the show up at my flickr account. Go check it out.
Smoking Popes were decent. I was only a little bored. I felt a certain nostalgia watching them, so it felt good. But largely songs that really excited me back in the day didn't really seem to move me very much.

I don't know what the deal was with the bassist's outfit. That hat. That vest. A Loop shirt? Ugh.
Dawn thinks that I'm crazy because I think Eli is cuter than Josh.

But she is the one that's crazy.
During the Popes set, we decided to take a picture with Stephen Pederson to make Mike jealous. Mike is the one who's totally gay for Stephen. But then Dawn (Dawn is Mike's fiance) got the idea to have us take photobooth pictures. See, not only does Mike like Stephen Pederson, he also loves photobooths. It was really easy. We just told him we wanted to do it to make our friend in San Francisco jealous and he was like "sure."

I told him, "I actually have a picture of you from way back at Krazyfest when White Octave played. You're hugging my friend Rick, who had a sign that said "Free Hugs."

"No way! You should email that to me." Great. Now I have to find it...

Well, I looked through the archives and couldn't find it. Maybe I imagined taking the picture. Rick really hugged him, though, I remember that. Maybe someone else took the picture? Either way, I did find a couple of old White Octave pictures from Krazyfest. I'll send those to him instead.

After we took pictures I stood next to Stephen and watched the popes from the bar area for a little while and asked him how they'd ended up touring with the Popes and he said it was because they have the same booking agent. They hadn't really met before the tour. I did think it was an odd pairing.

I think he was talking to the singer of the Bollweevils, but I didn't want to say anything cuz if I was wrong it would look like "sure, the only punk rock black guy in the room has to be the singer from the bollweevils, right?

Lastly, there were these two really drunk guys by the bar behind us. They were being really friendly with one another, if you know what I mean. One looked a little like a skinhead, the other just an indie rock guy. I wanted to take a picture, but didn't want to get caught cuz a drunk skin head, gay or not, can probably get pretty angry pretty easily.

Shortly, they walked away. When I went into the pool room later, though, the indie rocker guy was sitting on the couch with another indie-rocker and they were all touchy all over each other. I've never picked up anyone at the bottle. This guy had moves!

OK, that's all.

Some different things

2006-09-12T19:48:00.000-05:00

So, I am using a new kind of browser that's based off of Firefox and works in tandem with either flickr or photobucket (or both, but apparently not simultaneously). It is kind of exciting. It shows a little group of your most current photos in your pic hosting site and you can just drag and drop photos into the body of your blog (or a blog comment or whathaveyou). You can select from individual photo sets if you are an organized photo-keeper (which I am). This just made my blogging life a little easier, I think.

Firebird Band at Empty Bottle
I'm just gonna post a couple pictures from this show. It was a good show and all, but there was too much going on this week for me to dwell on it. You can go to my flickr (medallion on the top left) to find a whole photoset of this show.

I'll just say Chris' eye makeup makes him look a little like a freak and I think it's funny that he can't remember lyrics to songs he wrote himself (especially after I saw this crazy Japanese guy at the Bottle the night before play like a 15 minute drum solo-type song with no repeating parts).

I kinda liked this picture:

Oh, Stik came to this show, oddly enough. I tried to take a sly picture, but all I got was the top of his head and crazy light effects:

Dee's Birthday Karaoke!

The next night I met Dee and Frank and Adam out at The Closet for karaoke. I like karaoke pretty well, but I'm pretty bad at it. I don't have a lot of range and this night I don't think I chose the best songs. I opened with Pat Benatar's Love Is a Battlefield and, well, she's a chick and I'm not really in the right key, which makes me get all throaty. But it's a crowd pleaser, so that's good. My other two songs were R.E.M. Radio Free Europe and Sponge Plowed, a song which I played over and over the summer I bought it about, what was it? 8 years ago? More? Ugh, age.

Here're some pics of all of us.
Adam sings sultry:

Dee goes nuts:

Frank and Dee:

Here's me:

And here is this adorable deaf guy. I didn't realize he was deaf! Frank's like, "I think he's sort of deaf," and I laughed because he wasn't singing very well and sort of seemed like he was singing to himself. He was sooo cute though.

Did I mention Dee was crazy drunk?

Voltage at the Empty Bottle

2006-09-05T02:57:00.000-05:00

I went to see this band called Voltage tonight at the Empty Bottle. They were pretty rad. I'd seen them once before. Some girl I knew randomly gave me a bunch of records. I don't know why. It was very random. And Voltage was one of the records. That's how I first heard of them.

I went with my friend Gregg, whom I have to thank for agreeing to meet me there, because had he not, I might've not gone, and it was a fun time.

The first band claimed to be called NineteenEightyThousand, but that name wasn't listed and something with the word Lazer was listed, so I don't know who they were. They weren't selling merch, either. Regardless of what they were called, they were pretty fun.

The second band was called The Diminishers and they, literally, made me sick to my stomach. Or so I claimed. I can't say for sure whether it was them or not that did it. It may've been a coincidence, but I was queasy and I felt OK blaming them. They had like all these people on stage including three violinists and a cellist, so I thought maybe they'd be interesting, but they were terribly boring.

The guy who sang, and for whom the whole band seemed to be an ego stroke for him, created the most simplistic melodies that reminded me of children's educational songs, but not in a good way (like that vowels song by The Evens).

When their set was over, this guy by the bar yelled "one more," and I literally had this violent sort of impulse to make him be quiet, but I didn't attack him or anything.

At the last Voltage show I went to, I saw this guy who also happened to be at this one who also happened to know my friend Gregg. Weird coincidence, huh? His name's Kevin. We all took pictures together. Including some in the photobooth. Yay photobooth!

Then Voltage played. Just two guys, but they sound really full. The drummer was really awesome and had a xylephone mounted to his drum kit. And in one song he used a whistle and it was really good. Can you tell I'm tired?

The drummer's high hat stand was really unstable and the drummer of NineteenEightyThousand leaned onto the stage and held it steady for half of a song. While he did, this other guy who we were all pretty sure was high on acid or some other psychedelic put his leg over him. It was kind of humorous and weird.

Later, that same guy came up to me. He said, "I have some words for you." As he said this, he was zipping up his pants. He said, "I'm zipping up my pants, but don't think that's an invitation. It's my body." I was laughing.

Then he said, "I feel like you have a beef with me."

"No, I don't have a beef with you," I said it and I meant it.

"You're not friendly toward me."

"When I saw you today, I thought you looked familiar, but I didn't know from where I met you."

He told me we used to work at the same starbucks together, which you'd think I'd remember that, but then I vaguely remember that he worked there very briefly and then it made sense that I didn't remember him so well.

He said that my name was Jason and when I told him it was Brian, he said, "Well, they have one vowel in common," which is something I often do, so I thought that was funny.

I asked him his name and he said, "Javier....No, Lord, you can call me Lord, I'm a vengeful lord!"

Then he said, "I'm gonna kiss you, but don't take it personally," and then he gave me a peck on the lips, said thank you, and walked away.

He screamed a lot the rest of the night. A constant source of entertainment. Hopefully I'll see him again.

Dance for Life and some other stuff

2006-09-01T16:32:00.000-05:00

Just a couple random things.

First, The bucketstrip above is a sampling of pictures I took at Dance for Life this year. Since All the pictures came out blurry, I didn't really feel like going into an in-depth analysis of the event. I'll just make a couple remarks.

As usual, my favorite piece was by Melissa Thodos Dance
The Venue was only slightly better, for technical reasons, in terms of the performance; the venue was pretty terrible in terms of the VIP pre-party, which was hot and uncomfortable and cramped
I didn't find the finale, choreographed by Randy Duncan, to be as dynamic and interesting as the previous finales, not that it was terrible or anything; it was still quite good

Also, of interest probably only to me, and fans of trivia, I recently was uploading my cd collection to my computer. A couple days ago, I thought I was finished, with about 23 gigs of memory, but then I thought "I'll go look up in my loft in case I've missed anything," and sure enough, there were over 50 cds hidden up there. I'm about halfway through with this lot and am at about 26 gigs, or 7780 songs. Yeah, so I like music.

Lastly, a friend of mine was talking about The Facts of Life and the fact that Molly Ringwald was in the first few episodes. Fascinated, I decided to Netflix it. I saw the first episode, a heartwarming little affair about the difference between sisterly love and lesbianism, basically, and didn't notice her. I had look it up on google to realize this was her:

Boy did she get cuter with age. But I should watch what I say, because she sorta looks like Nicholas from Eight is Enough:

People used to always say I looked like him when I was little:

Anyway, after watching two episodes, I was satisfied (the second episode was about just because Blair's mom is a slut, doesn't mean that Blair has to be a slut even if she looks and acts like one). I'm not watching the other four episodes on the disk nor am I going to watch the rest of the first season (though it was fun making those quick synopses, wasn't it?)

Lollapalooza Day 3

2006-08-27T23:59:00.000-05:00

It's finally here: Lollapalooza Day 3. The main reason this took so long is that Day 3 is kind of a blur. Remember I talked about a certain kind of brownie that may or may not have altered my perceptions about things? Well, there seemed to be some sort of cumulative effect happening, because on the third day, I was really, to quote my good friend Joe Martine from high school, 'trippin' hard balls.'

We arrive and are walking toward a stage when we get distracted, for the first time, by the kidzapalooza stage. I can't remember what was playing (throughout the weekend, we'd heard a cover of the Ramones' Blitzkrieg Bop and a couple other wildly inappropriate for children numbers played with bubblegum pop sensibility), but we walked over and noticed that very young kids were playing, and playing quite well. They were from the real live School of Rock, which I guess is a school like in Fame except all the students learn how to play rock songs with complicated guitar solos and stuff like that.

The second band we saw on day 3 is Sparta.

Now, I'm a moderate fan of Sparta, but I have to say that every time I hear them, I just hear unrealized great songs by At The Drive-In. I've said before that Sparta took all that was mellow and melodic from ATDI and Mars Volta took everything that was aggressive and abrasive and alone, neither of them is dynamic enough to really hold interest for the listener.

Then I saw a bunch of cute guys.

I was told to watch Hot Chip, but while we were walking toward their stage, we heard these guys playing.

They were called The Benevento-Russo Duo. Despite being two guys with a drum set and a bunch of keyboards, their music was really full-sounding and held my interest. I really enjoyed them.

After their set, guess which totally hot roadie made a reappearance?

Yum.

One more kinda cute guy on our way to see 30 Seconds to Mars.

30 Seconds to Mars, I guess, features the guy from My So-Called Life, the wildly popular, but shortly run teen drama. I can't remember his name. Anyway, it was hard to get close to the stage, but can that guy twirl!!! He was just runnin' around like a crazy member of an 80's hair rock band! Very impressive.

Things start getting fuzzier around now. I don't remember why we didn't go see Matisyahu (maybe we did?), or Of Montreal or She Wants Revenge or if we went to watch Queens of the Stone Age or not. I have no pictures to tell me. I think we did watch Queens, because I remember that we were leaving and specifically not seeing Broken Social Scene, whom I really really enjoy. Ah well, here's the last decent picture I though worth posting from Lollapalooza, 2006.

Raleigh 2006

2006-08-24T17:14:00.000-05:00

I don't know why, but I'm skipping Lollapalooza Day 3 and going straight for Raleigh 2006.

Our part-time employee starts school very soon, so I had a little vacation time available with the prospect for more murky at best. I mean, I'm sure I'll have some eventually, but I just don't know how soon it'll be totally easy.

Anyway, I wanted to go somewhere in the states I'd never been before. I'd recently met this couple from Slovenia, friends of Wally, who, on their vacation, came to the states and drove across our country. Route 66 and all that.

My friend George invited me to come out and stay with him. So I did.

Things started out rather nightmarishly. I'd made my travel arrangements online. And the night before I was to leave, I realized that my departure time was for 7:42 pm and not am. I decided to just get to the airport as early as I could and try to get a standby flight.

Well, first I woke up later than I'd wanted.

I get to the airport and fly through security. There's an 11:00 am flight I'm trying for. I'm like fifth on the standby list. I've been lower on the list and made flights, so I'm a little hopeful.

The flight comes and passes. The good news is that I'm on the top of the list for the next flight, which is only 57 minutes later - and the gate is K-9, which means 'dog,' so I have a really good feeling about the next flight.

Alas, the next flight comes and goes. Despite being first in a list of 14, I do not get on this flight, but like 9 other people on the list do. I'm a little incensed, and the next flight's not til around 4 pm. Luckily I brought my camera and plenty of Preacher comics.

Here's the only picture of a cute guy I took, though. It was slim pickins. Certainly no smorgasbord of hotness like Lollapalooza.

Kinda Anderson Cooper-esque. I think he mighta been a pilot. He talked to the pilot he's talking to for a good half hour.

While I was waiting, I saw this guy come up to one of the remote computers and start playing with it. The guy had no official looking nametags or anything like that. He looked to me to be of Indian descent maybe. But he was dressed in khaki pants and a blue checkered shirt. He looked conservative and boring. He didn't look like he was idly seeing if he could get the computer to work, like maybe someone trying to get free web-time to check their email or something. He looked like he had a sense of purpose. And when he was done doing whatever he was doin', he very casually walked away from the machine.

At O'Hare, most of the check-in kiosks are sort of self-contained, but there are a few instances where the gate has a computer just sitting by itself. The whole thing freaked me out a little bit. Especially how casual he was about it. He had a boarding pass in the front breast pocket of his shirt.

I went up to this woman who was working at a nearby gate and said, "This is kinda weird, but are the computers out there supposed to be for public use?"

She was like, "Wha?" She's like "that's not a computer, that's a [I forget]. Here, I'll show you.

It sure looked like a computer to me. It was running on Windows, to be sure.

She was like, "maybe he's who was messin' up my computer. Maybe he's why mine keeps freezing." She goes to the terminal and keeps pressing buttons including the esc and delete keys, but it doesn't seem to do anything. After about 45 seconds of this, she's like, "I finnin' go home." She walks back to her gate, grabs her coat, and walks away.

It was kinda frustrating. I kept thinking about the guy changing manifests or something. I mean, I didn't know what kind of act of terrorism someone could do using those machines, but I bet there's something.

I decided to go walk some more and see if I could find him, which I did. He was not too far away and he seemed to look right at me when he saw me.

He slipped my gaze again and then I lost him. It was bugging me, still, but I felt like I already tried to get someone to help, so I just kept my eyes open to see if I saw him again, but I didn't.

I can't remember if it was the third or fourth flight, but I finally got on a plane. It was exciting.

I didn't arrive in Raleigh until after 7 pm sometime, so it kinda sucked, cuz I was leaving early Thursday morning, so this effectively cut my trip to 2 full days, and my host was scheduled to work Tuesday early and late Wednesday.

We made the most of it, though; I had a great time.

We decided to go get some food and see Little Miss Sunshine. We got pizza from the local pizza place whose owner is totally cute and then went to see the movie at a little single screen indie place called The Rialto.

On the way there, this kid was playing with one of those toy helicopters that you pull a cord and they fly up in the air. He asked excitedly as we walked by if we wanted to see and we both said that we did.

Here's my host, George. He's so sweet and cute.

And here's a picture of a pretty typical Raleigh Residence. Notice lots of flowers.

There're lots of flowers in Raleigh.

There's not a lot of street art, but I did find this:

On the second day, George worked, so I ended up going to a local cafe and reading most the day. It was pretty enjoyable.

After George got home from work, we decided on dinner and a trip to see some local music.

We went to a new restaurant called Milltown, which was pretty good. Kinda slightly more gourmet bar food; nothing too spectacular.

We went to a place called Lantern for dessert, which was delicious and the decor was practically what you might find in New York or any other Urban Metropolitan city. The things I did notice were inconsistencies that really were the foundation of what makes good design good, though. For example, in the bathroom, the sink fixture was plastic. It looked very cheap. The decor for the rest of the bathroom was perfect, but the fixtures ruined it. Also, the mirror was not bevelled and was not framed. It hung with little plastic hangers. Aside from those details, the bathroom was great.

I took a couple pictures with no lens on my camera. Here's one:

Here's one with lens:

Here's me trying to take a picture of both of us. Had to use manual focus, cuz the camera had no idea what to focus on in that lighting:

Even blurry, George's smile looks stunning.

At a venue called Local 506, we saw two bands.

Eyes To Space

(check out that home-made keytar!)

and Get Him Eat Him (or something like that)

On the last full day, Wednesday, we were gonna go to the Farmers' Market in downtown Raleigh. We were a little early, so we walked down this pedestrian-only street to look at shops. There was one called Amazing Glaze, which is one of those places where you paint pre-made pottery and they fire it for you. We decided we needed to paint some pottery to have mementos. It was great fun.

We made each other cute little mugs to a Cars album and then some duet album featuring some reggae guy whom we didn't recognize, but the first two duets were with this guy and 1) Willie Nelson and 2) Bonnie Raitt, so it was kind of cool.

A bit later, we made it to the farmers' market. Here's me holding up an acorn (Raleigh is known as the "city of oaks," and the acorn is kind of a central icon in their iconography):

Here's George buying bread from the bakery for which he used to work - indeed, the baker for which he originally came to Raleigh in the first place (a partnership long-since abandoned).

These characters seemed like the embodiment of "Farmers' Market."

This guy sold cheese:

We saw this totally cute puppy layin' in the back of a hatchback and it totally made me call home to see how Racecar was doin'.

Cool building murals:

Today was oppressively hot. Probably why this sheriff was taking it easy at the gas station.

Oh yeah, and he's fat.

Oh, and then we saw Snakes On A Plane!!!

It was pretty fun. I'd recommend it. Suspenseful and gory. Yayy!!

After the movie, we stopped at Lake Johnston (Johnson?). We took turns posing for pictures and taking pictures of hot guys as they jogged by.

That's George's inconspicuous look. Nice.

When we got home, George made some fantastic sandwiches from stuff he picked up from the Farmers' Market. One was a fig, goat cheese and prosciutto and the other was a delicious BLT. Sooo good.

Later, George took me to the gay bar where he works in a kind of a "take-your-out-of-town-visitor-to-work-day exercise.

Project Runway was playing on the TV with closed captioning, so I didn't complain. I'd never seen a full episode before (I know - there's no need for comment on this really, is there? I'm out of the loop), so it was fun. I always knew I'd like it.

I got to meet some of the local homos, and they were nice and friendly.

Oh, and the peanuts!

George had to work til just after 2 am, and I stayed for the whole thing. I was drunk and exhausted when we left. We woke up late and I was nervous I was going to miss my flight and sit in an airport for another 6 hours, but we made it (RDU's a little less crowded than O'Hare). However, Chicago was having bad storms, so we were grounded a full 2 and a half hours before we could take off. More catastrophe. I guess it coulda been much worse.

Moschell Art Opening

2006-08-20T19:35:00.000-05:00

Last night I went to Mars Gallery for the opening of an artist you may've encountered on MySpace, Moschell. I went out with Ryan, but ran into lots of fun folks there: Jason, Wally, Catty, Ryan, the Duke, AlexRoss, Vic, JoJo... I'm sure there were others. It was a good scene.

The Duke was going crazy about my getting a picture of this woman:

I was his hero for getting such a clear shot. I forgot who he called her. Some crazy-looking celebrity.

Here's a shot of my friend Jason and the artist:

And here's a shot of some of the art. The artist basically used little matchboxes as a surface, then coated the matches within with paint or glitter. I thought it was well-presented.

Here's a link to my flickr with all the pictures from this show.

Lollapalooza Day 2

2006-08-16T23:22:00.000-05:00

We arrive a bit before noon. Ryan wanted to see Be Your Own Pet, who is this like 16 year old girl who's in a rock/punk band or something like that (I really don't know), but I wanted to see Rainer Maria, which is also a girl-fronted band, but much more established. The Rainer Maria stage is on the way to the byop stage, so we stop there. On the way, I see these two guys coming from the byop stage.

What a way to start the day! The guy with the tats is not really a looker, but he's got a nice body and cool tats. But that other guy! Whoo! Look at that! What a smile.

Then there's this other guy. This pic doesn't really capture him, unfortunately. Didn't get a really good shot. He's got this look about him that made me just know he's an attorney. His friend sitting and reading the paper isn't so shabby, either.

We walk over to byop for a minute and I think she's a little boring plus the audience was more attractive and the audience is in the shade at Rainer Maria, so we go back to watch them.

Who knew Jimmy Fallon was the drummer of Rainer Maria? Not me. (ok, it's not him, but it looks like him.

And the rest of the band.

You can see the rest of my Rainer Maria pics at my flickr here.

We saw these attention hogs inbetween bands. They were cute, though.

OK, so one of the best performances of the weekend was next. The Go! Team has such a high energy show one can't help but be impressed. The members generally are multi-instrumentalists and their music feels really original and yet familiar at the same time. And everybody is so damn cute!!! Cheerleading outfits? Yahoo! Two drummers in most the songs? Awesome! Multi-ethnic? Superb!

And recorders? Who doesn't love a recorder? Takes me back to rockin' out in 8th grade!!!

But by far, my favorite was Sam, the guitarist (/drummer/banjo player/ everything else player). Cute, talented, a total ham and a winning smile, what's not to love?

I even saw him out after the performance under the trees and said "it's Sam!."

He heard me and turned around to look and probably thought I was crazy. All I got was this shot of him walking away. I shoulda been a little more aggressive. Oh well. I love you Sam! Call me!

Then that weird guy who was onstage for every good band came out and danced a little with them. Look at the look on Sam's face. He's so adorable. Those wacky Canadians!

OK, to top it all off, there were a couple cute guys seen during this performance.

OK, so maybe I'm a sucker for a nice tattoo, but he's ok. Ferreals, yo.

But then there was this guy.

This guy may've been the all time winner for the weekend. I'm not sure.

At times it looked a little like the people around whom he was standing were somewhat aware of my picture taking. I will probably never know. It sure looked a little like he was modeling for me.

More Go! Team Photos.

After Go! Team I'm gonna say quite a few hotties were out.

While we waited for Sonic Youth, this charming young man entertained us with his sock puppet.

So, I am sorry to say that Sonic Youth were something of a disappointment. I'll disclose now that I may or may not have eaten a particular kind of brownie which may have altered my perception of things, but I heard from other people that my experience was shared by others. Their performance was just...lackluster.

The real kicker is that Gnarls Barkley was performing at the same time as Sonic Youth, but I didn't think to move to their stage. I mean, Crazy is the feel-good song of the summer! I totally should have watched at least part of their set. Oh well. :(

Later I saw this kid. Isn't he absolutely demonic? Rosemary, you lost your baby!

Next I had to stop by the The Dresden Dolls stage because my friend Olivia was doing sound. There she is!

Hi, Olivia! Good job. I can totally hear everything!

But I couldn't get very close, so I took this picture of the screen, which definitely highlighted that crazy makeup.

OK, so you know when trippy things happen when you're sorta, um, tripping? Well, The Flaming Lips were up next. 'Nuff said:

Balloons. Santas. Spacemen. Alien Girls. Skeletons playing keyboards. A guy in a giant balloon. Crowd surfing. What a waste of a brownie.

I liked this girl.

More Flaming Lips Photos Here.

Then there were the last few cute guys of the evening.

The darker it gets, the less my auto-focus works, unfortunately. This guy I really wanted a good picture of. Note his glistening muscles!

This one was the only one that came out clear, but it's a profile shot. I think we used to work out at the same gym. His friend's pretty cute, too.

These guys actually look like they were looking right at me.

These guys might've had their own brownies.

And finally, the last couple things I saw at the end of the night.

I love Chicago.

Lollapalooza Day 1

2006-08-11T11:20:00.000-05:00

I went to Lollapalooza last weekend. I went all three days with Ryan and we arrived each day before noon - two of the times before 11 - and didn't leave until at least 8 on any given night. I think we might've left around 7:30 on Sunday, but we were, understandably, tired and a little irritable. This meant that we missed Broken Social Scene, the fact of which I was definitely not happy, but Ryan wanted to leave and we'd been together for the whole thing, so I acquiesced.

I took about two hundred pictures over the weekend. I snuck in my Canon Rebel, which was technically not allowed. I snuck it in all three days, too. I even had a pretty huge zoom lens, so I could get really close-up shots of both band members and unsuspecting hot guys. I think I took more pictures of men than of musicians, but I haven't actually counted.

The first band we watched was Dead Boy and the Elephant Men. I'd seen them perform on the Henry Rollins show and thought they were OK. Kind of a spin on The White Stripes, but a little more bluesy. They're from near New Orleans, so that sorta makes sense.

Don't ask me how, but somehow we missed The Subways and Blue October. We might've watched a little of the subways, but obviously it wasn't very memorable. This was around high noon and the sun was at its apex, so we needed little excuse to stay in the shade.

On the way to watch Cursive, here's the first cute boy we saw.

Unfortunately, I didn't get a very good picture of him. He was SUPER HOT, and had this great back tattoo.

He was standing by the t-shirt sandwich board, so we said, "we need to go look at the shirts," and that became the euphomism for "hot guy" for the rest of the weekend. "Where are all the shirts?" Etc.

So, next was Cursive, whom, I have to say were one of the best performances of the weekend. They played a little from every "era" of their sound. They've gone through a few permutations, being a four-piece and more straight-forward, later adding a cellist, then, on this newest album, adding a lot of horns.

My friend Mike once got really angry with Tim Kasher for putting on a whole set that didn't resemble Cursive's studio stuff at all. He's of the school that the live show should sound like what's produced in the studio. While I enjoy this sound, I also appreciate when bands deviate from said sound and create new stuff right in front of you. This set had a pretty healthy balance of both. One really cool thing was that they utilized the horns and cello in songs that hadn't been recorded using either, which I thought was smart. I mean, they're paying these guys to be there, might as well make them earn their keep.

Notice how damn awesome my camera (and lens) is. I can even get close up pictures of a drummer! Mind you I was not even against the stage for any of these pictures. Probably like 10 - 20 feet back.

The band The Ohmega Watts were playing lollapalooza. They had an autograph signing, but no one was there. And their name was spelled wrong.

The Editors were voted by me as "Best New Discovery Band" for Lollapalooza. They're kind of in the vein of Interpol or some of those other retro 80's type bands. They put on an awesome set. Unfortunately, I was infatuated with the very british-blue-collar-looking bassist and didn't get many pictures of the rest of the band.

I also took one cute guy picture.

And then right after, this boy was being suggestive with a Budweiser.

OK, next was Umphrey's McGee and Ryan Adams, so naturally we went and ate and watched cute boys.

The last band we watched on the first day was Sleater Kinney. I'd never seen them before, only have one album, and knew this was my last chance, so I have to say they were part of the reason I went to Lollapalooza. They did not disappoint.

While we were waiting for the set to start, a girl who was sitting on a blanket, so who was at my calf-level, said to me "What happens 'tomorrow'?"

Now, I have a tattoo on my left calf in binary code, and it's of the word "tomorrow."

I never thought in a million years that someone would be able to decipher my tattoo, but she did. Kudos to her. That was pretty awesome. Here's the girl.

And now here're some sleater kinney pics.

For more sleater kinney pics, you can click here to go to my flickr.

On the train ride home, I experimented with a different lens, with a wider aperture. It was pretty low light, but still took very clear pictures. I was pretty impressed (the night photos from the sleater kinney set were also taken using this lens).

That photo wasn't taken that close up, it's cropped. This particular lens has no zooming capability. Here's another shot with the whole frame.

I also ran into my friend John. I took a picture of him from all the way across the car and it came out totally clear. And then another one up close.

What I did on my New York Vacation part B

2006-06-27T17:01:00.000-05:00

The main impetus of my trip to NY was that Three Dollar Bill was nominated for album of the year in the OutMusic Awards. As many know, I've been a friend and fan to 3DB for many years. Also, there was a period where I thought I might actually be in 3DB, but that time, I think, has come and gone. Mostly because the show they played in New York was their last. Y'see, Chris' boyfriend Allen has enrolled in Graduate School in that Sucker-upper-of-cool-people, San Francisco. They are friends numbers 5 and 6 who have moved to SF in the past few years.

Losing one band member wouldn't be impossible from which to recover, but alas, Gerra, the bassist, also quit the band for unrelated reasons. Jane Danger and I discussed possibilties for continuing on with the band, but I think that's a pipe dream as of now. It is possible that I may play some sort of music with Jane one day, but it's all conjecture at this point.

But anyway, getting back to 3DB in New York, here are some images of them playing during the showcase that happened on Saturday night.

Jane trying to look crazy:

Gerra being her naughty awesome self:

Three Dollar Bill on the streets of New York:

One of the things that kinda sucked about this trip to NY was the poor coordination on my part to get in contact with friends living out there. I failed to connect with fun Frank, adorable Mikey and Leidy, vivacious Liz and a couple others. I did run in with good ole Wilson and supercute Koop, but the only picture I got of Koop, because I'm a doofus, is this one:

Marco and I also went to MoMA. I was under the influence of a certain type of cookie, which sort of prevented me from taking many pictures, but here's one of this artist who recently had a couple pieces at the MCA in Chicago. I remember someone telling me about her, but now I don't know her name or anything else about her. Her newer stuff is more organic and sculptural than this piece.

This piece reminded me a lot of street art, though I don't know if the artist has a background in it.

The most memorable exhibit was a series of video installations of Douglas Gordon. My favorite was a large white room with two perpendicular video screens. The film on the screens could be seen from either side of the screens. The two screens had similar but different videos playing on them. The videos were of an elephant in a large white room of about the same size of the room the screens are in. At the beginning, the elephant is on the floor, lying down, but it gets up and walks around. All the while, the camera is circling the elephant at a slow pace. If you were to walk around the white room, circling the two screens, you would be walking at the same speed at which the camera is circling the elephant. This created a pretty odd sensation. You could also walk in the opposite direction or between the two screens (each of which were going in opposite directions from one another) thereby sort of being sucked into the movement of them or, if you walk the other way, being forced away from them (not literally, but your mind feels something there).
When we first walked in, I was simply mesmerized by the elephant images, as I sort of love elephants (they're no rhinos or hippos, but they're sooo great anyway. They just may be my sixth favorite animal!). Marco circled once and came back and told me to circle it and I was skeptical because I thought the videos of the elephants were great to begin with, but I quickly understood just how awesome it was to circle. There were all these people who were sitting down and being static and I wanted to yell at them, but I didn't. Poor people.
On the train, I was mesmerized by this girl's nailwork. So I took a picture. I looked up at Marco and he mouthed "you're my hero." See, he was more fascinated with her cleaning under her nails with her crucifix. At least she found a use for it.

I also saw this kid wearing this backpack:

And also this cute little kitty "guarding" the seafood market in Chinatown:

What I did on my New York Vacation Day 1

2006-06-24T15:58:00.000-05:00

So, a few weeks ago, I went to New York.

One of my first visits was to the new Apple Store.

Kinda like the entrance to the Louvre, the I.M. Pei-inspired entrance is a glass edifice with stairs (and an elevator) descending into the subterranean store.

The inside of the store was pretty typical. I didn't buy anything or anything. Of course, we played Which-apple-store-employee-would-you-sleep-with, which is always fun.

There was some sort of Indian celebration going on and this parade of people was exiting Central Park as we approached.

While leaving the park, I noted to myself that in New York, even the way they park the horse-and-carriages is somehow magical, fairy-tale-like. Note how the drivers get the horseys to put their little front hooves on the curb. It's so cute.

Also, I noted this fellow

who reminded me of a painting by Jean-August-Dominique Ingres, called The Large Odalisque.

Also also in the park (but maybe this was Washington park? -I forget), was this installation but my favorite living installation artist, Sarah Sze. The piece is a mirror image of the top of a building that faces the park. If you were to look up right behind you as you look at this, you'd see the top of the building, which, as I said, looks just like this. Except, of course, inside, there's not all these household items arranged neurotically.

Another view:

With my gracious hosts, Andrew and Marco, we explored the new Time Warner building, which is actually two seperate skyscrapers connected by one large commercial shopping/dining base.

Here's an amazing view from the sixth or seventh floor.

me and mike and leslie

2006-06-14T11:38:00.000-05:00

me and mike and leslie.JPG, originally uploaded by bhofmeister13.

Last night I went to see Leslie Hall, the girl who makes that video "Gem Sweater," at Funky Buddha, in Chicago. It was a great time. I'm sure I'll be posting more later, this is just a taste.

Hello Mac

2006-06-01T23:57:00.000-05:00

So, I've purchased a new computer and it's a Mac. It's pretty cute. The idea was more productivity, but now I'm on a learning curve and I have less applications, though the ones that come with a mac are pretty righteous. Still, there's the learning thing. I'm getting there though. Also I'm uploading my CD collection. I have about 700 cds, so this'll take some time.

I think I got the new computer just in time. I was downloading something on my old one and it crashed a minute ago. Dumb windows.

So, yeah, I still need to familiarize myself, but hopefully I'll start posting again soon.

Stay tuned.

Two Invites

2006-04-13T15:12:00.000-05:00

Hey Friend,

I'm having two events very soon that I'd like to invite you to.

First, I'm involved in a group show that is closing on Friday April 21st.

The piece I've created is a sculptural installation using steel wire, vellum and light and spans the volume of a room. It's unlike anything I've done before. Because the installation is site specific, it won't be for sale and it will also be dismantled at the closing of the show. I will have three limited edition archive quality prints available for sale documenting the piece.

In the next post, there are images of this piece. Go ahead and scroll down.

As you can see from the images, the piece is totally unidentifiable in this format. The images are meant to be beautiful abstractions, capturing moments of space from the piece. The only way to experience the piece is in person.

Here is a link to the show's web postcard.

The second event I'm writing about is my birthday party. This will take place the following night at my apartment. Like last year, I waited too late to plan, so we'll be celebrating my birthday 11 days after it took place.

Please email me if you need my address. The party will begin at 8 pm.

I'm looking forward to seeing you. Hope you can make it.

Love,

Brian

New Art And a Show

2006-04-08T03:56:00.000-05:00

I am a part of a group show called Oscillating Oscelot put on by my friend Anna as Manual Productions. It will be at an impromptu gallery space on Division near Hoyne. I was in San Francisco for the opening, but the closing is Friday April 21st. The piece is an installation using wire, vellum and light. It's really cool and I'm pretty excited about it. It's the size of a whole room and it's light and airy and surreal and I would be really excited if everyone could come and see it.
Since it would be impossible to sell this piece, I entreated my talented friend Doug Birkenheuer to take some photos of the piece that we might be able to sell as sort of documentation of the piece. You may agree that the photos are lovely pieces of art in their own right, which was my intention. I haven't yet priced them, but I have a feeling they're going to be a little high, since I'm trying to recoup my basic costs for being in this show.
I will certainly be posting more details on my show later and sending out ample emails, friendster messages, myspace messages and perhaps even a craigslist bulletin before the show happens, but please save the date. They're charging $5 at the door, but I highly encourage sneaking in, if you can (please don't tell Anna I said that).

What I did on My San Francisco Vacation, Vol I

2006-04-07T14:48:00.000-05:00

We had an early flight on Sunday morning. I wanted so much to give my apartment a good cleaning before I left, but after every attempt I just looked at the piling clothes, paperwork, mail, dishes etc and just continued looking. I don't know what's wrong with me and cleaning. Even now I'm blogging when I could be cleaning. I guess it just doesn't bother me that much. And also I rarely have guests.

Anyway, I stayed home the night before to clean but didn't clean but it still took me hours to pack (moments unnecessarily stretched and interspersed into hours, that is) and I went to sleep after three and had to wake at 5. Slept through my alarm and Dawn's phone call woke me up at 5:15. Got ready and my ex picked us up (what a sweet ex, right? He's watching my dog while I'm gone, too!) and took us to Midway. We try to go to a bar in the airport. Eventhough it's 7 in the morning, we want bloody marys because we're on ATA. That's what we call vacation. "When you're on ATA, you're on vacation." Plus we flew ATA. But anyway and alas, the bars don't open until 10:30 on regular days and even later on Sundays (who said we have separation of church and state, anyway). Our flight's on time and it's all good. We sleep on and off on the plane and of course we have bloody marys there. They're tasty and help us to try and sleep a little more.

We dine at a Cheesecake Factory in Downtown SF for lunch the first day. It has a great view of the downtown skyline. I'm starved but am only able to eat a couple bites of my sandwich. For some reason, flying does that to me.

Then it's time to go to Alcatraz. We arrive to the embarcadero and walk around a little, as we're early. Nothing too great to see there, but there's a fricking sourdough museum, if you can believe that. I still don't believe it.

Alcatraz is beautiful and smaller (the main cell house, really) than I would have guessed. The cells are so small. Certainly jail should be a detriment to crime, but it isn't for some reason. That's what the statistics say, anyway. From inside the cells you have a beautiful view of San Francisco and people sailing their boats in the bay and it must've been really sad to watch life pass those prisoners by.

We took the audio tour which is probably the best thing to do. Just walking around the building would've been pretty boring, I'm gonna have to guess. Mostly because it just didn't have any life left in it of its own. The audio really helped capture some feeling that I think would've been truly lacking. There were even sound effects. Reminded me of Oz. So if you go to SF, book a trip to Alcatraz early because I hear there's often a waiting list. Make sure you also wear a sweatshirt cuz the ferry to the island is pretty chillie.

After Alcatraz, we met up with my friend Dave, for whom I was watching his dog while in town. He happened to be going out of town the same week I was coming in. Together, the 6 of us went across the Golden Gate Bridge into an area called Tiberon, near Sausalito. They say the people with money live around there. From the outdoor seating at the restaurant, we could see the San Francisco skyline across the bay. We were blessed with a clear night. We all drank margaritas and had a good time.

Monday Dawn and I went shopping in the Haight. I thought of a slogan for the Haight street chamber of commerce marketing campaign (if such an animal exists): "Be a Haighter." Isn't it cute?

Dawn and I spent about 3 hours in Amoeba, which is a new and used record/cd/dvd store. I bought the following 22 CDs:

Kinski : Be Gentle With The Warm Turtle
Liars : W.F.O.G.W.T.B.O.O.O
Suit of Lights : self-titled
Seam : The Pace Is Glacial
Pedal Steel Transmission : The Angel of the Squared Circle
Joan of Arc : Live in Chicago, 1999
SuperSystem : Always Never Again
The Wolfgang Press : Queer
31 Knots : Talk Like Blood
Make Believe : Shock of Being
Olympic Death Squad : Self-Titled
Various Artists : San Francisco Song Cycle Vol I
Marianne Faithful : A Collection of Her Best Recordings
Siouxsie and the Banshees : A Kiss In The Dreamhouse
The Afghan Whigs : Historectomy
Slint : Spiderland
Ex-Boyfriends : Dear John
James : Self-Titled
Medicine : The Mechanical Forces of Love
The Specials : Self-Titled
MC 900 Foot Jesus : Welcome To My Dream
Nine Inch Nails : With Teeth

On this day we also did other shopping around the Haight but I don't think I bought anything else.

Tuesday night I met up with the lovely and talented Jax, whom I met on Myspace in the super fun WOW! group. Jax has an x in her name because she's a minx. I've just decided that. Anyway, Trannyshack was tons of fun. There was one really really cute beardy boy who would not look at me all night until right when I was leaving, when he decided to blatantly smile at me which made me sorta want to punch him, but I didn't. Grrr.

The also lovely and talented Jackie Beat, from beautiful and sunny Los Angeles, performed. She had the stage the whole night and that was fine with me cuz she was a riot. Sort of a Weird Al Yankovic of drag queens, if'n you get my drift (I've taken up using the word "if'n" lately; I like it a little better than regular old "if").

OK, that's all on San Francisco, for now. Stay tuned. I just bought a fancy-dancy new camera so I expect I'll be blogging more. Well, hope.

Hello Neighbor

2006-03-10T19:57:00.000-05:00

I just got home from work, and because it's chilly in my apartment, I took off my coat and put on my lonsdale fleece jacket. Then I took off my street shoes and put on my slippers. Then I realized something: I'm Mr. Rogers.

dream and a million dollars

2006-02-19T20:17:00.000-05:00

A couple days ago I had a dream and wrote this down:

This morning I had a follow-up dream to a dream I had a few months back. I did't remember the original dream until I was having this one this morning (I suppose, though, that it is possible that I didn't have the original dream, but that the memories of the original were merely facets of this one - when we dream a memory, is it a memory of a dream, or just a...dream?).

In the original dream, I was back in high school and I was bound and determined to take Michelle Mroz to a dance. But Tony Fry was dating Michelle. Or someone like Tony Fry. Did tony have braces? He was something of an amalgam of male oppression from early high school. Anyway, I don't really remember much from the first dream except Michelle wearing a nice dress for the dance and the Tony figure punching me in the face and me realizing it was the only time I'd been punched (although, this isn't true - it would've been the 2nd time; the first time was with Shawn Landis in 7th or 8th grade - Shawn [always one to pronounce to teachers that he didn't need to learn because he was heir to Landis Plastics, with which most teachers would admit to not being familiar, usually only slightly deflating his argument] later went on to become a club kid of some notoriety and we would be friendly during my early twenties, during my exploits as as cocktail waiter/bartender).

In this dream, it is a few weeks later and I am still sort of bound to Michelle, yet we are not "an item." Instead, I'm acting as some sort of institution of self-discovery for her. I am telling her that she doesn't need a guy to define her and that she should do what she wants and that in all of Tony's blustering and anger he hasn't once thought of what she wanted and that that is inconsiderate. All this I don't really remember, it's just sort of the feeling I get from the dream. I remember also that the Tony character comes down a set of stairs and eventhough he is pretty angry with me, he shakes my hand and I tell him he's the only person who's ever punched me.

Right now I'm watching Million Dollar Baby and it's sooo good. It wasn't even in my Netflix. My friend Ezra had it and gave it to me. I hesitated even despite all the Oscar-worthiness I knew it had. Boxing totally grosses me out on so many levels, but I just was riveted.

Really big shew

2006-01-22T21:46:00.000-05:00

Monday came and went and I was in a drugged-up daze, but it was pretty good from what I remember. I hung the show throughout the day on Monday, starting around 2 pm and finishing around 5 or so.

A friend of mine ended up helping me out but I was not very organized and couldn't utilize him very well so it was weird and he left relatively quickly. The very helpful staff at Cocktail were, um, very helpful, though and made things easier, especially since I forgot my hammer - duh!

I like writing "duh!" It's very high school journal of me. Think of it ever on as in my vocabulary, like it or not.

So, after I set up I went back home with the vague intention of changing and when I got there I sorta vascillated about it but I ended up changing and people complemented me on my outfit so I think I made the right decision.

At the show there were some very nice, heartfelt responses and it was cool to hear different people say different pieces were their favorites because that means that everything had some value and nothing sucked too much. Except for the White Squid in Sea of Pink Feathers, which I have to admit didn't come out as well as I'd've liked. Perhaps the feathers weren't pink enough? They were kind of really pale. Oh well. As my friend Marco sometimes says, "they can't all be gems."

So I learned some stuff about my art that I already knew but hadn't collected into coherent thought and also learned some stuff that I probably never knew and it is going to help me in the future of my art, so that is good.

I recently almost finished the book Hairstyles of the Damned by Joe Meno and it is very good and his voice, which is a little like how I'm writing now, is stuck in my head, so I apologize for any idiosynchratic literary nature you may be experiencing as a result of this.

I only "almost" finished it because there're like a couple pages left and I was reading it at work and then it got busy, so I didn't not finish it because I didn't want to, but rather because my ability to was impeded against my will. I will probably finish it tomorrow and then maybe start a new book. Perhaps by Barbara Gowdy, a canadienne writer.

Work myself sick; working feverishly

2006-01-15T22:05:00.000-05:00

So, over the last couple weeks I've been getting ready for this art opening at Cocktail, tomorrow. Last week I developed a cold, but thought nothing of it. Just some sniffles and a little cough. Well, Friday my illness upgraded from cold to flu and I developed a fever. It was the full-on kind of fever with deep chills and the kind of ache where somehow my eyeballs hurt just from closing my lids. It was odd how it was 7:00 and I felt fine and planned on going to a party later and then suddenly it was 10:00 and I was calling in my regrets and hurrying off to bed.

Anyway, here I am, the night before the show and I'm still pretty under the weather and I've got all my pieces finished and my little price/title placards printed up and just hoping beyond hope that I'll wake up tomorrow morning feeling refreshed.

Picking up the pieces

2005-11-29T14:48:00.000-05:00

Or..."Starting Over."

A few weeks ago, my hosting service kind of just stopped hosting me. It got set up by a friend and I've never really quite known how it got paid for or anything like that and I don't really have any contact at the place that was hosting, so I kind of can't even look into it. I don't really talk to that friend anymore either. Even if I did, I'm pretty sure they'd ask me to start paying for the hosting, and I don't really see the point. The only difference between my own domain name and the blogspot one is the word "blogspot" right in the middle. Seems like a small sacrifice. Besides, I never seemed able to make anything real happen when I had my own domain name.

On the other hand, all my art pages are gone, now, which kind of sucks. Hopefully I'll figure out a way to put up gallery type pages that are static using the blogger tools or perhaps just host things somewhere else.

Another recent problem I've had is that I had an external hard drive on which I was storing pretty much all my data. Photos, writing, old school papers, you name it. It's all pretty much gone now. I keep hoping this dread I feel will turn into a feeling of liberation, but that hasn't happened yet.

So here I am, starting again. Hopefully everyone hasn't forgotten about me. And hopefully I'll get a camera soon so that I can post pictures of pretty things.

The Sound of Silent Film

2005-10-13T18:41:00.000-05:00

Last night there was an event at the Chopin Theatre called "The Sound of Silent Film." Originally I had a small group going with me, but everyone bowed out at the last minute, so I went it alone. I thought about skipping it, but I'm glad I didn't. The show consisted of several short silent films which were recent creations and music that was either composed by local living composers or improvised by musicians. One of the musicians groups was called Hard Art and they were really good. The played six short pieces which had leftist themed lyrics. The upright bassist was also the composer and the singer. He had a song about finding the Uranium necessary for making the first nuclear bomb and used words like "it's a stranium on my cranium to find Uranium." Pretty funny.

Afterward, I was supposed to meet Dee and Frank out at Holiday for some karaoke madness. Or, just karaoke, I guess. On the bus there, there's these two guys that get on around Fullerton and Ashland. One is a typical-looking latino guy and the other one is a well-coiffed latino guy. The coiffed guy is obviously drunk and is talking very very loud about the restaurant they work at and then talking about how normally he takes a cab home but the bus was just there and that he lives with his partner up in Rogers Park and they have a car, but his partner is a school teacher in the suburbs. He's just goin' on and on and sooo loud. First the normal-looking latino guy gets off and then the drunk one gets off at the same stop as me and as the bus slows down he's standing behind me and he coughs and this spittle flies near my head and I'm sooo grossed out and I'm thinking that I hope this guy doesn't even try to hit on me or something. When I get off the bus I walk really fast and he doesn't follow.

When I get to Holiday, the really cute door guy, Preston, who was the object of a missed connection (not mine) on craigslist a few weeks back is working the door and he says "hello brother," but I don't think he actually recognizes me.

Dee sings Spiderwebs by No Doubt and Frank does a rendition of something who's name escapes me, but he only knew the chorus and so did I.

Some drunk dorks do Bon Jovi's Living on a Prayer and I think I could do better and then I see At The Drive-In's One Hand Scissor and I think, "ooh I could do that." I point it out to Frank and he's never heard of it.

I was trying to explain the other day the significance of having access to television in terms of being a part of a living culture as it happens. Right now I have a TV and a DVD player, but no television service, not even an antenna for basic broadcast television and what this does is it precludes me from that sort of water cooler conversation the next day after Lost or Desperate Housewives or whatever. This is the same with music. In general I only buy CDs when an opening band surprises me or on the few occasions I go to Reckless and buy CDs from labels I like. In either case, karaoke usually doesn't work with my music. It's weird - there's this huge binder full of songs and I don't know the words to so many of the songs and then everyone's all singing along and I feel left out, but it's still pretty fun to watch. Like going to Showtunes Mondays at Sidetracks with all the 'mos singing showtunes like they're in high school theatre.

After about a 1/2 hour Dee decides we need a scenery change and we head to Hydrate, but then while in the car first she says "I'm so drunk," and then, "we need to go to my apartment so I can get baked." It was kinda funny. So, we go to her place for a few and I play with her kitty and then we go to Hydrate and cute bartender John makes very strong Stoli Vanilla and Diets and I can barely taste the diet. There are few people I know at the bar but there's a few and I say hello and there's this guy who used to date this guy that I had a crush on and I think (am pretty sure) he hates me eventhough the first time I'd met his boyfriend he didn't mention having a boyfriend and then by then I was smitten and it totally wasn't my fault. Plus this was like 5 or 6 years ago and I think the guy doesn't live in chicago anymore anyway. Anyway, I hope he can get over hating me but he probably won't cuz he just has that look about him. And there's this other guy there who I met pretty recently and we had played a little phone tag and he was obviously "with" someone and so only sheepishly said hello and I was very respectful and didn't push him to chat or anything. Ugh. People are weird. Me included.

So, after two of those vanilla diets I'm pretty trashed and I guess after being sick for just a few days I'm already a light-weight again. I take a cab home and when I get there pop in a French film called 8 Women and the herb is still affecting me because the french language is soo beautiful but it doesn't keep me awake, anyhow and I wake up to the main dvd menu of the film and I have no idea what I'd watched. And I look and there's a bowl out of which I guess I at Ravioli mixed with Chees Dog Twistaroni (how old am I?). Oops.

This morning I was quite hungover. Not too fun.

Update

2005-10-09T02:17:00.000-05:00

I've added some content to the art section. Go take a lookity.

The Last Samurai (Or, Why does Everything Make me Cry?)

2005-10-05T02:04:00.000-05:00

OK, I frickin' loved The Last Samurai. I can't stand Tom Cruise, but I mean, c'mon most people wouldn't waste the piss to pee on Eminem, but lots of people think he's good at what he does. I'm not so sure that Cruise made the film, but I know that the film was moving and beautiful. It took a long time and the first fight scene was like in the middle or some shit, but that first fight was fantastic. And, what's really awesome about a film like this is that it had both fight scenes and battle scenes. Well, one. The final battle scene is powerful. I so want to find out how much of it was based on a true story (I'd heard that it was) and where I can find some primary sources. The film depicts Cruise's character as keeping a journal. I would love to look at some of those pages. It would be cool to see his initial dabbling into Japanes Kanji. I'm sure license was taken in that Cruise's character was depicted as this sort of undisciplined loose cannon that found the discipline of the Japanese Samurai culture to be awe-inspiring. This would be the Man vs. Self part of the story. OK, well, anyway, good film. I highly recommend it, but maybe you can steal it or something, so that no money goes to that douche Tom Cruise.

6 movies and 5 television episodes later

2005-10-04T17:02:00.000-05:00

I got sick over the end of the weekend. The flu. It was during this time that I am in the 6-at-a-time category of Netflix. I don't have any television service. No Cable and no network television, so Netflix is my only passive entertainment. When you're sick, you don't really like reading or doing stuff like that.

I watched:
Daredevil
Elektra
The Day After Tomorrow
Maria Full of Grace
Overnight
Donnie Darko

Donnie Darko is the only one I've seen before. It's in my collection, though I don't own it. I think it's Erik's. I've been meaning to ask him if he wants it back. Either way, it was a good re-watch.

Elektra was better than Daredevil.

The Day After Tomorrow was aight. I think it had the same guy from Donnie Darko, interestingly.

Maria Full of Grace was good. I was surprised it was written by some white guy indie filmaker. Weird.

Overnight was about this guy who was in a band and wrote a screenplay and both his band and his screenplay were about to break and his cockiness kind of came out and he pissed off Harvey Weinstein, who is basically God of Hollywood and everything went to hell. This guy was so cocky, it was kind of painful to watch. I had to wonder how much of the footage was picked to show just this aspect of him. It's so hard to tell. It was a documentary. A decent watch for people who like looking inside hollywood. Fans of Project Greenlight might like this.

So, I stayed home from work for two days and on the second day I worked on this photo project I've been sort of planning for many years. After years of going to shows, I have lots of long-exposure photos of bands which start to look abstract. I cropped 2" x 2" digital images, printed them on nice kodak fancy paper through a service, and then matted and framed 16 prints in 5 1/2" clip frames. They look pretty good. I'm hoping to hang them in my apartment tonight and take an installation photo. S'funny, all 16 prints pretty much fit in a 2' x 2' sqare. They look pretty awesome, though. Two in particular look kinda like Rothko paintings; they're my favorites. I figure these pieces have double marketing potential: someone who likes abstract photography with lots of wild color can like them, and someone who's into indie bands could also like them. Probably if anyone buys them (I think I'm only gonna be selling them for like $30-$40), they'll be fans of both. Bands I have pictures of include: Appleseed Cast, Bear Vs. Shark, Minus The Bear, Liars, Three Dollar Bill, Terminus Victor, Life at Sea, and Sleeping at Last. Obviously, this means I have multiple piictures of a few bands. Fortunately most of the bands I have multiples of are more popular ones.

Also I've completed some other new art projects and started some new ones. I'm hoping my crappy camera will take some decent pictures, but if not I may have to just break down and get a new one. Spending money sucks.

Menos El Oso

2005-09-17T22:28:00.000-05:00

So, the website says "show starts at 6." Normally on a Friday I gotta work til 8, so I arrange to get off work early and give myself a whole hour and a half to get Racecar over to my ex's and get across town to the show on public transportation (a bus and a train).

Turns out the whole trip only takes like 20 minutes. So I'm like what the hell do I do for an hour? The venue is near the gayborhood, so I go to the only place there might be any patrons at 5 in the evening, Sidetrack. Turns out there's some fellas there and also my friend Norbert is working so we shoot the breeze and Nine Inch Nails is playing so it's pretty OK.

So, about 45 minutes go by and I have a jack and diet so I take off.

Get to the venue and Brian Peterson, the main dude who organizes these show since like forever, is standing in front. There's no one around and he's talking into his cell walkie-talkie like. He goes, "Can I help you?"

I'm already laughing cuz I know he's gonna tell me it's later. "Doors open at 8. Show starts...after that."

OK, so now I have two more hours to kill. I stop by this resale place called Land of the Lost, because I've found out recently that an old high-school friend works there, but she's not there. Then I go to Reckless Records to see if they have the new Sufjan Stevens album used, which they don't. I kinda have to pee at this point so I leave and take a whiz at the Cariboy on Broadway. No one's there that I know. The bathroom has a sign that says the bathroom is for paying customers only, and I think "I'm a paying customer, just not paying today."

After that I decide to walk back to Sidetrack. Only now it's all showtunes and I'm sitting next to this birthday party of total drama nerds with homos and chubby chicks. They're having a really good time, so it was nice to be in such a positive energy environment, but showtunes don't really turn my crank.

1 1/2 hours, three jack and diets and one shot of jack later, Norbert's telling me goodbye and telling me to come back after the show so I can "help out with this guy from Colorado," that's supposed to show up later. Yeah, Norbert's a dirty dude. What a silly.

I get to the venue (Bottom Lounge) and there's a line forming. Fortunately there's a seperate line for will call and it's only about 20 deep. It's all these young kids and I'll tell you, I'm getting tired of thinking about how I'm older than these, literally, teenagers. So weird. They're all being obnoxious and youthful and it's really actually fun to be around them.

It's a pretty rare occasion that a show has four great bands who all put on an excellent show, but that's definitely what happened last night.

First up was City on Film. City on Film features Bob Nanna formerly of Braid and Hey Mercedes (not to mention Friction and a bunch of other short-lived early emo bands). They put on a pretty good show. Backing Nanna up are the three guys from The Felix Culpa. Gosh darnit, Tristan the bassist is super cute!! There's a chick on stage too and she's playing violin, but most of the time I don't hear it too well. I don't know if that's cuz of the sound or because her parts bleed too much.

Next was Thunderbirds Are Now!, about whom I'd heard great things and with whom I was not disappointed. Really good energy, tight, slightly dancey. Me likey.

Third was These Arms Are Snakes about whom I'd only just recently heard there was a, gasp, queer member. I have to say that at this point the drinks must have begun really taking effect because I remember the experience of being in the crowd, rocking out to the music, even going into the pit for part of a song, but I cannot for the life of me remember what any of the guys look like...OK, so, going to their site on Jade Tree records and looking at pictures only slightly jarred my memory. How ridiculous am I? Anyway, they were awesome and I wanted to buy an album of theirs, but Dawn promised me she'd burn me copies of all their albums and I told her I'd get the Thunderbirds CD and burn her a copy of that, so we're (makes square shape with hand) square.

Finally, Minus the Bear. Their set was more energetic than previous shows I've witnessed. I think it was a combination of having the previous bands being kind of heavy and the fact that the venue was pretty full probably upped the ante a bit for them. During most of the show I had remained toward the front with my friend Kris (into whom I ran, which was a most unexpected, yet pleasant, surprise. Kris was my paduon learner when I was in college. A young, budding homo also pursuing a degree in writing. He probably knows more about me than nearly anyone, or at least, knows more specifically unknown information about me than anyone else, as he's read all of my journals from Grade 8 on to nearly present. Weird, huh? Anyway, I stayed back and swayed 50% to the music and 50% to my drunkenness. I ended up buying three CD's, one of which was Minus the Bear's new one and I didn't realize til I was ripping it to my hard drive just an hour ago that it's entitle Menos El Oso. I love that name!

I did make it back to Sidetrack and ran into Norbert. The Coloradoan, though quite handsome, I did not "help out" with. I left Sidetrack and walked toward Belmont and found myself at Berlin. Got to see a bunch of people I haven't seen in a gazillion years. Stayed for a drink. Had a Mind Eraser shot with my friend, the bartender, Gary Gonzalez. The mind eraser shot is our little tradition and it never fails to actually erase my mind. I actually have no recollection of my cab ride home, but I'm pretty sure that's how I got home. Maybe I should call it the "Cab Ride Home Eraser" instead.

Just an update

2005-09-16T13:00:00.000-05:00

There are a couple new dreams on the dream blog.

Moto last week

2005-09-15T00:18:00.000-05:00

For the first time in a long while, I've posted a new dream in the dream blog. There's two actually. One from last week and one from yesterday's fitful morning.

Last week I went to Moto, this very she-she restaurant here in the city. I've been wanting to go for about a year. It's gotten tons of accolades from the press since it opened. All I knew about it was that the food had a sort of sci-fi flare and that the waiters wore lab coats and walked around with syringes injecting stuff into your food. It combined science and food for unique things, but that the chef was well-trained from a big restaurant, so that the food was also very good. So, my ex, Claude, had asked me if I wanted to go to dinner and I was all like, "sure." Usually when we go to dinner, I'm pretty indifferent to where we go. I'm not much of a food snob and I like everything and I figure whereever we go will be better than the mac and cheese or ramen or even slightly fancier thing I might cook for myself. Moto occured to me, though, so I said, "Have you heard of Moto?"

"That place on Fulton Market?" He said. I didn't even know where it was. I said sure. He's like, "well, call and see if you can get a reservation in twenty minutes." Though it was a Saturday, it was only like 6 o'clock, so I thought it could happen - and it did.

I had expected either an ultra-modern or an industrial motif, but it was surprisingly subdued. Sea-foam green walls with bamboo and candles. It looked like a typical upscale modern restaurant. I did notice that there were like a million waiters and only about 40 seats or so. It was smaller than I'd expected.

So, we sit down and a waiter asks us if we'd dined here before or if we were familiar with how it worked (the woman on the phone when I made the reservation told me that it was price fixe and there was no ala carte ordering). We told him we were new diners and didn't know enough to treat us as though we did. Two menus were set before us. The menus were on plates and decorated with puffed rice, garnish, sprouts, and some chopped nuts. We had three choices: a five, ten, or twenty course meal. Each meal had an item or two that was unique to its meal, I think, which is probably incentive to come back (that, and the fact that their menu changes a bit, since most of what I'd read about was not served to me this evening). I told Claude I'd be fine with any choice, but that it seemed unlikely that we'd ever come back, so we might as well go for it. And we did.

20 courses? Yes. Bear in mind that some of these courses consisted of a single shot glass filled with a liquid, a couple of spoons with something smeared on them, or a single roll of sushi maki (along with a piece of edible flavored rice paper, but I'm getting ahead of myself). Other interesting dishes included a lobster with "champagne grapes," but these grapes derive their name from the carbonation process they use to make them fizzle. Another course was "doughnut soup," which was a white, warm viscous liquid (I know what you're thinking Topher and that's gross, yet somehow appropriate) that tastes exactly like a liquified Crispy Kreme doughnut.

With the 20 courses we took on the Grand Tour of wines, which consisted of 14 different varieties. The pairings were perfect. Needless to say, I was bloated and a little drunk by the end of that meal.

Little did I know that was just the beginning of my night.

I had yet to visit Dee for her birthday. They had planned on going to get Margarita's as big as your head or whatever. I obviously didn't make that, and instead met up with them and the super-fratty bar, Sheffield's. The staff at Sheffield's is really cool. Too bad it's clientele usually isn't. Anyway, I meet up with Frank and Rodney and Dee and some of Dee's other "straight" friends and a couple of the Homo ones. The straight ones seem gay to me but maybe I'm just losing perspective. I have a couple drinks there. Frank suggests Stoli Vanilla and diet, so that's what I have. Dee's pretty trashed and we're all starting to get tired of the breeders, so we tell Dee we're heading out. We head first to The North End, then to Cocktail, then to Buck's (I think?), then to X/O, then to Sidetrack, then to Circuit (Frank leaves between these two I think) then we head to the Closet, where we're supposed to meet John and Jason (I think that's his name...?), but they're just leaving the Closet because John's drink was taken and he didn't like that and felt slighted, but it could've happened to anybody. so we go to Melrose and have breakfast and I think about how different this meal of Chicken fingers is so much different than my 20 course meal from earlier, but no less good.

Well, that was my last saturday. I'm so behind. Ah well, maybe I'll catch up one day.

artyPay

2005-09-03T11:31:00.000-05:00

Last night I ended up at going-away party for my buddy Leidy, who's leaving Chicago to make it as a hairdresser in the big apple. The party invite said to bring pictures for new york and featured a drawing of Leidy's boyfriend, Mike. I didn't have any pics of Leidy, so I brought my watercolor set and painted one on the spot. Leidy seemed to like it pretty well. He was wearing the glasses he bought from my shop and loved that he looked "like an old man." Even moreso in the painting.

This party is near to the one I went a few months ago where my skateboard was stolen. That skateboard I had bought while living in France in 1999, so it had sentimental value. My good buddy, Gnat, surprised me last month with a new (refurbished) skateboard with a stencil of my dog, Racecar, on it. So now I have a great new board with even more sentimental value.

Anyway, not ones to just have a party and let it go at that, there was of course a performance to accompany the evening. I guess that Meghan and Bruce (and another girl who's name escapes me) thought about Leidy leaving Chicago and wanted to celebrate staying in Chicago and celebrating the wonderful city in which we all live. The performance involved spoken words about a "pie of yes," "bridges," "golden fingers," and used props like a pie of yes, a shoe, rubber gloves with painted gold fingers and a dental bridge. It was actually kinda gross. Anyway, it was an endearing send-off for Leidy and a re-affirmation that staying in Chicago is as much a "golden" opportunity and leaving to follow your dreams.

There were a bunch of gender-queer people at the party so my dreams this morning seemed to be about gender. Specifically I remember a bunch of people talking about the etymology of the name "Bruce" and sort of talking a lot about gender and stuff. I don't remember details, but it seemed very in-depth. I'm reminded of this excellent book I read called Bee Season, by Maya Goldberg, which was about this young jewish girl who is a spelling protege and her father, who studies the Talmud and kabbalah fuses her spelling training with Jewish mysticism. In my dream, I remember all these words having really profound mystical implications, but after I woke up I couldn't remember any of them. Plus, I had a hangover.

Anyway, fun party.

Firesdie

2005-09-02T18:39:00.000-05:00

Last night I went to a show at Fireside Bowl. The fireside is a venerable punk institution and has had shows there since I was a wee lad. I've been going there for more than ten years, now, I think. For a while recently they stopped doing shows, but I guess they're trying out thursdays.

I think the choice for a re-introduction of music there was strange. There were at least 10 bands, each getting like 15 minute slots. I was told that people would all be doing covers from the year 1988. It turned out that the word "cover" was used very loosely and the year "1988" even moreso. Most of the "bands" were experimental/noise. One in particular consisted of three guys in a girl all wearing hawaiian shirts and those cheap plastic leis (sp?). The performed "Babaloo," the old Ricky Ricardo tune and also the brazilian favorite, "The Girl From Ipanema." Basically, they played the original songs on cd players through which they processed the sound with several effects processors and "played" along with the effected music with various noise-making devices as well as by singing. The singing was rather charming and was also processed at times. At the end of the songs (there were two) the girl would be singing by herself with just a slight AM radio effect over her voice which had a somewhat haunting effect.

Another duo created a mix of an INXS song (can't remember which one) and a Whitney Houston song (also can't remember; may have been "Emotional"- I'd had a few jack and cokes at this point) which just played on the P.A. and they sort of sang along and thrashed about. Honestly, they were one of the most entertaining acts and got huge applause. Their mix bordered on abstract at times, with lots of scratching and other weird noises happening. It was awesome.

Princess performed. They played "Get out of my dreams" by Billy Ocean really really slowly and "Never Gonna Give You Up," also by Billy Ocean. Alexis came out into the crowd and I sang along. That was pretty fun.

Tri-State Area consists of Michael from Princess and his boyfriend Leidy, who's moving to New York soon to finish cosmetology school in the most fashion-forward city in the country. Go Leidy!!!

This guy known as "Lord of Yum Yum" performed. He basically uses a loop modeler pedal and his voice and creates weird beat box melanges of classical music and more recent pop songs by like Willie Nelson or some such. His energy was amazing and he was a great beat box. He'd lay loops of classic lines from Bach or Mozart and then add more on top of it with moderns songs in the same key or something. It was really entertaining to watch and I bought his CD, but I haven't listened to it yet.

This guy Dan Deacon creates films set to music. His shit was weird, but also entertaining. I wandered around the bar for a little bit during this, but he used lots of weird psychedic colors and just weird imagery.

Aces

2005-08-31T22:09:00.000-05:00

I found a couple of aces in the street recently. Just thought I'd blog what it means according to this site.

Ace of Hearts Love and happiness. The home, a love letter. This card is a particularly favorable card that indicates troubles and problems lifting.

Ace of Clubs Wealth, prosperity, unexpected money/gain. However, in a difficult spread, this money may disappear almost as quickly as it appears.

This one kind of makes sense because at the beginning of the month I thought I had extra money, now I'm so broke I'm not sure a check that I've written is going to be covered. ~gulp~

Dance for Life

2005-08-29T17:52:00.000-05:00

On Saturday night, John and I got a little dressed up and went to see Dance for Life, which is this yearly fundraiser for HIV/Aids charities. It consists of several performances by all of Chicago's major dance studios, including Hubbard Street Dance Chicago, The Joffrey Ballet, Giordano Jazz Ensemble, and my favorite, Thodos Dance. These all comprise the major schools of dance, too, which is great. It's a nice sort of "taster" medley of dance. I've gone for several years now. Dance is one of my favorite performance arts. I especially love really non-narrative stuff. I get a little bored when there's a story trying to be told. I prefer, most times, to just get absorbed in the abstract movements of the dancers.

Saturday night I got to thinking about the spectacle. I was thinking about how, in college, I took a modern dance class and for a while was dating a dancer and how, at one point, I thought that I could've been a dancer. This got me thinking about whether all the other people around me were thinking along similar lines. Since this benefit was pretty pricey, the age bracket was pretty high. I was definitely one of the younger audience members. This all got me thinking about how really primitive this spectacle is. I mean, though "modern," it's really such a visceral experience to watch dance. Your muscles become taught at the sight of a grown man extending his leg deftly above his head. You feel it in your own toes when a ballerina goes up on hers. The performance, for the first time for me, felt like this sort of vicarious experience of youth and athleticism. When I was younger and watched dance, I felt more like it was a communication - like a two-way conversation, because I felt like the movements I saw were within my ability (maybe with some practice). Saturday, I had the keen feeling that this language was a forgotten one. Not so much alien, just nostalgic.

So, when I say "primitive," I think of it in terms of the old gladiator arenas. The "people" or "masses" watching a few athletic people, usually criminals or destitute individuals (let's face it, dancers don't do it for the money - many of them have two or three jobs to support their passion) and living out this cathartic episode through (in the gladiator's case: violent) acts of athleticism. So, it also had this undertone of bourgeois to me. I've never felt so much a part of some weird elitist group. I dunno. I paid for my tickets and it's for a good cause, so whatever. I just suddenly had gotten really outside of myself and a little self-conscious.

In the end, the experience was awe-inspiring. I still love dance and would like to see it more frequently. It's usually not very expensive. Chicago has a great community of dancers as well. It's the art form that I feel is most like music, which is most like abstraction, which is most like Divinity, which is pretty cool.

The Aristocrats

2005-08-15T15:22:00.000-05:00

Last night I watched this totally funny movie.

All I'd heard was that it was offensive. It made me think "must be something like a live-action South Park. Turns out, the kids from South Park even made a cameo appearance. The whole film was cameo appearances by different comedians. This is a must-see film, especially for the likes of the peeps in HBD and WOW. Check it out.

I'm pretty sure I'm going to have nightmares tonight

2005-08-09T18:02:00.000-05:00

So, for a little while I've had some mice problems in my apartment. Sometimes at night I would here the sound of crunching. And during the day I'd find little mouse poops on my kitchen countertop. I'm pretty wishy-washy about doing anything about it, but John was like, "we need to get some poison." I didn't argue.

I found the first corpse a few weeks back. It was sitting on a carpet near my back door, with rigor mortis already set in. I scooped it up with a shopping bag and put it in the garbage. John had been a little concerned that Racecar might want to play with the dead mice and eat one or something, thus being poisoned himself. He hadn't seen this one before me (I found it in the morning before he got to the back door), so it still seemed like a possibility.

Today when I got home from the grocery store, I moved a chair in my art studio and underneath it was a dead mouse. I said to myself, "how long has that been there?" It looked a little ragged, like its fur was, just, matted down or something. So, I grab a plastic Apple Store shopping bag and scoop it up and I found out that it must have been sitting for a little while, at least, because after I picked it up there was a pile of writhing maggots all wondering where there food had gone. It was probably the most disgustingest thing I've ever seen in real life. Ugh. Now I can't even finish my Taco Bell, either.

Friend Department Memo: Supply Diminishing

2005-08-02T14:57:00.000-05:00

How do all you people have time to keep up with groups and interesting blogs and height-of-cleverdom snarky commentary?

Ugh.

I've been in the cafe for like two hours and haven't gotten a lick of work done and this is my first moment of creativity!

Right now I'm waiting to hear from Pep Boys about my mother's car. Todo Sobre (la coche de) mi Madre. See, last week it wouldn't start. Since Tuesday's my only day off, I waited till today to take care of it. Hopefully it won't cost an arm and a leg. (I'm not gonna pay a lot for this muffler!) And also hopefully, it will be done with some vestige of alacrity. We'll see.

What else? Last night I went bowling with my friends. That was fun. I think I came in second or third one game and I think I won the other, but honestly I don't remember. I am so non-competitive, I could totally beat you at it.

This group of friends and I used to go bowling every monday. This group of friends has also slowly suffered from a severe attrition rate. Our third member is moving (this one to SF), so we're getting down to a bare-bones group. These are tough times in the friend business.

There's a MySpace Chicago group meeting this wednesday which takes place at the same time as a show that I'd like to attend. Trying to figure out how (if possible) to do both. There will be one or two people who I've never met there and would like to meet, but I guess there's always next time, right?

More Meetro stuff: So, that black drag queen who hit on me? She's Taj Mahal, a local performer. I've seen her in a few shows, including Who's That Girl, about which I've blogged before. She's a nice gal. Anyway, she's looking for a job, so if anybody knows of an opening somewhere where people are pretty liberal (who want's to hire a drag queen, right? Which reminds me, the hirer should also not be some trans fetishist freak and want to put the moves on her, but I suppose that goes without saying), she's a nice lady and says she's a hard worker. Interestingly, she used to manage an optical practice in North Carolina (I think), but she's not an optician, so I can't hire her, but it's something I'm considering - don't know how that would fly with my partners or investors, but never hurts to ask, right? Heck, we've had at lleast one drag king buy glasses from us, maybe we'll find a niche market!

Poems in Objects

2005-07-31T13:06:00.000-05:00

Tonight I had to do one of the hardest things I've ever had to do. As I was building myself up to do it, I felt a sense of dread. I knew it would be difficult. I kept hoping that I was blowing it out of proportion, that it wouldn't be as difficult as it was, but I was kidding myself. My heart hurts and my stomach is turning and my hands are shaking, making it difficult to type. It's very fresh and images of us together keep entering my mind. It's hard to concentrate.

The taste inside my mouth is sour. I'm kinda hungry, but I can't really abide the thought of eating. I think I'll eat a cup of ramen before I go to bed, alone. For some reason, Ramen has become my comfort food. I guess getting back to being single before, I found some contentment in the simplicity of it. It was cheap and easy to make and actually, to my taste buds, tasted good. There was something liberating about the cheapness of the ramen that was all mine.

Kinda getting off subject, I know, but who's to say what's germaine to this ancient topic of loving and losing? Doesn't every tangent lead back to love? Doesn't every fear come from love and every love cause some sort of fear?

As he was leaving, I picked up an envelope with his name on it. It's his tip envelope from work. Someone, probably the receptionist, Amanda, had spelled his name "Jon," then, possibly realizing the mistake, put in a "^" with an "h." Or maybe it was always a joke. I don't know. But I'd seen the envelope a couple times in the last few days and never noticed that. It's something I would've mentioned to him. We would have both laughed about it. Laughter was what really cemented our attraction to one another in the first place. I remember on our first date sitting in the restaurant, Spring, laughing my ass off and thinking to myself "I haven't laughed this hard in sooo long."

So, as I picked up this envelope, had my little moment, I thought to myself, "this is going into the box. This is what tonight is." See, I keep a box of mementos. I keep a new one for every year. Historic days, both on macro and micro levels, I pick something up and put it in this box. Sometimes I hate myself for turning moments into objects. Am I compartmentalizing my feelings by transforming them into something I can put in a box? Am I celebrating life as much as I like to think I am? I don't know. Sometimes I think it's reductive, a travesty. To keep things in perspective, I have to say that I never think these things when I'm looking in one of my old boxes. I only look on these objects with reverence and fondness. My memory is so poor that I don't know of any better way to hold on to my dearest moments. And I have to say that he can never be reduced to a moment or a scrap of paper. This I know.

But yeah, it was hard, tonight. It was hard because nothing was truly wrong. I was not angry. I was not in love with someone else. I couldn't fault him if I tried. He's a wonderful man and I know I'm going to miss him. I'm going to miss our moments of intimacy that will never be replicated. I'm going to miss his silliness. I'm even going to miss his fake smoking and his slow clapping at every single thing I'd say. I'm going to miss the way he talks to my dog. The way Racecar gets excited when John comes home from work. I'm going to miss his Flemal Sandwiches and his cooking in general. Suddenly Ramen doesn't sound as good. But I know it will fulfill me - at least enough to get to sleep.

I'm pretty certain he's going to read this at some point, and that's very hard for me. Certainly harder for him. I'll continue to love him for a long time, but things just weren't right. Just as he does, I sometimes wonder if they ever will be. All along he had a fear that I was going to leave him. All along I feared that I would leave him, too. There were moments that I thought he knew, even wanted this to happen. I really did. Turns out I was wrong. I hope I wasn't wrong, too, about ending it in the first place. Will I ever know?

Meetro & Car Antics

2005-07-29T16:07:00.000-05:00

Has anyone heard of Meetro? It's sort of an IM application that knows where your physically located. I guess it's intent is to be able to allow, say, people who are hanging out w/ their laptops at a WiFi cafe, to presumably see other people who are at the same cafe and, you know, chat, or something.

A couple weeks back this guy sent me an email saying that he sometimes reads my blogs (probably not the whole truth, but oh well) and would I mind checking out Meetro and writing about it.

It's something you have to download, so I was a little leery, and I didn't take action at first.

This past Tuesday I was at Filter Cafe in Chicago and this guy (turns out it was the same exact guy, in fact) walks up to me and hands me a card for Meetro. Weird, huh? So, I took it as a sign and registered. So far it's very beta. There aren't that many users, but I am sorta interested to watch it grow. The guy told me that there will be something about Meetro in tomorrow's Tribune, so they're expecting a huge influx of new users.

I'm hoping that everyone who subscribes to my blog signs up. I think that would be really cool. C'mon, let's be early adopters!

And in other news...

Due to my mother's recuperation - and subsequent inability to get around on foot - I've sort of taken over her car. By taking over, I've got access, and have taken over payments. She's got pretty high payments, which sucks. But she's gone on disability and therefore can't afford the payments. As a dutiful son, I'm taking over. Fortunately, I got a raise recently. I was just getting by and I thought the raise would finally give me a little more "fun" money. Turns out, with the new payments, I'm around the same place. Also, there are only 5 payments left, which sounds kinda good, but I sincerely doubt my mother is going to give me this car. So basically I'm renting it. Oh well.

Anyway, earlier this week, I started the car up to go to work. I noticed it sounded a little sluggish, but it started. I thought "ok, hopefully this isn't the start of something bad."

Then, I go to pick up some sandwiches for lunch. Again, there's this hesitation before the engine turns over. It's a little more prolonged than earlier in the morning. Ugh.

I get out of the sandwich place and the car won't start. DAMN!

So, I walk the 6 blocks or so back to my shop and tell my partner and I call up John to ask if he knows of a good place to bring my car to. He's off, so he offers to go check it out.

A little while later he calls me, tells me it's probably my battery and that he'll go get some jumper cables, pick me up, and we'll go get it started together.

He picks me up and we go to my car. He positions his car so that they're facing each other. We're on a relatively busy two-way street. Lots of traffic both on foot and in cars, so we have an audience.

We go through the actions of doing a battery jump. You know, connecting the cables starting the cars, all that. We've both jumped cars before - we know what we're doing.

So, I get in my car and try the ignition - nothing. Hmmmm. John gets in my car. We're both like, "why isn't this working?"

I look up and I see that some smoke is coming from John's car. I'm panicky going "look look up look at your car!" I sound like an idiot. So we both get out of the car and literally the cables have caught on fire. Of course my instinct is to get the fire away from the engines, so I go to pull the cables off but they're hot. I go into my car's back seat and grab this really cute Ben Sherman pullover and smother the fire and pull the cables off the batteries.

Naturally the pull-over is ruined. But John's car's grill has melted. It looks sooo bad.

We clean up our little fire mess and John's trying to figure out what we did wrong and I get in my car kinda like an autistic person and try the ignition and it starts. Weird.

So John takes his car to a body shop and I drive my car around for a while to see if the alternator will charge up the battery.

Ultimately, after work, my mother's car did not start again. So, now I am afraid to jump it again, but I have to get it from here to a shop to get it fixed. I have to find a shop to take it to in the first place, too. All this for a car that's not even mine. Now I sorta remember why I didn't mind having a car in the first place.

Scarrie - The Musical

2005-07-22T11:56:00.000-05:00

Last night I won tickets to see the parodage (parody homage) Scarrie: The Musical. It turned out to be pretty fun. It was another of those Hell in a Handbag Productions. There was a pretty interesting crowd. The cast consisted of primarily trixies, which brought in all these trixies and their boyfriends, which meant that there was stuff to look at onstage as well as off.

In front of me sat four women who were a little older, like they'd have a twenty-something daughter in the show, perhaps. During intermission they pulled out a cellphone-shaped flask of some alcohol that must've been pretty potent. They took turns taking swigs and competed in making disgusted faces and taking pictures of themselves while they did it. It was quite cute. I wish I could've hacked into their digital camera and stolen the photos (ah, bluetooth piracy is so young, kids who are about 12 years old now will certainly be able to pull this off when everything's bluetooth enabled and all your digital photos will imediately be beamed off to a remote site, so you'll never have to use digital media again - just watch and wait).

Local talent David Cerda enjoys the local scene, so he's written in a cameo appearance for local celebrities. On this night, my pal Jason Paul of Boi Magazine and ChicagoPride.com made a cameo appearance as well as famed PodCaster Madge Weinstein. They're roles were to be Prom Chaperones. Apparently, they ad-libbed all their lines and gave the other "seasoned" actors a run for the money, resulting in them being practically hooked off stage as though they were on the gong show. Madge yelled out as she was being pulled off, "Fuck David Cerda!" It was quite funny. Most notably to Mr. Cerda himself, who had been sitting in the audience for the show and bust out laughing the loudest.

After the show, I met up with John at The Pepper Lounge.
Joining us were also fellow PodCast producers Fausto and Mark. They produce the Feast of Fools podcast which is getting quite a bit of notice lately (Fausto is in this month's advocate, even).

I'd wanted to go to Pepper because my optical shop's next art show is featuring Audrey Keller, who, in addition to being a wonderful photographer, is also a waiter there. I needed to deliver this show's postcards to Audrey, so it was a nice excuse to get some food and a couple delicious coctails from the wonderful and talented Linda Little, as well.

Anyway, I have to cut this short because I have to go to work, but the evite to Audrey's show is linked here, so all of you should try and stop by the night of August 5th and check out the show and my shop.

Sky

2005-07-20T20:39:00.000-05:00

On the ride home from work today, the sky had this kind of eery post-apocalyptic yellowish haze. It was a filter that turned things to off-color versions of themselves. It's very surreal. It kind of feels like the way things look while dreaming, perhaps. Well, not really, because, heck, I don't really remember the details of a dream that way. It's just something that pops into my head because of the thoroughness of the filter. Every detail is the same as normal, only there's this slight difference. Like watching an old old reel of film, maybe.

New Old things

2005-07-05T16:41:00.000-05:00

Things have normalized in quite a few ways, for the time being, in my life. My mom got released from the nursing home on Sunday. My sister's husband had a surprise 40th birthday party on Saturday night thrown by my sister. She had called me earlier in the week because she anticipated being hungover from the party, she asked me to drive mom from the home to our grandma's, but I couldn't because I had to work. I felt a little guilty for not volunteering to wake up early and do it and then go to work. That night when I went to sleep I had some difficulty because I was having visions of my mother struggling up the stairs of my grandma's house. Back before my mom had the surgery, she had struggled in front of me to get down three small stairs and started crying when her legs failed her, so it's pretty obvious where my anxiety came from.

Saturday night I was supposed to have gone to see a play way out on the West Side called Short Eyes. It was written by an hispanic writer named Miguel Pinero (don't know how to make the tilde over the n, sorry). On the way there, I went through some pretty sketchy neighborhoods and I thought for sure we were gonna be the only white people there. Ultimately, the landscape went from predominately African-American, to hispanic to relatively white by the time we got there. Anyway, we get there and it's sold out. I've subsequently found out that this play features a masturbation scene to climax, so if anyone's interested, we bought tickets for this coming saturday and I don't think it's sold out yet. It would be fun to have a group go. The whole reason I was going was a friend of mine, Andrew Kain (AK) Miller handed me a flyer about a month ago and said "come see my play." I'm one of those people who usually tries to follow through when someone has something artistic going on. Unless you're in a sucky band and you want me to come. Then I sometimes skip it.

So, instead of Short Eyes, John and I went to see War of the Worlds. Despite Tom Cruise being an absolute douche in real life, he's pretty good at his character. You know, the one character he plays? Anyway, he plays that one pretty well. Spielberg is just amazing. I didn't particularly like A.I.; this was better. There were moments when I was reminded of Close Encounters and some of the others. Either way, I recommend it, once again, despite Mr. cruise's douchebaggieness.

Right now, I am writing a 6-issue limited series comic book called Taag. It's sort of a fast-paced action story with a little sci-fi. There're lots of chase scenes and fight scenes and humor. A little tragedy, too. And love. I am about half way through the fifth issue's script. I already know how the series is going to end (unless I change my mind and give it more of a hollywood ending) and I already know the plot of the sequel story. I also have a concept for a script for another, probably longer series. Most likely 12 issues. For whatever reason, the comic book medium has been mostly what I'm interested in lately. These stories could translate into short stories, or even better, film, or whatever, but I'm just not feeling it that way. The worst thing about writing comic books is that you need someone to draw them. And unless you've got money or a job with a major comics house, nobody's gonna draw it for you for free. So, I dunno, maybe one day I'll find someone who likes it enough to draw it or, you know, a house will put it out.

I got a raise at work because I passed the board certification for being an optician, which is nice. Unfortunately, I've taken over car payments for my mom's car, which are about equal to my raise, so it doesn't really result in me having more money. I do suddenly have a car, though, which was not anticipated, and now I realize that I do like having one. I could basically adapt to either situation. If I didn't have a car, I'm not saying I wouldn't miss it, but I also wouldn't complain.

Awww

2005-07-01T17:21:00.000-05:00

This guy just came into the store with his son. The son was pretty young, maybe 4 or 5. He was afraid of racecar, so I put him (racecar, not the boy) in the back room. The dad told the boy to ask what they were looking for. He wanted purple sunglasses for his mom. It was real cute. Too bad Dad didn't want to pony up for the Sunglasses though. When dad said that it was more than they wanted to spend, the kid was so crestfallen. Maybe they'll come back. Nahh, probably not.

it's not working

2005-06-28T14:01:00.000-05:00

I'm sitting in Filter trying trying TRYING to work on this copy for a website I should be working on and there's this kid sitting to my left writing in his little journal and I"m so envious that he's got the time. And there's this girl to my right and she's working on a grant proposal and she seems to be working diligently but what the heck do I know abou that, right?

Now one of my customers is here (the other girl who's working is actually a customer, as well - there's something about which to feel positive) with some friends and this is the second time I've run into her here. It feels nice here. Like I'm growing a family or a support network of some sort, even if it's kinda just here and rarely intersects with me elsewhere.

So, I went to see Meatbeat Manifesto last week (six days ago) and I had wanted to write about it right away, but of course didn't. It was a fun experience. The opening band, Dub Trio was pretty good...at first. After a while it got to be a little boring. They were like a super-trippy reggae band with no black guys. Lots of triplets and staccatto guitar with huge echo/reverb effects. Drummer was fantastic.

Meatbeat was fun to watch again. On the way home from Wisconsin yesterday (I'll get to that in a moment) I saw a car that had been pulled over. It was a pickup truck and two people were riding in the back. I remembered that it was about 12 years ago that I had rode in the bed of a pickup truck to see Meatbeat with 808 State with my friend Mike and his brother Jim. Mike and I had stayed lying down for the whole ride. I had had a big crush on Mike and the whole trip had been a little romantic in my head. The two of us lying side-by-side, the clear blue sky passing by at sixty miles an hour but looking like it was not moving at all until we passed under a viaduct, which was like this sudden physical punch of movement. We had both remarked on how "cool" the sensation was whenever we'd passed under one.

Time time time. Look what's become of me.

John, my boyfriend, comments occasionally on how I seem to be holding onto my youth. He says it in a slight denegrative way. It bothers me a little. I'm not sure if it bothers me because I think he's wrong or because I think he's right.

So, instead of going to the Pride Parade festivities on Sunday, John and I went up to Green Bay to attend his little sister's Graduation party. She's graduated from the police academy, of all things. And no, she's not a lesbian. At least as far as anyone can tell. John says she vacillates between being the kind of cop who is altruistic and genuinely wants to do good for society and being a cop who is drunk with power. Scary thing. It's the power-hungry cop that makes John sometimes wonder if she's a lesbian, which I don't think says the nicest thing about lesbians, but I'm sure he's doing the age-old thing, which is equating lesbianism with masculinity, which is classically aggressive. Either way, enough with the post-feministic theory.

The trip north wasn't what I'd call fun. It was something I did for John. It turned out Racecar had the most fun. I'd venture to say that it may have been one of Racecar's funnest days ever. He got to play in two large, fenced-in yards and go swimming for the first time in his life. For this reason alone, the trip would have been worth it for me.

Cada de Cerda

2005-05-24T20:39:00.000-05:00

On Sunday night I went to see Pigface with my friend Dawn. I went thinking it would be at best a nostalgic idle. A diversion. It turned out to be a pretty damn spectacular show.

Pigface, for those not knowing, was this sort of all-star industrial band. Like, the Travelling Wilburys of the industrial set. Originally, members included the likes of even Trent Reznor. I don't remember who all was in it originally (they're website lists like 50 people for the total to ever perform with them) - nor do I know who all was even present on Sunday. I know En Esch from KMFDM was there, as well as the bassist, Charles Levi, from My Life With The Thrill Kill Kult. Martin Atkins, drummer extraordinaire from P.I.L., Ministry and Nine Inch Nails was our percussionist.

Is anyone familiar with the guy who is a minor celebrity because he's tattooed all over his body with jigsaw puzzle pieces? He goes by The Enigma Well, he was in Pigface for this show. He played guitar, sung, and played the chainsaw, too. He also did some sword swallowing. His girlfriend, the girl who looks like a cat, complete with prosthetic whiskers. Very cute. At the end, she did flame eating.

The set started with Hanin Elias (from Atari Teenage Riot) singing alone on stage with these white barricades behind her. Soon they were backlit and you could see that there were many people behind the screen.

Overall, the performance was much more entertaining than I remember Pigface being the last time I saw them. They were polished and didn't improvise which seemed to be common when I saw them. The energy was great and the crowd was really into it.

Dawn's not really familiar with "Industrial Music," so she didn't know what to expect. I think she enjoyed herself though.

Oh, also, guess who opened? Sheep On Drugs!!! I kid you not. Sheep on Drugs. I instantly remembered the name and that they had one hit on Q101 so long ago, but I couldn't remember the song. Sure enough they played it and the memories came flooding back. Ah, the nineties.

My mother, the saint

2005-05-19T19:12:00.000-05:00

Now, it's going to be difficult for me to write this and not sound too callous or indifferent. It's how I tend to get about personal things. My writing style has always been a little wry and humorous when talking about difficult issues having to do with my family. Also, sorry if this is really long, but there's a lot to say and I've been mostly quiet lately anyway.

As it is widely known, my mother was in the hospital recently getting some sort of spinal surgery. Specifically, she got three levels of vertebrae fused. It's not common, but it's also not unheard of. Her surgery ended up being "successful" in the eyes of the surgeon who performed it, but a strange byproduct occured. Prior to the surgery, my mother had trouble walking, indeed, lost any ability to walk at all. After surgery, she was bedridden for a week, unable to talk or properly swallow. She was intubated for purposes of eating and ingesting liquids. She was also coughing up lots and lots of mucous, primarily from years and years of smoking. Now, in that regard, my opinion is 'you reap what you sow.' She always knew smoking was bad for her and for that I didn't feel much pity.

The lack of ability to swallow, however, is not a typical reaction to this kind of surgery.

Anyway, after she was able to speak again, she was started on physical therapy. By the time Blue Cross/Blue Shield wanted her to leave the hospital (a decision with which none of us, her family - nor her, nor my ex, a doctor - agreed) she was able to walk with her walker about 200 feet, but she was still very weak and according to her, 1-pound weights felt like 15 pounds. She was barely able to operate the plunger which she needed to use to feed herself for two of the four feedings she needed a day. Her physical therapist, in my opinion acting under pressure from the insurance company, consented to her release despite the fact that she would not have 24-hour supervision (my sister has two kids and couldn't stay with her; my grandmother, who almost was able to do it, despite already taking care of her alzheimer's-stricken husband, had a sudden flare-up of emphysema, and I don't have a car, live anywhere near my mother, and am one of two people taking care of a new business).

A day after her release, she was found lying on the floor of her home by one of her nurses (she had nurse visits twice a day). She had fallen. It's still unclear to me for how long she had been on the ground.

She was readmitted to the hospital. Once again, according to her, she was in the emergency room for 9 hours and asking for a glass of water and also asking for someone to contact her physical therapist, whom would be familiar with her case.

The story from here gets a little more foggy, and also, the rest of it seems less credible, because from here on out, my mother starts exhibiting something of a psychological break.

The first time I visit her after the fall, she has a lot of trouble maintaining clarity. She seems to blank out in front of you. She'll be talking clearly, and suddenly stare blankly. She also stutters a lot. My ex, who is a general practitioner and very experienced, and also knows my mom somewhat, was there with me that night. She seemed to be able to converse with him pretty well until he started asking her questions about how many of her painkillers she had taken when she was released from the hospital the first time. Her episodes seemed to be a little more selective.

Also, my mother seems to have found the lord, again. Many years ago she became a "born again" christian, but after a second failed marriage with a so-called fellow christian, she lost her taste for the hypocrisy that so often seems to be part and parcel to christianity and organized religion and just sort of didn't talk about god for a long time.

I always knew he was in there somewhere, though.

And so did she, or so she says. So, although somewhat cliche that my mother should rediscover Christ in this time of peril, it's also expected within my own understanding of my mother.

My mother's rediscovered stance on Jesus hasn't had such a benevolent impact on my sister's relationship with my mother, however. It seems that the devil talks to my mother, now. More specifically, he has told her that her "daughter doesn't love her anymore." Naturally, this has shaken up my sister a bit.

Medically, physically, my mother seems to be in ripe condition to heal. Unfortunately, she's falling off the boat mentally and sort of... I don't want to say allowing, but it seems like she's almost choosing to not get better.

Two days ago, I called her up at the hospital to ask her where she last had her eyes examined. I was going to make her a new pair of bi-focal glasses so she could more easily read while in the hospital. She told me that she didn't want me to make the glasses, that she wouldn't need them because she was going to be dying in the next day or two.

"You're not going to die," I said. "Claude just told you yesterday you're going to be fine." Prior to him coming to see her, she had been non-stop asking to see him, because he was going to be able to solve all her problems. She was going to move in with him for a week and they were going to massage her feet together. That's the kind of effect my ex has on people. He's a wonderful giving person that people all love and many many people have the tendency to want him to take care of them. Hell, I did it for a while, I know what I'm talking about.

"God told me that I was going to die. And I have to tell you something else. It's wonderful news. They're going to announce it very soon. They're making me into a saint. You should read about saints in the bible or find a book and read about saints."

I told my mother that John (my current boyfriend) had just recently bought a book about saints, which is true. He wanted the book for the pictures, because he wants to do some paintings of saints.

"See? Why else would he have bought that book? Because I'm going to be made into a saint." I didn't even bother telling her his reason for buying the book.

"Well, mom, in the meantime, can I just make you the glasses so you can read and look at the book that John bought?"

"Cancel the glasses. Cancel the glasses. Cancel the glasses." She kept repeating it. I tried to explain that I hadn't yet ordered them, that I needed her prescription, but she wouldn't hear it.

I was at work during this phone call and had to leave, but as soon as I brought it up, she of course started not being able to talk, to relinquish me of the burden of talking to her. I called her bluff and told her I had to get back to work and had to hang up on her.

Yesterday, she was found again, this time on the floor of her hospital room. She also appeared to be singing in what the nurse described as "another language." My sister spoke with the nurse, who, bless her heart, believed my mom was having a religious experience (that's what happens when you deal with Catholic hospitals - Seperation of Church and Hospital Now!). My mother has in the past been in choirs. It's not at all uncommon for people to be trained to sing a song in another language and have them not know what the hell they're singing. In 1999 I bought a CD by a Portugese punk band called Raimundos, and learned how to sing most of the slower songs. I still don't know what I was singing.

Anyway, my sister went in to see my mom today and she seemed to at least be calmed down. Unfortunately, she has to be restrained because she keeps pulling her i.v. out. My mother will only whisper to my sister because she "doesn't want the devil to hear."

I'm going to go with my ex, Claude, to see her tonight. Maybe more to report tomorrow.

Playing Ketchup

2005-05-16T12:08:00.000-05:00

Last month I went up to Green Bay, Wisconsin to console my boyfriend and his family after the death of his step-father, Terry, whom I've never met. By all accounts he was a nice guy. He'd had cancer of some sort that started to to away due to chemo treatments when it spread to other parts of his body and became untreatable. His final days were less than lucid and he endured pain, so most of the family experienced their grief with a bit of relief mixed in.

This was also the first time I was meeting the fam. John and I have only been dating a few months, but certainly long enough to due the family thing. Interestingly, John met my mother a couple weeks before she went in for surgery, so she was at a stage where she could barely walk. She likes to tell the story that she met John, introduced herself, and asked him to help her put on her shoes. So, similarly, I met John's mother where she said (without having been formally introduced), "Hi Brian, I'll meet you later but right now I need you to leave the room so we can be alone with Terry."

See, I had flown up to Green Bay last minute because Terry'd passed away unexpectantly, John drove up and I flew standby because we'd planned on going anyway. So, I had to fly up alone, take a cab to the funeral home in a city I'd never been, etc. Getting on the standby flight was a little nervewracking. John had bought my ticket, and I've heard stories that because of the heightened security, the credit card holder of the ticket needed to be present or whatever. So I called the morning of and tried to find out. United's phone system is totally automated and you have to say your requests instead of typing them so the voice recognition software wouldn't recognize my speech despite my trying 8 different inflections. Finally I hung up, tried the internet, and realized I didn't have my mileage plus number to log in (it's packed in a box somewhere, since I haven't been needing to travel so much lately).

I finally decide to just go to the airport, which was my initial idea anyway. I check in for my flight scheduled for like 9 pm (it's about 10:30 am) and get on standby for another one taking off in about forty five minutes. I get on that flight and my stress level is greatly lowered.

Strangely, the first sight I see as I walk out the doors of the comparatively tiny Green Bay airport is a muscular drag queen driving a huge pickup truck. It was very surreal. I almost wanted to go thank her for greeting me to this strange backwoods town.

I take a cab to the funeral home and literally get in during the last 30 seconds. Terry was in the armed services, so there was an honor guard in front and this naval woman dressed up in full regalia is presenting a folded American flag to John's mom and does this weird slow-motion salute that I figure must be the salute to the mourning because it's like less intense and somehow showing respect. After this, the funeral director announces where everyone's going to eat and I realize this must have been a moving service.

We go to this banquet hall type place called Charneski's and are served family style fried chicken, mashed taters, corn, stuffing, cole slaw, etc. John's family is having a feud, so there are three long tables and the two feuding sides sit seperately. There is a buzz because John is 34 years old and has never brought anyone to a family function and people are all coming up to me and saying hello and sort of talking to me knowingly and John comments later on how odd this is because he didn't tell anyone I was coming yet everyone seemed to know the situation.

Despite the sad circumstances, it was a nice visit to Green Bay and we just did things we'd normally do while visiting, like go shoe shopping at the mall (bought a nice pair of brown GBX boots for a paltry $20 - bargain shopper here!) and go to the movies (saw House of Wax, which was better than might've been expected with a surprisingly good performance by Paris Hilton).

After coming back from Green Bay, I then went and visited my mother in the hospital. The good news is that her spinal surgery has been considered a success. She will be able to walk again on her own. The bad news is that they screwed something up on the way out and now she can't swallow and has to ingest food and water through a tube and this will be happening for an indefinite time. And the "Good News" is that my mother found the lord again and is finding "his work" in all the mundane things of the world and hearing the devil whisper bad things about my sister in her ear and I don't know if it's the meds or what but it's pretty annoying and really bothering my sister. Hopefully as her physical health stabilizes so will her mental/spiritual health will stabilize, too. In the mean time, hopefully she won't totally alienate my sister, who has become the closest thing to primary caregiver.

Yesterday I took a certification exam for being an optician. Opticians design lenses to be put into glasses when optometrists prescribe them. They're the middle man between going to the optometrist and getting new glasses. All of my studying had to do with optics, light, curvature of lenses and index of refraction plus types of eye abnormalities and what they mean.

Anyway, now that the test is over, I can devote more time to writing and art. Yay. So, expect some new art and stuff soon.

Music

2005-04-29T15:21:00.000-05:00

Last night before work was finished my ex called me and asked if I wanted to go to a Designer's fundraiser for AIDS or something. Our friend David is on the board of directors for the organization and I hadn't seen him in some time, plus there was to be a buffet and I was hungry, so I said, "what time will we be done? I have to be at The Empty Bottle at 9:30 (I was going to see a show about which I'll write more on briefly). It was chronally copacetic, so I decided it would be no harm and went. It was a typical foofie fundraiser. Lots of rich people. A silent auction of ugly things that no one needs. A buffet with all the good food already picked over (it started at 6 and we got there around 7).
There was one cute guy who had basically gotten the attention of practically every person attracted to males in the place and he seemed the topic on everyone's lips. No one knew if he was straight or gay and David insisted on calling him his new boyfriend. Later, Tommy and Steve and some others were in line by the bar and the cute guy cut in line. I walked over and asked, "hey did you order yet?" Their response was that they would have but apparently THERE'S TWO LINES," raising their voices toward the end that way in hopes that the cute guy would hear and feel guilty or something. I said, "oh, you mean there's one line for you and all these nice people and one line for David's boyfriend?" When I got back to our little base of operations (a coctail table) everyone said that David had to break up with him. He conceded.
No one won anything at the auction except Tommy who got a pair of towels and some soap for like $80. See? Kinda useless expensive stuff. But I suppose it's for a good cause. That's what everyone kept saying.

After the fundraiser, I went to see a local band called Mt. St. Helens with John. Recently he and I had a conversation which felt a little more like an intervention about my concert-going.
"I mean, what do you get out of going to four shows in four nights, anyway?"
I had told him that there were four shows in a row this week and I kind of wanted to go to them all. I even said at the time that I probably wouldn't go to all four of them because I knew it wasn't realistic. Actually, it was 5 in a row. With Version>05 happening and it also being a generally busy touring season, there's just a lot going on. Tuesday night it was Rotten Milk vs. Bubblegum Shitface, which I skipped mostly cuz I was tired and also afraid that it might suck, because it was experimental. Wednesday night it was Animal Collective, who've gotten interesting write-ups in the reader the last two times they played. And, c'mon, they dress up like animals while they play pop music, what's not to like? I ended up skipping that in deference to said musical intervention.
So, last night was Mt. St. Helens. They're awesome. It wasn't even that long ago that I saw them last (and blogged about them), which made me partially feel guilty, but whatever. John not only liked them, but said after the show, "now I kinda want to go see the show tomorrow," which would be the show that's happening tonight, Super/System. The boys of Super/System used to be called El Guapo. I have one El Guapo album, actually called Super/System. I don't know if this is a similar case like when the Descendents changed their name to All once they became "allular" and were "good enough" to call themselves that or what, but I do know that last time I saw El Guapo, they didn't sound like the album Super/System. Super/System is really kind of mathy and technical and a little weird, and live they were more dancey and discoey and fun. I like both forms of El Guapo/Super/System.
Tomorrow is Princess, who are a couple of awesome local boys who make interesting and fun music that I often describe as "arty white boy rap." Think maybe Scissor Sisters on acid with an emphasis on the subjects of gender and politics. They're part of the Version 05 fest going on right now.
Also in conjunction with this was a movie night at the Buddy/Heaven/High School gallery spaces in Wicker Park. John and I only stayed to watch the one film that really caught my attention, which was called The Take. It was about all of the factories that closed in Argentina after recent economic downturns as a result of poor leadership by former Argentinian president, Menem, and as a result, factory workers sort of "occupying" those factories and re-opening them without management, making decisions based on consensus in "assemblies." It was a really moving film and really scary at the same time. Menem's way of governing was to give businesses every incentive imaginable so they could take advantage of the situation, but then also allowing them to literally take off with all their money and leave thousands and thousands of people jobless.
Hmm, pandering to corporations. Sound like any presidents we know?
Anyway, good film, try and see it.

November Spawned a Monster

2005-04-22T15:25:00.000-05:00

Sunday night I had a birthday party. It was pretty fun. There was a decent turnout. I got some cool presents. Most notably a Star Wars belt buckle and some tulips. Oh, and an Ugly Doll action figure. There was a keg that we didn't finish, but I turned thirty so the drinking is naturally being de-emphasized and most of my heavy-drinkin' friends don't live in Chicago anymore. I realized at about 2 in the morning that I hadn't taken a single picture. D'oh.

Special thanks go out to everybody who made it and a big fuck you to those who didn't.

Just kiddin'.

Mostly.

I went and saw my mom on Tuesday. It was a little heartbreaking to watch her try and make her legs move and struggle to walk and all that. She went in for a spinal tap yesterday, the results of which won't be in for a week or something, I'm told. I think my sister's kind of in denial about the situation because she kept saying things like, "I hope they find out what's wrong with her," and stuff like that. I mean, yes, it will help, but knowing what a problem is doesn't really solve anything. Not being able to walk is pretty serious and I don't think that they'll just have a pill that will make it go away.

She's probably in denial for good reason, as there's no one better qualified to take care of my mother than my sister if she needs that kind of care. Kind of sucks, but there's not much that can be done about it.

Last night I went to see Amityville Horror with Greg and John. It was good and scary. I screamed aloud, which made my companions laugh and got mentioned after the show. My opinion is that if I don't scream, I'm not getting my money's worth. Oh, and many scenes with Ryan Reynolds with no shirt didn't hurt, either.

What you wish for

2005-04-16T11:40:00.000-05:00

I swear it's like I'm suffering from some disease or something. It's this crippling condition that stops me in my tracks every time I write. I start to feel extremely bored by my own words. I've started a number of blogs over the past few weeks but I never get through more than a paragraph or so and then I just cancel out of it. Sure, some of the time it's because of some practical reason, like work gets really busy or something, but more often than not, I just lose the impulse to write and communicate.

I haven't suffered from this terrible affliction for nearly 7 years. 7 years ago I was dating this guy Bill who used to be very subtly mentally abusive. He was the kind of guy everybody liked...until they got to know him. Constantly introducing him to my friends and family to always golden reviews made me think my creeping feelings of disinterest in him weren't warranted. I mean, everyone else likes him, what must be wrong with me?

Anyway, he used to always tell me I wasn't very socially graceful and that I would say things that people didn't want to hear or something like that. Eventually, this got to me and I became more withdrawn. So much so that I even withdrew inside my own mind. I'd rarely have internal conversations anymore. Indeed, thought seemed to disappear from my mind. I started merely existing, floating from one experience to another, barely acknowledging any feelings I might be experiencing.

By no means is my current affliction so...severe, but I do feel remnants of that time in my heart. It's somewhat inexplicable in my current time/space. There's no reason why I should be down on myself. Although I suppose there's certain expectations of becoming 30 that I haven't been addressing, so there may be something there.

Anyway, getting back to my subject line.

The other day I was talking to Topher about wishing something would happen in my life that I would find somewhat interesting so that I might then want to write about it. I hadn't blogged for weeks and, well, I've just explained my internal feelings. Anyway, later that day I got my wish.

After work, I opened the birthday card my mother had sent me. It had arrived late and she hadn't called me on the day of, so I was vaguely annoyed, but my mom and I have a pretty casual relationship so I didn't think about it too much. Inside, my mom had written,

I hope you had a happy birthday. I'm out of work for the next few days for some tests. I'm having trouble walking. Call me. I'm scared. Love, Mom."

I decide to tear up the $30 check she'd written me, thinking that she probably needs it more than me (eventhough I am broke - which leads me down a depressing tangent of this cycle of poverty with my family which I need to stop myself from going down).
Naturally I call her right away. She confirms what she wrote in the card and tells me her doctor thinks she may have MS.
Of course, I immediately think I know something about this because I watch West Wing and president Bartlett has relapsing remitting MS and I even ask my mom at some point if the doctor used that phrase. Either way, it's pretty scary to think about my mom being so helpless and it's also (god help me) kind of annoying because I'm so used to her being sick in some way. She's smoked since before I was born and is constantly suffering from sinus infections but refuses to quit smoking. She has carpal tunnel from years of being a secretary. Basically a call to my mom was just an update of her ailments, which never seemed to change, but because I'd waited long enough to call they'd subsided and returned already.
Obviously, MS is a little more serious and now the idea of my mom coming to the city to visit me is quite possibly something I can never take for granted again, which, again, is scary and sucks.
Being the youngest child in my family grants me having the experience of what most older adults have at a younger age. But this is early even for my sister, who is 8 years older than me. At least, I didn't see it coming.
We all thought my father, who's been a heavy drinker most of his life, would be debilitated first. Goes to show.

OK, so I guess I'm over the whole writer's block, unfortunately for all of you, who get to experience this mind-numbing depression. Venting has helped though.

Party Time

2005-03-30T01:35:00.000-05:00

I just got back from a birthday party. My friend Jordan. He's not a close friend. He turned 22. Gosh. Young.

I will turn 30 in a couple weeks.

I skateboarded to and from this party.

On Skateboarding
How I long for the long flat smooth streets of the suburbs.

How I long for my lack of joint ache with every push of the board. For the lack of pulsing feet after a ride.

Maybe I don't really long for these things. Maybe I just miss them. Am nostalgic about them.

The party was pretty fun. I just got finished telling John we needed to stop staying up late, and then I go out to a party til after midnight and on my way home think of wishing I could go out more. I'm 30. I want to experience more. Soon I won't want to. Maybe. Who knows how it will go?

At the party, someone said that Michael Jackson had hung himself. It was pretty believable, though I didn't believe it. Someone finally called their mother to get some verification. According to her, he had not killed himself.

Also at the party, we talked about where we were for the world trade center attack. It came up because during the Michael Jackson rumor, we all thought history was happening.

Also at the party I heard about someone's installation/thesis for the School of the Art Institute grad program. So we also talked about missing academia.

Today I rearranged my apartment a bit. I'd recently started getting a little down on my apartment because of its lack of natural lighting. But today after changing some stuff around, I had a more positive feeling about the place, so that's good. Sometimes we can change our world in little ways so they feel better in big ways.

Anyway, I moved my closet from one area of the apartment to another. This made my number of shoes look INSANE. As I moved my stuff, I realized I would need a new shelf for a place to put my sweaters in the new closet location. Not 15 minutes after this realization, I was in my studio and a guy came up to my door (my studio opens out onto the street and there's a big gate there so I can have the door open and still be secure). He came up and told me he was selling a black metal shelf for 18.32 (to buy his baby girl's asthma medicine; he brandished an inhaler for me to see as he said this). He was moving from an apartment across the street to somewhere "up north." I gave him a twenty and had a new shelf. He helped me carry it from across the street. It seems like the universe keeps handing me things lately. I hope the luck (Karma?) continues.

I won on ebay a vintage microphone amp. The Amp was made by an Italian company called Geloso. So far the only information I can find about this company is specs for items more recently manufactured than this one. It's hella old. Anyway, I can't wait to use it, but I don't really understand how to power it. That's how old it is. I also don't know how I'm going to hook it up to my computer when the time comes. Either way, I think I'm gonna have to make some cool sounds with this stuff I'm finding.

Also today for lunch I ate at the Wendy's on Division. This young kinda overweight hispanic kid kept coming up to me and telling me that I worked there. When I said I didn't work there, he told me I did and that I should take off all my clothes and go out into the street. Then he told me my skateboard was his, not mine. Then he brandished his fist toward me and his mom shooed him toward their table. He brandished his fist the whole time I walked away from the Wendy's. It was very cute.

So, my birthday is in a couple weeks, as I've mentioned. I think I want to go bowling. Anyone have an opinion about that?

Someone at the party I was at said I should announce it on friendster. That sounds like a good idea. That would be some party.

Threadless

2005-03-25T20:42:00.000-05:00

Everyone's heard of threadless.com by now. They have this really cool deal where you can be in a club where you get a limited edition t-shirt every month. {speaking like whisper}: What a great gift that would be. It's the gift that keeps on giving.

OK, I'm tired and tired so that's all.

Nostalgia

2005-03-18T16:06:00.000-05:00

I've been having all these nostalgic moments lately.

Seeing Interpol at the Aragon - a venue I hadn't visited for a show since almost high school, it seems.

Running into random high school chums on Friendster and Myspace.

And then there's been the dreams. They've been interspersing the haze of my late morning sleeps. Most recently, this morning, I dreamt that I was at this campground I used to go to (Jellystone Park, in Portage, Indiana) except I wasn't with the people I used to go with. Instead I was with some people from high school. One who was one of the people with whom I've recently started conversing from back then, but the other was just this totally random guy who I swear I haven't even thought about. His name's Frank and he was on the swim team with me freshman or sophomore year and I had a pretty big crush on him (well, big for not realizing I was gay until a year or two later) and an even bigger crush on his even bigger brother.

In the dream, Frank and I are rooming in the same room on different bunks. It's more like a dorm than a campground, but whatever. We are laying on the same bed at some point and some heavy frottage commences. He talks a little bit about how much sexual tension we had between us in high school and then he gets up and grabs a towel and some condoms and tells me to follow him. We go to the communal bathrooms and he goes into one shower and I into the other but as I walk in, someone is walking out. I am all like, "whoa!" and back off and the kid just kind of looks at me. I look at frank who is naked and in the shower and sort of beckoning but at the same time definitely doesn't want this kid to know what's going on and sort of shakes his head no and says forget it. I'm disappointed because at this moment I realize it's something for which I've been waiting 14 years. Then I wake up.

This would normally go in the dream blog, but it ties so closely to the catalyst that made me remember the dream just now that it became a post about something more. I'd just walked out of Alliance Baker and there were these guys outside on skateboards. One of them attempted some trick of which I do not even know the name and the board landed with the board facing down and that loud -SMACK- was such a familiar noise it just seemed to be like Proust's Madeleine and evoked a veritable novel of emotion. Just like that -click click- of a skateboard buzzing down a sidewalk, still perhaps one of the sexiest sounds to ever stir my loins. I don't know what it is, but it really has this visceral effect on me and I get a chill.

Add all that to the fact that it feels like Spring today, and - more importantly - SMELLS like Spring, and I'm sort of high on memory today.

And so here I am doing my 21st century form of journaling so I can keep this memory of memories from forever being lost.

Internet Hibernation

2005-03-15T17:41:00.000-05:00

Things have been pretty hectic at work and I haven't had much Internet time. For this I apologize and I feel it sorely.

Friday night I went to see Interpol at the crappy Aragon Ball Room. I had this weird flashback to seeing Jesus Jones there back in the day. I also remembered very distinctly a how I felt so social there at the time. I was in high school and there were a bunch of people there I knew. It was pretty fun. It sort of brought me back to that time. This time however, I ran into several customers from my store, which was kind of neat. Sort of a more adult experience to be sure. Unfortunately, I had to miss Washington D.C. band, Q and not U, because I was working. I guess since I've never seen them live, though, that this wasn't the best venue in which to introduce me to them live.

Here is an audblog of most of the song "Slow Hands." I recorded it for JF, as it is his favorite Interpol song and because he's special.

The following night I went to see Make Believe at The Bottom Lounge. Make Believe is the newest incarnation of Cap'n Jazz, one of my favorite bands from the 90's. Tim Kinsella looked pretty much the same except now he smokes, sports long messy hair, and wore this crazy Jim Morrison-like shirt. The bassist and guitarist I'm pretty sure are original to Cap'n Jazz, though the drummer was definitely not Mike Kinsella. Of this I was a little disappointed. I always thought Mike was a phenomenal drummer, though this guy held his own pretty well. Standing next to me and JF in the audience were these guys around my age who seemed to be as much reliving a Cap'n Jazz show as I was. It was pretty great. The one guy had the 90's emo dance moves down just right and it was a little contagious. I guess it was a weekend of semi-nostalgia in that I was revisiting old things with new twists.

Opening for Make Believe was a band called Ume. They were dangerously close to sounding like early Sonic Youth. But I didn't care. The singer/guitarist also slightly resembled Kim Gordon. Though the bassist did not really look like Thurston Moore, the two of them had matching wedding bands on, and their cd sleeve (yes, I bought a CD) indicated that they shared last names. Weird. Anyway, they had a lot of the punk rawness of early Sonic Youth but I think her Guitar skills weren't quite on par with Moore's. All in all, though, I liked them a lot and would see them again.

Speaking of nostalgia, though, the singer reminded me/looks a lot like this girl I knew in high school. Interestingly, I'd just bumped into her profile on Friendster like early last week, so it kinda freaked me out.

I went CD shopping yesterday for the first time in about forever. Here's my list of new acquisitions, including the two I picked up from the show.

Azita : Life on the Fly [C-] (I had thought this was going to be weirder, so I gave it the benefit of doubt that my preconceptions soured my opinion, but I almost feel like this was a D+. I'm not sure, but I think this is the same Azita who used to date Elliot, the sound guy from Fireside. She also used to be in the band The Scissor Girls back in the nineties who were this riotous noisy riot grrrl band. This cd was all about mellow folksy stuff. Azita matured? Maybe it's not actually her. I mean, how many Azita's can there be?

Isotope 217 : The Unstable Molecule [B] (I first heard them off some comp and every time I've heard that song, "Kryptonite Smokes the Red Line," on my iPod list, I've loved it. The other tracks on this album aren't quite as good as that one, but I still like it tremendously. Sort of a nu-jazz kind of thing.)

Make Believe : self-titled [A-] (What can I say, I'm a sucker for Tim Kinsella and crazy dissonant guitar and arpeggios and finger tapping. I felt a little jipped when I realized there were only 5 songs and I paid a full $10, though. Bitches.)

Ume : Urgent Sea [C+] (Liked it but didn't love it. As I said, hints of Sonic Youth, but only Sonic Youth can do Sonic Youth. Listening to the CD, I was reminded of the one most annoying thing about her singing style, and that's that she often followed her guitar too closely. It always strikes me as amateurish when a singer follows the guitar during the entire chorus or verse and she did this quite a bit. I still liked her voice and the overall energy though.)

Camera Obscura : I love My Jean (not yet rated)

Laurie Anderson : Life on a String (not yet rated)

Sonic Youth : NYC Ghosts and Flowers (not yet rated)

Cheer Accident : Introducing Lemon (not yet rated)(been wanting to check this out for a while)

The Beta Band : The Three E.P.s (not yet rated)

The Detachment Kit : Of This Blood (not yet rated)

I'm pretty excited about all this new music. I've had a good day today of starting to listen to it.

The Return of Kenya (and of Alias)

2005-02-26T01:58:00.000-05:00

My Entire world was turned upside down last week because I'd started watching season three of the very omega-excellent Alias. If you've never watched this show, you must seek out the DVDs either from Netflix, your favorite video store, Amazon, whatever. Just go frickin' get them because they are awesome. I greedily watched several episodes while remaining invisible on AIM the first night, not wanting to be interrupted. Slowly, though, my love affair with Alias has been waning. Today I heard a song off of the Rainer Maria album A Better Version of Me and the lyrics make mention of our first esteemed national poet laureate, Walt Whitman and I was immediately reminded of a poem I once wrote in response to his own and I suddenly felt very cheap for being so in love with Alias. I mean, sure, she's flashy and fun, but how deep does she go? Does she promulgate anything beyond skin-deep beauty? I'm only through the first two discs of Season Three, but I'm seriously considering cutting it cold turkey. Perhaps the answer is moderation, but who was time these days? And what if we all die tomorrow? Will I want to be caught thinking of Alias or of Whitman? Like many relationships ending, I may take a few more episodes from her, and it will be empty and unsatisfying eventhough there will be the same sense of excitement underlying it all. I'm sure I'll even be distracted thinking of Whitman's white whiskers, of his oh-too-obvious metaphors for male genitalia while Alias 360-kicks some Covenant agent into unconsciousness. And who knows, maybe it will heighten the pleasure once I return to Whitman, as I'll be truly realizing what I've been missing, taking for granted.

Last Wednesday night, friend Dave returned to town. We went out on the town drinking and having as much fun as we did last time he was in. Actually, we went to the same exact places, not including the restaurant where we began. This time we started at the ole Pepper Lounge. Linda whipped me up a delicious Bloody-Tini, which I haven't had in quite some time. Well, after I drank that drink in a about three minutes, I knew already that I picked a hell of a time to quit sniffin' glue (10 points to anyone who can get that reference). Anyway, for those not getting the reference, I went on to get a little drunk. But we had fun.

After Pepper, we went first to Spin for $1 drinks night. Friend and bartender extraordinaire, Vasili, was there as well as a host of others. Here's a pic of me, Dave and Dave.

After Spin, we headed to Berlin (the bar, not the country). Good times. Good times. Like last time, we ran into everyone's favorite drag queen, Kenya. OK, I don't know if she's anyone's favorite, much less my own.

I did bite her butt though.

And she did let me take a picture of her urinating. So she certainly racked up some points that way.

A lot has happened since that night. I'm not quite ready to talk about it publicly, but some of you have heard bits and pieces. Soon, it will all be made public.

Update

2005-02-24T23:07:00.000-05:00

I've been pretty busy. There's a new dream in the dreams section.

Valentine's Day

2005-02-16T02:27:00.000-05:00

(I've manipulated my site settings - let me know if there's any immediate bad effects for all y'all - thanks.)
(Also, there are a couple new dreams.)

Monday night I went out to The Hideout to watch a couple bands and see some heart-based poetry. Well, you know, lurve poetry. The poetry was mostly good. This one guy was reciting a poem dedicated to his grandfather and it was very strange and discombobulating. The phrases were all very fragmented and his delivery really punched their fragmentation.

It was-- It was like-- It was-- It-- It was like he-- It was like-- It was like he would start a sentence-- It was-- It was like he would start a sentence and not finish it over and over again and his delivery was so good I really felt like I was hearing this weirdly skipping record or some constantly interrupted transmission.

One of the poets remarked that there was some graffiti on the men's bathroom wall that said, "Scarves are for faggots." This poet was himself a faggot. He read from a series of poems which he called the Ira poems, that depicted the last time he was in love - in 1989. His were the best of the night, and if applause was an indication, then I think the audience agreed with this.
When I looked on the wall in the bathroom, I didn't find that quote, but I found instead, SOILENT GREEN IS PEOPLE! This made me laugh.
The poets inspired me to write some poetry, though my a.d.d. kicked in and I haven't yet except for a collaborative piece I'm sharing with a friend in San Francisco.
I may still start that poem tonight.
In addition to the readings, there were two bands. The first was Charlemagne. My date, Greg, and I couldn't figure out if Charlemagne was the name of merely the lead singer (as he introduced himself as such), or if the whole band was Charlemagne. You know, kinda like Winger. Either way, I liked Charlemagne. The music was catchy and pretty and dynamic enough. Their drummer was this chick with a mullet that I rather enjoyed. Their keyboardist seemed like he didn't belong. He looked like a tax adjuster. He also looked like in conversation, anything he'd say would be grumbled.
The second band was Chicago's own L'Altra. I liked them pretty well, also. They consisted of a cellist, a guitarist, a keyboardist and a second guitarist. No drums. Obviously, this wasn't high energy music, but I found it pretty and soothing and interesting enough. We were both hungry though, so we left to get some pizza at Santullo's. Mmmm. Yummy pizza.

Unholy Union

2005-02-13T01:45:00.000-05:00

The other day as I was walking to work, I had the impulse to just set my iPod to play The Arcade Fire's Funeral album again, because it is so goddamn good I just want to listen to it all the time, but for some reason I just let random play and I was not displeased. Pailhead came on. I can't remember exactly which song it was, but I just kept thinking, "how on earth did that ever happen? What weird set of circumstances brought Ian Mackaye, former straight-edge punk rocker and Al Jurgensen, a pretty much strung-out addict, together to make an entire 6-song album? I mean, don't get me wrong - it's a pretty exquisite album. I love nearly every moment of it. But I mean, who'd'a thunk? Surely not me. And I doubt they would have ever believed it themselves.

I don't wanna be a pailhead no more.

* * *
(I always forget the htlm for the stupid little line that I know is just two little letters, but the abbreviation always escapes me, so you'll just have to settle with little stars)
Friday night I went with my friends Frank and Rodney to the members preview of the show entitled Universal Experience at The Museum of Contemporary Art. I had to work, so I got there late in the event and basically just walked through the building at a crisp pace and don't really remember much except that I still don't really like Hirschhorn and a red balloon. I decided, though, that I'd like to take the evening off from work and go again to the next one, but ignore the art and just be social, because the crowd was pretty interesting and fun.
I only took this one picture of Frank's back in this orange-carpeted room.

Outside, a young boy walked back and forth over some flood lamps sunk into the ground. I didn't get to take his picture, but got a few with Rodney walking over them. That was my art-inspired art for the night.

You can just make Rodney out in the last one.
When I got home I watched 13 Conversations About the Same Thing, which I picked up somewhat randomly based on cast at the video store the other day. It was pretty darn good. It was kinda formatted like those non-linear sort of films where there's all these simultaneous storylines with common characters and there's this thread of luck/coincidence/choice. You know what I'm talking about, I'm sure. I'm so sleepy.

Being Sick Sucks

2005-02-09T16:47:00.000-05:00

So, being king of not being sure, I've decided not to combine the blogs. I started to redesign last night for a couple hours and felt like I was getting nowhere, so I'm keeping it the way it is for now. If anyone out there can think of a way to streamline what I'm doing here AND can verbalize how that would be, just send me an IM or something.

There's a new dream.

A New Era

2005-02-05T01:23:00.000-05:00

:::Attention - I interrupt your regularly scheduled blog with this urgent announcement:::

Okay, some things are about to change.

Today I installed dsl service in my home. This means I have access to my luvah, the Internet, at home. This also means that some of my long-term plans on my presence on said Internet are going to be coming to fruition.

One of the most dramatic changes will be the consolidation of some of my blogs. I think I will no longer be using different pages for FOUND, DREAMS, BOOKS, or any of the other specialty text-rich blogs. Naturally, I will maintain a seperate art page, as it is primarily image-driven and usually is static except when new work is added.

It is also my goal to start making music in my home studio. As of now, there is no home studio, but I am going to begin researching how to remedy this by using my Luvah, the Internet.

So, start expecting to see changes in due time. I believe this will also result in an overhaul of the general site design. Specifically, the nav will eventually be moved to the top so I can start using images larger than the crappy 410 pixels that I've been using for the last 3 months or so.

If anybody knows of any good shareware that acts anything like apple's garageband, please let me know.

Peace.

:::We now continue with the previously scheduled blog which is brought to you in its entirety. Thank you for your patience:::

Last monday I went to a show at the Empty Bottle with my friend Gnat. I saw a band called The Emily Shrine, whom I've liked for quite a while. I first heard them when I came upon their CD when I was writing for In The Periphery. The Audible Campaign opened.

I was really pissed at my camera for taking sucky pictures. I hope this isn't a permanent problem.

The Audible Campaign I've heard of before, and sadly, I expected more. I felt their bassist was the weakest link. I also felt like their singer was pretty weak. While I listened, I assumed that they'd never recorded before, because the vocalist tended to be flat in pitch. It seemed like he wasn't aware of how he was singing. But I later looked at the merch table and they had not one, but two CDs. One would think that after that much studio experience, a band would be more aware of what they sound like.

All that said, I think there's lots of potential. The actual songwriting was pretty good. Just seems like the delivery needs work.

Ironically, The Audible Campaign requested I be their friend after this show, and I hope they're not too hurt by this review of them, should they ever see it.

The Emily Shrine, on the other hand, sounded great.

This guitarist had the calmest stage presence I've seen. He was like watching a lava lamp or an aquarium of fish (Hi, Marco).

Some other band played, but for the life of me I can't remember who they were. Here's the guitarist/singer.

He kinda look like Brian Moss from The Ghost.
The bassist had the same bass as me. Just a different color. Probably not the same exact model. I don't think his has stereo output (or what Rickenbacher has termed "rick-o-sound").

I love Sue Fox

2005-02-02T19:16:00.000-05:00

There's a new found object.

I have a date tonight.

There may be a new dream, so you might wanna go check over there, too.

Snow Adventures!!!

2005-01-27T13:23:00.000-05:00

The End?