ugh! this site’s been down for a few weeks i guess due to server problems that resulted in a switching of servers which i didn’t have to actually deal with (and good thing)but i did have to wait for (which is nothing new). writing is such a huge part of my learning and remembering process that when i can’t or don’t write, things start to go bad. this time i did ok, though (i think). so what happened in the interim? oh, the weather was nice, i walked around.

• there were a couple shows, enough that i got temporarily sick of shows. i will highlight one- nadir, the dungeoneers, trap them, furnace, and some other band with a basement-themed name, at maniac mansion (in the basement obviously). this was supposed to be the dungeoneers tape release but things didn’t happen in time (as they tend to not), so it was merely “the second-to-last show” (before matt carroll returned from germany and the terribles could continue being a band). nadir played before them and totally destroyed. i know no one likes to be put in a box, but nadir is a grind-oriented band from worcester. guitar drums vocals, and everything is so fast and so tech it’s like watching hummingbirds- all wrist, all twitch. i’ve seen them a couple times and i like it more and more, and more and more they make other bands on the bill look like a bunch of sleepy kittens by comparison. i don’t remember who the third band was- my understanding is that hardcore is now (and has been for some time) driven by a sort of nerd so psyched on specific parts of previous canonical hardcore bands that only nerds can really tell you if a band’s sources are valid and their construction sound, making them good. but no need to hate, as electronic dance music is also driven by specific tempo ranges, lustrous clichés, and precision homage, and that’s still fun (though also not my idiom). anyway, i absolutely had to leave halfway through, as 2.5 bands is my limit in the basement of maniac mansion- all the smoke you know, but mostly it’s the low ceilings that force me into a bad posture which gives me horrible stomach cramps.

• there were these beautiful russians visiting some friend of a friend and we ended up hanging out and talking about music, prisons, hygeine, and the internet. the best part was when one of them asked me why punks didn’t shower and i gave her a brief but thorough breakdown of the ways in which not showering displayed the best of the punk ethos. basically, that being OK with your own body odor is an enourmous step towards being OK with your body; that it is the tantalizing smell of action; that smelling like a person sets one apart in a clear and unfakeable way from the the beauty standards of a possibly large and certainly objectionable set of people who would rather smell like a supermarket aisle, and more in line with the rest of the animal kingdom. the one talkative lady told me i was very funny, and moreover that i “say good things”, which made me really happy and to some degree rescued me from a foggy outlook. she had a weird shirt with a very high moderately floppy collar, long straight black hair with one ear poking through, high elfish cheekbones, and sharp facial features set farther away from each other than might seem reasonable in a planning stage. in short, the sort of person it is simply nice to be amid, like a full-spectrum lightbulb.

• my show at julian’s with adam gnade was really fun- i was really stressed out but all the stress just made me want more and more to get lost in myself and my friends and abandon myself to rogue operators and sing super fucking loud, which is what i did and it worked. also they gave me really good food– i got a side order of asparagus because i’d never buy it for myself, it was delicious.

• went to the art museum two weeks in a row (still free on saturdays before noon), first to see the pettibon / ed ruscha exhibit, then to manage a scavenger hunt for esther and jen.

  • pettibon/ruscha killed. obviously i like both of these guys a ton. ruscha (“ru-SHAY”) for his great boringness, his californiosity, his craft, and for being another great creator in the perambulatory mode (basing his paintings on things overheard while walking around the city). i look at “styrene they called her”, his book of word paintings, at least once a month. pettibon i like for his lineage (black flag duh), his subject matter (scummy hippies, trains, surfers on huge waves), his goony style, his handwriting, his inclusion of texts, and the texts he includes. both i like a lot for their dry wit, and for employing reading as a skill. the show at the art museum was 1/2 about “the end” and 1/2 about “the bible”. i expected their collabs to feature pettibon on the images and ruscha on the texts, but it was actually quite the reverse, and not a disappointment. it’s still at the art museum, i’d really like to hear a review by someone with a black flag tattoo.

  • the scavenger hunt totally ruled, a version of an idea i had a while back regarding my own personal relationship to the worcester art museum (with the ultimate goal of getting others to develop such a relationship as well, and work the paintings of the museum into a local artistic vocabulary). the scavenger hunt featured about 20 items- all pieces in the museum. the clues were jokes about or things i think about or funny things in any of the given paintings- “a lady that is a spaceship”, “a dude, holding”, “a garish and sinister mess from which the only comfort that can be had is tackiness.”. it went great and they got most of them (with a little help). i’ll post the full list of items when i get the sheet back from esther (maybe never).

well, that’s enough of the past off my brainback to allow me some rest. there’s always more, but we are now sufficiently caught up that i can go draw, or make food, or read comic books, or anything, and not feel the weight of recent memory compounding. glad to be back.