i just wrote up a nice big post here at the clark library, then i went internet searching for a nice picture of sun ra to include and the GD computer conked out. anyway here’s a terse UL of the important LIs:
- big up to whoever wrote “FUCK OFF” and “508 GORE HOUNDS” over the ICP neighbor’s “CLOWN” graffito on the fence outside my house (it wasn’t me).
- sun ra as a being who already holds all the music that will ever be written, whose job it is to release in an order that makes sense, and to progress the species, but the path from 1940s orchestral big band to minimoog elbow music can also be taken backwards, which is what i’m doing right now.
- i’m having an art show at the store, the opening is this friday from 5 to 8pm, with cookies and suicide soda.
- me and jon “angel” knapp are showing “space is the place” soon.
sun ra freedom synth
i feel like i’ve posted this four times aready but anyway, for mike t, here’s that anthony braxton interview from archive.org . it is bananas. totally worth it for everyone.
uh, so obviously i’ve been a little bummed out the past couple days, but i haven’t been bummed about any one thing, i’ve been bummed about a lot of things, which is actualy good, as it points to more of a general imbalance than one specific bum-out, an imbalance more than likely triggered by last week’s eating poorly and resting weirdly and watching too many things and not interacting with things marathon (which, did i mention, was quickly followed by a day at the now-reopened regeneration tattoo parlor, assembling a big collage and inhaling spray glue?). so i’m finally getting back on track and less-irrascible. not to say that lots of shit outside of my brain isn’t still messed up and able to provoke totally valid bummers. anyway, thanks for kind words and actions, relevant parties.
the possibility of the store closing is sort of lighting a weird match under me and i’ve been scrambling to execute. march 16th, matt carroll in costume and character as a 19th century british sea captain doing mad libs with hangers-out on the premises. more details forthcoming (also how do you do a press release?). also i moved stuff around and got more stuff out of the back room, and cleared off a big wall in the front of the store for gallery space. the first show is going up next week and will be some new paintings on old records by yrs truly. danw, you’ll be delighted to note that the walls and ceiling are filling up rapidly with stapled-up encyclopedia cutouts and other garbage. also i got the masonite for our new sign, but i need a non-windy day to go up on the latter to take the old one out and measure it before i can really get cracking.
tonight at maniac mansion there’s a free show with apeshit, the rowdy ones, and a bunch of other bands, starting at 6. it’s the first show there in a while, i think it’s going to be bonkers. double bonkers of course is tomorrow at the qvcc, with gang green and the freeze, two huge bands that are going to be older (the bands, not the members) than 90% of the people in the audience, who will be busy i’m sure punching themselves directly in the center of the face and bleeding on their GFs/BFs. i don’t know if it’ll be epic, but it wil be no doubt gnarly. full report in a few.
oh, image above by GT. and see also amanda as me for halloween. keep sending fan art everybody!
i hope you guys are enjoying these mp3 releases, i think it’s working out good and this last one, by greg greg’s nascar driving cousin jethro amphibian, is the weirdest one yet. again, any format problems or suggestions, let’s hear them. i think how it is now is just about perfect, but also i have no perspective.
also, gerty farish has a myspace.
this morning i talked to gus, the landlord at the store, and he is looking into selling the building. he was nice on the phone, talking about how he was just exploring to see what the market was like, and that even if he did sell it it would be pretty far in the future and that anyway i’d be fine, but today prospective buyers came by looking around and they obviously were not into continuing business with me. i’m kind of bummed about this but also who wants a dumb job at a store forever? not me. i know what this is and i do not know the end of the world. anyway in any event i’ve got a few months to go big or stay in my hole. people that have never been to the store- now is not the time to start. stay home. don’t get involved.
sasha and mike t dorve in from providecne to hang out all day today and sasha told me about sammy harkham’s store (”family”) in LA, which is like my store but everything is $400. then two sets of people came in to the store super psyched and told me they’d be back on the first of the month to buy things. then i looked at the family webpage and there are things for sale that my friends made that i don’t have and have never seen.
fujichia: it’s always complicated, and i’m trying not to embrace failure
ugg, right? party at forbes st the other night was fun and convoluted– the theme was atlantis high school prom at which the theme is “over the sea” - people in costume as fishes dressed as people. it was fun and mel and carolyn made a mix tape. sadly i had to bail early to go to bed to wake up at 7 to take the bus to boston for a 24 hour sci-fi movie marathon with dan wars, which was pretty epic. they showed forbidden planet, frankenstein meets the space monster, metropolis (the anime), dark star, monster house, puzzlehead, robocop, slither, chopping mall, stepford wives, rocket ship (a full-length edit of flash gordon serials), trail of the screaming forehead, and blade runner, plus a bunch of short films, trailers, and cartoons. i was especially psyched to see forbidden planet on the big screen, as well as frankenstein meets the space monster, which i had just been reading about in psychotronic guide, and which did not disappoint. the only critique i could make (other than the bizarre inclusion of monster house in the lineup) is that the pacing was off- if were booking a 24 hour marathon, i’d put all the fun, totally bonkers shit in the 5am and on slot. ending with robocop was good, but watching blade runner at 7am was a little rough (blade runner was the surprise movie, and based on the clues, we were all hoping it would be total recall, which would’ve been awesome). anyway, i like good grief and endurance trials, so i had a great time. i brought healthy snacks and did ok, i only fell asleep for about 20 minutes (during blade runner, which i like even if it seems otherwise right now), afterwards we went back to dan’s house and totally crashed. i’m still pretty muddyheaded, obviously.
sorry dano, that i’m so slow on the updates and readables– my power cord got too frayed, leaving me computerless and mildly frazzled as i order a replacement. anyway, with me taking time off from the junk store to get stuff done, it’s been kind of nice to not have this time-taker: the internet, always nipping at my brain to look up one more factoid or dispense one more dumb theory about something [probably] no one cares about to begin with. anyway, the t-shirts i promised months (?) ago (the ones mel designed- black and rust on lavender) are done and available at the store (and will be for sale on the internet when my shit gets in). ok, i’m on margaret’s computer, i have to return it to margaret.
UPHOLSTERER! MASSACHUSETTS! KINDERGARTEN! FRANKFURTER! DELICATESSEN! LIVERWURST!
oh yeah, at one point during class PKP (the teacher) asked me if i knew of any good gross words for some project they were doing. i gave them “fetid” and “fecund”, but the exhumed lyrics i was racking my brain for refused to be… exhumed. anyway, being the way i am i had to look them up. bear in mind that i tried to pick a song with little or no sexual content. puzzled readers should picture me trying to remember any of this in front of a classroom full of highschool students.
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today i gave a truncated version of my dracula lecture at a high school where a friend of mine works. she told me a lot of her students are into vampires and stuff, and it was troubling some of the staff, but she wanted to cast it in a positive light, so there i was. i was worried at first about rambling, but pretty soon it turned into a Q & A free-for-all, which was fun. i was treated as “an expert” on the subject of monsters. one kid (in an indiana jones hat and mirror shades) kept trying to call me on my shit w/r/t what would ACTUALLY happen were a vampire to bite a werewolf, not picking up my freedom mythology “nothing is true everything is permitted” vibe. totally fun. great eyes lit up when i mentioned metal (the genre, not the type of matter), suicidal tendencies (the band, not the actual tendency), and when i casually said “shit”. i guess my dream is that some of the kids took a slightly different “anything goes” look on culture and learning, but most likely i’ll just be the guy that started everyone saying the word “fecund”. anyway, like i said, it was fun. esther, i did record it, but rather than put the recording online, i think i’m going to try to distill it down to the choice nuggets and the important things surrounding these nuggets that i wished i had said. so look for essays on topics like “approaches to mythology up to and including leatherface”, “gleeful violence”, and “‘fuck’: a cool word to use”, in the next interview witha frankenstein (in other words, never). anyway, thanks PKP! and thanks esther for making me a brown bag lunch– totally cute…
more thanks– working at the store today was totally fun, so, thanks chillers!