Quill and Squalor

"'Cause you shine on me wherever you are."

2010-03-24T12:23:00.000-07:00

Lourdes Leon (Madonna's daughter) is my favorite child of the moment; a true baby Frida whom I illustrated (above) ages ago:

Tiny Upsets. Hairline Fractures.

2010-03-22T10:09:00.000-07:00

Mating choices:I asked David Lynch (transcendental meditation aficionado) a question. He answered. That was a pretty good day.
After a few years of mustachioed tomfoolery for the femme set, I see that the trend will not die anytime soon. I see that by donning these lip caterpillars we are staking a claim on surrealist stomping grounds. We are Lady Brett Ashley under the influence and Dalí trannies.
I applied to two grad schools this past winter; one just rejected me. This type of rejection feels like getting punched in the heart and stomach by a 6-year-old. Not life threatening, silly even; a feeling you fight with a blanket of pride. Waiting...

"Wild Tigers I Have Known"

2010-03-20T07:14:00.000-07:00

I have been neglecting my post. I have been neglecting my liver, my timezones, the neurons I've trusted and all in search of a new story. Curiosity should have killed me long ago. The circumstances of my most recent absence call for this dramatic and vague language: forgive me. Just back from London and Ireland and now investing, once again, in my mental faculties.
Before leaving NYC, had the chance to listen to and visit with lovely friend Emily Jane White:
Her new album is a dark study of Victorian America.
THEN to London to splatter the town with Ladeenz and trash the Park Plaza. I stopped taking pictures for 9 days after this:
I have video footage to come of donkeys and old men who once ate with Frank Sinatra and drinking and rivers and the flora that line them. Ireland is a special, beautiful country that I quasi-regret defiling. Ballynahinch Castle was the greatest highlight, a place where you could count every surrounding sound on 7 fingers:And after the jump, an exercise in automatic writing I did in Dublin during one of my more bleak moments (very obviously unedited and juvenile but so be it; I'm no poet. Inspired by an amazing WB Yeats exhibition).

If I deign to start I’m just continuing to weave a bite to capture the thing which will not go unnamed as it must be spread like that pâté.

You lied about the black pudding which is just as full of blood as my heart before the plane took off.

We are splitting all the while.

We are tiny as sentences, tiny as a fraction of a full stop.

You split me on the four-post bed

And was it enough,

Over the low river with its 2, 4, 5, 7 sounds,

Before pawning me off on the stoner with knowledge of nearby bikes.

I should have stayed in the castle, I see that now.

I see that now.

And still I left for this Euro money-sucking whore called Dublin

Whose veins are the color of Guinness shits

But whose heart I still love and hold and forgive

For like her, like us, you took something you perceived a gem and polished it until you came.

What is it and how have I been drawn on this paper as a caricature?

But the drawing is the only real thing, the unchanging truth and I am still walking.

I am still the absence of the field.

I am still the dreamer being treaded upon.

Noisy and final and fighting for a relieving moan, I ached and sang Nina Simone

And ate the tablets that let me acquiesce and WAS I BIG OR WAS I SMALL

And did it happen at all?

I know the past has set sail and I know nothing but the stamp of time has faded and still the other, the dark prince, the Cheshire cat of fucking without soul (there is no soul you and I will say)…

You still sit in a crib in my brain wanting a breast so you can, so I will…

This daze will not be lifted, nothing will be returned.

There is only the perpetual motion of nightmares where I squeeze foreign bodies from my skin like small tricycles covered in mucous and long strands of congealed excess.

Scratching my scalp, a hand in pain, you took what I gave you and nothing’s the same.

Do I lie too?

"Still taking my time to perfect the beat. And I still got love for the streets."

2010-03-02T22:45:00.000-08:00

In spite and because of the muddy snow, crisp wind, fur faced boys, furtive glances and toppling trash bags lining the sidewalks: I LOVE NEW YORK.
It's good to be back and swinging even if it's only for 9 days. Found out I might be interviewing Bret Michaels and that I am definitely seeing Christian Death in London on Tuesday night.

Something about the year of the tiger, kicking habits, ditching the bleach, casting a net over my dilettante tendencies and catching gold; something about the culmination of all the things that have ever happened to me my entire life plus plans for a few more; something about getting bendy and sewing patches and spooning on ledges or tripping the light fantastic; something about the rubbing of these occurences together has conspired to make me one of the top 50 happiest people on earth (at least).

In the face of disappointment, pay your dues with a light heart and some earnest honesty and the perpetual rewards become increasingly obvious.

Excuse this love letter to the universe if you will.

Celluloid Consumption

2010-02-26T12:56:00.000-08:00

When I get depressed I watch A LOT of movies; sometimes four a day. These are some highlights from last week's downtime.
Lovely little Byrne flick: True Stories. Choreographed lit-up dinner! Also, Byrne is fucking adorable/edible.Must have watched this (my favorite) episode six times. "Twin Peaks" duh.
Poor lost Peter Sellers. Back when pot made you "insane". I Love You Alice B. Toklas also pushed me to research the history of weed brownies (Alice, Gertrude Stein's lover, included Brion Gysin's recipe for "Haschich Fudge" in her memoir/cookbook).
And to sum it up, I adore this shot from the end of Fletch.
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But to brighten the day, buddies Dios have come out with a long-awaited awesome new record, check it.

"It's the greatest bed I've ever seen. And I've seen a lot of beds."

2010-02-24T18:52:00.000-08:00

"Butterflies Are Free" is my jam right now. What a great script! I love when the blind dude is giving a once over to Goldie's face and is appalled by her vintage bump-it and fake eyelashes. Well, appalled isn't exactly right, surprised would suffice. Goldie is my heroine in terms of combining sex appeal with humor. The blond explosion and doe eyes certainly didn't curtail being typecast as a flighty dreamer for so long but why would that matter when she'd cornered the market?

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SFMOMA proved a delight.
I took a long walk past the Golden Gate Bridge and sweat like I don't know, something that sweats a lot. Looks like I have a headband on here? Or I'm balding? I am the most pale creature to get lost among the cliff bunkers.

AND HOLY SHIT I FLY BACK TO NEW YORK ON SATURDAY NIGHT

"Who wants to play Roman Soldier that lives inside of me?"

2010-02-15T12:36:00.000-08:00

OK, I never write about food and have only occasionally taken photos of what I've consumed. I get really embarrassed by food blogs and Facebook meal/cooking updates even though I'm fascinated with America's obsession with an everyman's culinary revolution. My discomfort probably stems from some deep-seated annoyance over the hyper self-indulgence of photographing every plate one makes with that "look at what I can do!" attitude (as I write my hyper self-indulgent blog entries). Anyway, I rarely cook but when I do, I'm pleasantly surprised with the results. Although this photo is terrible and gives the food a nice 70's Polaroid tint, these stuffed, baked bell peppers I made for the SF babies were radical (thanks Rita).***********
There's something that I really like about delving into cultural oddities/milestones/cult-classics late in the game. If you acknowledge that the culture of your own time will be impossible to ignore, it's easy to make definitive decisions about beginning the research and absorption of works from bygone eras (I am also in a "Twin Peaks" phase). On Valentines day, I fell in love with Christian Death. Perfect timing as I am surrounded with lifelong fans (meaning lots of goth and deathrock records with which to wile away the fog hours).

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And apparently kids in the 21-25 age sector are sick of us 27-29 year olds going on about how old we are.
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Back to grad school application essay shootmeinthehead.

"have you reckon'd the earth much?"

2010-02-14T10:33:00.000-08:00

Once, many years ago when I was smitten with a fro-genius and he was smitten with me, we embarked on a journey to the Queen Mary (a journey ten minutes from our respective apartments). You see, George Noory, the Coast to Coast radio host, was visiting the ship during some haunted weekend and as fans of late night conspiracies and spooky vessels it was on.
After exploring the depths of that great old beauty, finding ghosts where whiskey made them visible, we did the Noory photo-op and prepared to head out to some innocuous and charming evening. Only not so much.

It's strange when these memories come back to me. It's all flesh and drunken dancing and the loss of individual conscience. Apparently, Noory had flown out a very young lover of his from the Midwest and just as quickly as she'd arrive, he'd had enough. I couldn't say I necessarily blamed the old dude: her naïvete was grating. With only a roller suitcase and a handful of crocodile tears, she stood in the deserted parking lot beside the ship and attempted to hail a cab. And how could we leave her there? All pink velour tracksuit, coming down from her Hawaiian Tropic pageant high and without a penny to her name (Noory had her wallet).
We took the gal back to my studio where dude made grilled cheese sandwiches while she got comfortable (which is to say topless). Tan as the day is long and with fake breasts so static you felt time was freezing, she tried on all my costume jewelry and paraded across the hardwood. At the time and even now, it didn't strike me as bizarre. It struck me as a moment shaped by a very specific modern savagery. I mean, there dude was in the kitchen cooking for us, swilling off some now-forgotten bottle while we banged on phantom drums and perfected our figure eights. Now he and I didn't fancy ourselves the type of people who invited plastic fantastics into our living quarters but that was what was just so spectacular about the evening; there was some sort of lovely equalizing that took shape (a process which I suppose cheese and alcohol had informed).
After the sandwiches, we all cuddled up on my murphy bed and passed out like three magnetic 's's.
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An excellent documentary on Henrietta Lacks (HeLa), the women whose cells traversed the planet and momentarily confounded molecular biologists. I can't wait to read the book on her that just came out.
http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/the-way-of-all-flesh/
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Been hanging out with Whitman's "Song of Myself" and what a fucking joy:

Houses and rooms are full of perfumes, the shelves are crowded with
perfumes,
I breathe the fragrance myself and know it and like it,
The distillation would intoxicate me also, but I shall not let it.
The atmosphere is not a perfume, it has no taste of the
distillation, it is odorless,
It is for my mouth forever, I am in love with it,
I will go to the bank by the wood and become undisguised and naked,
I am mad for it to be in contact with me.
The smoke of my own breath,
Echoes, ripples, buzz'd whispers, love-root, silk-thread, crotch and
vine,
My respiration and inspiration, the beating of my heart, the passing
of blood and air through my lungs,
The sniff of green leaves and dry leaves, and of the shore and
dark-color'd sea-rocks, and of hay in the barn,
The sound of the belch'd words of my voice loos'd to the eddies of
the wind,
A few light kisses, a few embraces, a reaching around of arms,
The play of shine and shade on the trees as the supple boughs wag,
The delight alone or in the rush of the streets, or along the fields
and hill-sides,
The feeling of health, the full-noon trill, the song of me rising
from bed and meeting the sun.
Have you reckon'd a thousand acres much? have you reckon'd the
earth much?
Have you practis'd so long to learn to read?
Have you felt so proud to get at the meaning of poems?

"Every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you."

2010-02-13T19:30:00.000-08:00

Stiletto fashion show in the garage. Jeans, heels and car parts! Holy holy gross beauty. Gramps deemed 'em whorish and they now occupy a section of the giant suitcase I've been carting around these past couple months. Every time I look at them I laugh like I'm watching a sitcom; all guilty pleasure wriggling. Get me back to New York and how.But first, Louisiana and the requisite New Orleans gator shot. Loved eating something so violent.
We smelled of Barack&Michelle Obama, Pepsi Cola, Kush, Cool Water or carcinogen inclined 14-year-olds.
At the Spotted Cat, a stand-up jazz joint, Torie and I fell in love with two different washboard players. We played piano, Lindy Hopped and sang with dudes ranging from 21 to 78 until the bartender threw us out. A warm rain fell as we stumbled back to the condo.
Oh, the Superbowl happened and changed the charming city into a post-apocalyptic, energy-drink and Hurricane fueled nightmare of vomit and belligerence. All this Bacchanalian joy flashing bright from the cosmic beams of hovering helicopters and police motorcycle headlights; several hundred disjointed sirens screamed over incessant tap-dancing and swamp beats.
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In light of the recent McQueen tragedy, I've found myself revisiting his "discoverer", Isabella Blow. Appropriately, I have been re-inspired by both of these fallen catalysts. They really understood the importance of perfectly crafted spectacle and magic in fashion, creating and becoming kinetic sculptures that were gifts to people with eyes and imaginations. Such a bummer.

The Big Easy

2010-02-06T19:10:00.000-08:00

News to come shortly...SNAKES>GRIZZLY BEARS>SHARKS>SCORPIONS>SPIDERS>ALLEYS>GETTING ON THE OFF-RAMP>PANIC ATTACKS>STIS>PUBLIC SPEAKING>TELEVISION>
WHAT THE HUBBLE HAS REVEALED>

(things i'm afraid of)

"All universal moral principles are idle fancies."

2010-02-02T15:28:00.000-08:00

A recent email exchange from a hilarious, drunk Irish man I had the briefest of dalliances with last spring:
Aerin: I need a traveling therapist for March business trip to Berlin, London, Dublin. Work pays. u up? Apologies for being out of my mind last time we met. I've calmed down, slightly. But if you come along, I think we might make it a laugh. If not up for it, just let me know. I have this abiding feeling that life is happening..........and you're suitably deranged to make this trip fun........

As I am trying to avoid potentially sticky situations for the time being and abhor Indian givers, I consulted a male buddy for advice and responded in kind:
You know, I would love to be yer sidekick in this international asskicking but I have to let you know that I'm not in a position to drop trou. If you would settle fir a lovely, insane platonic partner, I'm your gal.

To which he rebutted:
Platonic partner? Au contraire, mon cherie. I am more libertine in my disposition. I had visions of making it a condition of your return ticket that you be naked for at least 90% of the trip. But am willing to compromise.

Being a libertine myself, I do not easily commit to anything. And so I forwarded my buddy's take on the whole thing:
I sent yr response to a dear friend who replied: Tell him he's been reading too much Henry Miller! Well, it will be his loss if he doesn't want you to still go. Orgasms are fleeting but the pleasures of staggering around Europe with a philosophical partner? Forget about it! Tell him he can find plenty of girls who'll screw to go with him, but how many of them can talk until dawn about what it's all really about?

And of course:
I have substantially resolved the human condition to my satisfaction, for now. Your company was intended to unburden me (and you), not the contrary.......

I guess I'll have to stick to buying my own plane tickets to Europe :(.

3 months, 2 break-ups, 1 ingested turkey heart

2010-01-31T22:51:00.000-08:00

You know what, fuck you (gag) AND you (who will never read this and with whom I shall no doubt one day be reconciled). I am done.

Wow, that feels nice.
And for all you other beauties out there whom I still adore, the silent minority, here is a little psychedelic video I put together a few days ago. It's really a love letter to some CA friends and also a Final Cut practice with delightfully cheesy effects.

Annual Homecoming from Erin Lee Smith on Vimeo.

"I don't care if I never get back..."

2010-01-30T22:47:00.000-08:00

I briefly dated this dude (who was recently traded to the White Sox) in high school. Every time I see my uncle (the veteran baseball coach for CSUS) at a family function, he never fails to remind me of the mistake I made in breaking things off with the boy. M is an amazing and hilarious guy but I had my eyes on someone else (whom I ended up dating for 6 years) at the time. When I get over how annoying -and counterproductive- my uncle's remarks are, I find that imagining myself as a pro-athlete's gal is a fun way to fall asleep; like, would M let me paint Italian quotes on the kitchen walls during an all night bender? Would he like it if I drove my black El Camino with the tan leather interior to one of his games? My Labrador donning a red bandanna in the front seat? Would my big proud face explode across the jumbo-tron whenever he hit a home run? It's all just one more example of the strange ways existence works itself out.
P.S. How scary is that photo?

"I'm tired of raising dogs; I want to raise babies."

2010-01-28T16:31:00.000-08:00

That's what my mom told my dad in the parking lot after she got off work the other night. What she meant was grandbabies. In her idling car with the headlights on, they discussed me. My dad called me a butterfly (to which I take offense) and attempted to enlighten his ex-wife on my actions to some avail. Relating the tale back to me in the mobile home he occupies, he called my mom a worker drone and the most beautiful girl he's ever seen. Nothing has been resolved.
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I've been sleeping in the "little house" out back at the grandparent's. Pretty sweet setup. Grandma: "Ernie is staying in the other bed tonight."
"Ernie?"
"You know Ernie, the guy with the shaved head and the three pit bulls."
Oh cool.
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A few weeks ago I went to shoot some B-roll in the hills for the Dad doc. Pop's friend Terry let Tom and I shoot his handgun. Neither of us hit the Sobe bottle balanced on a rock but we did develop a new understanding of bullet force.

Tom and Erin Shoot Their First Gun from Erin Lee Smith on Vimeo.

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Dad went to school with a David Lynch. Got me remembering this photo. Dream couple.

Yep.

2010-01-26T20:51:00.001-08:00

"Drinking is an emotional thing. It joggles you out of everyday life, out of everything being the same. It yanks you out of your body and your mind and throws you against the wall. I have the feeling that drinking is a form of suicide where you're allowed to return to life and begin all over the next day. It's like killing yourself, and then you're reborn. I guess I've lived about ten or fifteen thousand lives now."

जय गुरुदेव ॐ (Jai guru deva om)

2010-01-26T19:38:00.000-08:00

"CAN I CATCH A BREAK?????" and more tales of unhampered Californian life.On the fringes of my grandparent's estate lay the holy houses of bumbling vagrants. They were at work (importuning on the interstate) when I snapped this shot during a walk.

At the Malibu Getty, I dove into some Ancient Greek mimesis. I'm not usually a fan of the kid's areas of museums (surprisingly) but the Getty knows what's up.
Torie let me shack up at her Venice Beach apt. for a week. I had a shit-ton of editing to do and thanked the storm for keeping me indoors (for the most part; I was still able to become the visiting pool shark). One night, during a bittersweet drug-drunk, we luge'd on skateboards through sandy sidewalk puddles. It is extremely rare to catch Venice in such a ghost town state.
Out in Slab City, my LA crew and I did some white-trash Riviera posing and proceeded to pass Gin with the best of the locals during an annual talent show (which we shall be performing at next year as The Date Shakes).
This photo reminds me of the first time I did mushrooms (in Venice actually). A shark-faced lunatic dude with giant sunglasses was blathering on about who cares while I saw myself in a reflected alternate universe; I (the me in his glasses) stood entirely alone in a martian landscape wearing a curious expression. The multi-verse idea calms me to no end.
Now continuing the Final Cut mastering phase of my life. Technology is being a friend but I like my real friends more.
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Oh, full-on website to come soon...!!

"The body is a big sagacity, a plurality with one sense, a war and a peace, a flock and a shepherd."

2010-01-25T19:55:00.000-08:00

You know what I want? A slice of cherry pie, a pair of cream-colored suede shoes, a nekked person on lockdown and for the world to SLOW DOWN PLEASE.
But for now, I've revisited Pandrogyny, carnal art, body modification, the idea that these "temples" are really just (pleasure)vessels and should be used as such. There's the simpleness of piercing a la Elaine Davidson:

Then there's the Parisian mother of all things scalpel and flesh, ORLAN:

and lastly, the modern-primitive being of the hour, Genesis P-Orridge:

While I don't have the means or desire to use my skin as a permanent canvas (to an extent that makes a larger statement), I can't help but be attracted to the notion of playing G-d by transforming out of "his" image into something phantasmagoric. This scratched and quivering shell is really just a gorgeous bird cage and the brain is a phoenix.

My jeans are the badges of my intent.

2010-01-20T00:10:00.001-08:00

Yeah, got a little interest in cultural trend relationships as of late: vampires, (sub)urban food blogs, the occult, fauna, Snuggies, western vs. eastern medicine, the Master Cleanse, Alice in Wonderland, etc. After a discussion regarding epic natural disaster films and their birthplace in the American, now global, psyche; I've been hip deep in synchronizations as though the kinetic collage of events, of products, would reveal more than just advertising trends...
I am getting to the point where connections are revealed with limited effort; beginning to find peace and elation under foreign rocks, from strange mouths and more. I've been away from New York for a little over a month and with the same left to go. Most moments here, in an uncharacteristically sopping California, I am still and full as wet laundry. I'm coveting this deadness and learning how to shape the solitude into something more lasting than held-hands and oxytocin or fire-escape ego-tripping through dawn; just any number of fleeting delicate moments that seem to deal with love (which is a distant friend at present). Of course this desire for heavier things is polarized and I'll be vying for sheer fabrics and bullshit soon enough.
I'm editing a documentary on my dad that is proving to be just one more dangling prism, the same old confusion, different glimpses into the multi-verse. Not to mention the many times I've been brought to tears by technological ineptitude.
NO MATTER< NO MATTER<
This weed hangover and lackluster Frasier episode, the coffee stain down my shirt, the diabetic cat curled like a question mark on my pillow: I know there are connections to be made here and now in the smallest of worlds.

"It's astounding, time is fleeting, madness takes its toll. But listen closely, not for very much longer, I've got to keep control"

2009-12-03T09:56:00.000-08:00

The small, glittering white-cloud explosion of a just-shattered fluorescent bulb sends me. You grab one of these puppies off the street, swing it back like a 9-iron (well, somewhere between an iron and a putter) and bring the bulb to the rim of the can. The result is heavenly: it is the absence of sound, a black-hole, the anti-noise of sucking on fiberglass and boots crunching fresh powder.
I was at Centre Pompidou a few months ago and had the pleasure of watching Spanish sculptor Cristina Iglesias' "Fluorescent Light Tubes Falling":
Although a pretty shitty video of a video, you can see that for someone enamored of breaking lights, this piece was orgasmic. I stood stunned, alone and silent. It was a guttural time machine that sent me from Paris to a New York City curb: the pavement wet like it was waiting to be filmed, a trash can full of possibility, a head full of whiskey and a riffraff guru to guide me.

I've been breaking a lot of objects lately but nothing compares to smashing the shit out of a defunct fluorescent. Something about breaking the already broken; must be tied to my German heritage.

"Life itself is the proper binge."

2009-09-25T09:56:00.000-07:00

This morning started out with a timid head, sore legs and a belly burning with hunger. There's something about Paris (maybe the fact that je ne parle pas francais, maybe because my travel partner Richard had returned to England) that had me acting like a meek hedgehog, my spikes replaced with q-tips. Barcelona was easy: I speak Spanish and the city has a user-friendly lay out. I blame both the Spanish hash and urban planners for melting the logistics part of my brain away. Streets and signs, hexagonal melee and organic thorough ways have me thoroughly confused. I walked a few blocks past Place de Clichy this afternoon, ate spaghetti de bolognese at a random cafe and decided I just could not be bothered with overt tourism. Thank god for secret parks where you can watch black (you don't say African-American here) nannies cradling and calling to the sweetest little French babes ever. I had my standard reoccurring moments of mental anguish that are always eclipsed by a sort of delusional elation: like the morphine drip traveling up the back of your neck and kissing your cerebellum. Maybe it's just life/travel anxiety, who cares. SO...what to be done but go to the French cinema and through a now obvious serendipity, purchase a ticket for Julie & Julia. One woman in Paris, one woman in New York, both trying to carve a niche for themselves but a little clueless as to how. Barring cliches, I could just kiss Nora Ephron right now. Seems all I needed was a moment of suspended disbelief, English with French subtitles, Meryl Streep, egotistical blog culture and to disappear in the dark comfort of the movie theatre.
I have emerged ready to conquer the city I love so well. Who knows, tomorrow I might even brave the slimy cat call cave of the Metro.

My Mom Made Me a Crazy

2009-09-10T15:20:00.000-07:00

As if the withdrawal from a mentally and emotionally draining romantic involvement weren't taxing enough, add the much appreciated drama of your mama leaving her two cents on the voicemail of the lover you just cut ties with.
I asked simply, "Mom, can you please block a certain number from being able to call me?" We share a family plan; it was the only way.
Understand that this person, this highly significant and detrimental man-child (though I don't think he even knew the levels and reaches of his presence in my life), was by no means stalking me (in fact, quite the opposite at times) and I did not fear for my life or have the desire to uproot it all and head to Kansas. No, I just wanted to disappear quietly and re-explore who I was before the great tidal wave of the lower east side drowned me. Basically, it was a pride issue, and when that has been injured, you can find me licking my wounds in the back of the den.
Cut to my 6 PM post work mad-dash through Times Square. Mom calls to tell me that she blocked the number, she added an international plan to my phone for my upcoming trip and, oh, she left a great little (unauthorized and definitely inappropriate) "stay away from my daughter" voicemail on dude's phone. GAh!!!!!!!!
How quickly we are chopped at the knees and made to be teens once more.
A great friend of mine remarked it was like wearing an outfit you're unsure of and just owning it. God knows I can do that.

Anyway, that was the day my mom made me into a 'crazy girl'.
The last of the warm days and it's time to put these babies away. I loved you summer, and how.

IV

2009-07-18T11:19:00.000-07:00

I shall forget you presently, my dear,
So make the most of this, your little day,
Your little month, your little half a year,
Ere I forget, or die, or move away,
And we are done forever; by and by
I shall forget you, as I said, but now,
If you entreat me with your loveliest lie
I will protest you with my favorite vow.
I would indeed that love were longer-lived,
And vows were not so brittle as they are,
But so it is, and nature has contrived
To struggle on without a break thus far,-
Whether or not we find what we are seeking
Is idle, biologically speaking.

-Edna St. Vincent Millay

"Freedom is nothing else but a chance to be better."

2009-07-15T15:18:00.000-07:00

Before leaving the empire for Mexican food and reptiles, there was the playing of poker on the roof below my bedroom window and the happy excess that constituted the 4th of July in Long Island.
This is just too easy (and beautiful). The Jamie and Rita suburban performance art piece.Armenian high school art teacher makes do with aquatic props.
We blushed at the station.
I had some pretty gummed-up quarters that I needed for laundry. Once I cleaned those, the heat was on and I boiled all of my change until each coin gleamed like the day it was born.
Winners of the world's longest staring contest and inhabitants of my kitchen.
On the LIRR we created profound mysteries the likes of which won't be appreciated until long after our ashes are photosynthesized into flamingo-shaped shrubbery.

Obsession with the Hidden

2009-07-10T10:09:00.000-07:00

A story in reverse. One of my last days in the 110 degree heat that is my homeland, the boys and I goat-skipped over rocks to get to the littlest stream with the biggest heart in Forest Falls. We built a dam, baked our heads and flesh then discussed the possibility of psychedelic mushrooms coming from outer space.
Lake Arrowhead was probably not M.C. Escher's inspiration for "Bird Fish Sky" but the resemblance to his famous tessellation was gorgeous.
Earlier in the week, my mammoth brother lifted me into a sort of Grecian/Native American salutary pose.
I have been wanting to cut my dad's hair for twenty fucking years!!! This is mid process; it killed me to continue but dad's not so hip to the indie/emo trend (thank god).
What is it about department stores that makes me so nervous and queasy?
Two dishes on my Grandma's kitchen counter. Top is a tuna salad/egg salad mix and the bottom is any one's guess. Variety is the laxative of life?
Rest assured when I baby-sit your children that the learning DOES NOT STOP; nothing but outdated books on cosmology by eccentric crippled geniuses for the little sponges.
Just after the heartland and headed for eerie inland empire. Love when the sky mirrors my brain and mimics Magritte (when I first saw the actual "The Sensitive Chord" painting, I Cried).
The bottom of my shopping bag in Sacramento.
Old Town beauty. That ziggurat in the back is a bank?
Had to go to the west coast to get a Connecticut t-shirt and a glimpse into life as a young mama.
And later, a conversation with my uncle (who "thinks" he went to New York once as a child). He begins:

"I had a brilliant thought I think."

"Oh yeah, what's that?"

"I think I'll get myself some nice shorts and a nice shirt."

"Today?"

"Well, the party's tomorrow."

"Come with us; we're about to run some errands. We'll get you something at Marshalls."

"What's that?"

"Don't worry, they have what you need."

He squatted on the patio and squinted toward the sun. I put my arm above my head exposing an ant colony of short dark hair.

"Maybe I should shave my armpits sometime this year."

"Oh god, please do."

I took a drag then waved my dying cigarette a foot in front of his face.

"Hey, where do you throw these when you're done?"

"I throw mine in the trash."

"Yeah? New York is my ashtray."

"New York is an ashtray."

I've begun darning my socks.

2009-06-28T09:58:00.000-07:00

All coffee and water and cat hair swirling at my feet. I went on a Netflix "Watch-it-now" binge that left me filled with "Norma Rae", a banal story of unrequited love called "Conversations with Other Women" and just wrapped up the cold story of two brother writers dealing with fame and psychoses, "Reprise". Hindsight has me wishing I'd altered the viewing order to end in triumph and perseverance instead of self-loathing and some kind of emotive intellectual pandering. Meh.
***********************************************
Post scimble-scambling with Rita; just like the symbiotic crocodile/bird relationship, she helps keep my molars clean and I eat her excellently prepared meals.At the under-the-sea Tip Top party for London Linda's arrival, Jamie told my future with streamer tape.Chess on Sullivan with the elusive Josh.
One moment you're contemplating all the ways this little nightmare will afford you the city's fortunes...
...and the next moment hot-pink spray paint quells your government aided dream. These lobsters speak Cantonese.
Moments like this remind me of my papa.
Finding your friend shaking a tail-feather on an abandoned underground dance floor is cause for more celebration. Also the night that MJ cashed in his ticket.
Of course the evening faded into a pre-school morning. I love the building as canvas.
And the body.
Blonde Redhead at Prospect Park was just magical; lightning without rain and dancing against the stage = true gold.
Presently I find myself in Northern California typing away until the family crawls out of their slumber caves. A large decrepit white cat with a tumour under her tongue just sat next to the monitor, meowed, then shook her head until she lambasted me with a snail-trail of drool. I think I'll have a banana chip now (why is it that only one out of every five banana chips are the good ones? the thin crispy ones that don't break your jaw?). Also, the coffee pot is broken and there isn't a cup to be found within walking distance. Suburban city layout, your complete disinterest in my scorn elicits applause.

"Pump it up when you don't really need it"

2009-06-22T13:38:00.000-07:00

I cannot start at the beginning nor the end of my travels so en media res will have to satiate the compulsion to put it all in here.
Listening to James Brown's kid, Altyrone Deno Brown. A baby Brown with more soul than child-time Michael Jackson...
Anyway...
Things are steep right now; they are. I have a 'case' under investigation, the soles of my shoes are fashionably post-great depression-esque, I'm living off of Snickers and coffee, sleep duration has grown to 11 hours a spell, 'future' is a most terrifying word and well, at the advice of my therapist I'm meditating on "when in doubt, do nothing".
Pretty sure this pic from last week sums up my present state (this is post DJing a bachelourette party in Connecticut hosted by the most vapid, dull women I've come into contact with in a while):
Rainy days are perfect for sock coordination and stand-up:
If you hang out in your room long enough, visitors will come. Sometimes they will be decked in furs of the finest quality:and sometimes they will hearken the 'zany era':Of course live vision shows this skyscape to be two million times more lovely than my camera could capture but there it was, a view we see on the daily, and somehow it was new and dark and clear and we just sighed "ahhhhhh":
I watched these two men (pink shirt=swoon) play chess for an hour as a zealot screamed into a microphone on the right and called our sins as filthy as menstrual rags. A young man (dressed in an (ironic) Amish fashion and seemingly rolling) kept interjecting maniacal screams about the martyr: "THIS MAN IS POISONING YOUR MIND!" "EVERY TIME HE MASTURBATES HE SUFFERS PSYCHOLOGICAL TRAUMA!"
Cupcakes with Iona made the days seem less about war and religion and more about interesting sugar combinations:
Earlier, Eric and I went on an epic walk. Here we find the lad ponderin':
I got lanky on a Roxy Paine sculpture:
This bookstore kitty protects the Jesus:
I willed an external reality that perfectly mimicked my internal one:
So, cut me some slack over this test broadcast. The days and my writing will grow brighter. I'm remembering the things that I love.

The patriarch calls silence on the topic of death and we all keep chewing.

2009-04-25T21:20:00.001-07:00

I am out bumbling around and have been accumulating the shit true life is made of (I suppose I'm implying that a life lived online can never be authentic for me. We're talking, what, ditching out on 40 hours a week spent screen diving?) and I've found it to be equal parts cheeseburgers, sun-block, text messages, art theory, crickets and longing. Not to forget the tiny pangs of anxiety which are quickly diminished once a greater, wider, more comprehensive outlook is achieved.
Anyway, I'm not tied to the computer having been laid off last week, dropped off in the coachella desert, back-country mosied to echo park and now sitting comfortably in my dad's track pants at the base of some looming and defiantly beautiful mountains. This computer is the cutest joke! Grandparents on the internet just makes me cheese up a bit.
So, next stop is recording some songs with Mochi then hopefully heading to Hawaii until the end of May to get some much needed writing hammered out.
Everything is wide open and gaping; the world and I are one large mouth. I miss New York but I'm happy to stave off my return until I've found the perfect gift to bring her.

more to come...

actin' a fool

2009-04-12T09:41:00.000-07:00

It's been one of those weeks where every turn, every conversation, every step out the front door has yielded some sort of New York praise. I'm getting high on the fact that I love where I live and finding myself seriously and sheepishly agreeing with Updike that a true New Yorker holds the “secret belief that people living anywhere else had to be, in some sense, kidding." The sun actually woke me up today; things are moving along.At rehab waiting for Bob. I thought about returning the diamond earrings I foolishly purchased (with fake money) a few weeks back. After discussing with Fatima that these blood rocks actually help me steer clear of certain ex-liquid-lovers, I think I'll keep 'em. If I don't treat myself, who will and blah blah.
Eating cantaloupe sent me back to a CA summer.
But the perfect cappuccino and coffee brought me right back home.
...and talks of the fates of families and what your lot is in life in Fatima's new apt. Will you always have money issues? Will your health be a constant concern? Will you break your back for love (yes)?
One day that cat will be a baby and then, with blue hair, how shall I presume?

We're sitting here and wondering what our dads are probably doing.

2009-04-10T22:12:00.001-07:00

Riley's dad is probably smoking a joint, listening to The Who, sitting on a found chair, a native american blanket draped over the back, waiting for his Japanese immigrant girlfriend to get off work.

Jenny's dad is probably sitting in his lazy boy recliner with the lights off, watching Tivo Formula One car racing, drinking red wine and tooting away.

My dad is probably smoking the world's smallest joint clasped in a roach clip then hitting golf balls out into a vast dirt field while the sun sets.

Eric's dad is probably asleep on a tear-stained pillow with a bible sitting on his chest.

Jamie's dad would probably be building a carburetor with chewed gum and a book of matches.

What is your dad probably doing?
*********************************************
here's a great video Richard did fer MoonwalkAirMilesDavis; documents my long hair eh!:

"For the eye altering, alters all..."

2009-04-08T20:33:00.000-07:00

So this might be cool. I was looking at photos from over the weekend and noticed that my eyes were coming out two different colors. Upon careful examination I realized I had 3 or 4 brown spots on my good eye (I was born legally blind in my left eye). I dig it; I'm calling it my tiger-eye. What I don't dig is my propensity to WebMD any little malady and thus set off a chain of irrational anxiety bombs. Here's what I've learned thus far: one in a million people get cancer from these lil eye freckles, they're actually called "choroidal nevi" - not nearly as exotic as "tiger-eye" and I need to wear sunglasses more often.
This got me thinking about Kate Bosworth's eyes:
Now, the deal with her is called sectoral heterochromia which, I have to admit, looks much cooler. Then I was reminded of the time I made a flier for my friend's band the spookfish and used the below photo of a wolf with total heterochromia.
I'll let an opthomologist tell me what's really up. Until then, this is one of those bodily oddities that you're kind of like, hmm, ok, I can roll with this (like post-birth control boobs or a cool tooth chip? scars?).
******************************************************
Melissa and I have updated our Lobby Chess Blog.
&
I did a little writeup for The District on my buddy's band the Knew.

"I cannot whip a disco's ass by myself."

2009-04-05T20:42:00.000-07:00

As my hair falls out like long, soft pillow-batting into my hands, I am considering abandoning peroxide heaven for a little dark-haired debauchery. The missus and I had what one politely calls a "mis-communication" (such a civil word) about the direction of my scalp and today, underneath this red beret, a molting Chia Pet is losing its wings. No matter, all's fair in life and hair and you gotta roll with the punches as in any other avenue of improvement. But, so, yeah, I had a nice perm at Jenny's birthday. Rita looked like a cupcake and Glenn's armpits were straight ripe:Seen here, Glenn's puggle cake and Jamie's knowledge of posing:
There are so many good shows in Chelsea right now. I dropped the catalog to this show in a puddle so I can't remember the names. Ah, found it on the webz: Tony Oursler at Metro Pictures. This is the same cell model as my old phone and really recreates the anxiety caused by always being "available":
Great hidden world cut into the wall with projections of senile/mentally unsound people milling about in alternating rooms and accompanied by audio of them babbling.
Melissa doesn't like her cropping, and yeah, I'll agree. I don't think I'd ever try to kiss a giant lit cigarette in real life:
The John Water's show was just fucking fun:
I am still laughing. I fekking love Eddie Murphy:
Tea and chess at the Essex house. Check-Mate (get it???) and rock candy for days:
I got a little excited and almost lost a dude in my tea-heating chamber:
***************************************************************************
Re-reading Air Guitar by Dave Hickey and falling in love again:
"[...] Human art and language (as opposed to institutional art and language) always cite the exception [...] that "normal" life, in this country, is not normal at all - that we exist in a general state of social and physical equanimity that is unparalleled in the history of humans. (Why else would we alert the media every time we feel a little bit blue?) Yet, we apparently spend so many days and hours in this state of attentive painlessness that we now consider it normal - when, in fact, normal for human creatures is, and always has been a condition of inarticulate, hopeless, never-ending pain, patriarchal oppression, boredom and violence - while all our vocal anguish is necessarily grounded in an ongoing bodily equanimity, a physical certainty that we are safe enough and strong enough to be as articulately unpleasant as we wish to be."
****************************************************************************
Also, I will die for Mounds candy bars and my selfish fucking brother who is in town for a Halo tournament can eat shit.

“All journeys have secret destinations of which the traveler is unaware.”

2009-04-01T10:00:00.000-07:00

If I call my best friend Steve in California and he doesn't answer, I leave a long, detailed message about what I'm eating, where I'm sitting, descriptions of the local flora and fauna, etc. Eventually, he will get around to returning my call only it will always be at the most inopportune moment for me to answer. Then I move on with my days forgetting that I still need to re-connect, living off the fact that I've one-sided-ly given him my scoop and one-sided-ly received his in the form of long-winded voicemails. I guess the trick is to call even when you can only devote 2 minutes; just get them in there instead of waiting until you've accumulated enough stories for a semi-cliched novella centered on the life of a 26-year-old professional amateur who is standing on the edge of a great precipice with her eyes closed just catching a breeze until action is imminent. I miss these pups:And the Ludlow boys are off to India today. I made them a little Point Break inspired mash-up:
I bought these a couple of weeks ago and now I'm like who let me trip so hard? They just stare at me from atop my dresser. Perhaps I can wear them in Coachella and get them straight destroyed. Yep, I'm going out to a 'music festival' to custom paint shoes for a buddy's company www.thepeoplesshoe.com.
I absolutely adore the desert. Soon to be blanketed with a pin-pocked sky for days and miles, see my mama, eat Mexican food, drink date shakes, go to hokie thrift stores, swim and swim and wake up in a pool of The Crystal Method's vomz....

All I have to do...

2009-03-31T06:08:00.000-07:00

Last night we awoke at the same time through the sporadic movement of half-dead limbs or to cloak cold, exposed shoulders with the comforter. You said with closed eyes still flickering "It's amazing. I'm playing air guitar and everyone's trying to figure out if it's electric or not. We're about to eat Chinese food...". I told you where I was: "We're going to a Thai place. I'm waiting for Jamie, then to the Long Island beach house that's sinking." We said something like "OK, let's meet up in the morning" then fell back to sleep immediately, easing into separate worlds where foreign cuisine and the actions of objects let our heads leap out the window and off the fire escape while our bodies stayed pretzeled on the mattress.

****************************************
mike's apt. warming. the world's biggest bed bug lives in the basement and eats all your lost black socks and bobby pins. this picture feels like a mellow S&M chicken dance-off:Kyra shoots, Jamie gears for posing and I touch a bottle of Vodka that is off limits:After attempting to take the DJ reigns from throngs of German minimal-technoists, I gave up and pestered Josh

"I need a lift, I need release"

2009-03-27T12:42:00.000-07:00

Merp.
Jenny's birthday party is going off at the greatest dive in Prospect Heights/Bed-Stuy: The Tip Top Bar and Grill. For reals, cheese & crackers, a checkered dance floor, a magic front door, the bartender's tale of her neighbor's decomposing body and an endless supply of goofy water make this my new home (as far as bars are allowed to be my home). Not quite on par with Specs in San Francisco (the best cabinet-of-curiosities watering hole ever) but also a different breed. It's also the debut of ground-breaking martial artists DJ duo THE LOOGIES. And here, Jenny's claim to flyer-making fame:Daytime/pastime drinking inevitably leads me to whining "I need to see water. Can we pleeeassseee go to the water????" Of course we took an old Mercedes 5 blocks to get there. I look like God's Q-tip right here yeah? Oh, I stuck my finger deep into another human being's ear last night for the first time ever:

Kyra started a new series of ghost pictures. I wonder when I'll upgrade from a twin bed; I think that day will be weird and sad: http://www.flickr.com/photos/reverie3/

Josh and Sha-na ain't actin'. Two beuts: Rita is about to throw something into a mouth?:

I think imma invest in some 6.5 hour energy after work. Invest in energy!

Every Culture has a Pocket Food.

2009-03-21T22:25:00.000-07:00

First, let's get the hot shit started with my latest collaborations:Alisa and I will spin/click at birthday parties, AA meetings, nail salons, pop-up roller rinks, you name it; we're that sporadic and open-minded.
AND
Melissa (Charlie) and I want to share our chess-playing experiences with the world. Every Sunday we play for an hour or two in the lobby of a different Manhattan hotel. Check out our sparkly new tumblr for our first trip: http://lobbychess.tumblr.com/ (it's still being updated; anecdotes and a rating system are coming). Later, met up with the rest of the scumbags, watched Riley perform at UCB then saw this weird ass Rastafarian hot-pocket drinking a carrot:I got that tongue-splitting surgery too.
**********************************************
One day I read/slept on a park bench while waiting for a buddy and pretended I was in Paris. The view of the Flat Iron wasn't helping in the fantasy:
Our first game in Starbucks. We've since upgraded to a gorgeous board:
Benjamin aka Papa Chulo at his apt. warming party. This boy is truly beautiful and possesses the most pure spirit ever. He only went straight for Jamie like two times that night:
I have a tendency to find art in hallways:
Oh my, proper diner experience in Sunnyside, Queens. I didn't realize how much I missed those clunky, awkward mugs and Pizza Chalet plastic cups:
When I was 12 years old, I went on an intense aerobic journey spurred along by the C. Crawford work-out video. During this time, I somehow convinced myself that just by watching a fast food commercial on TV you were actually absorbing some of the calories of the food on the screen. Can you fucking imagine what was happening in my head??? Now I don't have a TV (well, I have a little baby tube but food in B&W isn't nearly as appetizing) or eat fast food (though I still keep up with the industry's latest concoctions). The noms of brunches past:
Oh, just lovely:
This is Walter. He was having a sweet time basking in the sun. Saturday was lervely. I watched "Valley Girl" for the first time ever, "Annie Hall" for the millionth time and looked at a ton of hair metal band photos.
Adda's apt. warming (it must be that season). I heard that tail got her some of the same at the end of the evening:

Anal TLC/THC

2009-03-20T13:58:00.000-07:00

Today's conversation with Wants To Remain Unnamed (WTRU) (really, I'm flattered you think more than ten people read this!) produced this little present (I'm coming from a "sober" place hence my attitude and imposition of restrictions):

aerinly (4:50:14 PM): are you drunk?

WTRU (4:50:20 PM): no

aerinly (4:50:23 PM): i want to do SOMETHING tonight

aerinly (4:50:26 PM): ugh

WTRU (4:50:32 PM): what u wanna do?

aerinly (4:50:35 PM): drugs

WTRU (4:50:41 PM): me too

WTRU (4:50:48 PM): my friend is getting powdery goodness

WTRU (4:50:52 PM): i kinda wanna be bad

WTRU (4:50:57 PM): but she is going to lame places

WTRU (4:51:01 PM): so i don’t know

aerinly (4:51:03 PM): oh man, i can't do that one

aerinly (4:51:06 PM): my heart will explode

aerinly (4:51:09 PM): even weed would be nice!

aerinly (4:51:10 PM): haha

aerinly (4:51:16 PM): even hookah!

aerinly (4:51:22 PM): i think i can have hookah?

aerinly (4:51:27 PM): i wonder about peyote?

aerinly (4:51:29 PM): hmm

WTRU (4:51:33 PM): hahah

WTRU (4:51:36 PM): i doubt peyote is allowed

aerinly (4:51:55 PM): i would lick a dude's asshole if it meant i could be stoned for a few hours.

aerinly (4:51:58 PM): NOT

aerinly (4:52:14 PM): i wonder if i would be fucked up from doing that anyway?

WTRU (4:52:42 PM): hahahahah

WTRU (4:52:48 PM): oh my lord

WTRU (4:52:51 PM): that’d be awesome

WTRU (4:52:55 PM): if u found a dude

WTRU (4:53:01 PM): whose poop hole made u stoned

aerinly (4:54:25 PM): hahaha A DREAM WORLD!

aerinly (4:54:39 PM): wait, it's probs easier/more sanitary to just use a pipe?

WTRU (4:54:48 PM): hahaha

WTRU (4:54:50 PM): yes

WTRU (4:54:53 PM): but still

WTRU (4:55:03 PM): one can imagine a magical bung hole

"If you are lonely when you're alone, you're in bad company."

2009-03-18T08:27:00.000-07:00

My UPS delivery man for the past year and a half, André, is pretty amazing. A French-Canadian who speaks five languages fluently, he makes me laugh at least 2-3 times every day that I am at work. He is my guru and friend, a perpetual optimist who snickers at my antics and doles out good, sage advice.

When he came into the office today, he brought with him the smell of bacon and eggs.

"André, why do you smell like breakfast?"

He laughed and told me it wasn't him. But it was him and I knew it. I have a heightened sense of smell and minutes later, when Sarah from publicity walked by, I asked her if she'd shampooed her hair this morning -she had- because the smell had enveloped me from across the room (one of the things I miss about having long hair is that aura of clean fragrance that hovers around your scalp).

André returned awhile later, "You were right! The bacon and eggs, it's from the 2nd floor."

"I knew it! I have superwoman olfactory glands! It's like, if not for smoking cigarettes I would smell too much; I would just be too overwhelmed." (I'll look for any any excuse to continue a bad habit.)

André looked down at his electronic signature pad then back at me with a huge smile stretched across his jaw. In his thick French accent he said, "I keep thinking 'Are you real'?"

That question is the way to my heart. J'adore.
************************************************************************
I'm getting back into philosophy and phenomenology. Now that I'm on a sober kick, I can finally read for more than 5 minute intervals without spacing out every time I see something shiny. Having been a voracious reader since I could hold a book, my inability to focus as of late was the cause of much much much distress and anxiety. Things are good now! My brain is like a freshly released Bonsai kitten, all deep stretches and expansion. So now I begin to exercise my bourgeois right and delve into the contemplation of existence. Sweet relief.
Am IN LOVE with this pic of de Beauvoir and Sartre:

Cleaning House Week 3

2009-03-12T18:00:00.000-07:00

Well sweet tit-stain it's been awhile! The one good thing about my blogging absence is that it is directly correlated with me being productive out there in the real world. Or internally or physically? Maybe not but here's a mini-recap of the last week or so.
I modeled bridal wear for a German fashion blog (http://twoforfashion.otto.de/). Sean came along and acted as my PA, carried my phone and lip gloss and added wit snippets throughout.
My desk area is constantly evolving. We are approaching our one year anniversary in this apt. As I rarely stay longer than 1-2 years in a single room, I'm curious to see just how closely I can get my bedroom to replicate the inside of my brain.

My work was going to throw this lil guy out! It gets all the Spanish language stations and some strange public access jizzums and is just a gem:

Preliminary drawing of Cedric. Josh spilled tea all over my sketchbook, well, he was avoiding being scratched by the Panda and wrist-jerked the glass over. It gave it a nice 'weathered' look. I wish Cedric would wear my dream-catcher earring in real life:Sunday night was the Olive Garden gorgefest 2k9. Claire and Coralie: the frenchies who'd never been to an American family restaurant chain. Coralie took on a look of confused disgust when I got a Styrofoam to-go container for my seafood portfino (and stole the pepper shaker out of sheer necessity):
Nommed like 4 or 5 breadsticks with reckless abandon. I have officially replaced booze/drugs with shitty food. Expecting to be 400 lbs. by summer:
Jamie's back!!!!!!!!!!! The Garden's b'sticks are good tools to gauge how deep you can go when performing fellatio:
We made it Kyra's birthday so we could get some cake and a song. That joke ended up costing me and Jamie ten bucks. Good one. After filming close-ups of us chewing, Kyra and Melissa were so tired they passed out sitting up and we painted flavor savers on their chins with marinara sauce:
Rita had been there since before the sun went down and memorized the menu so we wouldn't be too overwhelmed:
The next day I met up with Glenndolyn and jabbered his ears off. His tea smelled orgasmic, no, the smell of his tea was orgasm inducing. I made sure we posed in the most optimal way to show my bohemouth Q-tip cabeza:
The song on this video is weirding me out. Play something you like and be mesmerized.

the birth and death of a stupid idea in 10 minutes.

2009-03-06T13:07:00.000-08:00

YAY SEAN HAS ARRIVED!!!!!!!!!
aerinly (3:57:25 PM): i like to compare quality of life if you're poor now vs. if you were poor in say 1905

aerinly (3:57:32 PM): like, all the chemicals in the cheap food!

aerinly (3:57:44 PM): in 1905, you would eat a potato and be happy

aerinly (3:57:54 PM): and not get prostate cancer from it

aerinly (3:58:13 PM): maybe 19th century would be better

aerinly (3:58:39 PM): i was going to do this diet where i only consumed things that were available to people up until 1900

aerinly (3:58:48 PM): but then i learned that there was already all this shit out there

aerinly (3:58:53 PM): so i need to go earlier.

aerinly (3:58:57 PM): do you want to do it?

aerinly (3:59:25 PM): it can be global; anything that was available to the world before 1850.

Super Nuge (4:00:21 PM): i came to new york to eat cheap processed food

Super Nuge (4:00:42 PM): even the medicis couldn't get pizza at 3am with garlic knots

aerinly (4:01:12 PM): fine, have your heart attack

aerinly (4:01:22 PM): see who's there scraping your cheese face off the pavement

Super Nuge (4:01:49 PM): well i think you should have to adhere to the medicine of the era too

aerinly (4:01:52 PM): and hauling you to st. vincent's where your red blood cells have been replaced with MSG and styrofoam.

Super Nuge (4:02:25 PM): so have fun getting gout and polio

aerinly (4:03:50 PM): we'll see who lasts the year

Super Nuge (4:05:11 PM): i'm going to live off a diet of free wine and falafel actually

aerinly (4:06:03 PM): oh shit.. you already won

aerinly (4:06:10 PM): that's good cause i don't cook

Super Nuge (4:06:27 PM): i find that surprising that you don't cook

aerinly (4:06:30 PM): and i just remembered that stuff didn't come pre-packaged.

Super Nuge (4:06:33 PM): its the one thing you don't do

aerinly (4:06:40 PM): i hope you're being sarcastic

(I don't really think anyone was "happy" to eat a potato in 1905 and I certainly know very little about how red blood cells would be replaced with styrofoam or how that is even relevant- Ed. note).

Dogged Days

2009-03-04T18:50:00.000-08:00

I am so amped on caffeine that my urine smells like Breakfast Blend. So I was MIA for a few days last week as I had/needed to take an island vacation (Manahatta claro que si) to a detox center. My diet consisted of fruit punch, Librium and whatever people's court show was blaring from the common area. I was sedated for the first two days to the point of not being able to read a single page of the amazing novel Life A User's Manual before passing out for who knows how many hours at a time. There were the requisite Nurse Ratcheds (a spot-on version then an urban remake model) doling the meds and watching you swallow and they were adamant about "checking vitals" at the oddest hours. Like, of course my heart rate is too low, it's 12:30 AM and I've been sleeping for three hours? Anyway, it was a good experience and I didn't lose my job and I was able to see first hand how fucked up the rehabilitation system is, at least in New York. I mean, it's not that shocking to see drugs and french toast (the food was pretty good actually) being thrown at a problem that obviously doesn't just run skin deep but it was still unsettling. Also, they don't let you smoke! I had to hide in the bathroom with a bunch of my meth-a-donic buddies to sneak a smiggy drag.
Well, pfew, that chapter is closed!
***********************************************************************************
Jenny and I were doing our Sunday 5th avenue window shopping when we saw this ad. Is she coming or going or...? Makes my tailbone dizzy:
A few blocks down from us, the coolest building alive:
Often times imagining something can be at least half as good as the real thing for me. Like when we were going to have Josh shit in the litter box just to see the confused look on Jamie's face when she went to clean it. Here Jennipa and I prepare for our annual road-trip to New Mexico for the Pottery Association of America's Ceram-a-thon (or, we love this car, look like zany art teacher lesbian aunts and later will watch "He's Just Not That Into You", hollerin' at the screen like we owned the place.)
We met a real (retired) P.I. at a cafe who talked our ears off. Old men: they will compliment and adore and love the shit out of you. Amidst their long-winded tales they actually listen to yours as well! I want to give all the dudes I've ever dug on "old man" pills, like reverse Viagra that only affects them mentally? That doesn't make sense but yeah, I'm not into dinosaur ween but I'll take an ancient brain in a Dorian Gray body any day of the week:
My favorite bartender/waiter ever. Sadly, I've had to enact a self-imposed exile from Les Enfants until further notice.
Now beginning research for a documentary on surveillance/dataveillance, gearing up for France at the end of the month, pushing all welling sadness down and out (mad, terrible withdrawals from a lovely drug disguised as a person; cutting off my fingers at the knuckles to avoid texting) through yoga breathing and daily sessions with my UPS guru. Basically I'm cleaning up shop all around. You can't give what you don't have right? (Ah, therapy and Luna bars - you can kill me now).
Oh, we have a freezer jam-packed with ancient bagels. These bagels register like 9 on the Mohs Scale. What should we do with 30-40 rock-hard Jewish donuts? Thinking stop-animation film at Coney Island? The bagels could be like turtles or lemmings or....

getting it down just like the nurse told me to.

2009-03-02T13:43:00.000-08:00

A whole fucking lot has happened since I last posted so while I compile, I thought I would share this gem of a conversation with mah boy back home:

aerinly (4:15:41 PM): tell tell

TKitty (4:15:43 PM): So, on Friday

TKitty (4:15:47 PM): I was done with work

TKitty (4:15:51 PM): and walked out to our parking lot

TKitty (4:16:02 PM): and I saw this pile of stuff in one of the small planters

TKitty (4:16:10 PM): there was a satchel

TKitty (4:16:17 PM): a CD walkman (no headphones)

TKitty (4:16:22 PM): an empty water bottle

TKitty (4:16:27 PM): and a fur trimmed hat

TKitty (4:16:31 PM): with flaps for the ears

TKitty (4:16:38 PM): you know what I'm talking about

TKitty (4:16:50 PM): Also, there was what was clearly a puddle of vomit kind of nearby

TKitty (4:16:55 PM): the hat got a little sprayed

TKitty (4:17:35 PM): so anyway, I thought maybe someone had been mugged

TKitty (4:17:41 PM): and had their stuff rifled through

TKitty (4:17:44 PM): and then dumped

TKitty (4:17:50 PM): by some vomity homeless person

TKitty (4:18:02 PM): so I figured I'd look in the bag and see if I could find any ID

TKitty (4:18:10 PM): I kinda nudged it with my foot and it felt really full

TKitty (4:18:14 PM): so anyway I unzipped it

TKitty (4:18:20 PM): and inside there was a notebook

TKitty (4:18:26 PM): like a bible study book

aerinly (4:18:29 PM): what?????

TKitty (4:18:38 PM): and some other shit I didn't get much of a look at

TKitty (4:18:43 PM): because as soon as I looked in the bag

TKitty (4:18:46 PM): I heard this noise

TKitty (4:18:51 PM): and coming from across the street

TKitty (4:18:54 PM): is this black kid

TKitty (4:18:57 PM): pretty good looking

TKitty (4:19:15 PM): dressed in a Quicksilver shirt

TKitty (4:19:16 PM): nice pants

TKitty (4:19:20 PM): you know, clearly not homeless

TKitty (4:19:27 PM): but he comes running up to me

TKitty (4:19:35 PM): and he's got one earbud earphone in his ear

TKitty (4:19:39 PM): and the other one dangling

TKitty (4:19:46 PM): and his shirt's kinda got some wet spots

TKitty (4:19:56 PM): so I thought, oh, this poor guy must have taken ill

TKitty (4:20:07 PM): or something

TKitty (4:20:11 PM): but he comes running up to me

TKitty (4:20:37 PM): and says, "Woooooahhhhh, you got a demon on you now, man. You got a demon on you and you need to know how to deal with it."

TKitty (4:20:45 PM): and i think

TKitty (4:20:47 PM): uh oh

TKitty (4:20:57 PM): so I say, "How do I deal with it?"

TKitty (4:21:03 PM): and he looks at me

TKitty (4:21:05 PM): wild eyed

TKitty (4:21:20 PM): and says, "You just got to....uhhhhhh......oooooohhhh.....uhhhhhhh."

TKitty (4:21:23 PM): like, kinda moaning

TKitty (4:21:29 PM): huffing and puffing

TKitty (4:21:36 PM): like he's trying to get a handle on something inside him

TKitty (4:22:08 PM): and then he looks at me and just starts shouting "GET OUT!!!!GET OUT!!!!GET OUT!!!!!"

TKitty (4:22:14 PM): and I was like, man, I am GONE

TKitty (4:22:53 PM): and I got in my car and took off

TKitty (4:23:04 PM): I would have called for someone to help him, but my phone was dead!

TKitty (4:23:13 PM): but I swung back by the parking lot on my way to the freeway and he was gone already

aerinly (4:23:39 PM): wtf>>>>

aerinly (4:23:44 PM): you have a demon now?????

TKitty (4:23:49 PM): well see

TKitty (4:23:51 PM): I couldn't tell

TKitty (4:23:53 PM): if he meant

aerinly (4:23:56 PM): how do you feel?

TKitty (4:23:59 PM): I had JUST acquired the demon?

TKitty (4:24:01 PM): or if it was like

TKitty (4:24:05 PM): a recognition

aerinly (4:24:08 PM): and the vomit?

TKitty (4:24:11 PM): of something that has been there a while

TKitty (4:24:18 PM): vomit = precursor to true truth

aerinly (4:24:22 PM): methinks

TKitty (4:24:31 PM): But anyway

TKitty (4:24:37 PM): It really shook me up

TKitty (4:24:50 PM): being visited by a magical negro is rare in real life

TKitty (4:24:51 PM): and I of course

TKitty (4:24:55 PM): use those words

TKitty (4:25:07 PM): in the "race on screen" sense of the term

TKitty (4:25:20 PM): not that I really refer to people as "negros"

TKitty (4:25:43 PM): so I was like, "Shit, It MUST be true"

TKitty (4:25:48 PM): feels like it is, for sure

TKitty (4:25:50 PM): so anyway last night

TKitty (4:25:53 PM): I had a dream

TKitty (4:26:00 PM): where basically the same thing happened

TKitty (4:26:03 PM): but this time it was a white guy

TKitty (4:26:13 PM): and he jumped on my back before saying "You got a demon on you now..."

TKitty (4:26:19 PM): and in my dream, I flipped him over my head

TKitty (4:26:24 PM): what do you make of all this?

aerinly (4:28:11 PM): no!

aerinly (4:28:18 PM): ok, a) i'm blogging this

aerinly (4:28:22 PM): and B) let me think!

TKitty (4:28:54 PM): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magical_Negro

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then an awesome party at Barnaby's (more pics from the lovely Sinead: http://www.babysinead.com/2009/02/21/snap-shot-party-pics/#more-1238):

People Living Deeply Have No Fear of Death

2009-02-16T13:35:00.000-08:00

This is a photo-post, obviously. I've been doing some writing but not of the blogging kind. The following events are out-of-sequence and of equal or relatively equal importance. The end of the story finds me faced with the option to call 911 but there aren't any photos of that. We'll begin with a table full of all the things that keep us "active", "involved" and "in-touch" in today's world (this is the electron-shit accumulation of only 5 people and still a phone and camera are missing):

On Friday I lost my mind. Well, I began to explore the options available to one who might be "losing their mind". Awoke in Teddy's lovely apt., took an hour long bath and caught up with my Venice beach bestie, watched season 3 of Seinfeld and the rest of Almost Famous then forced myself to leave the safety of a white-wall'd apartment for Manahatta island. Fatima and I attended an awesome reading at the New Museum where alcohol chocolates, stories of unrequited love and tales of first masturbation experiences went well with an audience swathed in the standard black of publishers. We got to stare at the back of Richard Hell's skull and I was eye-fucked by an actor whose face I recognized but whose name escapes me. This is my self-portrait while self-diagnosing (the leaves are to recall a Lucian Freud painting):

I left the apartment in Teddy's Prada heals: the most bomb shoes to grace my feet maybe ever. About ten minutes out the door and headed toward the subway I was the epitome of two things: cheap & chic (my 25 cent coat had been returned after a San Francisco vacation) and a teetering example of "no pain no gain" in regards to high fashion. I felt like I was a victim of suede foot-binding:
I love Teddy. We've had our ups and downs but shit if the good don't stick:
It's relatively easy and acceptable for attractive people to make ugly faces. Can you believe these two people are named Ted and Teddy? Have you ever gone to dinner at Caracas with friends with such strange and similar names?
Have you ever loved a sauce so much you were reduced to abandoning social etiquette in favor of physically espousing Freudian hypotheses (the Freuds are ruling my post)?:
I didn't get a shot of Tiffanie but this one night she made me the goddamn best chicken tacos I've had to date. We shared a pot brownie and agonized over a text message she was overdo on sending:
The view from Rachel's financial district apt. Sitting on the deck of such a posh apt. building and gazing on one of the monuments to economic stability in a time like this (I love saying "this harsh wintry economic climate") wasn't surreal but it was something:
From the Paper Tiger party; I was just happy with Jenny's make-up application. It's like football player in the electro hyper-super bowl 2k78. I was also surprised to find that dearest Barbara is married and has been keeping it from us all this time! This is the face I must make when I hear unexpected news:
Just more good times like we do:
Pre-embarking on a night of social unrest. I have two commissions to do murals based off of this piece, score:
I don't ask much from former one-two-three night-stands except to get an address for the diner we once went to post-coitus. Regardless, I found that shit in t-minus and ate like I owned the place. After leaving, I caught a glimpse of how I accessorize on a Sunday:
Kyla and Barbara, just wait for it. These two will own the world before you figure out how to properly bite into an everything bagel (hint: keep the seeded side on the bottom so you don't scratch the roof of your mouth):
I'd die for you lady:
I have always loved the meta quality of a picture within a picture within...:Here Nicholas attempts to show pre and post eye surgery:
I made the awesome mistake of passing out with my facebook acct. open. Duder who is cause of much happiness and distress went ahead and changed my status to "in a relationship" (decidedly not true). Thank you to all who called (from San Fran, from South America, from down the street) and wall-texted; alas, not every idea I throw into the universe returns to me fulfilled but I've had the luxury to learn that most times, it's for the better. Jerks and teddy bears and plane tickets and the amount of lives you get to live within the single one you sometimes lose grip on, these are the puzzle pieces that make things endlessly fascinating and heart-wrenching. These little moments sound like the orchestra tuning as they gear up to barrage you with the symphony, the real whole. Even so, like growing accustomed to darkness in a daytime matinee, immersed in beautifully suspended disbelief, hitting the sidewalk as the sun slaps you into submission can still be as shocking as birth. You're discombobulated but you asked for it and most times still love it. At least I do.

Animals Strike Curious Poses

2009-02-09T07:28:00.000-08:00

So, the Paper Tiger party was a massive success and why not? Mlle. Jennipa, woman after my own heart, painted beautiful tiger masks while Kyra DJ'd downstairs. Here they are in front of the background we painted earlier that day. It was bitchin' indeed.Adda and Kyla, fellow Paper tigresses, striking something fierce. Note the cheeseburger to the right:
I stole this idea from Glasslands and tweaked it a little. You sit someone in a chair with a video camera on them then put a piece of acetate over the TV that has their live close-up. Trace their face off of the TV then put the acetate on a giant projector and voila, you have interactive awesome portraiture.
Mike and Mendel showed up for 5 minutes and Mendel pretended to be a famous painter. They look like a coupla creep-freaks! Love it.
This guy, the human carpet, laid on the floor by the bar for days while people stepped on him and ordered their drinks.
We set up Melissa's Binaural Beat Chamber by the entry-way and replicated a cozy Moroccan living room as she did sonic tests. I think I'm listening to the Viagra beats here? Or maybe LSD?
It was a rad night but I'm glad it's over. As much as I like planning shit, I can only do it for so long before I need to go back into hibernation with books and my cats and sometimes a very lucky snuggle-buddy.
Next trick will involve live dance, projections and hopefully I'll get my act together this week and start on the giant papier-mache spider crab puppet.
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Two of my favorite things in the world combined into one = appalling, enthralling, BLACK MAGIK:

I'm Waiting for You and You Know It

2009-02-06T06:44:00.000-08:00

This is my back after I slept on a huge safety pin all night:These are my feet and that is my desk:
This is how I've felt the last two weeks (and also my Halloween costume 2 'weens ago):
This is a new version of the blog that I'm working on:
http://bacolicio.us/http://quillandsqualor.blogspot.com.
And this is what you really should be doing tomorrow evening:
HAPPPPPPPPPY FRIDAY!

What makes the elephant charge his tusk in the misty mist, or the dusky dusk?

2009-02-05T07:19:00.000-08:00

I am terrible with confrontation. Gearing up for a potentially negative encounter cripples me; I start sweating and the ACME anvil presses slowly upon my chest. It's a baby panic-attack or a low-key version of sleep apnea (goddamn the industrial revolution! I can trace all modern problems back to it and it's the basis for my much-anticipated novel). Anyway, this means that I prefer dealing with "issues" via the written word over the spoken. Thing is, I'm constantly being told to "grow a pair of balls", "man up" or any variety of P.E. Coach-speak. I get it, but I like the idea that I can quickly stick my thoughts in wet-cement, edit them down a few manic-decibels into something partially coherent then send them off confident that I'm saying what I mean (and also maintaining a record of what I said). Is that cowardly? I understand it's impersonal but anyone who knows me knows that when my mouth begins moving out of frustration, a train-wreck of verbs and nouns and expletives will inevitably be vomited across your face. It makes me feel like a "crazy girl" and it shows me too clearly that the cross-wiring in my brain can be embarrassingly faulty.

That's it. If it's cowardly to know and then take the best avenue to say what I mean, then this lioness is the biggest pussy on the planet.
Wait, why does he have a bow? God, the cowardly lion is so androgynous! The hair, the voice, the animal, the fear stemming from inadequacy, etc. Match the traits if you can and as you will.
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I remembered today that I make two World's Bests: pancakes and Top Ramen stir-fry.

A (cryptic)Trifecta of Confusion and Contusions

2009-02-02T13:44:00.000-08:00

Here is today's exchange regarding Saturday's deranged (me). This post is an attempt at accountability:

from e to j and a:

i want to apologize for kind of losing my mind (and trying to set a loft on fire) on saturday. the weekend was major bender-bait and i took it hook, line and total, balls-to-the-walls sinker. i let it get away from me but i'm working on bringing it back.

magik markers ruled tho so i'm happy there. and we have a new quiet gay(?) friend to love on.

one step forward, 2 steps back?

i adore you guys,
escher

from a to j and e:

OMG. AHAHAHA. All I know is that u were being all dramz like and freakin out to jen and I was like whats going on and she said u were plotting to start a fire and I just stood and watched as you slinked up the stairs and started to try set the banister on fire with your lighter. Twas amazing.

from j to e (and a):
Hey mama

Don't worry about it! I always got your back even if you try to burn shit down. Although I will also try to convince you your time is better spent doing way awesomererer shit such as DANCING.

But the night was pretty bomb over all. I'm glad alisa made me rest on Friday.

We need a cute baby boy now that lloyd is gone. Although no one could ever replace little debs! We will have to make robert some nom nom meal soon.

Love YALL

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I HAVE THE greatest FRIENDS OF ALL TIME HANDS DOWN BAR NONE GAH.....
i am 50% better and 20% closer to total world/soul/body/mind/heart domination. ain't no thang without some sidewinding and back-spinning.
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Today and most/some of the time:
My favorite president is Theodore Roosevelt.
My favorite movie is "Zabriskie's Point".

My favorite food is Snickers.
My favorite short story is The Nose by Gogol.
My favorite place to be nibbled is my neck.
My favorite place to mail my best friend copies of her passport, credit card statements and medical bills because she was just robbed is Buenos Aires (come home now please).
My favorite dysfunction is confabulation.
My favorite word is "bunk".

red wine all up in my limbic system

2009-01-30T13:12:00.000-08:00

The feelings this little guy inspires in my heart! They're akin to an onrushing Klonopin fuzz. Wait, no, better than that. Something else. I've been in a terrible, hyper-analytical, obsessive, just sort of fucked-up state of mind the last week and all I want is to hold onto the rush of emotion that this little cat-thing's face gives me. Thank you Kyra! I miss this hair but I think it might be too futuristic if I attempt it with the platinum? What am I saying? "too futuristic" sounds awesome. Sadly, this will take me at least six-months to re-achieve:
Thought this was funny a long time ago:
I miss you guys so hard! Richard, I'm coming to you!
Oh but I had a mini-epiphany that may quite possibly save me. I still need to work it out and make sure I'm not hiding my emotions behind my emotions but I'm optimistic about this one.

How I Prefer a True Whore

2009-01-29T09:19:00.000-08:00

It began with Lydia Davis and the consumption of 5 of her 8 published books. Along with Barthelme, Davis is a contemporary novelist whose innovative short-fiction stands apart from all the other shit still churning out of crumbling publishing houses. Well, she had translated a book called The Death Sentence by French author/philosopher Maurice Blanchot which I had the great satisfaction of finishing this morning on the train, the last sentence entering my head as I exited the car (I have great luck with timing!). Because I am a squirrel researcher of the highest level, I spent the better part of this morning learning about Blanchot (and revisiting Derrida, Foucault, deconstruction, author function- the pearls of modern critical theory) and found that Death Sentence was based on the terrible last days of a soon-to-be favorite person of mine: Colette Laure Peignot, a French author, poet and- from the accounts of her lovers and admirers- fiercely intelligent and conflicted woman.After reading this excerpt from Laure's Fragments of a Notebook (1937) (culled from the very informative blog http://denniscooper-theweaklings.blogspot.com which I am now following), I am particularly excited to eat up her work and attempt to live the way in which she has preached:

Avoid contact with all people in whom there is no possible resonance with what touches you most deeply and toward whom you have obligations of "kindness," of politeness. Since these obligations engage me strongly as soon as I find myself in the presence of such people and engage me through an ill-fated habit of patience and good-will, which in fact becomes will for humiliation (sometimes abject). Imagine a musician in an orchestra playing off-key because his neighbor is doing so, to be nice.

Flee -- literally flee -- those with whom you can exchange only absurd remarks about others who are just like them and whom you have seen the previous night exchanging the same remarks, or equally vain gossip, about the very person you are talking to. There are certain people who end up frequenting and even calling friends those they denigrate constantly. I hate "goodness" and "kindness," which have only led me to humiliation.

Keep silent as before. It's better.

Contempt for those whose conversation boils down to all that I hate and flee: to a certain spirit of vulgarity and pettiness. Farce is what they feel comfortable with. I cringe before certain laughter and smiles drawn forth on this terrain. Sometimes a laugh is enough to cause me to have, not aversion toward, but distrust of a human being. There is a point at which polite distrust is worse than aversion because it is more reserved, but I can't confine myself to this, and everything in me shouts, screams aversion.

Lack of reserve and moral propriety shocks me all the time, due to certain nervous (physical) reactions I can neither hold back nor hide. Those who broaden the horizon, those who narrow it.

How I prefer a true whore.

Do not get stuck where the essential is lost, where everything turns vulgar, base, and petty. Through my own fault, through a will for humiliation. A feeling of abjection. "Defeated ahead of time." So from now on "dust to dust" resembles dust. At those moments it is physically impossible to be clear and frank. Shame and false shame.

Easy: to accuse others of being superficial = brilliant = alive.

Return to simple beings, to childlike reactions, a difficult return.

Weekend Warriors and Winos

2009-01-26T06:59:00.000-08:00

ah yes house party little italy wine dance feminism smokes (i'm on the just-smoking-when-drinking kick and i already feel a million times healthier, ha) cameras cameraz flashbulbs cold breeze boozy computer keyboard face kiss-plants soul singing lipstick cupcakes BEAUTY:

*******************************************************************************
then, fun times past, the Wylie. I feel like I captured an image for some snowboarding magazine? LOVe love this picture:
Jukeboxes have the best light:
and Rob has the best camera:
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Walked over the Manhattan bridge for the first time with Jenny yesterday. That bridge is an 80's/90's ghetto-trip into a certain, oft-lamented NYC era. Beautiful roof-top tagging and the loud jangling of trains that interrupt conversations about coffee temperature and living for the moment and how fucking FREEZIng it is presently. Then we bargain shopped in Bed-stuy, dove into nachos in our hood and I fell into a coma around 8:30 PM. J'adore sleep oh my.

I heard the next morning that he was arrested somewhere..

2009-01-23T08:21:00.001-08:00

Not that it really needs to be said but I love my Oma. Actually, it does need to be said. Just received this lovely email detailing her 70-something-th birthday party. I especially love the ease of her interweb-speak:

HI SWEETIE,

I'm ok thank you.We all met at the place where Karen works and had some tacos and a few drinks on the 21st for my Birthday.Larry was the only one that didn't show up because he was working a side job.We met at 6pm and I think we were all home after 8pm.We sat outside on the terrace but it was noisy.Some guy kept telling us that he was a relative of the Millers side and every second sentence was the big "F" word.After listening to that for about 30 min I had to stand up and finally told him to shut up. Patty told him that he was a pig lol.He was drunk tho and I heard the next morning that he was arrested somewhere..

Its raining here today and I love it wooohooo.Heard you went to Montreal.Did you enjoy it?
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And then, speaking of grannies, I met a nice gentleman in Canada who runs this swell little blog: http://nappingnannas.blogspot.com/
so good.
*******************************************************************************
Last night, after dumplings with the children, we headed to one of my favorite places in all of New York. This snapshot is probably the best visual representation of the most amazing sonic experience on the island. We drank tall boys, did cartwheels/back-bends then shimmied out into the lovely evening.
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This morning, BrB was giggling like a little kid in his sleep so I turned to look at him and he was grabbing one of his index fingers with his eyes closed so I says, I says "Hey, are you asleep?" and he keeps smiling and then he says "Yes, a goat just bit my finger."

6 hours later, I am still laughing.

The Tar Babies of Montrealabrea

2009-01-22T07:32:00.000-08:00

Mochi is a brilliant friend of mine who is making art in the cold throbbing heart of Montreal. She designs jewelry and had me model some pieces with her (and her wealthy Russian bride hat) (www.lovechristine.com):Years ago, we got a lil rowdy at the La Brea Tar Pits and stuck our hands in a tar pocket. Then we did a sort of besties hand hold rub thing and spread the tar evenly over one hand each. Later, at a grocery store, we washed each other's tar stained hand with our one free, clean hand. We turned the bathroom into a truck stop massacre.I really really like the phrase "live in the present". IT'S A PRESENT!! Right now!

8 hours sleep in 2 days; 6 cigarettes in 6 days

2009-01-21T14:15:00.000-08:00

If you're in New York, it would be my pleasure if you'd attend this lil event I'm putting on:I got a little nuts with the office supplies. EEck.

Oh, Montreal was a jam-out; post soon once I get some nekkers napping in.

You're No Housewife Mon Ami

2009-01-16T08:20:00.000-08:00

Remembering how I moved to New York makes me think I'm losing my balls with age but I know that's not true and that the amount of time that grows between each lofty endeavor or move only serves to revive my one and a half year itch. I will always pack up and jet out when I've conquered a territory, when my heart has been smashed or I have gotten smashed too frequently and with no creative output. Moving to San Francisco from SoCal when I was 17 was no big deal, I guess it was the fact I was still in California and separated from the Great Fake by only 500 miles of pavement. I don't have to live by family but I don't think that says anything about the closeness of my family? Maybe it does or maybe I'm just happy with the level of involvement on all sides. So 17 in SF was all about a pierced nose, a black hoodie, some pepper spray and a lot of Aisler's Set, Nina Simone and instant message fighting with my boyfriend in the south (San Diego). I don't have 'bad' years; I'm not one of those people who can say "24 is better than 25" or whatever. Every year is my favorite and maybe I'm spreading my love too thin here. Then it was Fullerton, then Orange, then Yucaipa, then Long Beach........

But what I want to get at, what I want to cover is the period-of-time, let's say a month, when I first moved to New York and lived with my (brand new) great friend Rita (she has been upset that I didn't properly document it at the time but blogging seemed like a geeky past-time then and still does). Without getting too rag-time (in every sense), I think I'd actually just like to talk about our one perfect day.

Rita was expecting a new roommate to come by her two-bedroom apt., the same apt. where I was alternately sleeping on the couch or the floor; wherever I could pass-out as the varying bottles of cheap whiskey reached their end each night. Two friends from L.A. and Seattle had already tried to make a home in Brooklyn but neither lasted a month and jobless and penniless as I was, Rita opened her arms and her fire escape to me free-of-charge.

So it happened that on Rita's day off and just another one of my listless afternoons, we decided to begin a gnarly bender that would leave us semi-naked and covered in paint with a confused German man staring at us bewildered and attempting indifference.

Actually, I think I'll leave it at that. I think I'll remember making watercolors on the linoleum after stealing photos from the boy at the wine store. I think I'll just remember drinking sangria(?) until drops of it fell from our mouths onto our artwork. I think I'll remember forgetting that somewhere during the day, the light of the apartment dark and cold, our clothes began disappearing and a wrestling match ensued. It was at this proper junction, the denouement of a 12+ hour rampage that also contained whiskey, beards and balancing acts in front of the Irish bar, that the new roommate, the strapping German, waltzed into the apartment to find us laughing hysterically and poking heads attached to half-nekkers bodies out from behind the bedroom door.

He was delighted to stay of course.

Oh my, Rita this was all for you. I'm sorry about the Dominican, the cocaine, the abandonment issues, the cry fights in the bathroom at a few of our family events, not responding to that email last week and finally listening to your salty-teared voicemail today.

I love you so much shit-stain. Let's never get old.

Roth

2009-01-13T09:56:00.000-08:00

oh, i forgot. this might be old, doesn't matter, it's fucking gold: http://thetyser.com/

72 More Years of This Yes Please

2009-01-13T06:19:00.000-08:00

Sunday was one of the most glorious days I've had in a while. Waking up at 2:00 PM in an old tenement apartment with the sun streaming in and painting fire escape lines across the sheets, I came to with a fierce thirst (after an unfortunate run-in with a cockroach), opened a window and pulled in an ice cold Bud Light from outside. After yogurt and attempting to re-establish homeostasis, it was off to the Chinese bakery to get cake and tea. The cause for celebration: Fin-Fan's 98th birthday. Fin-Fan (I have no idea if this is the correct spelling) has lived in the same building in the lower east side for his entire life. The boys carried him upstairs into their apt. and Bjorn played a birthday recital:Probably the strangest family portrait I've taken in awhile, wait, in the last week, but this one takes the cake for representing a kind of ideal America or United Colors of Benetton Ad.
What kinds of things are funny when you're almost 100? Fin-Fan was all up on his caretaker! He tried to grab her breast once; it was amazing. Also, as he was staring at his birthday cake, the candles ablazin', a large white cotton pad fell out of his mouth narrowly missing the cake and splatting on his thigh. They hang out in his mouth to absorb drool. We have a video of it; one of those disturbingly cute moments.
The bodega by my work blessed me with this yesterday:
Mike and Rita faux-kissing through a pane of glass. They look downright lovely. After paella and releasing Lloyd back into the wild-world, we swirled into dive bar mode and real classy talk about anal sex.
Pretty fulfilling time all around.

Coming to Terms with my Role in Your Life

2009-01-09T09:00:00.000-08:00

I hate taking a sick day when I'm actually ill preferring to use them for massive hangovers or last-minute getaways. In this photo, our newest family member, Steven, terrified by technology, and me, hiding the results of the bubonic plague. I think sepia is the best filter to record sickness and the terror of cats who just waltz in from the fire escape and never leave:I'm wearing the crazy glasses here while Frau delivers a kiss back in CA:New Years Eve, the PG version:
The coolest ad; constantly inspires me to listen to music alone and at an insane decibel:
Me and Mike in the bodega:Latest addition to the clan, Johnny, mixing the snickerdoodles:
Jenny wore her Bushwick apron find and I blathered on under a Nyquil/Wine stupor:
After showing us "one guy, one jar" (I didn't watch it and honestly, the sounds alone were appalling enough. Not nearly as light-hearted as 2g1c) Mike found a kitchen tool with a metal circular end that vibrates. It seemed to keep him entertained:
Rita talked to her friend Bruce, an eloquent writer who was just released from prison. I think it's disgusting that we have the cat's litter box in our kitchen.:
Everyday Riley says "Tomorrow I'm going to buy an iPod touch" or "I almost bought an iPod touch today" and everyday we laugh/die a little.

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I am going to drink coffee, watch Les Enfants Terribles and paint a Joan of Arc portrait for a friend's birthday present. BE WELL PUPS.

S.A.D. Sam Elliot's Inaugural Urine

2009-01-08T07:58:00.001-08:00

My nose is starting to resemble a baboon's ass; calloused and made of the primary, secondary and tertiary shades of red. What do I put on it? I would use those lotion tissues but they're so greasy and will inevitably cause me to break out. Instead I just keep absentmindedly wiping with crumpled up Kleenex that are registering as sand-paper in the tactile department. Bleh. Oh, for a second I thought this Lubriderm smear would work but it just looks like I've had my face spit on by a vagina dentata.
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I'm wondering if one can have just a small case of S.A.D. (seasonal affective disorder). I have been feeling particularly insane over the past week (I know, I know- a terrible cold coupled with the rag coupled with shitty weather does not a happy Erin make) and I wonder if the changing weather has anything to do with it.
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Why are people heading to Washington for the Inaugural address? Just hit it televised live or youtube it later. Just thinking of being sandwiched between billions of patriots gives me anxiety. It's like Times Square at New Years or something. What if you have to pee? Ha, that reminds me of the peeing cowboy's best friend, the bootsaver. I can't find a photo but it's basically one wooden crutch that reaches the height of the average ween area and has a little sort of draw-bridge, sluice thing (having been a gold rush re-enactor, I am at liberty to remind you a sluice is a water channel controlled by a gate often used in gold mines) that you pee into to navigate the urine away from your boots! I'm thinking this is for older cowboys who've lost their virility? I love old cowboys and I would do terrible things to my family to nab Sam Elliot:and for the truly environmentally conscious (see: annoying):********************************************************
I am planning on getting hypnotized in this woman's loft within the next two weeks to help eliminate my stage-fright/anxiety so I can better perform for all ya'll. Had a good talk with her on the way to the train last night and after hearing other people's tales of hypnosis, I'm feeling pretty positive about the whole thing.

Also, website to come within two weeks. Just finished drawing the menu/main page and uploaded some illustrations and writing. Not sure what the point of it is save having a convenient cache for all my shit.

And, whoa, everyone should be stoked on Odwalla's Chocolate Protein Shake and any flavor of Larabar. nom nom nom nom nom nom.

Everything Attracts

2009-01-06T08:32:00.000-08:00

i am sick; not very exciting.
So Mike (http://magicfeathers.blogspot.com/) and I decided to write a checklist for potential mates titled "30 Things We'd Like in a Partner (But Will Most likely settle for 15)". This is not meant to be ironic or sarcastic. I guess the highest percentage wins the prize (I'm the prize!?). I was hungry so I decided to make myself some hot chocolate and as I was staring at the microwave (big no-no but I find it is the most comforting place to direct a blank gaze) I thought "no one will ever want to marry me." Just like that. One moment you're pouring powdered cocoa into a ceramic mug emblazoned with Christmas'd-out corporate logos and the next you're imagining yourself (oft-heralded in my case) as a wise, weird miser-woman who lovingly shares dolphin-safe tuna with her half-blind cat (god I love hyphens). I mean, what kind of shiz is that? I don't even care about marriage! I'm menstruating so that might have something to do with it. Anyway, things I would like in my swoon, xxxooo, totes amazing DREAMDUDER:

As tall or taller than me (5'9" minimum)
Competitive (with me, with others, while arm-wrestling his 5-year-old niece)
Sarcastic (and good at it)
Excellent cuddler (can form unique human pretzels that become static performance art)
More/as intelligent as me (book/street/jungle smart- whatever)
Soft skin (that does not mean smooth skin; the right amount of hair is highly regarded)
Talented at two or infinite things
Good breath
Smokes weed, does drugs with deliberation/appreciation and enjoys liquor
Travels (wants to travel; mind travels)
Understands composition as related to the arts
Likes or 'gets' children
Lives (yearns to live) simply (often complains about life post-industrial revolution)
Can spend hours doing nothing (youtubing, sleeping, stretching, staring into other people's apartments from a fire escape)
Can spend entire days doing everything
Loves live music and is capable of movement while enjoying said music
Eats whatever the fuck they want
Indulges when in/appropriate
Has good BO and hair on da face
Is slightly or more-than-slightly unkempt
Likes post-modern fiction and the lost generation
Loves the Kinks/Arthur Russel/Modern Lovers/Glenn Branca/Nina Simone
Wants to tickle me
Likes cats, hell, likes all animals (that are soft and nice and don't bite with malicious intent)
Grabs my ass in public/private
Hates text-messaging and talking on the phone and is maybe a little embarrassed by sky-writing or sand-writing
Does not use a social networking site
Is "one of the boys" assuming I think "the boys" are honorable people
Understands the fine line between smothering and ignoring
Kisses often.

That's like a million different boys or no? I want to do a craigslist experiment with it. The dude I'm presently into encompasses many of these traits so bravo for me!

ugh.....sneezing my way through hell.

Am I Binki Shapiro?

2009-01-02T07:24:00.000-08:00

As some of you know, I helped a friend with a project for Flavorpill. I adore Sherman's original photo and detest mine (both below). I think the reasons are apparent (a good angle for her but not my best) and I'm definitely feeling the "quit smoking in 2009" vibe (wrinkles!!!!). Anyway, it was a fun experience as I got to shiver in a wife-beater at 7:30 AM in front of the Native American History museum while parka-people rushed to their office jobs.

You can see the rest of the slideshow here.
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I don't think elevators should stop on any floor below 4. I can't stand when someone gets on a crowded elevator only to push out after going up a single floor! Use the stairs! Use your legs! (Handicap people are exempt from this mini-rant).
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I am utterly exhausted and counting the minutes until I can go home, roll a joint, take a bath and listen to World of Echo while the cats bat at the shower curtain. This may have been my favorite New Year's ever but I haven't really slept or bathed in two days and am still wearing a backless blue full-body leotard and four caked on layers of eyeliner. I feel very optimistic about 2k9 I think. wooooooooooosh.

yuck.

2008-12-30T07:58:00.000-08:00

This cover is all up my spine and creeping me out but I'm going to Netflix the film anyway:

"Give the Anarchist a Cigarette"

2008-12-30T06:05:00.000-08:00

Ain't nothing like being sky-tied in a jumbo jet and circling into JFK after sunset. I saw the city in the distance, the blinking tip of the Empire State, and felt at once excited and at ease. 10 days just might be the maximum amount of time I can stay away, or at least stay in Southern California, now that I've been here for even just a little while. But oh! The faces I saw! The propulsion of love from friends did not stop. My annual Christmas party, where I was awarded 3-D snowman glasses, a rad print and some skinny Vogue cigarettes from Paris, was the perfect way to begin a week of rental car grinding and the massively gluttonous annihilation of all foods cream-cheesed or of Mexican origin. Every one of my buddies was as beautiful as I remember; not a conscious move but all my friends happen to be gorgeous (is this statement akin to a "mother's love"?). Then the scenery which simultaneously fills me with disgust and awe. The mountains surrounding the valley were tipped with snow and the fogged-out sunset was the color of ten million melting Big Stick Popsicles but the goddamn fucking strip malls that have actually completely taken over the southland have put stones in my pockets and forced me into the deep-end of the million dollar freeway waterfall. I mean, driving through San Bernardino, Beaumont, Yucaipa and seeing dilapidated and vacant storefronts, the parking lots a breeding ground for weeds and a magnet for random debris, is it so hard to learn from past mistakes that all these buildings erected in the name of commercial lust will one day become hollow beige skeleton boxes, monuments to a life of plastic power?
I'm ranting!!! Shit, California is amazing obviously, and this problem of rapid commercial construction isn't limited to one region, but I know now that if/when I ever move back, I'll have to head north to my old SF haunt. I think I'm most comfortable living in a place where the only way to go is up and although the condo injection is cause for complaint, it's amazing to see buildings of all styles and ages rubbing against each other in the street; visual architectural history lessons for free (to glance at).
What else? We did a lot of drugs this night and ended up crawling back to my mom's house at 8:00 AM. The look on my step-dad's face-which seems to imply I will never grow up- was priceless. My bubbies:
Haven't seen this one in ages; she is equal parts frightened and enthralled by my life and our friendship provides me with a fortuitous sanity-measuring instrument. My old flame posturing against a palm tree in the background.
When you stay out till the sun comes up the chances of ending up on a random's couch increase ten-fold. We watched Don't Look Back and I think I actually became Bob Dylan (and went back in time to pop Donovan in the face). Also, my holiday style consisted of a cross between a lesbian high school art teacher, "the little boy from never-ending story" (as my 6-year-old cousin so eloquently stated) and a 90's skater on vacation in New Mexico.
Torie and Crack: beauty and the beardo.

These are all the images and thoughts I've gathered thus far.

"So what? We just crack the jaw off?"

2008-12-22T20:03:00.001-08:00

Three hours ago, my friend Jason and I went off-roading in his lovely Jeep to a small ravine in my hometwon and dragged out a dead coyote so we could extract its teeth and make jewelry (a little late in the teeth-jewelry trend but I think if you're the one who actually extracts them from the animal, you get some more cred?). The coyote was about 87% fully decayed and so decrepit it only took a few slams of the shovel to decapitate the 'ol boy. With matching red Nascar blazers, a fifth of Jack Daniels and some gasoline we set out to do as my ancestors have done since the dawn of fire dancing which is namely to use every part of an animal upon its passing. I literally peeled the nose off the skull and cut through ligaments with those weird scissors that sort of make an L-shape at the end? Hey man, if you can eat meat I think it only makes sense that you can stomach cutting it pre-packaging. Also, we were in a sort of elated, natural state of mind being at once fed by both clean air and whiskey. Earlier in the day when the plan was hatched and I asked Jason "So what? We just crack the jaw off?", I still didn't fully believe the pseudo-macabre endeavour would be realized. Out in the middle of a never-ending field, surrounded by mountains, some with snow and some just beginning to be blanketed with a chilling fog, we were like two red-necks in a Fargo sequel. It was profoundly beautiful and provided enough material for at least a year of inspiration. Tomorrow we plan to boil the skull at our annual Christmas bonfire and remove the last of the fleshy bits (thank you Jimi for your research!). Prior to out foray into bone cleansing, we visited the best thrift store in the United States and let me tell you, I am bringing some sort of look back to New York.
But oh my, I'm drinking Pomegranate wine that an unkle I've never heard of made for the famz and listening to Taylor Swift at my mom's instruction (jeeeeez, to be 15 again). I have an awful lot to spew and in due time...

"In a field, I am the absence of field."

2008-12-17T09:53:00.000-08:00

Leaving for California in something like 18 hours gets me thinking about what the hell I'm doing here in New York to begin with. I can't say with complete honesty that coming here didn't have a little to do with getting away from there but I think the main impetus for packing up and shipping out has more to do with a rolling-stone steering clear of moss than anything else. It helped that I had a best friend on this coast who was learning how to fall gracefully. It helped that I had been unemployed for 6 months in Long Beach with no work to be found. It helped that a relationship I'd hoped would work out but knew all along the statistics were against finally revealed itself to be like two wrong sides of Velcro trying in vain to stick together. New York has been a haven and a nightmare, cold then sweat-inducing, lonely then overwhelmingly lovely in its collective solitude (and the appreciation and exaltation of that stifled solitude). With the exception of (hopefully) a brief creative jaunt to Mexico City next year, New York is my adopted home, a city that has let me build a birds nest out of old t-shirts, lager bottles, fall leaves, mangled wrist-bands, fresh herbs and bagels and all with the help of all the new and remarkable hands I've had the pleasure of holding.

And I will miss these ones quite a bit I think.
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My oma and grandpa. Two people who could not be more different. I smoke Virginia Slims on the porch with Omi and feed bits of ham to my grandpa's lap dog while singing old country songs.
My mama is the strongest lioness I know. I look like a tool right here.
The old Long Beach studio. This is 2005 or 6 I believe. I can tell by the animal masks (we used to wear them to LA venues; I met one of my best friends (MOCHI) because of them!), the beginning of black tights with cut-off jean shorts, and disheveled hair with bleached bits. That was a good phase I have to say. The burning birthday candle makes me think I didn't pay the electric bill (which was usually $7.00; yay poor people plan!).
Torie's apt. in Venice which showcases an ancient photo of me giving Charles his stretches.
I really really hope I get to hang out with Alec Nunez while I'm home. I hope his hair is down to his ankles and his laugh is just the way I remember it.
Returning to ground-zero (even briefly) is always so bittersweet. Bon Voyage.

"Who Ate My Bread?" and Other Tales of Losing One's Head

2008-12-14T13:41:00.000-08:00

This is my roommate Riley. He had basically just crawled out of his mother's womb in Berkeley, CA before he moved in with us a few months back. One of around 40 people who were interested in the apartment (our rates are to die for), we chose Riley based on a link he provided to his youtube account (at the advice of his mom; he is an actual celebrity on that thing). This photo captures his essence and edible self-portrait.

It's fun having a baby (20 years) in the apartment because you get to sort of relive the beginning of your twenties without all the vomit and sleeping on the floor (although I've only thrown up like 6 times in my life). When Riley asks me who ate all his bread, I know he thinks I did since I have a tendency to eat when I'm blacked out. When Riley comes out of our small, shared bathroom wearing an ear-to-ear grin, I know I'm about to get a play-by-play account of his defecation process. It's perfect that he weighs ten pounds, brings us pastries and ice cream from his work, calls us out when we've partied too much/hard and eats as much candy as I do. Yesterday he asked if I would give him $2.00 for cheese he bought last week to add to a tuna-melt making party at Rita's. I, in turn, asked him if he was taking his baby vitamin crazy pills again and explained the "small-change" understanding that happens between good friends and roommates. All in all, we did right with this one. This is one of my favorite videos of his:
And here, a thank you note for the man who bound and gagged me (in a non-sexual way). I am only capable/interested in drawing/painting portraits. I think this girl is kind of dumb but I like the pink and yellow.

This picture does it for me. It's really something all around.

Rita looks like an Armenian angel here. I still don't know what happened to her later that evening; she, too, was confused as her 6 AM message attested "I'm home and safe; don't know how!"
Two nights ago I threw darts for the first time in +/- 2 years. Did alright hey. Apparently I have a lovely technique as well although I'm definitely more of a billiards girl.
CA in 4 days induces stomach-sparklers but also premature (and completely invalid) ennui. I can't believe I've adapted to visiting only once a year and only for a short while at that. It's strange when people ask me when I'm moving back to the west coast, strange that their question shows such assurance and strange for me to try and project 4 or 5 years into a future I see hazily (and positively) at best. I don't know what I'm doing tomorrow let alone when my ovaries start crying out for (society-induced) fear of shriveling up and producing cyclops babies with feet where their hands should be.
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Last weekend was fucking brilliance incarnate. Friday was all about a cozy apt. fête that ended with crème brûlée and calamari at 3 AM. Saturday began at 2 PM with clear skies, clear head, free cafe snacks with the lovely Fatima, perfectly timed trains and the consumption of magical fungi. We entered into full-on psychedelic tenement living (the heat wasn't working for what seemed like days) which involved the perceived growing and shrinking of various body parts, the undulations of kitchen walls and tiled floors, the brutally beautiful attempt at crêpes, or, rather, the attempt to eat the rubbery limed-beasts, (please check out Glenn's new food blog!: http://proletariatkitchen.tumblr.com/) the secret-lives of burning matches and cats all topped off with clips of Bambi, Swan Lake, Sleeping Beauty, Kung-Fu Panda and The BFG. The most acute feeling of being a child and seeing these movies (which the exception, for me, of the newer title and the British cartoon) as windows into super-realities that must actually exist somewhere was awesome. Reverting to age 8 is my new favorite thing. Of course the world kept feeding us love and beauty well into the evening in the form of cheesecake, Cartier champagne, Australian meat & veggie pies, whiskey, sweat and cigarettes.
I just, I just...I am dating my life and it's the best relationship I've ever had.

Writing Exercise for Medieval Torture Enthusiast

2008-12-09T07:46:00.000-08:00

For reasons I do not know or cannot accurately recall, my body is so sore today. Like, broken ribs sore and my calves feel as if I've been hanging upside down on a medieval "lengthening table" in a dank underground lair (a la Princess Bride most likely). Speaking of convoluted physical practices, it's strange that modern exercise has reverted back to such a tortuous era: I fondly remember the days of the Cindy Crawford: Shape Your Body workout video. Being a 6th grader with one of those little girl bellies while all my friends were growing boobs and zits, I was under the impression that I was overweight. Jumping off the bus and semi-skipping home, I would grab a chair, a towel, a large big gulp cup of water and pop in the VHS tape. That soundtrack was so killer! Seal and Primal Scream? The alternating shots between the beach and urban building roof-tops reinforced my limited understanding of the great divide between the east and west coasts. Of course, Cindy's routines are completely fucked up and probably put more people on the chiropractor's table than Black Friday at Wal-mart (don't even want to get into that but are you kidding me????).
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This last weekend being devoted to all things friends, before people set sail home to squabble over any number of pointless dramas (FAMILY), we were especially focused on getting as much Jenny time in as possible before she leaves for Korea (and delightful confusion). After a supremely entertaining night below our building involving whiskey and ski-ball, black-out kissing and portraiture meditations, I spent the next day shuffling through Central Park with Dave and Eric and enjoying the rad Museum of the City of New York. From the glory days of Manahatta to a Paris/New York Fashion exhibition (I was soooo close to jacking an amazing Art Deco gown) to photos taken of the Bronx in the 80s that resemble post-war Berlin, that museum is just great. Then it was to Veselka where I swallowed my pierogis too fast, drank my beer too slowly, and listened to Eric's family histories too eagerly. I fell asleep in the middle of Stranger Than Paradise and a Miles Davis documentary so my dreams were on point. OK, almost done here! (this blog was fundamentally created as a memory bank), Sunday, the girls and I got involved in diner food, finding jeans to fit girls with asses (of which I, sadly, am not- I just read the New Yorker and tried on D&G bustiers), Grand Central light show (nice, but meh, a little anti-climactic? I'm a cynical bitch?) the independent book publishers convention thing where I found the perfect binding and met a woman who "when I get crazy!" goes to the cemetery and does rubbings of famous people's grave plaques, and finally many hot-totties/malbechs/pabsts, the enthusiastic consumption of which culminated in a fine rendition of 4 Non Blondes "What's up" (god, her hats!) at a dive bar. The night ended with drunk hair-cutting, youtube videos of famous piano recitals the best cuddles one could ask for.
I'll post weird pictures of everything soon.
I am missing this lady pretty hardcore right now. Her exploits can be followed at: http://seahorseinsouthamerica.com/:One time I was drunk and hungover and half-naked:Photos by Mikeee Bogart: http://magicfeathers.blogspot.com
(I found a banana on the sidewalk while walking to work yesterday. It was almost frozen through but otherwise in stellar condition (really, quite a perfect specimen). A little green, I left it on my desk overnight to ripen. I am about to eat it; if you don't read from me in 5 days, you can find my rigor-mortified body in the coat closet).

Come as Yarrrrr

2008-12-04T08:36:00.001-08:00

A while ago, all of us were walking in Bushwick and I spotted this perfectly formed tape-lobster on the sidewalk! Lobster and crème brûlée are my favorite foods if you can believe it. I must be the most delusional white-trash person alive. Not to mention Overboard again but shit, parallel universe. Actually, I saw a lot of poor people (including myself) eating lobster in Maine a few months back (at a "jazz" festival where the sole person of color was the singer of a late eighties cover-band! Also, three 12 year-olds played Nirvana and I melted).My friend will soon be famous for the following toilet seat drawings. They litter the johns of Prospect Park and NYC's finest/shittiest bars. When I woke up this morning, I had a huge Wolfmangina drawn on the top of my hand and the ink had bled into my scab. On my way to work, I ran through Chinatown holding my nose as the fresh fish were packed onto ice. Not the best smell in the morning but it sure gets you moving. Thank god my boss is on holiday (also, there is a button missing on my shirt and my boobs were exposed enough that my co-worker offered me a safety-pin; I look like a shit pile but I'm really happy!).
Now working on a series of drawings that are going to be straight bomb and my UPS duder just told me that I'm "dynamic". I win today! (Tonight, after getting sonically charged in the Dream House, I'm going to eat lizard/alligator/turtle for the first time (on Thanksgiving I decided to eat everything ever in the world) and watch projected cartoons in a giant cubed room).
I love you.

"I just kept hugging it while it was puking on me"

2008-12-03T13:10:00.000-08:00

I Love You Tom:
Tom (3:55:13 PM): dude
Tom (3:55:15 PM): check this fucking dream out
Tom (3:55:16 PM): so
Tom (3:55:19 PM): a few nights ago
Tom (3:55:21 PM): I had a dream
Tom (3:55:24 PM): that I was holding my child

Tom (3:55:29 PM): and I just felt so full of fucking happiness
Tom (3:55:35 PM): it was like looking at an angel
Tom (3:55:37 PM): weird, right?
Tom (3:55:40 PM): knowing me, I mean?
Tom (3:55:43 PM): and anyway
Tom (3:55:44 PM): last night
Tom (3:55:46 PM): I had a dream
Tom (3:55:57 PM): that I was holding this little black baby
Tom (3:55:58 PM): hahaha
Tom (3:56:01 PM): with amazing hair
Tom (3:56:06 PM): and it looked at me in the face
Tom (3:56:07 PM): and it said
Tom (3:56:11 PM): "Why is your face so strange?"
Tom (3:56:12 PM): and I said
Tom (3:56:19 PM): "Because I'm concentrating!"
Tom (3:56:26 PM): and then it laughed and laughed
Tom (3:56:30 PM): and threw its arms around my neck
Tom (3:56:32 PM): and kissed me
Tom (3:56:36 PM): and it was awesome
Tom (3:56:37 PM): BUT
Tom (3:56:38 PM): then
Tom (3:56:41 PM): it threw up on me
Tom (3:56:44 PM): and i'm talking
Tom (3:56:46 PM): gallons
Tom (3:56:47 PM): it just kept coming
Tom (3:56:48 PM): but
Tom (3:56:52 PM): I loved the baby so much
Tom (3:56:55 PM): I just thought
Tom (3:57:09 PM): "Ok, close your eyes, it'll be over eventually, just think of it like a warm shower."
Tom (3:57:10 PM): hahahahahaha
Tom (3:57:16 PM): the brain is so fucking WEIRD!!!!
Tom (3:57:28 PM): I just kept hugging it while it was puking on me
aerinly (4:52:14 PM): i miss being close enough for you to (sc)(h)old me

hahahahaahahahahaa.
BAREFOOT IN KANSAS ONE DAY AND DON'T YOU FORGET:

*********************************************************************************Speaking of Barefoot (in the Park); I just want to strangle Jane Fonda!!! That movie had some serious potential (and I understand the time-period constraints, the fact that it was probably a million times better suited for the stage than film and the 60s dichotomy of white-collar "stuffed shirt" urban life vs. free-spirited "sleep in a closet" urban life [also, I think the movie "Breakfast at Tiffany's" bites! The book is lovely though. How hard is it to make a solid film about women in New York that doesn't involve shoes, apéritifs and trying to affect a charming "quirkiness"? Oh shit, that is my life!]), Corie's (Jane) hysterics would push any man (or elderly mother) to drink. And is Robert Redford kind of a pussy? I mean, he did almost catch his death sleeping under the broken skylight during a blizzard so there's like 10 'man points'. I love when Corie finds him drunk in Washington Square Park and picks up his abandoned shoes as he barely hobbles home; the first act that symbolizes her compromise (submission). But what is she compromising exactly? Does marriage quell hysteria in a woman? And why does he have to be drunk to be crazy but she just is crazy? Oh man, Victor (played by the amazing Charles Boyer), the dude who lives in the attic and takes them to a hidden Russian restauraunt in some apt. on Staten Island (where are these places? please!), well, he is officially the love of my (necrophilic) life. Charles in younger/alive days:

Where bobby pins, black socks, guitar picks and my mind go.

2008-12-02T06:40:00.001-08:00

Hey yo, got the swollen eyes this morning and I'm a vagabond in a borrowed (with smell intact) Berkeley t-shirt. I basically look like an Oliver Twist (old stained oxfords) scumbag who somehow snuck through the UC system. But isn't it all so worth it! Having broken up with whiskey about a week and a half ago (I think whiskey is a Scorpio), I have steadily been dating merlot and I really like where our relationship is headed. Wine is dependable, mostly consistent, leaves a physical stain on one's lips as a limit warning and the hangover is a million times better (comparatively). Plus, my sense of composure (ha) while imbibing is stellar and no blackouts! Oh, and antioxidants oui? Man, I still want to smash grapes between my toes a la Lucy.
I was thinking about the following videos for the last week:
Albert has escaped the clutches of the US Army and been let out of Afghanistan. He visited me for t-gives break and we played rock band/ate gyros/went to the Top of the Rock (that has to be the last fucking time! I cannot get behind paying Rockefeller $31.00 to see the tops of park trees and the roof of my apt.)/walked across the Brooklyn Bridge while sipping the shittiest, tummy-shaming coffee ever. We took the circle line 'round McHattan and, as he repeatedly tried to push me overboard (never ever can't thing of G. Hawn when I write that word), talked about the wonderful life/story of Alexander Hamilton, which led to the infamous Got Milk? commercial and then, in a round about manner (spurred by a giant billboard at the top of the East River), how different our nation would be had Bobby Kennedy taken office.
I find only a few flaws in her argument.

Another gem that we stumbled upon (which, by the view count, means I'm 2 million blog years behind) while playing the "youtube game" wherein each person has a chance to say one word which is then put in the youtube search engine to bring up any number of kinetic oddities.
Jimi and I are developing a performance piece based around the many myths of Mt. Shasta (hopefully we'll be able to do it at Ooga Booga this month). I am in research mode presently and came upon a Mt. Shasta web-cam! Unfortunately, much like the puppy cam during nap time, not a whole lot to work with.
Last night (returning to the Bobby Kennedy thread), I had the good fortune to spend some time with my favorite troubadour and oral ruminator (tales of drug heists across many borders, tales of amphetamine fueled love and guitars) the inimitable Don (Belle and Emmy's papa). An old dude who's seen his share of national blunders (he got his head busted during the 60s standing up for civil rights), he let on that this election was the first time he'd felt hopeful since the Kennedy era and that he had even gone so far as to cease using the n-word. Hey, small steps.
Oh shit! Is this only amazing when you're stoned? I am in loveeeeee:
(There are two more videos I have yet to watch). Suzanne Somers was so cute? Wha happen?Or I don't know, she looks good? Kinda Donatella meets Courtney Love meets Jem? (I don't know why this is underlined, sorry).

I had a time.

2008-11-24T09:33:00.000-08:00

Well, g-dammit, where to start?
Today's post should be about learning limits but I find that even typing that sentence is counter-intuituive for me.
MILK on Thursday night, the opening of TRAFFIK, a photography show focused on the sex-trade industry in Cambodia (and internationally). After doing the rounds with Glenn and absorbing every aspect of each picture, Miss Barone (then later sultry-voiced Alisa) showed up regaled in a new fox-trimmed coat, and we turned our energy to wine-consumption, Jil Scott stalking and a genuine discourse on how we might effect change. As usual with these type of events (I mean activist art), it's a little unsettling to get smashed in front of photos of 15-year-old prostitutes whose arms are laced with gnarly scars and whose hips are laden with babies. But maybe that's the exact reason one would hit the bottle? Anyways, it was obvious we stayed on a bit too long and by the time we arrived at our semi-final destination (a bar) I was in a next-level state of mind.SO THEN WHAT HAVE WE HERE but I spout my loving words like a modern Dionysus on ecstasy (maybe spurred by the previous exposure to so much heartbreaking injustice? a momentary hyper-appreciation of my own life?). This mouth has no trap door; whiskey goes in and language from the magic costume trunk in my brain comes out; all color and amazement. Unfortunately, I had the audacity to play a cello like it was a guitar.
This all means that there was no going to work on Friday and to assuage my guilt, I spent the day in a lovely apt. while duder was renovating the bathroom. I smoked cigarettes, sipped Japanese whiskey, ate goat cheese and sketched. I briefly played trains with a toddler who knew at which stop every subway line ended. The owner of the apt., a "famous" florist, had it in his mind to dress me up like a Geisha and gag me with a lovely polka-dot scarf for an impromptu photo shoot meant as a gift for the latest and greatest. I could not stop laughing long enough to get any serious shots. Now, of course, I'm realizing the irony and inconsistency of this post.
Oh well (gah! the two words that are a summation of my existence), then it was apparent that the booze were going to start their brain-melt function and we were off and out of there; it was time (I'm feeling an oft-wished New Year's resolution regarding "quitting while I'm ahead"). Commence a 15-hour long cuddle session followed by french toast and coffee delivered from the hand of God and my mental/physical faculties were beginning restoration.
I wish I knew how to do the "continue reading" link but it's all hieroglyphic math to me at this point.
More later....

2008-11-19T11:18:00.000-08:00

I just coughed up a little blood, and I mean an amount smaller than what might come from your gums should you lose hold of your flossing routine for a spell. Nevertheless, I consulted my buddy Andrea in Riverside, CA and she in turn consulted her friend in med school who asked if I was sick (yes), if I smoked (yes) and if I drank a lot (yes, although I would have said a normal amount considering my age and location). She then concluded that I was probably fine! Is that what Doc Holliday's friends said to him the first time sangre spittle shot from his lungs and onto his playing cards?
So, if this same mini-cute-upchuck experience had happened to a healthy, yoga-going, aloe juice drinking woman of the same age, it would be all the more worrisome right? If my lifestyle affords me the pleasures of lucidity and merriment and also the ability to not worry about random projectiles, I think I'm doing alright (logic has never been my power suit). And shit, I'm pretty sure I'm not ready to die. I still have to visit Machu Picchu, play my Flying V in front of a crowd of 10+, have 4 children whom I will raise differently from one another, paint portraits of all of my dearest friends, own a dog and a very expensive piece of minimalist jewelry, cry out loud at an opera/symphony/street violinist, learn how to cook meat (+everything else), have sex in the forest, eat a cheeseburger, make a documentary film on asexuality/androgyny/gender roles in Mexico City, quit smoking, sky dive, translate more Peter Altenberg into English and make all of my relationships as good as they are able to be.
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Torie visiting us on-the-edge babez (after being pushed off the edge herself-and finding she had steel blades for wings hiding under her hippy-knit sweater (those types of wings allow you to reach galactic heights of course)) was a blessing. Dream House cerebral massages, arepas de Caracas, stoned meandering through rainy streets to arrive at activist parties that smell of cheese and academic B.O., underground ping-pong volleying (where I learned how to fend off bar shark boys by pretending I was having an epileptic seizure- dude just backed away slowly!! what a shithead), tri-spooning on Mrs. Cook's and Mr. Bogart's beds and the periodic collective recollection of an absurd shared history spanning 13 years (involving jelly donut braces, matching Dickies and Coronitas). I love her so much.
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Now I find myself in a pool of dizzying happiness alternating with pointless stomach knots brought on by the introduction of certain human pretzels and hands. Oh, and my wife left me for three and a half months to do blow off the top of an Aztec temple. Projects projects projects.....deep breaths.
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Oh shit, almost forgot. Last night the kids and I stumbled upon this woman:

We were enthralled. Black/Feminist/Dominatrix/Ghetto/Liberator. It all started with our overdue introduction to the song "Let Me Smell Yo Dick" which in turn led us to her educational rant:

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Then the pirates and the oil rig and the Turkish man escaping prison through the mail system!
and once again I AM IN LOVE SO IN LOVE SO IN LOVE with it all.

Lucid Bedding under the God Bag

2008-11-12T07:00:00.000-08:00

to:xxxx@hotmail.com
subject: dream

i had a creepy dream that you got pregnant.

true or false?

to:xxxx@andy_____.com
subject: re: dream

dear w.a.r.,

my friend glenn is living in my room for a couple of months while jamie backpacks through south america. i came home after work last night and wanted to take a nap in my bed (i've been sharing jamie's until she leaves; sometimes i sleep across the hall in a friend's apt.). i noticed some weird, white, medium sized sack hanging from the book shelf directly above my bed but was so exhausted (two hours of sleep coupled with an intense open mic performance that had me channeling iggy pop; all knees and screaming; mystic punk incantations...) that i didn't think twice about it. i ended up falling into a deep, deep lucid sleep wherein my mom, you, genesis p-orridge, this guy ted that i hate (the dream began with him lightly yet annoyingly punching me in the face) and a slew of other characters were hanging out in my room as i pranced around and kept saying how badly i wanted spaghetti. it was a trip.

when i awoke, glenn was in the kitchen with josh (rob) eating some raw food and wearing a black hooded sweatshirt with the sleeves cut that resembled a monk's cowl. i rubbed my eyes and started excitedly talking about my dream. apparently the bag above my bed was full of some sort of wort (probs st. johns) that makes you have lucid dreams! totally totally worked.

i still wanted spaghetti but was too lazy to leave the apt. josh made garlic bow-tie pasta but the noodles kept sticking to the pan making it impossible to achieve that golden brown hue we love so dearly.

so yeah, it was nice to hang out with you, my mom, and the inimitable throbbing gristle/psychic tv transgendered singer. you should try to sleep with a wort bag beneath your pillow or even attempt the all-natural cava-cava route. let me know how it goes.

miss you,
escher dashiki

Jamaican Me Crazy

2008-11-06T06:18:00.000-08:00

I am in a pretty swell mood today, yes indeed (oh, Rock Cowboy! That's where the sound of 'indeed' is coming from. Love you Brian Bress so hard:

).

I think I might attempt a little stream-of-consciousness dribble to collect some thoughts from the last few days:

You don't want to bathe so you can keep the smell of another's arms once draped and legs once crooked- only seconds before! -to fit inside the positively charged negative space of your own body and when the alarm rings and several hits to the snooze don't really give you anymore face-time with dreams, you gotta fall outta bed kid and hit the sink with enough gusto to squelch the monotony of another weekday workday. So it happens that you get a mirror and a vial and the rub of scruff on your face as you lean over the Yiddish man immersed in the morning free Metro paper; there he learns about Mama Obama's new dress and melts into a still shot of the first family, the new Adam and Eve that came to save a landmine, leaning in to kiss each other and I can't help but think "she gets to fuck the president of the united states of America tonight" and that the president brushes his teeth and does the pants, one leg at a time, and that the president uses the latrine to relieve himself the same as everyman. and the president kills insects unknowingly like even monks must do. So caught up in the Kennedy-like fervor of this round, all the smiling and toothless singing of South Americans on the subway telling us, those who pulled the lever, "we love you we love you we love you" and "love" is like the sound of that singing drunk man's feet keeping time with the train clicks and clacks; the way that the underground car is forever moving forward and disappearing behind. The world is happy with us for once! So then, there's that, floating up and out there but anchored in by mass emails telling us "we're here, we made it, but there's so much more work to do" and it's the truth of the matter but how easy it is to sink into feather comforters emboldened to sleep by the whiskey IV drip drip drip; the way an eyelid closes on the day, the way the sun tries to first graze the forehead and then begins to cloak the body in impetuous heat. I am in love with the audacity of certain phrases and the reality that this sort of posturing projection is possible because situations change very little person to person; I'm talking about telling someone they WILL love you. It's easy to relinquish the control of eight spider legs, the same spiders whose web spins the strongest metal in the wide world, the metal used to build the Chinese elevator to outer space, that strength can eat shit and fall from windows and drown in oily puddles that mirror the image of you, alone, with an umbrella as your backdrop.
It's so good to be here, with you and you and you and you and you...........

Really, thanks Mike, this space elevator shit is blowing my mind: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_elevator http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/europe/10/02/space.elevator/

((((((just informed that my brain is basically composed of plot threads from Neuromancer))))

At Flux Capacity

2008-11-03T09:45:00.000-08:00

Thursday night and Flux Factory was having its last celebration.
Josh and his balloon tits.
We drank and ate hummus through holes in the wall.
Melissa was a sober puppy.
There was a happening that required everyone to get horizontal.
This was amazing. Just a dude playing frenetic drums along to pre-recorded noise.
I illustrated a point with a Marlboro light.
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Halloween was cold and my makeup was terrible. We did shitty drugs but rectified the situation with tons of beer. I was a sorry excuse for a mime. Tomorrow is an important day.

Perspective Maintenant

2008-10-31T07:28:00.001-07:00

Man, I have this gash above my eye that sorta stings; no idea how I got it [see above]. Also, my purse got stolen two nights ago from an LES restaurant. I am un petit bummed, mainly because I have absolutely no way to prove who I am. Not a single photo ID. Nothing. I get into a panic state when I realize that I can't leave the country on a whim or a moment's notice. I think I deal with theft pretty well. It all started when I was robbed in the lovely city of Orange, CA a few years back. The thief took my keyboard, camera, jewelry, printer, computer and who cares what else. After that I achieved a sort of zen state regarding possessions, specifically the loss of them. Ipods are a dime a dozen but I'm sad that I didn't get to finish my book :( and that my umbrella and bag of almonds were taken.

No Respect for my Body

2008-10-29T11:43:00.001-07:00

Yesterday's hangover was so intense that I ate these fine bodega snacks for dinner:

Keep in mind I was not stoned and am at present pretty financially stable. I ate the first half (of each item) at 6:45 PM. Passed out with bits in my molars at 7:00 PM. Awoke at 12:00 AM, shoved the rest into my mouth, went into the kitchen to wash it down with some soy milk and found Josh sitting on the radiator. We talked about how Josh had smoked a bowl in the basement of his work earlier that day, something he'd yet to do at this job. That honey bun looks like an Abba Zabba.

Tonight I'm going on a date with someone sporting a handlebar mustache! Yikes.

Oh, I'm going to interview Sandra Bernhard soon here. Remember her? I'm terrified. This Letterman video of her and Madonna is nuts. I love their matching outfits:

Stills from My Days Alive

2008-10-28T09:58:00.000-07:00

Today's edition of BLARG is photocentric. I was browsing my comp's cache and gems surfaced.
These are the Child brothers. Tom Child is one of my best friends of all time (on right). This is during my 3 year long-hair phase when Jamie had abandoned me to follow her fiance to NYC. The only person who could cut my hair at the time lived down the street and would take several huge bong rips before getting down to business. I loved her but the experience lasted 8 hours and was accompanied by Judge Judy rambling from the hokie TV set. Really beautiful light would stream into her apt. though; that was nice. But Tom!!! What a fucking lovely and amazing soul. I have an envelope on my desk full of dried carrots to send him.

This was taken Sunday on the west side. I had to work the New York Art Book Fair for Paper Tiger TV and took a break to stare at water and ogle grass patrons. Some of the country's most lovely men (is it time to refer to them as men? not comfortable with that one yet) work in publishing and have artfully disheveled hair and flannels.

Jack and Charles. They are my kitties in California. They live in Venice Beach now with their lovely mama, Torie. When Jack was little, he used to sit next to the sink and slap your face as you tried to wash it. Charles was sort of a happy accident. I should feel worse about leaving them behind but they have better lives than I do at this point.

Louise Brook bob phase about 8 months ago?? Glenn has been very interested in taking edible nature walks through our great parks, learning about the free goodies right at our fingertips. He has amassed a considerable amount of walnuts and acorns with which to make bread. He shall move in with us in a few days so maybe I'll start being healthy? Glenn gives great hugs and has photographed many old shoes.

Flux Factory (http://www.fluxfactory.org/) on Thursday night will be amazing. Kyra is back from Berlin and already planning her escape, Melissa is a babushka who has "no bones", Jamie is sowing her seeds and hoping for roots before heading to South America in t-minus. I just now realized my best friend will be across the globe for 3 months, far away from me and the incoming Brooklyn snow. Wow. Shit.

This is from last night after hosting open mic. I am not allowed to drink on Mondays!!!!!!!!! Mike and I made a new friend: Victoria! I think she's between 12 and 23. She has the biggest tea saucer eyes oh my.

I don't know if it's kosher to laugh so hard at a picture of yourself.

This was me last Halloween. It was one of those throw-on-a-wig-and-some-mouth-stick-and-you're-something costumes. I miss my friend Adam who took this. I wonder if things got awkward. I feel like I'm either overly sensitive or completely oblivious to awkwardness. Last time I saw him we hugged on the sidewalk and I got my cards read. I will never be rich or famous and there has been a hex on my family for something like 7 generations. It is up to me to break it.

This is my ex-boyfriend's hallway in Long Beach, CA. I remember this day very clearly. The hallway looks like an art installation here. That spool and metal sheeting were just sitting there like that. There is a conversation happening here, between the spool and the window and the metal and my heart, but I haven't decided what it's all saying yet. So beautiful. I remember not being able to sleep in this apt. and sitting in the kitchen blowing smoke out the window, watching the neighbors fight as my boy slept soundly.

Cross-eyed to What-is-this-called

2008-10-21T07:15:00.000-07:00

My mama sent me some photos last night. These two and then one of the ex-boyfriend she always wishes I would get back together with. I'm trying to figure out what kind of hairstyle the above is? I mean, it's a crimped/post-braid flap? I don't remember that being a style but I was 6 and not cognitive of my hair's significance. I kind of think I was the perfect child.
I was born practically blind in one eye and it was a lazy lil bitch, always turning in on me. I had to wear an eye patch for like a year? to straighten it out. I wish I had my pirate photos.
My buddy Simon took this the other day at the animatronic chicken nugget Banksy show. Simon is 19 and fancies himself a street-culture photographer? I was en route to meet Jamie at Bumble&B when I found him dicking around with his camera on the hood of someone's car. I'm loving this running into known people thing that has been happening more often, inevitably, the longer I live here. I mean, sometimes it's not that cool (dudez from bars; old roommates on bad terms) but overall the synchronicity is swell. Like deja vu, it's just an affirmation.

classic.

2008-10-20T13:12:00.000-07:00

these things never get old.

Mime it til you Make it.

2008-10-16T08:14:00.000-07:00

I wonder if I'll ever actually get to see Knyfe Hyts play (www.myspace.com/knyfehyts)! That one Glasslands show seemed to stretch into eternity and I had animals to feed. I didn't feel like staying out super late last night and their headliner status totally killed it for me. I don't know if it's me getting older or if it's cyclical obsession or if things suck generally but I just don't seek out new music like I used to and by "new music" I mean bands coming out of the woodwork today. I'd rather listen to Modern Lovers on repeat then take the time to visit infinite myspace pages of interestingly named bands. I should change that actually; Live music being important and all that. I hope technology gets to the point where you can download a concert from history and watch a life-sized hologram of an (most likely dead or now disabled) artist or band in your living quarters. Like, eating jello on your bed and watching Nina Simone belt out "Lilac Wine" from your closet. I always bank on people out there working on projects like that, working to make the world better and weirder.

************************************************

So, I finally feel like a real person again, esp. after crawling around on pavement pieces and calling out to river cats.

One cannot deny the strange Pineapple Express meets some sort of Don Juan bum brilliance of Josh's face above. ...and maybe here a little too.

I've been mocked over my allegiance to the Chrysler Building (not pictured) but she's so damn pretty!

Friends.save.me.everytime. THANK YOU!

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Tonight we welcome the newest addition to our Brooklyn Brothel. Hailing from Berkeley, CA, the lovely red-headed Riley is moving in. Babycakes Riley is a sort of youtube comedian (?) and basically won our affections with the ending of his first craigslist response email:

Also, my mom thinks it would be a good idea to show you the fruits of my latest hobby: Silly YouTube videos. If you must, you can check out http://www.youtube.com/robotriley .

And then it's Glenn's turn to pass the coming winter in our embraces. All this close living has me feeling (prematurely) a little jolted but a friend in need...

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I'm going to be a mime again for Halloween. That means 3 out of the 25 Halloweens I've participated in I was clothed in the mystery of the mime. I'm considering this round as a year anniversary tribute to the death of master Marceau (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FD8XUrdYUaw).