UG! i was pissed off all day waiting for some internet strangers to drag this couch out of the shop so i can get things in a better order for incoming volunteers. well they never showed and i lost a day of my life and i missed seeing the syncromaids and now the store is totally torn apart (which i had to do to get the couch out of the back). COOL! they said they could come get it wednesday morning– who wants to go to the store to help them? not me, but it has to get done (which means no one except me will do it).

stormed home in a bad mood hating all life– i was even accidentally at the front of a new year’s eve parade scowling in the TV camera. got home and ate some and watched a little bit of my favorite movie (dracula) and caught the 6:00 fireworks from my front step- the closest i’ve ever seen them. i feel better now but that doesn’t mean everything in my life is suddenly awesome. i wrote a “year in review” but it’s a total downer and one thing i learned this year is that no one wants to know how you’re doing if it’s bad, and people who need people are fucked. there’s no party in worcester because no one in worcester can get their shit together. instead everyone’s going to providence, which i thought would be an escape for me but the other thing i learned is that there’s no escape.

this saturday (the 5th) i’m playing a show at the q, which is the pathetic coffee house on chandler st towards tatnuck square. it’s me, the foundation, and “i hate them”. it’s billed as a dance competition, but i don’t play dance music (and i resent bands telling me to dance). bring your own booze and hide it on your person. i don’t know what time the show’s going to be at but i bet i’m going to play first. this is the place where the guy didn’t know what earl grey was, and the fucking edward gorey ripoff asshole’s pictures are hanging up everywhere.

this wednesday (the 2nd) there’s a show at the go go, with terribles bone zone and black rainbow (erick lyle’s new band). this is going to be the last punk show ever at the go go, because ML’s moving out and after that no punks will ever move in (because it’ll be all people with careers). there’s a show at mr worcester on the 12th, which is the saturday after next– i think the rowdy ones are playing.

hey players, lots of people have asked me about the giant squid stuffed animal that is hanging up at HBML. they ask if i made it (i did), they ask how did i learn how to do it (by doing) and they ask how much it is. well, it’s not for sale. BUT NOW, and for a very limited time, we are offering, as a money maker for the shop (which is always is straights of varying direness but never non-dire), raffle tickets that you might win the squid in a raffle. the internet buy-in is $5 (for 6 tickets) or $10 (for 14). the squid being raffled is not the same one as the one hanging up, but it is its identical brother– one of three that i made for the “cephalopod dominance” installation i did at the dirt palace a few years ago. the squid is approximately 16 feet from tip to tip, with a mantle of approximately 6 feet and tentacles that extend another 8. it is anatomically correct- there are 10 tentacles, 2 of which are significantly longer than the others. there is also a nozzle. in order that it be easily stuffed and unstuffed, i did not make a hard beak for it- there is instead an opening at the mouth (at the center of the legs) which you can stitch up after stuffing. there are more pictures of the squid on the HBMLpage.

this is your only chance to maybe get one of these super rare sculptures, unless of course you steal the one i gave to the dirt palace or manage to shoplift the one at the store (which would be a herculean effort with a mercurial assist). you don’t need to be at the drawing to win the squid, and you don’t even have to come pick it up- we’ll ship it to you (unstuffed). again, there’s no guarantee you’ll win, but it’s like they say– there’s a dream, and if you don’t have a dream you’ll never have a dream come true.

in addition to being this potentially awesome thing for you, this squid raffle is a great way to support the shoppe, which is getting weirder and weirder but certainly not without help. to buy tickets online see relevant entry on the newly relaunched (and sstill being design-tweaked) HBML fresh garbage blog. ZAPP!

ok! i think everything worked! i mean, i switched servers and it was a pain in the neck but now the site sshould crash way less (than twice a day) and everything should be gravy. and in the process all my compaining on the subject got erased, which is probablyfor the best. i don’t know why but i had to use a new address to get to the first page of posts (after the ssplash page), but i don’t think any of those links will be “broken” per se. RSS might be fucked. anyway, leave a note if you find any weirdnesses.

pictured above- the russian wolf boy who recently escaped his captors. keep running!

today is arthur c clarke’s 90th birthday, and i would like to send a special “happy arthur c clarke’s birthday” message to my friend matt carroll. in addition to writing a bunch of awesome books and hosting a series of excellent television serieses, arthur c clarke invented the geosynchronous communications satellite, which isn’t really a big deal as it’s really pretty obvious, isn’t it? he also invented the space baby and the weird obelisk. his legacy includes david bowie and weekly world news.

hey matt carroll, what are you doing tonight? also, how hard would it be to send something into space (and not just radio waves)?

also 2001 is the best movie ever, seriously.

well, i didn’t get that cultural commission grant, which is a bit of a bummer but my understanding of such things is that the first few times you apply for a grant you don’t get it, but you do it just to get your name out and then it’s more likely you get it in the future. still searching for weird funding streams.

yesterday we had another silk screening day at the store, this time it was an image from the movie “zombie” aka “zombi 2″ aka “zombie flesheaters” aka “the one where the zombie fights a shark”. the screen came out pretty awesome, under the zombie it says “we are going to eat you”, and again, i used the crass font for this, because the crass font makes everything into a political statement.

totally snowed in again today, which is kind of awesome.

uh, just because you gotta make calls if you want results, here’s my amazon wishlist. mostly books. ok, sorry.

well, today i didn’t go play that show and i didn’t go to the store because like i said, it was very inclement. instead i mostly sstayed inside all day grouching around, playing music a little and trying not to worry about things that worrying about make worse but not always succeeding.

yesterday i went to see “a christmas carol” at my old high school. i should say, i’m 28 years old and don’t have any relatives that were in the play, which essentially makes me a creep. but a creep that likes community theatre, so whatever. the play was pretty good, in that it was pretty bad in a few weird ways, and what more do you want from a high school play? maia, you did a good job, even though you did almost nothing really.

leonardr got me that book i wanted (thanks again!) and it’s pretty good so far, really compulsively overwrought and frilly, with lots of preposterous names, dialects, and props. the printing is really budget– no cover picture, and the back cover is an ad for the publisher, a print-on-demand rare books reprinter. but the weirdest thing is that every time the word (or string) “The” appears, it has been removed. but only if the t is capitalized, otherwise it remains intact. but this includes capitalized words that start with “The”, like “ories” and “ology”. this being a mystery, an by a famously peculiar author, i’m not sure if this is a mistake or not.

jean (and anyone). thursday (today)’s show in providence is at Lee Buford’s Bob Evans Family Restaurant, in pawtucket. it’s me, darkling plain, “a very manbeard christmas”, and something else, i forget. what time? i never knew! i was going to work on something special for this but now i have a headache so maybe i’ll just go to bed! welcome to the lifestyle!

UPDATE the weather is inclement as a MF, the buses stopped running, i don’t have a ride, i can’t get to the show, i can’t play at the show, i won’t be there! ssorry!

worcester has google street view now, so let’s look for all our pals. bad eddie already found the snow ghost. i haven’t found myself, and none of our friends’ houses turn up anything interesting (although carolyn might be in front of her house). but it looks to be sometime over the summer, and the clock at city hall says 1pm, so it’s quite likely i’m out walking around…

i was thinking about jenine and thinking about exercising and then i found this and then i started exercising and i’ll see jenine in a few days. wait until i play a show and it sounds exactly like that first song. you sad sacks don’t even know how close i am to accomplishing this.

are you fucking kidding me? jeff at wormtown taxi has a link roundup on the “sir vival”, a car company right here in worcester that made this totally fucking batshit crazy space hopper in the 50s. get fucked, detroit!

the car is in two sections so that in case of a crash, the first half absorbs the impact and passengers in the cabin can continue playing dominos or reporting communists or dusting their hats or whatever people did in cars at the time (possibly sex).

i’ll say it again- opening up your own business is totally easy and worthwhile.