well, i tried, but i just can’t do it. kpraas had the idea of not writing about the providence show, so that it would just be a rumor, uncorroborated and non-official. ssounds good but here i am a few days later and i have to do it. i’m not worried about the show sinking into the memory hole, in part because, well, to be honest, there’s not a lot about the show itself specifically that i remember, as i can’t really ever remember what happens when i’m performing, and the rest of the night was just getting ready and then winding down. i rode in with lil spat and ML, there was home made ice cream there, the bands were ok if you like riot folk (which some people don’t and some do), i went to that 7-11, there was a good crowd etc.. i guess i have to write because i want to say: thank you to everyone involved. it was awesome to see everyone going totally nuts and pushing and yelling and singing along as loud as possible, and at the end i shut my eyes and i remember feeling as light as a feather, and indeed, being physically lifted up over everyone’s heads, and hearing someone (kristina) yell “this is beautiful!” in that sudden exasperated way, a real “oh my god, is this even happening?!?!”. needless to say, being a part of this was a tremendously good feeling, of the sort i will chase for the rest of my life. thank you to everyone. thank you to the terribles- i am blessed to be able to perform with one of my favorite bands ever. and thank you to building 16, you asked me to play. and thank you to andrew oe, who made a cool flyer with a huge picture of personal hero george plimpton.

even though i said it was a one-time only thing, i think we may bust out a worcester show at a sufficiently special time.

ok, let’s be positive!

i had a really fun time in providence this week. unlike last week, where i was mostly dilly-dallying and visiting and batting eyelashes, this time around i was mostly pounding away tough at work, or at the burrito place, or fast asleep immediately, but it was satisfying. the only exception (which was still satisfying) was on wednesday, when there was a show at the space: daniel higgs, arrington de dionyso, mgm grand, querent.

querent is natalja from the dirt pals, singing into a looping and pitch-shifting pedal array, totally beautiful and actual words. daniel higgs played ornery christian mystic to a skeptical crowd of blissful admirers, reading off of a huge scroll and singing all of his words super-hard, like an incantation. arrington played bass clarinet, various other blowing-into things, and finally just voice, in a hypnotic pitch-drift throat singing method, and stared at people. mgm grand was a dance troupe that was a total waste of a lot of time– tons of dead time watching the three members look at each other as if to say “are we still doing this? oh, we are? ok”. absolutely no ideas or emotion or anything, and everyone corralled into an uncomfortable environment. really not good, and really long, like 40 minutes. after that show i raced over to the stand-up comedy show at as220, which i only caught the last part of (which made me madder at the dance troupe for wasting my time). luckily the last act was muffy, and she totally destroyed, absolutely flawless. incredible. everyone had such hi NRG that afterwards, like a 90s hardcore show, we went to IHOP. afterwhich at 2:30 i went right back to work.

the opening on friday night was after much much very last-minute work and little sleep and lots of stupid coffee. there was a decent crowd– queenie and snowflake were there, and i got to pass on these nicknames that they would never introduce themselves by to others. at the last minute (5am the previous night) i made a secondary installation, called “OUR FIRST MILLION”, which took me all of 10 minutes to put together and like everything i consider frivolous (but is maybe better described as “natural”), it got a lot of kind words, despite being kind of just a cheap joke.

MT pointed out on the poster that the show was made possible though no arts organizations, only through “the idea that anything is possible”. but i have to give special super-huge thanks to the joanne hart foundation, dave howl land, and meredith younger, who all provided crucial assists that i could not have done without, and did so with a “yeah, duh” mien. also thanks to the dirt pals, champion suppliers of windowless sleeping nooks and oatmeal!

pictures relevant to this entire post here.

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

well, sure enough a few days go by and my memory’s completely shot. let’s see what we can dredge up, eh?

friday one of my favorite bands, best friends forever played at the go go with the terribles, dead mom the dog (previously the foundation), and bob carlton. i was bummed because i didn’t get asked to play, despite being requested by the bffs, but then the terribles played my song “jla dreamer” and i sang and it felt great to sing for everyone. none can keep me down but me! BFF played last year at this time and it ruled, this time it was even better because everyone knew all the words, and people went super-crazy. they’re like the smiths to me, lots of clever lines about crushes, and everyone clutching at their own shirt and rolling their eyes back.

the next day they came to the shoppe and filmed some scenes for the cosby show idea, which is a little more than halfway through in the filming department, and is going on hiatus so i can do other things with my life. i’m giving myself two weeks from now to have a teaser commercial up on youtube, a few edited scenes, with the backdrops and laughtracks and everything. again, what we have so far is really really really awesome. andy fish is going to help me stage the premiere at the worcester art museum, a prospect i am delighted about.

saturday after work we went to the king st block party, which had as many people and as much music as last year, but everything suffered from lack of a bumpin’ sound system– speakers couldn’t be heard, music didn’t inspire dance. so let a lesson be took: bump it. slept over at purtle’s and all the next day hung out with him and j9, just shooting the shit and almost not going outside, which ended up driving everyone crazy. that night drove to providence for a terribles show at the intersection of batty and vermin st (no joke!) that had to get moved due to a trying-to-sleep baby. the car was briefly broke down and had to be pushed slightly uphill, a task that proved impossible due to the fact that it was biodiesel and the whole backend was greasy and slippery from condensed china lantern vapors. uh, everything was fine with it, ultimately– no worries.

got some more books, including the kirby bio “king of comics” (which is not exactly exceptional but is honorable and necessary and has more than a few amazing pages) and the incredible “rationale of the dirty joke” by g legman. i first learned about this latter book in this article (a good a place to start as any) from the new yorker some years ago. i remember quoting this specifically, but i’m unable to search out wherein i did:

“Legman was a handsome man, with thick dark hair, blue eyes, and a strong nose; because of chronic poverty, he was typically dressed in threadbare clothes with a length of rope for a belt. Friends describe him as tetchy and difficult, but exhilarating to be around. Academics were put off by this autodidact from the murky demimonde, whose rambling prose was full of marginal jeremiads. Legman, in turn, was disdainful of folklorists with Ph.D.s, whom he called “Phudniks” and “cacademics.” Yet, by freely making available to them materials that academic journals were afraid to publish, he helped establish erotic folklore as a respectable subject for scholarly study.”

the book is a tremendous work cataloging thousands of dirty jokes in their original dialects and providing their lineage across time and space, all in a very erudite but readable and even charming manner. in other words, it’s pretty much perfect. in addition to being the world’s foremost scholar of erotic folklore, legman was also instrumental in introducing the art of origami to the west, and claims to have invented both the slogan “make love not war” (possible), and the vibrating dildo (most certainly false). truly a character for the ages. here’s another nice article on our man, here’s his wikipedia entry.

oh yeah, and i saw DP last night and he told me he’s got a new band called “pregnant polaroids” and could they buy some songs off of me. big tiiiiiiiime…

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.

SKIMASK. this was the other night. it’s pretty rare that i’m ever down on anything on the website, but boy, did i have a bad time at this show! skimask played long enough for various people in the band to get bored and walk away– if it had been five minutes i would have loved it, but when you’re in the band and you’re over it, that’s a good cue for me to be over it too. then defneg played and i was having a good time, and some people who had no idea what was happening were busting up, but then they did this austin powers vs borat party impersonations battle, and this is funny when you write it down, but these are such strong indicators of a bad time, i just had a bad time. next up was a guy that tiffiniy and johanna knew from new orleans, he kept complaining about the sound and talking about how awkward things were– guy, this doesn’t help! also he had previously rubbed me the wrong way a few days prior when he came in the store and said it was funky, then on the way out asked first little andrew and then me if there was anything he could get at the store that was “weird and neat and crazy but also totally practical”. andrew god bless him said with mild distain, “uh… anything?”. i didn’t hear this previous exchange and when he asked me i just straight up told him “nope, nothing! sorry dude!”. later he made a “‘fake’ homophobia” remark, i was like “are you talking about me?” “uh, no…” “oh, because i’m gay, and you said something was gay, so i figured you were talking about me” “uh… no…. uh, i’m not… i was just…”. this happens a lot, i encourage using this response regardless of your identity. anyway, next was a comedian that kept messing up his own jokes, and he could not handle any amount of heckling, he was just like “hey, come on…”. all in all, a waste of time. full disclosure, i was already tense over other shit involving the show, so sorry if i was a grouch to anyone. after the comedian one of the bands from the show across town (which got canceled for reasons unknown to me) started playing in the living room, and i wanted to see them, but i just had to go home.

also, bengeorge7, noise nomads, and cashman/weston were all on the bill erroneously, so don’t be mad at them for not coming.

and to end on a positive, it’s always great to hang out with gwm and d$ and crystal ree, and this was no exception.

last wednesday’s power day was so righteous. blister pack was great, kpars’ first band playing guitar, and they had a song quoting jonny houston– “i like it, it tastes good, i have one.”. also they played “where are they now?” and i lost my mind yelling the names of people that moved out of worcester. bone zone and terribles are a classic one two, nothing surprising but everyone was playing as hard as they could. the terribles had fresnel lenses hanging in front of their microphones, so their screaming faces dwarfed their miserable bodies. genesis climber was two basses and drums, and one of the bass players knows old friends by their old old names, a nice surprise. very prog, ripping for days. at one point someone called out for rise above, but they didn’t know the words so dominic jumped up perfect and in a pinch. i realized only later that all their songs are about ascension. black rainbow killed it. lots of fun, lots of moving around, everyone going nuts all night. i even went swimming afterwards (and possibly caught a pond infection in my throat). in the morning, breakfast in the fashion.

today (ssaturday) at HBML we’re doing another silk screen day. the image is a geisha applying make up to her tense face, but i blanked out all the patterns on her clothing, so you can color it in with the pattern of your choice post hoc. i will have some fabric markers there for this purpose, although i don’t know about drying times. hustling all day yesterday to prepare a zine for the event, or at least a little one-sheet, about different patterns and their meanings, japanese and otherwise, but my nice, perfect for this applictation, “japanese patterns” book is MIA. i even tore apart my room, in a way that made it more orderly even, to no avail. very frustrating. i tried to not do everything super last minute this time, but here it is, nigh-on to the last minute…

you know when it’s hot all day and then it rains way hard and it’s awesome but you say well, it’s awesome but i’m happy i’m not out there and then you’re like wait, am i? and then you’re like no? that happened the other day but by the time i had emptied my pockets of everything ruinable (everything except soda money and keys) the rain had really let up to a degree that a mythical regular person would enjoy walking in and stubborn in my resolve i walked a really long way away from my point of departure until it hammered down again and mission accomplished. it was cool, i used to walk late at night a lot, this was like that except it didn’t make me depressed. i walked all the way to the 7 11 near my old house for a suicide soda, which i’m sure helped to elevate the mood, although also someone told me about ionizing properties of falling droplets of water that cause your feelings to better but now that i write it down and look at it, that seems like pretty bogue science. ok, maybe it’s just this, which we all know: there’s a certain flavor of “dumb + confusing + valueless” fun that, when realized, is a fine draught of amiable meaninglessness.

and sspeaking of no-wrong-answerhood, last night’s incisor / tinsel teeth / nadir show was a ripper with lots of fake blood and white clothing and masks and nice dresses. mike’s new pedal pooped out so even though we practiced a hundred times (aka 4 times) the universe conspired once again to sound us like ten eggs in a box in a swamp, WHICH IS FINE. nadir has a 7″ out, which rules, and it’s two different genres if you play it on 45 (as intended) or 33 1/3. tinsel teeth was good although it’s awkward to watch someone’s unpicked wedgie.

sold more t shirts to the comic book store, so even though i’m pretty strapped for cash, i got some awesome comics (utilizing the player’s discount that is “payment in trade”). i got 2 paperbacks of old family circus (”PEACE, MOMMY, PEACE!” (1969) and “WANNA BE SMILED AT?” (1970)), 2 issues of jack kirby’s 2001 comic, and the new fantagraphics book of the comics of lyonel feininger. the family circus books are really good– better design than later ones and the jokes seem less trite maybe, or you maybe you think they’re more “classic” or whatever; the 2001 comics are pretty nuts– a ten issue series filling in the gaps between the apes and the spacemen in batshit kirby style; the feininger stuff is, duh, awesome. i’ll try to do a full review once i digest a little.

tomorrow is my earth day. i will be entering my 30th year, continuing my infinitesimal creep towards death.

inthe past few days i’ve been doing a fair amount and being lazy about writing and then remembering that when i don’t write i get sort of crazy. sunday was bratfest, i missed opie and king tuff’s band PHASED OUT but still had a fun time, hanging out with dan wars, jackie susanne, and a miscellany of locals and nigh-locals. KT has another band called NAM BUDDIES that is full grunge riffers, led by some 17 year old baggy pants, it was awesome, as was RUTHIE.

deer tick / jana hunter show was great. jjbb also played, as did a lady with a totally fake shampoo commercial singing accent, who coasted through a brief set on popular themes. jana added phrase sampler looping pedals to her repertoire, and even though those things usually rub me the wrong way, this time it was perfect. i gripped the new record, which is as the last one: good. deer tick played a bunch of new songs that are great and spotlight his incredible use of vocal overtones. also this line: “i don’t want to be a millionaire / if it’s only a million of one thing”.

me and JK and jay skonietch went to see boris at the middle east, and it was pretty boring. i like boris but my buttons just didn’t get pushed. plus it’s weird now seeing a big show with a stage and lights and everything. so mediated. also matt carroll’s brother band opened up and were followed by a very similar band: BORING. and not even actively boring, like a drone band or something. this was just rock music with nothing going for it, no personality or weird twists. jimmy’s a nice guy, but this was just boring rockers boringly rocking, no finesse, no lack of finesse, no transgression, no refinement.

the yoni show was fun, i played a computer set, all sine wave cultivation and reading from “remembrance of things past” (or whatever you want to call it), which i threatened to do and then realized that was my best idea at the moment. as promised, yoni played for a long-ass time, it was awesome and matt coe was in heaven starting from the soundcheck.

silk screen saturday last weekend at the shop, the deisgn was a t rex stomping on a gas station labeled “HBML”, under which it said “FOREVER”. someone asked me what it meant and i said “either ‘HBML FOREVER’ or ‘PICTURE A T REX STOMPING ON A JUNK SHOPPE FOREVER’”. i’ll be making a few extras on white shirts with spray paint accents, look for them next week.

this has been fujichia core dump, an essential part of fujichia minutia reportage.

kar trouble was right– my problem of the past few days, of fogginess and sluggishness and crabbiness and whatnot, was by and large hydration. late this afternoon commenced the drinking of many tap waters and the return of the feeling “OK”.

not that the past few were without merit– yesterday when i finally left the house me and baby bear went and got some technical pizzas ($2 smalls on tuesday), then walked around elm park looking at the new public sculpture installation, all of which is pretty great, and boy are we kicking ourselves for each talking ourselves out of it when the email arrived. boo us! my favorite piece was the small garden of enormous, striated buttplugs. also good was the three burned wooden obelisks crawling with all color of tiny insect, and the far-away listening tube for spying on park bench mashers and playground bullies. en route we saw jon “the prince of worcester” shirley, and all together we set up our own sculpture in the park, which was an artificial christmas tree we found on the sidewalk in a box. jon was on his way to look for the huge turtle that lives in the pond, and then he did look for it, and then he found it, and it was great– maybe three feet from nose to tail, with a head as big as a flatiron. we also saw several turtles of a more manageable size, and ducks, and a heron, and those fish that eat your spit when you spit in the water (you know, stupid fish). drove in with nik and jose lynn to providence, for that show at the stairwell, which was fun but as implied above, i was pretty out of it. eli keszler played solo drum set with bells and bowed cymbals, totally awesome and inspiring, as it was the last time. the other bands were on tour together, and it was a good tite jazz band called “other people do the killing”, and then that same band but with a singer, which was called “puttin’ on the ritz”. it helped that it was a beautiful night outside with fresh salad on a sidewalk table, but this second act really cleared the room, and even i eventually left– not offensive or actionable, just one joke that isn’t funny anymore over and over again, the joke being “inept lounge singer”. pretty miserable really, but the band, i thought, was great. i played not great, messing up a lot and to some degree “just getting it over with”, but there were times i forgot who and where i was and what i was doing and why, and how i got there, and that made it all worthwhile. again, super out of it, feeling better now.

tonight’s show ruled hell hard. i didn’t play any exactly new ssongs but no one seemed to mind, annikki dawn was indeed “that lady with the tiny guitar who sings beautiful and… kind of medieval?”, diego perez was perfect and whimsical and approachable and glib, and geez, ID M THEFTABLE was awesome! sadly he had car trouble and broke down a few blocks from the house, but he decided to play “full acoustic” instead, and it blew everyone away. his act is “extended vocal technique”– lots of gargle, throat-clear, inward singing, stuff like that, organized in a freeform fashion and with playful changes in density, and also conducting the audience to “do as i do” when his hand raised. in my mind the audience participation “get everyone involved” angle is what pushed everything from being interesting to being important, a real group thought ur-vibe. i always get nervous booking a noise sshow, or a show with a noise act, but thus far (and remember that i know how to choose ‘em) it’s been gnagbusters all around, with folks i think won’t be into it getting waay into it. i feel like this was a big show for a lot of people. lovelife. out!

dan burke is a professional soul singer and his band is called “the orange ocean“. ssaturday they had a big cd release party in a weird downtown office, it ruled. the music is kind of like, i don’t know, 70s piano pop? i kept giggling the whole night, thinking about the cops showing up and being super super confused by a bunch of stunners from the nonprofit sector party-lit by red lights and robotic globes, mellow choogling to classic keyboard patches while the cops silently turn around and walk out, or sometimes don’t even leave the elevator, and a dog raises its dog eyebrow, whimpers maybe. a quest for aggression harshed.

some notes:

• my girls from the art supply store were there, they flowed me drinks flowed to them by a be-flirted and inebriated barkeep.

• there was a duck yao table of food items for sale. i had to watch it while someone smoked a cigarette, so i wrote party slogans on the underside of all the hors d’oeuvre plates: “I’M ‘PREPARED’ FOR ‘WHATEVER’” “I SEE YOU SEEING ME” “HEY, SHUT UP”.
• JK the sensual vampiya told a guy crowd-scanning with a digicam “any pictures that have my face on them, you have to delete”. i said “yeah, he has a… thing” real nebulous and the guy said “oh yeah, totally! no problem!”. later: “i feel like this is both being an asshole and being reasonable.” i agree! also, JK made a joke about goethe and his theory of colors, then at least an hour passes before a guy none of us had ever seen turns to us and makes the same joke! i was like, are you fucking kidding me? as it turns out, neither of them had read the book, they just both knew that it was “important”. cherry, baby.
• dan burke is a great guy who is really good at what he does and what he does is something i wouldn’t necessarily seek out, but it’s delightful and a wonder to behold. guys, i’m not saying it’s “cute” or “quaint”, and i’m not trying to use world music language here. but let’s be frank: i left my zone. and: i had a super fun time in the traditional custom. and: i saw the strangeness of a border area and: that strangeness was cowed where all rivers meet. i know, this is like “duh”. but again– a squatted office, party heels, tom petty, cape codders, spinning dance lights, spray paint, sitting on the fire escape above the city with a beautiful manager, where the DJs still play “hey ya”. all one or none!

pictured above is LA in his natural state. i’m thinking of getting a photo hosting community thing– anyone have any recommendations?