one of sheryl-ann’s friends got pnemonia, and i bought her ticket to see MIA tonight. it was $25, which is maybe a lot of money, maybe not, and it was at the palladium. i like MIA- both albums (and the mixtape) totally TOTALLY rule. the production, the lyrics, the delivery, everything. the videos are great, and her style is excellent. she came from a mud hut to international acclaim in 15 years, with a 505, some spray paint. i had a good time at the show, but it was really just a show about the thing, not the thing itself. we’ve talked about this before, this show/party // joining/being dichotomy, and once again, shows are awesome, but this was a big show, there was a power relationship (in that we paid $25 to watch someone on a huge stage), it was pretty mediated. it was fun, and it was great to see a mess of folks in the audience, and you have to go see the band you like when they’re on tour, but it was a lot less personal, a lot less crucial, than just playing the cd at a party or in your room or whatever.

oh, also, i missed most of the opening band and then there was an ipod shuffling for 45 minutes before MIA took the stage, but signaling the start of MIA’s performance was a 5 minute video of kouichi toyama, nihilist candidate for governor of tokyo (pictured above). the lady standing next to me couldn’t see the subtitles, which were on the bottom of the screen (NB: i’m very tall) so i read some of them back to her, which put it in my head the rest of the night. here’s an excerpt (but i recommend watching the whole video):

This nation is horrible. I have no interest whatsoever in political reform or any kind of reform. Nothing will be solved by reforming or changing anything. We are no longer in such an optimistic state! We must abandon this detestable nation. This nation must be destroyed! I do not have a single constructive proposal! The only thing we must do now is “Scrap and Scrap”… Annihilate everything that exists!

this really should have closed the night. oh well!

further reading in re show/party: hakim bey: immediatism. it’s an old essay, and there are some funny anachronisms (like the perceived musical utopia of exchanging tapes of music through the mail at cost), but these all somehow add.

ssorry if this is all tiresome, we just need to work out a new paradigm of party!

me and chloe wiseman were rooting around in an old ymca with some folks. they kind of ditched us and we fell through a pool cover into an empty pool. but we were totally fine, and hung out there a while.

me and caroline were walking around and this one dude was snapping this other guy’s underpants and he had the elastic pulled sooooooo far back it was freaking us out. don’t remember what happened.

i was playing a complicated and mournful song on the piano, then it abruptly became “the final countdown” by europe. brian gleason started laughing and i got really mad at him. this was at a show.

me and amanda stone were looking at a 3d book, which gave me the opportunity to display my large collection of 3d glasses. my elbow went where elbows normally don’t go, but it was cool.

keep sending in your reports everyone- i have almost no idea what happens after i fall asleep.

i posted this a while back, but this is my new special phone number that will never pick up– it goes to a message machine device which emails me the message as a WAV file. pretty tricky, right? it’s good if:

• you are drunk dialing people

• you want to just say hi without making a big production out of it
• you want to sing a song or tell a story

i don’t know what i’m going to do with the recordings, maybe nothing, but i’ll probably use some of them for some things.

so far i’ve been really enjoying everyone’s messages, songs, and discrete thoughts. keep it up!

206.203.2911

by popular request, i am now taking mail orders for the paris of the eighties t-shirts, at the aptly named parisoftheeighties.com.

yes, it’s that time of the year again, in between thanksgiving and new years, when we celebrate that most holy of days- international hat day. this is an international holiday that over 80% of the population celebrate, in which we wear hats and try on new hats, and maybe we buy a new hat, or we lose an old hat on the bus, or it blows off in the street and we don’t run after it, we just stand there and wave, and maybe say something like “so long, hat!”. this year there will be a special ceremony at the store, with music by our own very good friend GREG GREG, and microwave food (as is the custom). we have a lot of hats at the shop, including SPECIAL HATS made just for this occasion, so please arrive hatless and plan to leave hatted. also if you have any food you would like microwaved, please bring some to share (no meat, please!). we will also have a takeaway checklist of activities for the celebration of international hat day (which is really just the first day of international hats of the-world-as-it-could-be week, which runs friday to friday). in this way you can really get the most out of all the international hat festivities, and build up from the mellow life-changements of international hat day to the “big picture” slopfest that is new year’s eve.

remember, whether it’s a chapeau, lid, busby, shako, bearskin, boater, leghorn, straw hat, Panama, sailor, skimmer, bonnet, derby, plug hat, bowler, cavalier, ten-gallon, deerstalker, dress hat, opera hat, silk hat, top hat, stovepipe, high hat, beaver, topper, dunce cap, fedora, felt hat, homburg, Stetson, trilby, snap-brim, sombrero, sou’wester, toque, tyrolean, hardhat, baseball cap, tiny brim, dreadbag, homburg, mortarboard, porkpie, ushanka, or fez, whatever you call it, if you put it on the top of your head and it isn’t a wig or fake beard (and it isn’t a hair accessory) (and it’s a hat), then it’s a hat, and even if you can’t come visit the store, i hope you still have a good holiday.

i got a ride up to portland maine with nasty nacho and little andrew, and thanksgiving was nice with my sister and brurinlaw and his family, and now i’m that antsy i always get when i’m still away from my myriad projects / modes. moreover dawn riddle my future girlfriend is right now in worcester where i’m not and bound to leave before i arrive. we have of course never met. hi dawn! today i watched that new crispin glover movie “beowulf” and ate a seriously lackluster burrito. i hope you did something good too like throw rocks at a tree for two hours.

prjects lately of note include the split LP with dan beckman (the corle web site did indeed leak the tentative name “void faith” (or “faith void”?)), the split book with empty mountain (“garbage strike”), the future of the store, a new company, and finally an internet t-shirt website with follow-through. GEEZ! trying to get back into writing writing and not just how was your day dear, also in serious need of a spirit kwest / naming ceremony. not making sense is a loose but seemingly appropriate start towards both these knowingly slippery ends, but of course you can’t keep spaghettiing around forever. ok, see you back in the town house.

the light of day (aka a myspace message) brings the information that crazy jimmy is not in fact dead. i guess the idea “fake death” was supposed to be a joke on dan wars only, and dan wars was not involved. in fact, he was hit the hardest. i have retracted my previously-posted eulogy, which wasn’t untrue, but was really the sort of thing you say only upon someone’s demise. also, i didn’t want jimmy to read it and get any ideas. this is all pretty classic: a great story, and a lousy thing to have happen to you.

this just in over the wire from dan wars:

James Murphy passed away yesterday morning of heart failure in his apartment in the south end. This isnt a joke or rumor, so please dont ask. His father is having a private funeral for him the beginning of next week in Nova Scotia. This is all the information I have, and again, this isnt a joke or rumor.

Crazy Jimmy was completely out of his mind. He was always there to help out with any problem anyone had ( including angry landlords, the Nazis that attacked the State House, greasing the palm of the Worcester County DA to get me out out possible jail time, etc..). He gave us alot of great stories and crazy adventures. Im going to miss him so fucking much……

“There he goes. One of God’s own prototypes. A high-powered mutant of some kind never even considered for mass production. Too weird to live, and too rare to die. ”

god bless crazy jimmy

today i had a good day messing around at the store even though no one came in except dean and his nana. every day (actually every other day) dean askss me if we have any godzilla stuff and i have to say no– today i told him that if he brings a shirt on saturday i’ll silk screen godzilla on it for him. i guess i thought he’d be psyched, but he seemed kind of nonplussed. anyway, this saturday from 3 to 5, if you bring a sshirt or other garment that is a light color, or you buy one, i will silk screen a cool picture of godzilla on it. also tomorrow (friday), bert is drawing caricatures at the store, from 4:30 – 6:00. also the back room is now open and there’s tons of clothes now.

today the best thing i did was trip and fall down while crossing the street and do a somersault in front of three stopped cars and land back on my feet. sometimes i’m really scared of falling down, especially when i haven’t done it in a while. i cut my hand only a little bit. i was holding a lando calruzian action figure, still in the box, signed by billy dee. it’s fine.

the second best thing i did was listen to archie shepp’s “further fire music”. i remember listening to this when i got it a few years ago and thinking it was a dud– i have no idea what that was about.

the third best thing i did was either eat kale and miso soup for breakfast or drink hot chocolate at 10:30pm.

last night we watched cremaster 1 & 2, and i wanted to write a thing about houdini, but then i went to sleep and woke up.

i put in my notice at the store. which is to say, i’m sent out emails saying that i’m quitting and if anyone wants a store, now’s the time to speak up.

ok, i’m showing the first two cremaster movies tonight at 9, at my housse. #3 will be next week and #4 and #5 the week after that. there will be a preliminary briefing on themes and motifs.

dudes (and this means you, matt carroll), i am super looking for the song “i hate you”, by edge of etiquette, aka the song from the bus in star trek IV, which was written and performed by the punk in the scene (above) who was actually the associate producer. the song was never on a soundtrack but people ssay that it is “floating around on the internet”. well, this is the internet, let’s get it together.

also, today i learned that all the bubble puppy songs are good, not just this one (although that one’s the best).