well, i’ve sure been having a lousy couple of days with lines failing to intersect and me running ragged anyway, but tonight i played a show and it went alright. yesterday? oh, buddy… yesterday me and jim tried to go see dennis tyfus but the show started at 6:30, we couldn’t leave until 7:30 and it’s an hour and half away, but even catching the last band and hanging out for a little bit wasn’t in the cards as we missed our exit and had to go 34 MILES until we could turn around. tried to find them at the afterparty (george & dan’s dj night at “the basement” in downtown northhampton) but of course we were there too early. everyone was out pre-gaming in the parking lot of the liquor store (probably), we hung out at the relatively empty club for 15 minutes then drove home and went to sleep. awesome! missing a show you’re really psyched on is a bummer i’m sure everyone can relate to, but what about missing a chance to see a friend you only see every two years because they live in belgium? well, let me tell you that’s a bummer too. the day before that was a bummer i needn’t dwell on, and i was really looking forward to hanging out with mike t tomorrow and knocking out this planetarium, but it looks like i’m not the only person on whom hectic times hang like a obfuscating cloud of hornets, and dude had to cancel. bummer. today, i got some stuff done, i didn’t want to play this show (which i failed to mention the other day), but i said i would so i did, and i had a really good time. i even did a new cover- “didn’t we”, as made famous by dionne warwick, but perfect for me to sing as it’s about almost doing something but messing it up somehow always. oh, the show was at forbes st, it was a going away party for esther, and the other bands were bone zone, terribles, dungeoneers, hulk out, and kind buddies.
tuesday at mystery train records in amherst – hardline elephants, skiXmask, buddies. hardline elephants is , the prolific belgian . ski mask is chris dooley’s old performance incarnation, now with tiffiniy and donny. buddies is chris cooper from fat worm and bill nace from vampire belt, twin guitar attack from epic improvisors. 6:30 $?.
wednesday at as220, providence – Freedom Cage, RTX, Totimoshi, Rock/Usadown and Konny Kindlund. freedom cage is mike t, allie dreamhouse, and mikey hotsauce. rtx is ex- royal trux, totimoshi is “very melvinsy”, konny kinlund is ex-taco truk.
thursday at MIT’s bartos theatre, in boston – keiji heino performs a live score to the cameron jamie movie “JO”, which features a bunch of french politicians and japanese hot dog champion . $12 9:00pm
friday at HBML – grand opening of the sun ra solar myth planetarium and spiritual educational radiant jump-off point, from 5:30 to 8:30. refreshments in a cosmic vein by randa, who is an intense baker of the vegan persuasion. cakes are for money but soda will be free.
wednesday at the cable car cinema – magic lantern film series featuring the world premiere of the movie version of matt carroll reading “secret life”. $5, 9:30. if you knowingly miss this you are an idiot.
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yesterday there was a surprise fundraiser barbecue car wash to raise money to try and get (#24 on the blues radio charts!) to “go big” and tour europe (where blues audiences are reverential and mellow and profitable). it was a beautiful day, lots of kids flagging down cars and scrubbing them down, good food, wrestling with toddlers, hose fights, airplane rides, half beer half lemonade. afterwards everyone went to a party in providence except me and mel- we stayed home and watched “” (the 1977 one), which was totally creepy.
me and my mom went to the big antiques show in brimfield last wednesday. it was fun seeing all the great old toys, and this time around i almost didn’t even buy anything- the things i liked i just remembered, or drew. i did buy two records and a black light. also, i wanted to ask about the redd foxx records and the two hand carved wooden japanese dildos, but i didn’t ask, because as i said before, i was with my mom (hi mom!). the crowd there was kind of funny but mostly a bummer- weird bossy collectors, cool niche scumbags, sleeveless dudes smoking skinny cigars (yes, this is a category), and of course, total housewives searching a sea of funky furniture looking for the piece that will add personality to their living room.
while i was at the thing a volunteer (sarah b) worked at the store. big up sarah b! if you, dear reader, are interested in volunteering, stop on by and let’s chat.
i just got the king cat book that drawn and quarterly just put out, it rules.
yesterday me and MZ went to MIT to see the cameron jamie exhibit. MZ was psyched because the artist has worked with the melvins, i was excited to get out of the house, we both had a good time. the exhibit had its moments but all the best things weren’t so much interesting but pointers to things that were themselves interesting. a lot of the pieces on exhibit were preparatory sketches for his movies, and the one movie i saw was good, but this is kind of a cop-out, right? there were some pieces that displayed humourous practices at work, and these moments stood apart from the other things, but all in all it was, like i said, mostly big-upping interesting phenomena without comment. anyway, the phenomena were: wrestling (especially and ), , and DIY haunted houses. the practices were: drawing psychedelic vomit over casual preparatory sketches for other things, and getting other artists to paint portraits of things as if they were people (a coconut head, a photocopy of his hand with eyes painted on it). so, i like these things, and the practices were funny and well-executed- i had (as stated) a good time. one of his movies was a documentary about krampusnacht which featured a soundtrack by the melvins- it was the only one of the three movies we got to watch before the gallery closed, but it ruled. there is another movie about national identity which feature celebrated hot dot champion kobiyashi- it’s playing on the 17th with live accompaniment by , i think i’m going to go to that, as i love keiji heino’s look (though i must admit that i’ve never heard his music).
back to krampus:
krampus is a character who in certain areas of europe accompanies st nicholas and beats people up. krampus is not necessarily one person, and in the austrian town in which the movie was filmed, he is five in number, played, as is tradition, by young drunken men in long fur costumes and hideous wooden masks with several horns protruding from the top. all that happens is the same thing over and over again- there are people having parties to celebrate the arrival of st nicholas, who enters with an angelic attendant and an elf with a basket on his back. st nicholas says a few words and distributes chocolate to the children (and occasionally, cigarettes to the adults). meanwhile the krampus are outside making an enormous racket and banging on the windows and doors. when they finally come in, the racket goes from enormous to encompassing, as all the krampus carry spherical bells on their backs that chime with every movement. they walk slowly in a bounching fashion, and once they are all in, they start seriously fucking with people- tipping over tables, dragging people outside to whitewash them in the snow, holding people to the ground as a display of dominance, and basically being incredibly menacing bullies. no one really fights back, and those that do definitely get singled out. this occurs in private homes, businesses, restaurants, convenience stores, and in the street. young and old, male and female, everyone gets the same treatment while st nicholas and his angels look on with neither approval or disdain but acceptance. one gets the feeling that everyone in town spends the whole year forgetting how absolutely terrifying this holiday really is. some people cry, but no one gets really angry at the performers. the movie has no commentary or explanation, which is perfect.
after the show me and MZ and rebecca (of memories forever / second gallery fame) went to chinatown to look for those red bean buns i like (no dice), and get some regular dinner too. perched in the second floor window of grasshopper, we saw a dude in the empty street holding a styrofoam take-out container, dancing slowly in a stylized version of walking against a busy crowd- lots of twists, turns, fakes, and half steps. at one point he crossed paths with a real-life businessman, and feigned taking a swing at him. the businessman cowered and scurried away. ten seconds later, the dancing man threw his fried rice into the street, underhand, like he was slipping it under a gate or making an offering to somebody or something. he kept dancing this way down the street for as long as we could see him. this performance, we agreed, was the evening’s best.
well, the page is up but janky, which you’d know if you tried to leave a comment, or visit a sub-page, or link to anything. but my man diamond’s on it, whose abilities i am confident of. or i should say, whose ability to acquire abilities to complete a task i am at a comfortable level with. NB: this is not the same diamond as when ML puts on a wig and sunglasses and acts like a tough guy and we call him diamond. this is a real person. i mean, this person’s identity is still in effect when their body is asleep (geez, guy…).
i just got sidetracked for a minute in the writing of this post and then firefox crashed (it happens). this browser crash to writing loss scenario has played out a number of times through the years to often disastrous and at least disheartening effect, but now i find that i can just “restore session” and it’s all as nice as rice wine. this is not an adequate metaphor, but it is a good cap to the day. in the morning and for most of the daylight hours i felt like endless blockades. sure, i ate some nice breakfast, i maybe but probably not (but maybe) finished finally the music video entanglement for (although now that i said it there’s probably way more to do), i had a nice day at the store hanging out with bad eddie and estherose, i drew a comic, i had artichokes for dinner, and then instead of spending money on a movie i spent the last 4 hours sewing new fucked clothing for the store with nice company. but i was bummed/stressed for a good chunk of the day, and only in this last bit did things really start to gel, enabling me to see the previous hours from a better vantage point. it’s regrettable that so often i forget that being creative and making things will help me feel a million times better, and that rather than a burden, the store can be a hub of creativity and agent of unburdenness.
on the topic of the store being a burden, next week is the first week with volunteers at the store and me walking the city (over you), and hopefully remembering my lesson of today and knocking some more crazy shit out. oh, and if you’re interested in volunteering, email me or call. there is a calendar at the store to sign up on, and even one day a month would go a long way. also this is “make or break” month, so if you’ve been thinking about bringing in your zine, tape, cdr, t-shirt, small sculpture, or whatever to sell at the store, don’t sleep- you’ll wake up to another dried-up project and a head full of should’ves.
on the topic of crazy shit for the store, the clothes we made tonight are pretty far out and some of them feature one of my favorite product ideas right now. in his autobiography (which rules), salvador dali describes a small, mass-produced piece of art that is so perfectly repugnant (though appealing enough for it to be purchased) that it’s apotheosis is reached only when its owner decides to throw it away. to this end some of the clothes feature far out aspects and appendages that, while i genuinely really like them, are not really suited to a functional garment. when the wearer decides to cut the offending sections off, they are making an important jump from consumer to creator, and that’s what this is all about right? or, it’s one thing that this all could be said to be about anyway.
now back to the music video again- i edited it using imovie, which isn’t really for editing movies for dvd, it’s for sharing videos on the internet with the grandparents of the babies in the videos. i made some assumptions early in the editing game that proved to be false and subsequently the quality is LO, like, totally bitty. but i think it’ll work out, because i used a ton of stupid and already seriously dated built-in effects like digital comets, lightening, earthquakes, and “old film filter”. yes, all the classic self-sabotaging tricks i play when i find myself wondering how nothing i can get and still rep. to wit- the music video has poor sound quality, it’s only one shot (and one take), the shot is set up poorly with a lot of the action happening just outside the frame, it manages to drag in parts despite being one minute long, it’s edited distractingly, cheap filters and hackneyed effects are used aggressively (offensively even), and the subject matter is nauseating. well, what do you want from me- spartacus?
