the past few have been on and off rainy in a funcomplicating manner. friday i was hanging out in front the gallery with hailey, who is fasting until her tongue goes pink to white to pink, but by virtue of hearty resolve, is less miserable than any faster i’ve ever hung with. even when not goofed out on deep cache body deposits of food coloring and stray twist ties, hailey is extremely comforting person, to the point where she’ll pick up on your half-bad day, grab your hand as you’re walking by and hold for longer than you expect, and say like she’s shocked by a sudden and radiant sunset “you look so strong and beautiful”. i’ve seen this happen like three times!

then i walked off to buy a new pen but before i could get to the pen place i got shanghaied by grass widow, fresh in town but heavy bumming for van woes and general stressedness to the point of angry ambling. i don’t know if it was the influence of hailey but i hitched my wagon to their train and together we all puttered to higher realms, even unto laughing in the rain, singing scat, and ringing bells. a later report from a passing neighbor claimed we looked “like a burt bacharach song”. they were playing in worcester that night but the show was short on bands so i jumped on, splitting a set with dungeoneers as “the berendeoneers”, plus bloody swimsuit and gascan’s new band with jong ouida and danny the moor (described in advance as “like greyskull”, which i obviously found to be maddening). dungeoneers were so crazy– now that zacherle owns his own drums he is in full animal disregard mode, with a heavily antagonistic pose that is really “kiss or kill”. i think they were one minute in before all the drum apparatus got tumbled over. in keeping with the trend, one of his previous students (a different one from before) was at the show. again, i ask you to try and identify with that. splitting the set was fun, and faster, and i was more worked up, and touching people’s faces, and slobbery, and being a teetering corpse during instrumental breaks. bloody swimsuit was good, and i am delighted to report that, while i liked the beard, dave cut it off, and is growing his hair back to nirvana length.

grass widow was super good– guitar on the surf/spy axis, boundless bass, steady pounding rhythm-of-life drums, and TITE three-part glasslike vocals. aka “perfect”! i caught the record even though i have the cd, because the cover is a “my room” style shot of their practice space, with their banners and beverages and insturments and their friend’s records and christmas lights. i love that shot!

rode back to PVD with the ladies and tried to find them the next day but i missed the coffee call because i refuse to answer my phone on the toilet even though i could, which is also fine because i had errands, and i could finally buy that pen i set out for days previous. caught up with them again at the girls rock!’ benefit, where none of us won any raffle items but “oh well”.

kind of breezing through savings, which is ultimately good as it means upping the hustle already, and anyway what have i been buying, food? i can’t feel bad about that and shouldn’t- “the kid’s gotta eat”. i drink coffee in the morning, at 4pm, and after a large dinner.

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.

spring days matched with missing engagements and shake-up talks with milk leslie in an exciting transitory mood. i’m weeding though records in emption of an exodus and it’s a nice though tense matter. currently i have 1.5 shelf-feet that is all to sell off / let them throw away. pop music, as predicted, is getting decimated, dimated even. the weirdest section now is “future project” (things i was going to do things with) which may also go out the window because there’s no shortage of certain kinds of ideas and in general stuff is cheap and space is expensive, and moreover the world does not lack for stereo demonstration records, hawaiian escapades, basil rathbone narrations, and haunted houses. i’ve been putting on records i picked up years ago and never listened to (and moved several times with), only to find actual different records in the sleeves all along. eli and maralie told me that before they met me they bought my CD in france somehow, brought it back to little rock, then sold it when they moved to new england, where boxes of them sit in my mother’s house.

oh, i’ll be subletting cybele’s place in olneyville starting june. AND i’m piecing together travel plans for fall, hopefully to be somewhere warm in winter. dear friends please keep a peeled ear for residencies, gallery ops, and funky stores near you that i could session in the form of an installation, performance (musical or lecture) and/or straight hawking, hopefully making some money at where you are while i sleep on your floor eating cold beans undercover in a pricey cafe. true story!

today (amongst other activities) i brought change to the supermarket change machine. FYI, a double gulp cup full of miscellaneous change (but less quarters, which naturally get picked out) is roughly $105. i kept fantasizing about someone asking me for change, and me pulling out a handfull and throwing it in the air to rain down on both of us, laughing. then it didn’t happen. after the change-in, i was left with all these foreign coins, T tokens, and plastic game pieces, the fantasy slightly changed.

susan the grant writer arrives ravenous in a box with holes in it january 1st and me taking me seriously season officially starts. to rev up i’ve been working on my resume, or rather, i don’t know what it’s called– a list of everything i’ve done as an artist, tagged and annotated. what is this called? anyway, if anyone is nodding out on the internet at their parents’ house looking for things to brainstorm about, what are some fujichia products and events you have enjoyed? this could be a music show, a product or event at HBML, pretty much anything i was involved with in the last 9 years that struck a chord in some way. i’m especially looking for things i was involved with in 2003, or during any other blogging dead zone. what are the favorites, what are the really weird ones, what are the ones you liked the least? this topic was started months ago when i started putting this list together, so leave comments relevant to this discussion on this post. you can also see the list in progress on this del.icio.us account i set up just for this purpose, so far it’s dented but not even partially complete, maybe it’ll help you brainstorm ones i missed.

coffee with jer, who’s addicted to the word “hack”, and driving “funny bad” in the snow. playing too much of the rolling game, that rolling ball video game, a real “time toilet” as MZ says. making plans with purtle to draw every day. tonight there’s a godard double feature over at knapp’s spacious weirdo apartment, too bad i already made the joke “DO NOT GODARD”. listening to huggybear and redownloading the kirby “fourth world” collection (athough i would rather someone buy me the four books @ $50 each for christmas). inspired by the digital loss of the past week, i’m getting ready to get rid of a ton of clothes, although i may just bring all the extra t-shirts to the serger (sp?) at my mom’s house and make sheets out of them. that’s cute right? or too dingy? the grant went through for the shop– three month’s vacation rent and one month’s nonvacation “back on the feet” rent. after she ohio bowls with her cousins tonight, teleconference with grant writer and spitty handshaker susan succotash, we will talk about what exactly to run up which flagpole and how to get who people to salute. still playing the 4 track game, although i missed a night but i still recorded some stuff that night. so that’s what, seven days in a row? this is what my songs are about: daydreaming about being a viking; a love triangle between a helicopter pilot, a mounted police, and a werewolf; a haunty house that looks totally nice and fine and well kept; baby ducks spitting poison (this is the worst song– apologies to cool breeze who invented “baby ducks spit poison” years ago); teddy; something else i can’t remember. joanne played last night and was super apprehensive about it but her song was obviously awesome, even though it was about how the four track game suxx, and it’s too much pressure, and the basement is really cold (which is all true). the computer with the battery in it is a cool experience, i’ve been moving around the house and sitting next to people, the next step is in public, although at the coffee place everyone had one out except me, it was like an battleship tournament but without explosion sounds.

yesterday’s stArt on the street was ssuper duper fun, the best one yet and they’ve all been awesome. i split a space with jjb buckmaster and nik perry, which was really fun, and which gave me more ability to take walks around and see other people’s stuff. other exhibitors that i knew included ashleigh, who had her sculpey jewelery and home-made hula hoops; eamon, who had paintings; audra, who had paintings and sculpture; and john guida, who had a total yard sale of paintings– no table, no tent, just a blanket with everything saloned out.

the crowd was great, tons of people from the very beginning right up to the end. i only caught a little bit of the music (ok, just bone zone and bj snowden) but what i saw was great and it’s my understanding that this tip was indicative of the entire iceberg. the ubiquitous industrial sonic echo played, of course. hey, even i got on the mic to play a few songs at the second stage. pictures of my set are here, from the part where mz, matt carroll and flo grabbed traffic cones as megaphones and sang back-up vocals for me, which made me super super happy. i met tons of new folks and passed out tons of flyers and copies of the new newspaper me and mickey dm have been working on. i made bank but, well, not to be cocky, but i kind of always clean up at these affairs. more to the point, all the vendors i talked to (which is a select group, but whatever) did good. john guida, god bless him, came up to me late in the day with a big smile, wearing a cool macrame wristband / coffee cousy he just bought, almost embarrassed at how high the cheddar he stacked up stacked up. middle andrew (andrew oesch) and jean coz made a huge cardboard building building party that was super busy all day, and when it came time to smash it all down and flatten all the cardobard for recycling, it was all pushed into an alley, where bone zone set up and played the funnest ten-minute set ever– cardboard flying everywhere and people being crazy crazy crazy. i already posted the video, which looks like serious braveheart, but watch it again and realize how rare it is to have a punk show that is either outside, at a festival, or during the day, plus with tons of actual kids, and cops twenty feet away, that is even close to creating this level of blissful abandonment (from which all art stems). so much fun. it got shut down a few songs in because people were on the roof, which was not something anyone could control, but oh well. joe and tobin were both in the thick of it, and when we all came out joe was the first person i saw so i grabbed him and said “PUNKS RULE OK!!!!!”. he was like “YAAAAAAARRRGGHHH!!!!!!”.

basically, from all points of view and from every level of participation (and there was a million ways to participate) and in every quantifiable and qualitative way, it was worth everyone’s while in a big way. super big thanks to the organizers!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

all my pictures are up on pretty alright– i saw tons of bloggers out snapping digicams, here’s jeff, claudia, and brendan. oh, and flickr tag startonthestreet

ok, so the update over the phone thing doesn’t work ssuper super great, but what do you want for nothing? the past week has been really good, lots of thinly-velied and sometimes veiled not at all requests from me to other people that they make dinner for me and also i stay at their house, WHICH IS COOL. that was providence. return to worcester on the saturday and immediately jumped into the big mystery band show, which ruled. there was an auction that i was the auctioneer for, to raise money for HBML, and that was splendid also– lots of people donated skills and services like cranio-sacral massages and time in a recording studio and a piggyback to anywhere, and then i fast-talked and lots of people bid in a mild frenzy, pretty ideal. as is the custom, all the bands were great and many of them had people that had never been in bands before, and you could see them realizing that their own creative instincts were valid. the audience was lots of people. the second show of the summer is this friday, at the go go, it’s gonna rip.

ssunday i hung out with my sister, my brurinlaw, and my niece. sheryl-ann, if you’re out in oak-land reading this, you’ll be pleassed i’m sure to see the photoevidence of this on the photo blog. the day was fun and the baby is great, and me and the brurinlaw talked more about the flash game idea i had, DONKEY COMMAND.

the installation thing i’m doing, the grand opening got pushed back to the 26th or 27th, which frees me up to do tons of get-ready stuff for the big start on the street streetfest this sunday, plus the boston zine fair this saturday. as it turns out, i’m playing music at the start in the street thing, which is fine but really just one more thing to stress about, but it’ll be fun, plus i’m getting paid, which is good, because i have to move out of where i’m now living at, and into a more expensive place.

me and mickey DM are meeting tomorrow to put the layout down of the new broadsheet magazine, previously called RHODODENDRON FESTIVAL, now i think to be called NEW PARIS GAZETTE, or something like that. tonight until late, finishing writing everything.

fujichia: when it rains, it pours.
fujichia: it’s always raining something.

other quick news:
• the new empty mountain site looks hecka tite bro…
• robot finds kitten, the video game that was the sole entrant to a contest i created 10 years ago has been included as a minigame in a recent PSP release. more news here. also, RFK came preloaded on dave paquette’s mp3 player.
• peter sibley reps a paris of the eighties tshirt in the group shot for the software project he’s been working on, which (the software) is nuts, which was recently launched into outer space for some reason.

i’m on another episode of the snow ghost community show, discussing my opinions on art (and everything) in worcester. i’ll cut you to the end, where i say something i think about a lot in a way i’ve never said before: “anything can grow in a garden– who cares?”. also i call everyone with pretentions of being a fine artist in worcester “a chump”. it’ll be great when that bites me in the ass. i’m trying to not look at the camera dead-on, in keeping with my decision to be 3/4 as much as possible.

today i went to the beach, which was great, but i didn’t eat all day and then at 7:30 got really really grouchy. earlier i passed to will and danielle the meme “D.W-P.O.M.F-B.”, a weird mishearing so psychologically damaging i can’t even write it on the internet.

september looks like it may be money month for me, with lots of small scams (aka jobs) for me to run– chiefly silk screening at RISD and the start on the street street fair. there’s more but i don’t want to ruin it. anyway, also bumping this [next] month is a big installation at the new as220 “mercantile block” space in providence. and this is big, like 20 foot ceilings, nigh-unlimited floor space. since it’s a really great opportunity for me, i’m doing that thing i like to do- something i’ve never done and have no skills at and haven’t really thought out supergreat. tentative title “my life 08″. oh, and i got the ask on the virtue of a couple snappy mass emails, nothing else. this is good, but “nothing else”? why not do the unthinkable and just write letters all day? no more nothing! anyway i’m trying to get two weeks off from my troubles to work on the bastard on site, but that may be unfeasible. but it would be fun, and as close to a vacation as i’ll ever get, it seems.

last night it was a little chilly, and get dark earlier than i had expected. today i realized that it was going to get really cold again, and in not a very long time. i’m strategizing for what will surely be, without adequate strategy, a really really rough winter.

here are my current best plans:

and

yep, just in time for back-to-school, and i’m in hustle mode.

more filming of the cosby show friday and saturday got us almost to the half-way mark! of filming, leaving the arduous process of editing entirely on my shoulders. that aside, this week has been pretty tite. i got the HBML site redesign and catalog up and running, and already the orders have been coming in, in a slow trickle to be sure, but hopefully the sort of trickle that is indicative of a larger flood, and more stuff getting added every few days, so, uh, let’s be exponential, monied interests!

friday my bike finally caught a flat. well, actually, i got fed up with waiting and popped the tire with a pin. i know this seems ridiculous, but the tire had a worn-out section that went through the black (exterior) rubber AND through the white (interior) rubber, and you could see an eighth-inch section of the tube itself! and moreover, i’d been riding it like that since last winter! friday i was carrying my computer and pars’ camcorder, plus sshirts and stickers, and i just knew i was going to catch a flat and be late to the shoppe, so i took ML’s old ROLLFAST chopper, which he half-gave to me, and then just because, i went “way of the samurai” and popped that b myself, just to see how much it would take. the important part of this story is, riding the chopper totally rules. leopard-print banana seat, ape hanger handlebars, front and rear fenders… shiiiiiiiiit. it’s a knee-burner, and i have to walk it up all bu the most slight hills, and the understuffed seat is like sitting on another bony butt, but still… shiiiiiiiiit. i thought i would get a lot of people heckling me for being a tall dude on a tiny bike, or being mad for going hell slow in the street with wide squirrely steering, but surprisingly all i got was respect. also it was the latin american fest downtown this weekend, so lots of other lowrider bikes were out, their owners giving me what’s ups. really really fun. here’s a video, shot during nat needle’s “creative laundry” event at elm park: don’t blink.

friday like i said we got some more shooting in the can for the cosby show idea, plus dan and sue came in from boston and hung out, and delivered a bunch of awesome stuff for the shoppe from the sue jeivan lifestyle collection. that night there was a show at the wheelchair, featuring a band from holland called “antidote”, and other usual suspects. great crowd, the bands were fun, i had a blast. there were some brief moments where some people were just acting crazy, then one of them decided this craziness was an act of war, not of love, and things got tense and violent, and then they got broken up, and then one of the parties stormed over to the other party and you think “here we go again”, but then the stormer says “i was only being crazy, let’s hug each other”, then they do. this was totally cute and happened, like i said, a few times. the warhol twins were there except they both dyed their hair back to natural and it’s too hot to wear leather jackets or maybe they were only borrowed. also radical rodney the casual commie, bruce bertleman, dan and grant from nadir, (almost) all the stars. oh, and it was cameron’s 21st birthday, and he got wasted and lovey-dovey, it was totally cute.

during antidote matty buttcakes was throwing fireworks into the crowd from sort of a balcony area, and someone from the venue came up all hard like “are you the one throwing the fireworks?”. buttcakes was sheepishly like “yeah…” and the someone said “why are you throwing them in the middle of everyone? really hit someone!”. pause. “well, not just anyone… uh, hit that guy (points).”.

ok, lots of funny stuff happened at the show but the funniest was that when antidote started playing, all the cushions from the couches (which remain perennially soaked with beer spilled before, during, or after digestion) started flying, and there was a big greasy pillowfight, it was totally pure fun, and big silliness, and perfect. the band was initially psyched but then one of them got his hat pushed back and they stopped to apparently admonish the crowd though no one could tell what they were saying due to language and distortion issues. they resumed, the pillowfight resumed, and then they stopped again while someone collected all the pillows and hid them, then people decided en masse that if they could only be crazy in a sanctioned way it was peace out time, and the rest of the set was pretty lackluster on the audience side of things. if i’m ever in a band trying to get people to wall of death and someone gets from a backroom a boogie board and starts using it as a shield and i’m upset, wedgie me.

saturday more filming at the shop, although i went in early to have breakfast at the diner next door (which was decent) and read comic books i got tricked into buying the previous day (omega the unknown #s 1 – 6, which the comic books store ordered for me even though i only wanted #7 (which they did not order)). saturday a steady drip of folks, then on the way home i ran into vaula van who took me out to dinner at da lat, just when i was good and hungry. dan, you were right about me having it pretty sweet.

i almost didn’t leave the house yesterday, i was working working working on a new page redesign for the HBML webiste. well, barring any weird cross-browser issues, i think just finished it up! now there’s a nice online catalog of things you can order from home, including a new sticker set that me and ML were working on the other night, which is BONKERS!!!