new site: CHIPSYLVANIA.com

i finally made a dedicated retail website for things that i make and things that my friend make. i live right near the post office and go there everyday, so orders ship out pretty fast.

PRICE RITE is the cheap-by-virtue-of-having-no-prevalent-organizational-structure supermarket down the road aways. it used to be in the now-vacant supermarket building that i live behind, then they moved into the abandoned shaw’s when the shaw’s abandoned it, in the space that previously was the seminal arts collective. the plaza also has a going-out-of-business blockbuster video and nothing else. today i went in for staples and because there’s a snowstorm coming and besides you can’t go there on the first, it’s swamped. the soundtrack was “nothing but flowers” followed by “love cats”. i mean, literally, that was the sound coming from the speakers. the last time i was there it was “whip it”.

ayo!!!!! get your shout outs in for the new years issue of Mothers News! mothersnews.net

bless bless bless

jacob the terrible, tomorrow december 10th, with yoni gordon and the goods, at collective a go go, worcester ma. wood stove. remembery lane. sommody gemme a beeyuh…

UG! much like i did last year, i bailed at the last minute from going to the brooklyn comics thing. there are a lot of reasons, and the least interesting but “most real” is that i had totally no money, and no prospects for making money. the newspaper is free and all my deadlines stacked up (MN monthly deadline, hi hat show, comics fest) in such a way that i was unable to pull something salable together in time. i wanted to meet personal hero mark newgarden, see gary panter (probably) again, low hassle dan nadel about buying an ad in the next issue, and “just hang out” with mike t et al, but New York Means Spending Money, and when the dollar’s down it’s tough to travel you know. i guess there was lots of free pizzas to eat, the show was a walk and not a train ride from mike’s place, free ride there and back… i don’t know, i guess i just let everything stress me out too hard and i had to just hang back. that’s probably the most real answer. since then some checks have come through, everything is en route to OK. haha, just as i finished writing that last sentence someone knocked on my bedroom door and gave me $20! it’s 2am tuesday night.

anyway sorry everyone i let down! i hate going back on my word, it happens more than i’m comfortable with, for less than honorable reasons. especially sorry to new yorkers who showed up to see me, especially leonardr! i’m a shit…

i spent the time instead motivated by guilt and working on a mild webstore idea that should soft launch in a few days with some zines and other nice fixtures leftover from HBML.

oh, while i’m writing i should say thanks to everyone who came out (and come out early/on time) to the hi hat / missoula oblongata show! it was totally fun, i had a good time playing in this new “dub lecture” style, and nick reville sang one very loud note of it. also my entrance music was “la vie en rose”, which is the entrance music i would want if i were ever on a talk show or awards ceremony.

new yorkers! come out and meet me, mickey z, james mcshane, mike taylor, caroline paquita AND jo dery, all sharing the same HALF of a table (because the organizers forgot about us) at the brooklyn comics something something that is this saturday aka tomorrow (if you read this tomorrow aka friday). also mark newgarden will be there!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! and other people that other people are more excited to meet/see. it’s from the early afternoon until 9pm. come on by! i’ll be passing out (or possibly selling (to assholes)) the newspaper and hopefully selling a new print that i have to START DRAWING right now! SSFTL

pictured above is all of us at the last comic book convention we went to. OHAYOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!

UPDATE i don’t want to go to this. i have no money and i don’t want to just stand around basically handing out flyers. i might not go. undecided.

LAZZ MINNUT

my favorite theatre troupe, the MISSOULA OBLONGATA, is returning to the area with a new play, CLAMLUMP. they will be performing it this TUESDAY at NINE PM at BUILDING 16 in the OLNEYVILLE section of PROVIDENCE across from the old PRICE RITE and next to the DUNKIN DONUTS.

I love all their plays and have had the great pleasure to work with them on a few occasions- last year i was in an experimental performance of JULIUS CAESAR that they masterminded in PHILADELPHIA. a few years back me and MIKE LESLIE were in a wonderful play of their write that was held in NORTHAMPTON MA and took place mostly in a CAR (although our section took place at a picnic). the organization, while hardly impeccable, nonetheless gets a hearty endorsement from your humble narrator. there are always good jokes, clever monologues, adequate mysteries left mysterious, and practical costumery. i have not seen the new play, CLAMLUMP, although i was contracted to write a small section of it, which will i’m sure be the dullest part and moreover i’m quite sure the math is wrong.

accompanying the M.O. for THIS SHOW ONLY is HI HAT, which is a name that i’m now using for my own performances and projects involving sound as a primary aspect that aren’t NECESSARILY playing the sort of songs that have become associated with my name (through constant repetition by me). my section of the show (the HI HAT part) may take the form of a lecture with electronic sound, or a series of songs, or one song.

since the show is of a theatrical nature, if you get there late, you’ll miss something. getting people to go to a show on time or even early is always a massive pain in the ass, but please treat this as you would any other play, and plan on being at the venue, and already inside, and settled down, by 9pm. come early and hang out. HI HAT will begin a short period after 9:01, after an overture of everyone who set their alarms for 9:01′s alarm rings. show must be over by 11. please bring $6 to donate. this is the same price as the cheapest first-run movie ticket.

oh, also, my friend and neighbor kimi will be selling slices of DELICIOUS CAKE to raise money for fixing her GRANDMOTHER’S ROOF. you will see people eating the cake, and you will want to eat the cake, so plan accordingly by bringing some cake money / grandma’s roof money. Let you eat cake!

hope to see you there!

official communique:

Deep in the hollows of the boarded up stadium, a barkeep sets his blender to pulse, a traveling salesman hawks his popcorn, and a bird with glorious plumage gores on one or two people a year, on average. Meanwhile, an unusual young person makes plans to go underground. Because if your world extends only as far as the scoreboard and the nosebleed seats, who will ever understand your sense of humor? “Clamlump”, the Missoula Oblongata’s new touring production promises the awe of misunderstanding, the privacy of laughter, and a sky dark with feathers.

The Missoula Oblongata presents Clamlump, the company’s latest full-size touring play. This one is of course complete with an original score performed live by Travis Sehorn (pebble light) and all of the puppetry, animated junk, and densely layered language that they’ve become known for.

after hanging out in portland the next day we drove up to seattle, where the show wasn’t exactly bad, but it was not fun. the onion flavored rings were excited about the show, because in the past their seattle shows had been nuts- dancing and crowd surfing in a basement i couldn’t even stand up in. unfortunately in the time since their last show, that scene got together a more legit venue with plenty of elbow room, a real sound system, big stage, and paper wristbands. in a packed basement you’re kind of always getting jostled a little bit, and you’re already a little uncomfortable, you’re almost already dancing. this place was big enough that that did not happen, and the stage provided ample separation so you could just stand there in the crowd and text and (presumably) not feel like an asshole about it. to get a little philosophical, the place was comfortable enough that no one felt the thrill of something that might not last a long time. it wasn’t bad per se, just not fun. so, if a waste of time is bad, then it was bad. couldn’t find sibs (sorry sibs, when i tried to call i learned that i had only your old number!) so we drove to olympia right after the show.

people kept telling me that olympia was bleak, but i thought it was pretty nice. we walked around all day pointing at turds, and even got heckled by a panhandler who maybe thought he was closing our minds by yelling “hey nice uniforms”. but… they are nice uniforms! “regular” pants, plaid shirts, hooded sweatshirts. practical and solid. plaid shirts affirm our unity with mike watt. the show that night was in a basement, pretty fun. some college kids were there bragging about what they said to a cop when their fake IDs were confiscated, a wasted dude who turned out to be bikini bill was posi-heckling me the whole time with really supportive comments, we all had a good time. drove in the night back to portland, arriving at 4am. the terribles and the onion flavored rings left for SF the next morning, i stuck around Portland a few days before flying out. portland was nice, what do you want me to say? don’t worry i’m not moving there… but it was nice. good food everywhere, $3 burritos that were very good, mississippi records, a store that only sells lightbulbs… it was… nice.

back home safe and sound.

the west: i had never been west of the mississippi except once for ten minutes, so just like anything else i have never done, going to the west coast was something filled with small amounts of excitement and medium amounts of half dread half ambivalence. but then of course once the die was cast, the ticket bought etc., it was only excitement. i had a great time. i drank coffee and sprite on the plane- despite the fact that i’ve only been on airplanes a few times, and ditto hospitals, i feel like i only drink sprite in airplanes and hospitals. we sat behind a huge dude with a massive and completely nonambiguous nazi tattoo, and a covert KKK tattoo (“3-11″ whereas K is the 11th letter). we didn’t talk at all but i kept thinking about how dumb a nazi tattoo is- you’re aligning yourself with the famous loser of a world war? led by an impotent coprophilic art school dropout? even for a bully it’s a weird move.

SF: we flew into san francisco and took an $8 subway (!) into the city, specifically the mission, where we immediately got burritos, which were totally delicious, cheap, plentiful, and bountiful. then we walked to arwen’s house to help her celebrate her birthday. we finally crashed out at 2am, which was like 5am to us, but since the air travel was mentally exhausting and physically stagnant, we were totally fine in the morning, everything was fine. we walked around all day. i found the mission to be pleasant, with lots of great trees and handpainted signwork. the show was in oakland at carolynn’s house, totally fun. alabaster choad is sy’s band, sy who does “baitline” newspaper and the incredible “anything goes [anywhere]” comic “those fucking unicorns”. band is good. Kreamy ‘Lectric Santa was psyyyyyyyyych, and i think they’ve been a band for like 20 years? i liked them. then duh we played and onion flavored rings. kyle the girl was there, plus willy shakes and danielle, opie, ivy, CJ, lil spat, carolynn, arwen. good crowd, good show, cool house. i had a ice cream bar called a “it’s it”, and i enjoyed it. slept over at ivy’s and we were loud coming in and annoyed her roomates. sorry ivy, roomates!

Portland: took a whole day to drive there without stopping much, except at some food co-op well north where there were plenty of street wizards and young dready kilted whites. why more in this sleepy town than in SF? i asked erick who told me: good weed + shakespeare festival. got to portland at night and stayed with the social graces, met up with cool breeze and esther next morning. portland is nice, but take this however you want- everything is very easy there.

more tomorrow, i’m running out the door to see jessica rylan!!!

i enabled the thing to let me update from the phone, so… if you want messages from tour stops, see the twitter.

another reason i’ve been running ragged is that next week my powerful rock band jacob the terrible is accompanying our friends the onion flavoured rings on a west coast tour. it all sort of came out of nowhere. i have rot13ed the addresses for spider reasons. if anyone from seattle or olympia reads this, let me know if you need better directions.

- Wednesday Oct 13 Oakland, CA at 1935 Yvaqra Ubhfr w/ Kreamy Lectric Santa, Alebastaire Choad (Sy’s band)
- Friday Oct 15 Portland, OR at Fukett’s (5518 A. Zvffvffvccv) w/ Defect Defect, Social Graces
- Saturday Oct 16 Seattle, WA at Gur Zbethr in Georgetown w/ Reckless and The Mark Sparkles
- Sunday Oct 17 Olympia, WA at The Erq Ubhfr w/ Human Skab, Deadhead

we will have a demo recording available strictly for the tour. i’m not all the way excited about the recording- hopefully someone will see us, get excited, get the cd, realize that the cd doesn’t adequately convey the feelings and/or emotions, and that person has a label that puts the better recorded version of the songs out, or at least the 7″ single of “what i love about you i hate about myself”. let’s just say what we want.

whoaaaa…. i stayed up all night working on the October issue of Mothers News, which is only a week late, and which, this month only, is Monsters News. lots on the plate here. our own Nicky Revs said the other day “obviously the newspaper is totally your thing, exactly the sort of thing that you would do, but the Halloween issue is like the ‘your thing’ of that”. in keeping with my desire for “realness only”, it isn’t about Halloween in a schlocky or cute or goofy or nostalgic way, it’s… pretty ghoulish. I’m psyched, but also kind of creeped out! another factor that plays up the fuckededness of the writing and design in this issue is that i sold a ton of ads, to the point where I almost ran out of room. so in an effort to prove to myself that i’m not controlled by opinion or advertising money (or more to the point, that whenever i don’t care i’m at my best), i double didn’t tone down. it’s my life…

now it’s 6pm the next day and i’m just getting my head together… went to bed at 10am.