ok, this is a test– i need to start recording music again and messing around with music and generally being musically active. right now i have computer stuff i’ve been working on, but that’s a realm of endless tweaking. so…… ten people request songs for me to cover and i will cover them, and post them here before the end of the month. you cannot request a song that you have written, but you can request a song that i’ve never heard. i can’t promise my cover will be faithful. give me a title and a performer. i will only do this if ten people make requests, and i have ways of telling when one person is pretending to be more than one person on the internet. oh, actually, mike benedetti gets one automatically, because he’s been really helping me out lately / always. so, first nine, plus mike.

ok, let’s go– burn it. even lurkers– let’s go.

nick said i should so i did, i set up a twitter account. add if you need. because i can, i integrated it into the sidebar, but maybe that’s declassé. oh, i never know what side of privacy diminishment i’m on…

UPDATE it’s only a few hours later but i’ve de-integrated (?) the twitter from the sidebar. i don’t know, i feel like it’s too drastic a change in tone, or syntax. and i wanted people to be able to choose their level of involvement with the minutia of my life (which is why on the front page there are jumps right to fujichia releases, events, and other projects). if you want to dig for it it’s there, but, well, let’s just say it– i don’t want girls i have crushes on to log on and see “still scratching butt” presented in the same forum as, i don’t know, all my brill pill exegeses on 1960s ghoul-group records. see? this is already embarrassing!

UH OH.

“like nasa or some other space administration”

the other day me and jon knapp went and saw the new speed racer movie, it was awesome, everything looked like it was made out of candy. to be specific, everything looked like it was made out of skittles. also the editing was really fast in a way i enjoyed, but then halfway through i got accustomed to it, and i was disappointed, and then at the end everything got way faster. not a mind blowing experience but fun.

working on this new mix as promised but the computer keeps crashing. it was really hot for a few days so i’ve been moving towards a polyphasic sleep routine, you know, so i can sleep through the dumbest part of the day. it’s good in that i’m closer to a dream state all the time, and my time management is better. it’s bad in that there are conspicuous chunks of time i am dead to the world. ultimately, it’s good for projects, weirdfor society (which might be two goods, the jury’s still out). the other day me and seah decided to start a worcester r buckminster fuller appreciation society, this sort of ties in.

yesterday was memorial day, i walked around a lot with jbruce, talking about things, and eventually landed at the sole proprietor, where we split a lobster and drank beers (jbb never drank a beer before and i am a vegetarian but there is always a time for transgression). ultimately it was positive in that i realized lobster isn’t that good to eat, and that i’d rather be eating a piece of fruit, or a big bowl of cereal. i didn’t throw up or even feel bad. jeremy only really drank half a beer and suffered no noticeable effects. i saw a fair amount of people i knew at the restaurant, which is the only reason i’m fessing up here, because they’re blabbermouths. well, it’s always interesting.

been painting the store this week with sheryl-ann, it looks awesome, except where it looks stupid, but you usually can’t even see the walls so no big problem. next step- tons of shelving. taking a lot of pictures with the camera, trying not to get “kino eye”, when you see everything the way a camera would see it, which is a bummer way to operate.

this year for lent i gave up apologizing for things. maybe it sounds like this sucks, but i got in the habit of apologizing for things so fast it was really a bummer. it was a strain on me taking the hit a million times a day, but more importantly i was just overusing it and not meaning it and it was putting me in a weird power spot. i’ve slipped up a few times so far and i really don’t advocate this for everyone but for me it rules, almost apologizing and then saying “yup, i said it, and not for no reason”. totally positive responsibility-taking. yesterday i was trying to compliment a nice lady on having ass-long hair (actually post-ass, almost to her knees). i forget what i said but it was a sentiment near to “i like it because it’s totally fucked”. uhh… then “straight up”.

i guess i don’t know of other people that are really into lent (NB: i am not christian any more than i am anything else). i see lent as a real good worcester holiday– it has both self-denial and pancakes, and at the end there’s candy and zombies. this year ML is giving up what he always gives up- every beverage except water. GOD BLESS.

the music video for my song “twin elephants” is now up on youtube. you can consider it a “two girls one cup” fanvid.

OK, starting now, if anyone out there wants to make their own music videos to one of my songs (either something from foreign policy or anything from the vaults), i will be super super delighted, and will send you a free fujichia t-shirt, and if you stop by the store, i’ll give you a soda. and the video can’t just be my song over some other video you cheapskate! limited to first 10!

our wednesday HBML volunteer caught a flu so i went in yesterday and shuffled some stuff around and worked on some projects, most notably a series of mirrors with different mustaches drawn on them. it was pretty good, i drank tea all day.

tonight two high school girls (one of whom i know through the store) are performing my song “japanese pen pal girl tattoo” at an open mic somewhere in worcester county. i’m told it will be taped. actually, the only reason i know about it in advance is that in the lyric sheet to foreign policy, that’s the song that gets truncated with a curt “the rest of the words are perfectly audible”. and evidently, that is not the case, which works out quite to my advantage, as i had to be queried. how many other teenage open mics have i been a part of unawares? oh, yeah, and speaking of lyric sheets, i don’t know if i mentioned this but i finally accidentally looked at the lyrics to Dry Bones after so much vigilance only to find out that i was right and they don’t say what i initiallly thought they said, which just means now i’ll have to record my own version with my own serendipitous words. oh, and it turns out that what i actually say is “pretty much what [the girl who emailed me] thought”. anyway, from now on, all lyric sheets are vague or introduce untruths.

oh, and i’m playing a show in providence at meg turner’s falls (meg from summercamp’s new place) tomorrow with the terribles and j9 bressner. oh, i’ll play my version! and if you can’t tell from teh infographic, i’ve been working on some new songs, some of which i will play, and will probably have to read off a piece of paper like a hack.

this morning matt coe woke me up to go hang out in front of 7-11, where we sat around talking about rasputin, christopher lee’s furious eyes, and vincent price’s gustatory horror (i recently bought a vincent price action figure). when i got home marge was watching “rasputin: the mad monk” so i tucked in.

the problem with this movie is twofold. first, rasputin is merely poisoned, then thrown out of a window. wha? the death is the best part: poisoned, shot, shot more, drowned.

the second problem is one that a lot of movies have nowadays, that maybe i’m the only one to notice– they don’t star nick curtin. don’t worry– me and matt carroll are working on this. nick curtin, check your inbox.

the fashion show the other day was really awesome, clean anderson took a mess of pictures so hopefully i’ll get those soon to share. it was really frantic but everything pretty much worked out great. there were maybe 30 outifts, 10 models, and 15 designers. me and sheryl ann MCed, fashion model party house music was playing, there was a stage, fans were blowing, some boobs popped out of things, some nuts hung low, it ruled. pictures up when pictures got.

me and nick made a pledge to be internet sustainable by this time next year, so i’m trying to making a webpage every time i have an idea for one, and throw some ads on. last week was 420cats.com. this week’s isn’t finished yet, but will go live on tuesday. the important part is that i’m sitting here working late at night, and i keep getting the feeling of wearing a hat, then i try to adjust the hat, and guess what, no hat. phantom hat syndrome!

it was cold last night, it’s cold tonight. great sleeping weather. i’m wearing lots of clothes again and my hair is really long and clean. MH- i still smell.

a few days ago we had a picture of jer, today it’s nick, giving his own variant of the “i am embarrassed by your need to take pictures with me in them” face/posture. uh, i didn’t take this picture, but i appreciate it. big up, nick!

by a method, we got a lot of chocolate bars a few years ago- gross, fund-raiser grade milk chocolate. so i had mike t screen some labels and we actually sold them all. well, we sold all the ones we didn’t eat / the mice / mat coe didn’t find. i stumbled upon one of the labels the other day, so here it is, for posterity or whatever. i never wrote about these chocolate bars on the website, because they happened in one of those weird spells where for months i didn’t write at all.

another good beetle bailey in a loooong long line of “good beetle baileys”.

yes.

saturday was danzig day at the store which fuckin’ ruled- scully gave out five haircuts, lots of people brought clothes to get printed (roughly equal numbers of crimson ghost and roy orbison), the store was packed, and we raised $43 for the new vigilante skatepark i’m not allowed to talk about. like i said, it ruled. pictures forthcoming.

saturday night was a big party in providence for the dirt palace’s 7 year anniversary, and i got really psyched seeing people i’ve known for a long time get stronger and weirder and blow up in their fields. even getting stranded the next day was fun- going to the flea market and the pond, and talking shop with sasha, who, inspired in part by HBML, opened her own store in providence called “forever XV”. ok, so sasha’s store pays her a living wage, which i’m obviously jealous of, as my store routinely loses me money i don’t have. but by her own admission, she’s largely selling known names to weird collectors, people who “frequently” (and suspiciously i might add) spend upwards of $100. so while i may not make the living i am clearly owed, i still corner the market in selling items to people that have never seen items such as these.

oh, i set up a guestbook at paul’s subtle request, and i mention paul in the header information and paul was the first person to post. maybe this is going to turn out a mess, but maybe it’ll be nice to have a “town square” as paul put it, to air out laundry of all sorts unrelated to a specific post. paul paul paul. everything paul.

fujichia: mostly psyched, some fiscal woes
fujichia: the batwing thing, pointy teeth, look of desperation
fujichia: how does laundry happen?