the cosby show idea is going slow but what we have is really great. i had hoped to be done with it this week so i could get to work on other things and i had hoped it would draw a lot of people to the store who might spend a discrete amount of money. needless to say, by closing time today the proverbial “hope hand” was orders of magnitude lighter than the proverbial “shit hand”, and i was once again distressed by the massive quantity of people who, when an idea is an idea, are overwhelmingly supportive, but upon that idea becoming a reality, discover they suddenly have important video games to play. i’m trying to say positive though. in this particular instance, i think it’s mostly people who don’t want to risk looking stupid, which is understandable, if a hair cowardly. anyway, i’m going to try and edit a selection of what we have so far and post that on youtube, then everyone can SHUT UP.

today and yesterday a fair number of folks that just walked in off the street with had no idea about the filming, and immediately volunteered their talents. the best walk-in was a little girl who showed up with her big sister, and her sole line was “so there’s nothing left but self pity?”. despite all my bellyaching, i must say that everything is coming along ssplendidly, and to be frank in a way that might bite me in the ass later, i think it might even transcend goofy into profound. we decided it would be best if i just played lena horne and sang the entire song at the end. i’m really excited about it but the way things are going i’ve got plenty time to practice (after three days of filming we’re maybe a third a of the way in). monday i tackle the editing and find out if the green screen is going to work at all, until then i am not thinking about it. in fact, tomorrow the plan is to go the beach.

monday’s video show / iron chef was pretty fun, it wasn’t a pizza contest after all, and the secret ingredient was cinnamon raisin mochi– yikes. unfortunately i had to take the bus there and back, and on the way home missed a few buses and a few rides, and got stuck in providence until 4pm wednesday. i like providence and i have a lot of friends there, people who give me food and places to stay, but so closely missing so many ways back to sanctum can drive anyone plumb annoyed, even me. mike– somehow that last bus drove right past me as i stood at the stop downtown, and i had to hoof, cursing, across town before it left from the terminal. anyway i have only myself to blame and i had a good time on my extra days– traded some records to armageddon, had some soup, it was good.
records i got:

• black flag “my war” - i never got this when i was 17, so i had to get it now. i know i’ll get harsh words for this, but i wish i got “family man” instead.
• flaws “erect nation” - MT, ryan seaton, and gus from tiny hawks, making what i can best call “90s smart guy music”. and i’m on the label of the record. well a picture of me anyway. awesome.
• kites “hallucination guillotine / final worchip” - this rules. kites records are getting better and better in ways that don’t make the old ones bad. this one thanks (among others) amon duul II, so maybe that’s a decent jump-off. unfortunately there’s no nice geometric layout of all his homemade instruments, maybe because now he’s using more shelf and modified stuff, which doesn’t photograph as well, or maybe he’s trying to get away from that angle (hobbyist synths). anyway the liner notes list “BOX WITH HOLES, PEDALS, MICROPHONES, BLACK TRAP, HILL METWOR, SILVER 386, REVERB TANK, 8-WAY GRENADE, WALKMAN, ETC.”.
• musically MAD - i’ve been looking for these MAD magazine records for a while. this one isn’t really that good. i mean, it isn’t sonically what mad is visually. but spike jones already covered that territory i guess.
• can’t “private time (part 2)” - this is apparently the sequel to “private time”, which remains my favorite cassette release ever. nice personal screechy antagonism / way to love the horror. there is an acoustic guitar ssong, and my feelings that subject are a matter of public record, but it works out pretty good in the context of the record and the previous tape. many excellent life-affirming therapeutic buzzings. another nice thing is that the light in the pictures has the same quality as in private time part 1. total sunny bedroom, saying “legs are so weird– look at them down there!”. jessica (who is “can’t”) is the queen of homemade synths, and is in grad school for electronics design, which i am really psyched about.
• sonic chimp vol 1 - chimp rock comp from 1996, featuring teddy fire, discombobulated ventriloquist, larry marchall, glemun (which is brian chippendale’s early band?), trollin withdrawal, and many others. chimp rock is a messy fun spazzy new england brand of lo-fi, most famously exemplified by fat day. the trollin withdrawal guy lives in worcester now, according to the myspace. WTF.

today and last night working on some new sample-based music for the first time in a long time. after much hemming and hawing over new music softwares, i’m back to using sound edit 16, the same thing i’ve used since 1995 (NB: i have friends that weren’t even born in 1995). i guess it’s frustrating, but really nothing’s as good as it for what i’m doing. it’s really simple, and i thought for sure that there would be a new thing that did what it does plus hammers out a few kinks (multi-track recording, precise time stretch), but they all have their faults. audacity comes close, but the key commands are not there / don’t work / aren’t good, the labeling process isn’t as good (in SE16 you can label a part of a track then click on the label and you’re selecting that segment), and weirdly, it’s slower (?) on my new machine than soundedit is on my old machine. uh, i guess i’m mentioning this in the hopes that future audacity programmers will google “problems with audacity” and then email me for my valuable insight. also with this dedicated computer i have a new working method as far as track assembly, more “intuitive”, but let’s see what fruit that bears before we talk about it and how the fruit looks and tastes in our mouths and how we prepare and serve the fruit in a meal-type setting. don’t ask when this will be done. i’m also working on singing-type songs for the uke of XYZ split. don’t ask.

last night me, the terribles, crisp haddock and j9 all played a show at meg’s apartment in providence. it was fun, it was meg’s birthday. but i always forget that i don’t like playing parties, as much as i like being at parties. anyway i had fun. in the beginning of the night, things were so cramped and confined that it was really like pulling the blankets over your head– that kind of suffocation, and i had to sit by a window for a while. but after i played i could relax a little more and just hang out. i was looking for chamomille tea but couldn’t find any so instead peter fuller made me a coffee drink with chocolate and cayenne pepper and soymilk foam. i know, but this actually set me up great, i think less because of chemicals, and more because peter is just a super awesome guy who it is good to interact with.

i tried to play some new stuff but it was too rowdy so i just mostly stuck to old sing alongs. during my set CP was yelling all sorts of nonsense based on our “feud”, which at this point is more embarrassing than anything else. i told the crowd “CP can say whatever he wants– it doesn’t matter. and the reason it doesn’t matter is that CP is a boy, and jacob berendes is a GROWN-ASS MAN”. then everyone started chanting “GROWN-ASS MAN! GROWN-ASS MAN!”. ok, it was awesome.

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.

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.

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!

i ate a ton of candy on halloween night and emotionally crashed, now i’m still in a bad mood. not really moved in to the new place despite cleaning out the old place for the past two weeks. i need to build a loft for my bed before i can really settle in. the new place is OK except that the walls are super thin. it’s up a huge hill but everything in worcester is up a huge hill.

HBML is still operating on a “used goods 95 cents” plan. it was slow this week but i got some stuff done, i think next wednesday the back room will be open, then things will get really weird. truth be told, i’m trying to go out of business by december.

well the halloween show/party at the go go went ok. as a show there were 2 quiet acts (anne l and matt fox) then incisor, so pretty much we were playing “warm up” which ssucks but someone has to do it but why me all the time. brian didn’t show up, so we got dan o’neill to play second lead guitar, which we had been trying to do anyway for a while. the blondie set went pretty good even though no one i’m sure could tell what the hell i was saying anyway. all the lights were out and i had a flashlight taped to the microphone. it was fun, but the rest of the night i had a hard time looking anyone in the eye. i guess, when your band hinges on this idea of the end of time, it’s hard to shmooze at the afterparty. bonezone was awesome of course, and the dungeoneers, and the terribles did a misfits cover set which obviously everyone loved, but i just couldn’t get into it. i tried to hang out by the fire but burned myself, for the first time ever. after a fair share of classic pacing and numerous small talk scenarios, i ended up leaving fairly early.

needless to say, as a party, it was a bummer, but i site two main reasons (that aren’t “things really going downhill”): first, there was confusion as to whether it was the big halloween party or just a show, and as a result, the people there were either people that come to shows, or people who were confused. secondly, as it pertains to parties v shows, parties have an air of possibility, a centerless universe– shows are a bunch of people watching something. this sounds like hakim bey now, but it’s true– previous parties at the go go (especially halloween parties) really presented a wild mutation and radical view of the world as it secretly can be. this year, well, this year (and no fault or blame) it did not happen.

my sore throat is now a full on cold despite plenty of fluids and miso soup every day for breakfast. today there’s that show, which some people think is a party, but unfortunately it isn’t, it’s a show, and not only that, it’s a too-long show– 6 bands now, maybe 7! and i still don’t have a costume. and there was no time for incisor to practice. and i guess there’s no big halloween party to speak of. also it’s raining out, which is normal for this time of year.

last night i had a dream that i was watching a movie with a bunch of friends but i was so comfortable in a position in which my head wasn’t facing the screen that i just watched a swimming pool full of water reflect the sky.

i didn’t say before but since i can’t remember the words to the incisor songs, i’m just going to do a blondie cover set. i don’t think i told everyone else in the band this but that’s ok.

all used goods at HBML are now 95 cents. that’s everything that isn’t on consignment– all toaster ovens, all lamps, all toys, most clothes. i’m trying to pull the rug out from under myself. bring the war home. w th f 4:30 - 8:00, saturday 2 - 5.

like some kind of dickhead i’m not going to be in town on sunday, which is officially “mutts day” in the city of worcester. patrick mcdonnell, who writes “mutts”, my favorite comic strip, is going to be talking and signing autographs at that’s entertainment on park ave and i’m going to be at as220 with my mom and mike leslie for a crafts show i said i’d do (and admittedly, have been looking forward to). grr!!!

incidentally, if you’re in providence on sunday, the fair is from eleven to five and as220 is on empire street, near the library. come out and buy some hastily-assembled garbage.

i think my little datebook shimmied it’s way out of my pocket last night on the ride home from aryder’s house. in the words of dan langlois, “f”. hey, if anyone wants to go to the intransitive fest, email or call me. because i want to go, but not alone. driving from worcester is a plus.