the brunch at the dirt palace was pretty fun- i repressed my cookbook (from 2004)– archivists can note the different pressings by the printing quality of the wrestler’s face, and by the fact that every single one of the second pressings has a kind of long inscription on the last page, to the tune of “dear so-and-so– barf barf barf. throw-up puke, barf etc.. –jacob berendes.” xander chastised me for not selling the zines, but rather, for giving them away. i reminded her that i didn’t pay for brunch and ate a lot, plus several cups of coffee and desert. sorry missers, i’m gave out.
now i’m taking time out from packing up to write on the website– packing sucks, and just when i got my room the way i like it. oh well. i’m getting rid of what seems like a lot of stuff when you look at it in its own pile, but not a lot in the grand scheme (the grand pile). my current method is to put things into groups: books magazines comics etc.; records tapes cds etc.; projects to be completed; tools equipment instruments etc.; art collection. the last category is the toughest– it doesn’t pack up nicely, and display is an issue, and aren’t i always finding nice things that inspire me and i tack them up? on the other hand, there’s a lot of really nice prints and objects and the ephemeral stuff is the stuff i always wish i’d saved, rite? like tv commercials and tapes of the radio but not the songs on the radio. and most of the books, which i think are valuable, i could just get at the library i guess. but maybe i wouldn’t, and that’s the difference… well, in any event it’s kind of less work to not even think about that right now and just plug away at it… ok, back at it.
stayed up until 9am last night/this morning printing t-shirts for the art supply store, and didn’t even start printing until after watching nightmare on elm st and having a great session with pars and MZ into already very late night. woke up around 2 and headed out to the free pizza scenario, and then randa had a big event for her locationless bakery “barely legal treats“, at the Q, with cupcake-on-string eating contests, “guess the flavor” and other inventive transient bakery schemes. in case you were wondering, the q is still a dumb place to be at. iced coffee is $4, which i can’t wrap my brain around given that for hot coffee i pay between $0 and $2, and usually when coffee gets cold you throw it away. nonetheless it was a beautiful day, i took a nap on the porch and then took a long slow walk into the warm wind at night, to soda. streetlights give everything such an even, dignified look, and lots of people were sitting on their stairs, or bumping music in their cars, or just being sillhouettes across the street, or hanging out of the passengers side of their best friend’s ride trying to holler at me. now i’m in my room with the windows open listening to the best music.
OH! tomorrow’s thing (today’s thing) at the dirt palace is amended from what i previously thought– i’m not cooking, only hanging out with reprints of the cookbook available. but others will be cooking, and the chefs will be the sort of people who love food, so that’s one up on me. it’s from 11 to 3pm but ARGH i just realized the bus goes through boston and doesn’t get in until 11:45, and i still have to make copies and then walk to olneyville. anyone want to drive from worcester (or boston), i’ll pay you $16 (which is what the damn bus is now if you can believe it). email or call early. and you get in free to the brunch, which is otherwise $5 – $10, sliding scale.
today i was seriously *TWEAKING OUT* *ALL DAY* because i drank *ONE CUP* of **STRONG** **COFFEE**. the drip machine we have has a function that doesn’t drip if you remove the carafe, which i used to get the very first cup available, not knowing that the first drips are very potent, the last drips very weak, and the blend is what you’re used to. in the words of the poet roy orbison, “OH BOY”. running laps up and down stairs, taking fast walks to the faraway bank with nigh-involuntary parkinson’s hand grinding, saying hecka wiggy shit allllllllll dayyyyyyyy. bing!
my mom used to call very strong coffee “swedish coffee”, which (swedish coffee) was strong enough, she claimed, to eat with a fork. i’ve never been to sweden, but this is one of those things (my ancestry, on my mom’s side, is swedish) that you say about where you’re from, regardless of wherever you’re from, right? like, if your mom’s peruvian, you call strong coffee “peruvian coffee”. is there any coffee-drinking ethnicity with knowingly weak or even non-powerful coffee? it’s like saying “no, my parents are SERIOUSLY nuts” or that mosquitos are your state bird, or saying that honking from the driveway is known as the “(town you’re in/from) doorbell”.
oh, i mentioned this to little andrew and he pointed out that “the worcester doorbell” (as already decided) is saying hi from the kitchen en route to the fridge.
also:
“the worcester inch”… is an inch and a half.
“the worcester valet”… is a chair you put in your shoveled-out parking space
“the worcester alarm clock”… is anal sex.
geez i gotta go drink some chamomile tea or something… it’s 1 in the morning or something, i’m about to get somebody arrested…
monday twice in the very early morning i misheard people say “don cherry”, then that night watched “holy mountain” with music by, you guessed it, don cherry. i was in a rotten mood all day for industry standard reasons, and holy mountain was just what the doctor ordered- mystical/instructional, self-reflexive, about a thief, in garish colors, with massive sets. afterwards i had to wonder- how could this movie get made? a wikipedia search reveals the cool truth- funded by john and yoko, having been thoroughly impressed by his previous film. this is possibly a cool model but as a result the movie got locked up in IP negotiations for 30 years so i guess the lesson is “watch whose money you pick up“.
past few days listening to you guessed it, especially with ornette coleman and albert ayler but also later OM SHANTI stuff. were there recordings with the slits? or that was just concerts? or they never played together, just the same bill? anyway, here’s a video of don cherry, with rashied ali and blood ulmer and dispassionate audience: youtube, and here’s on italian television: youtube. note: both have cool quilt and pocket trumpet, second features tons of rattly shit plus skinhead wife.
yesterday’s bonezone / terribles show at the solomon pond mall newbury comics was… totally weird. it was record store appreciation day, so across the country there were events and special releases to try and get people into their neighborhood record store. anyway terribles / bone zone were asked to play by a friend of ours who works there, but at a low volume, so as not to anger the store next door (nb: the name of the place is “the kitchen store”). the feudal operations of a mall are fascinating to me– the terribles did indeed play too loud, and the store was fined. a mall cop was indeed fat, and on a segway with a bike helmet on, and would cruise behind the scene periodically. actual white male power holders would watch from across an expanse with holstered weapons (walkie talkies). kids made fun of us nonsensically as we loaded out, really just saying nonsense and i’d be like “what are you talking about?” and they’d laugh amongst themselves like classic feudal villiage idiots exercising the only power they have– nonsense towards outsiders. there was even a goon– a thick guy that would stare at us unabashedly as we stood around, and even followed us to the car– an overt undercover security guy or a sexual predator or possibly both. the entire duration of the show we were all on the brink of doing something bad, but didn’t want to get our friend fired. this tension just made me feel… dumb. and outside of myself. a few kids came in and watched, but mall psychology involves not trusting things that don’t come down the pipe from trusted channels, and to be towards coolness and passivity, and away from hotness and activity. as bone zone set up these kids in metallica tees were hanging out, but then when they played they left, then afterwards, they came back to talk about how they were also in a band. MZ: oh, what’s your band called? // the kids: void // me: !!!!!!!!!!!! //. are kids too dumb to google their shit already? despite “void” being a common word, the dischord page is fourth down! come on, i thought this was the internet generation! anyway i wrote this on a piece of paper and handed it to them:
wikipedia.org/void(band)
don’t tell me in the comments that the URL is malformed, i know. should be http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Void_(band). live and learn. also, MZ was wearing the void logo shirt he made.
the most “revolution” part of the whole debacle was a lady with her kids who was watching the show, and MZ saying “do you want to play the bass?” and it totally worked!
purtle was talking to her kids at the time, saying “right now your mom is playing bass in a punk band!” and they were looking right at her, but still they did not register anything. it was like that video of the gorilla moonwalking through the basketball game and your brain won’t even let you see it because it’s too far out.
after the show we me and mel, ML, pars and MZ hopped in the hatchback and chugged to northampton for dan and george’s weekly 60s soul / frat rock jamboree. d&g, if you’re reading this, i had a really really great time! as we got in the car to leave worcester that evening, we realized that both the grateful dead show and the new england hardcore and metal festival were happening simultaneously, and the streets were full of curious hangers-on, plus random errant clubbers, remaking the hometown into foreign and compelling territory. still we drove to northampton, were the first to arrive and the last to leave, and had a perfect time strutting and handclapping, with the dial on solid CHOOGLE. after a point (but well into it) i started to get kind of freaked out from there being so many people and such a large number of tiny interactions, and heat and claustrophobia, and a general water hole spring time mating ritual scenario opacity, and i couldn’t go outside (no reentry after midnight!). i had to sit down near a drafty exit and just stare at the floor for a little while. to be frank, my party personality crashed– memory overload. of course, once we got outside, the system reset- walking around again, and in the night air, and in the world of buildings and destinations and inertia, it was, well, it was the world again. not a bad experience; novel, and instructive, but a strange cap on the night. top celeb in attendance: merc! who i haven’t seen in a calender year and will be jobless while i woodshed comic book concepts at the ca$hman basement dojo this early may, which will be a session and a half in itself.
i’ve been sleeping super late recently, which is dummmmmm, especially because i’ve been going to bed early. but today i got out of bed just in time for a late breakfast with MZ at carl’s oxford diner, where the food is cheap and plentiful and the waitstaff (including EAB!) gives you a hard time for not finishing up. also, it’s one of those legendary spots where 2 eggs is 3 eggs. you with me? you order 2 eggs, you get 3 eggs STANDARD. and 2 + 2 = 6. and if you order 3 eggs? well, sometimes they are 5, sometimes they are 3. sometimes they are all of them at once. [1].
the jacob the terrible show last night was pretty fun– a goodly amount of actual kids running around a not-too-big gymnasium, with pizza and pop. the other bands were pretty good (or more to the point, there was nothing wrong with them), except OPPOSITES DAY, which straight ruled. joe and joanne hart, tobin and toni ostrow– two moms, two sons; drums guitar vocals and bass, respectively. catchy songs, it ruled. we played last, which was kind of a bummer as a lot of people had left already, but ML told me he has an inverse rock equation wherein he puts more energy into a show with less people, so it was cool. my mom was there. and because of all the kids i took some of the swears out, but only where it was funny: “THE WORLD CAN BE SO FART”.
more thought on the “old CDs” topic of yesterday– a list of things you used to be into is more useful information than a list of thing you’re currently into, as far as predictive personality match-up stuff. is this right? in that it would define the limits rather than the center. even casually, better than “what music are you into”, a more interesting question might be “what music did you used to be into?”. in any event the latter question would eventually lead to the former (conversational trajectory), plus there would be more good stories, and more likely than not, the intimacy of slight embarrassment. also, because tastes get more refined over time, it’s more likely to put both parties on the same page (every time i can remember having this conversation it’s included TMBG and/or weird al!). somebody make an algorithm for this and sell it to somebody and give me half.
i’m cleaning up my room gettiing ready for the move, and of course also thinking about cleaning up “my other room”, aka this website / my web of websites / my internet identity. the new thought (in re: the other room) is to have a multi-level approach that allows for distinct levels of participation– the top level is art projects, upcoming shows, etc., the second level is links and critical thinking, the third level is what i ate and how much i slept and are these your pants or did you give them to me?. or to carry the architecture idea farther: the porch, the living room, the boudoir– that’s cute, rite? i’m sure i’ll get to work on that when i have something else that absolutely needs to happen the following day.
today and yesterday listening to CDs only, having found a working discman in the junkosphere. it’s a specific time period, that disposable income time in which i bought cds, and i can’t tell if i’m enjoying rolling in it, but it’s interesting. double back is the cds i left in milk crates at my mom’s house, which i have not yet begun to deal with, but which i categorized (at the time) worthwhile but not currently relevant. that i can’t imagine what’s in there, is to me, fascinating. in any event, i’ve proven myself unable to leave a shedded skin behind– is there an animal i can look to that eats its own chrysalis?
pictured above- the best screen from shinobi (the beginning of the second level), for the sega master system, which i’ve begun playing again, this time as an emulator. throwback city! the warhol background always fascinated me.
ok, so the show tomorrow night (friday night) is a raven freedom school benefit show, and it’s at the green rooster coffee house, in worcester in between old voke and the art museum, at 6 institute road. show starts at 6pm, with pizza and pop.
featuring Jacob the Terrible, Dan Burke, Opposites Day (joe and joanne hart’s band!), Sons Of Hiram (featuring toni ostrow), Scott Riciutti, and “special guests” (is what i was told). PIZZA AND POP.
saturday the terribles and bone zone play at newbury comics in the mall for some reason, they start promptly at 5:00. don’t ask me how the world works.
oh, here’s the “invisible flyer” for tomorrow… which is actually paste ups from a few other show flyers– catch ‘em all!
as mentioned two weeks ago, two weeks ago i was a guest on the radio-style show “can you stick your phone out the window?”, produced by walker and two kids he babysits. the script is here and now you can listen to my actual call here, via the ladies village improvement society podcast. i appear around 4:18.
at the end of the segment i sing the judy garland song “i’m always chasing rainbows”, which i sometimes sing live. this is a pretty direct lift from the fabulous “wolvertunes” 7″ record by the great ugly artist basil wolverton, a great and early influence on me (i think this was the first record i ever bought). you can hear the wolverton version here, via wfmu’s 365 days project.
• april 17th at location TBA (worcester), jacob the terrible, others TBA. raven free school benefit
• april 18th newbury comics, solomon pond mall, the terribles instore “acoustic set” somehow and for some reason
• april 26th (sunday) at the dirt palace (providence), secret restaurant with celebrity chef (your humble narrator) and a second pressing of the cookbook issue of both the dirt pals cookbook and the cookbook issue of my own “FOUND A JOB”! good thing i saved the flats!
the “last” “day”s at the store so far (2 out of a planned 3) have been great. wednesday there was a ton of people, in fact at times there was this many: peoplepeoplepeoplepeoplepeople. um, funny to say but at this point i don’t have much to say, and not because i’m mad or disappointed or anything, i’m just still digesting. the store had a lot of ideas, and i’m kind of hesitant to discuss right now the good ones v the bad ones, or what could be tweaked, because, maybe i want to carry these ideas into other projects, and some of the tweaks will be better (or only effective) fully formed? anyway, there’s a few people clamoring to get the scoop, or not really “the scoop”, but with questions.
the first part of an interview on crummy.com is up today, and has some merit, and there’s a probably-weirdly-paraphrased interview to be published in the womag this week. the best reportage comes from livejournal via the womag, last week, where/when i saw it and hiccupped in surprise.
the image for the stone soup benefit day last saturday was a bear playing the accordian and singing, sourced from that book of russian prison tattoos, and symbolizing “general hooliganism”. from saturday and from the previous wednesday we raised something like $1100, which rules, and helps ease my guilt about frittering away the money i received from the FMLT grant. i don’t know what next week’s image is going to be yet: top runner up is a huge plate of spaghetti, leave better (or alternate) suggestions.
oh, here’s the total text of the womag interview “for the record”. a double scoop! (more…)
