the messenger said

Rockin' the Bay

2011-08-05T16:16:00.000-07:00

7.29.11

Oakland

Goodmorning, San Fran. I wake up around 8:30 with Evan on van parking duty. We face a ticket if we don't move the van. I"m tired as hell, not happy to be up, but duty calls. We get in the van and drive for what seems like hours of precious sleepy time (actually 20 min) until we find a spot with a 1 hour meter. We park it. Evan gets coffee, I don't want it bacuase I want to believe that I can go home and go to bed, but I face reality and buy a cup. We walk back to Nathans for an hour so I can sit in the bathroom for 10. back to the street, we find a spot right in front of Nathans! back to the van, rep[ark, now I shower and lay back down and sleep for another hour.

I wake up to Nathan's roomy, we chat while she makes biscuits. Not cat biscuits, although my back is tight, the biscuits are oven style. Evan gets a burrito delivered to him by CB that looks like a little pouch of perfection. I leave to get some coffee and find this burrito's twin. But without meats. I am successful. I hit Taqueria and swallow the best burrito of tour yet. I run into Brandon and Nick, we get more coffee (coffee, coffee, coffee, all day all night, that's what tour is all about) at Philz. I ask for an Americano, my jam, my coffee drink. Everybody knows that.

Well, the cute smiley lady behind the counter frowns like I just told her that her crayon drawing of her favorite animal sucks. I turn to Brandon with a smile and then back to her and I'm all like "Ok, that was a weird look. Explain to me how coffee works here, I obviously missed something."
"Well, we just have drip here" and she Vana Whites towards the back wall, adorned with a hundred different coffee beans. "I like dark and chocolatey and earth and leather and strong" I seem to recall communicating somehow…

She recommends a bean lickety split and I green light that shit. Give it to me, I"m in your hands. She grinds and drips a single cup in a Blue Bell style fancy dripper doo and then she does something REAL funky. She puts a mint leaf in my coffee. I'm all twisted at this point. You don't play with a homie's coffee addiction like this. Is this a game? Am I a clown or some kind of tater tot out here? I need espresso, Sheila. I ain't comin in here to roll dice into a tea cup and play duck duck goose. I'm from Brooklyn, NY. Gorilla, Intelligensia, Gimme Coffee, Grumpy's, Stump Town, these playaz be out on my block, a stone's throw, they know me by name.

But I don't say a word, I'm wide open, teach me to sing Sheila, take me to Philz coffee school.

I get my cup and sip that mint leaf funk. Best cup of coffee ever. I went 'Special Agent Dale Cooper' on her.

We all walk back to Nathans to leave for Oakland. Evan spots a hole in the wall shop selling hand made Lucha Libre masks. I am curious, and then hooked. Evan comes out with his new mask and helps me find one of my own...

We roll up on Oakland and play Eli's. Yelp describes it as "more Divey than your average Dive Bar"
There's dogs and facial tattoos. Maybe even dogs with facial tattoos. Nice staff, door, bar, sound guy. good lil' show on the stage.
Our dear friend CRASH set up this show and took good care of us. we rock out for the 20th time or so since we left the east coast, and decide we want to chill at a bar and hang before calling it a night. Crash recommends a Tikki Bar. We tell the other bands our plans, they seem reluctant to go, being locals wearing all black and stuff. It was the perfect spot.
Crash buys us a "Scorpion Bowl" which is a porcelain volcano surrounded by a moat into which our Tikki bartender pours sweet fermented nectars and some mystery spirits and throws 6 straws in and maybe says good luck. We attach ourselves to this lost link to a greater archipelagic hangover and start sucking down the juices.
the other bands show up, and maybe 2 scorpion bowls later they leave, quietly assuring one or two of us in a whisper that this bar is whack and not a great place to hang.

They underestimate Ghastly City Sleep. In our current interation we are especially equipped to enjoy any situation, ESPECIALLY a tikki bar with scorpion bowls and a HULA GIRL ROBOT! she stands across the bar with a permanent distant smile that seems to stare off into another realm, topless, and her hips constantly just roll 'round and 'round in a hypnotic orbit. I'm laughing at her absurd awesomeness when the autor in me conjures up a fantastic photograph…

I say "I'm gonna get my Lucha Libre mask and take my shirt off and pose with that Hulabot."
Evan laughs. "That would be awesome. Too bad you won't."
"what!? of course I will."
"no, no you won't"
"what, you think I"m too embarrassed to take my shirt off and wear a lucha libber mask in a tikki bar filled with maybe 15 drunk peeps after I personally helped down 4 Scorpion Bowls?"
"It's not that I think its something you wouldn't do, I don't doubt you would. But you won't, not tonight, not here, not now."
I get up and run to the van, get both my mask AND his, and return with a shit eating grin. I'm taking him down with me!

Moments later, we have a most incredible portrait of the two of us with Hulabot. Just leavin' a slick with ZERO REGRET in my wake wherever I go. Thanks Evan, for not only pushing me to my ridiculous place, but for posing with me as well.

Crash, who I can only hope is sufficiently amused for the evening, graciously opens up her home to our circus and we crash :) happily on her floors.

Big Sur

2011-08-05T15:57:00.001-07:00

7.28.11

A day off in California

This morning, and for the first time on tour, I wake up in the van.

"Morgenstund" by Edvard Grieg seems to be gently wafting from a distant corner of the universe. I eat a protein bar, stretch, soak in the morning sun and the cool air. Today, dear reader, is a day off for Ghastly City Sleep. We discussed the pros and cons of taking a little road trip from this road trip - the van's missing crank case cover which makes gravel and bouncy road refuse and detritus our kriptonite, the co$t of gasoline and the gluttonous chevy 20 we ride in, the trailer with all our equipment…

If any of you know CB, you know about his life-changing road trip out west he embarked on years ago. It s a great story, and something about the timing and the landscape made a remarkable impression on him and helped him make the decision to move to New York and peruse his dream of playing music. That story culminates in a trip to the famed Big Sur on the central coast of California - a geographically diverse miasma of microclimates, mountains, redwood forest, waterfalls, beaches, rivers, whales, seals, sharks, birds, rainbows, and a general apex of American Geographic majesty. In my official synopsis I'd like to add that the landscape is so pristine and breathtakingly gorgeous it coaxes you into belief in unicorns, and the possibility that one might just appear at any moment out there.

The drive would be about one or two hours, but CB said that despite all the beautiful things we'd seen thus far, it would be worth it. 'nuff said as far as I was concerned!

So the plan was to depart asap and go to Big Sur for the day, return to San Francisco and crash at our friend Nathan's, wake up the next day and rock Oakland. With no big drives on the horizon, we geared up for a relaxing remainder of the California coast.

I walked to a starbucks with CB before everyone else emerged from the Texas Toast. We went to a starbucks to use the facilities*, headed back to Texas Toast, gathered our brethren, dropped our trailer to leave at the Toast house till our return, and hit the road.

Once we got to Big Sur country, there was a single two way road winding tight around a great shear mountain sloping unabashedly to the crashing pacific. The water all up and down this coast was nothing to toy with… surf country, big water… the mountains are all covered in what appeared from a distance to be a healthy velvety fur, the color scheme of the landscape is all muted and earthy, golden and hazel, with deep navy sea under cloud cover. A huge cloud of mist touched the shore like wizard hands, the clouds drifted into the mountains just at road range, so many times we were driving through thick mist such that you couldn't see 20' in front of you. Glancing down to our right (east) was a shear cliff of brambles, to the left (west) the face rises up into gray nothingness…
We cross Bixsby Canyon Bridge, every break in the road a chance to see the drama that is the ocean crashing way down below. We're just looking for a place to land, anxious to get to the drama and soak it all in. We find a touristy spot, park and walk down little dirt trails until it dead ends at a vista point, a wooden balcony about 4-5 stories above the beach we so desperately want to touch. the search goes on…

We drive further down and see cars parked on a dirt turnaround, and a tiny little trail leading down, down, down. We park, descend, and find the trail splitting in two, one leading to a mine-shaft style wood framed hole in the mountain that just had the gravity of a black hole, and another tree covered path with a stream racing down to what must be the beach. We go for the mine shaft.

The tunnel goes about 40 feet until it opens up to an amazing scene:
We emerge perched about 20' above the water, on a trail with a wooden fence. Below us is a small patch of beach surrounded by a scoop in the rock, being pounded by a huge sublime pulse of thick black pacific force. Each wave seems to tear hundreds of pounds of pebbles and rocks from the beach like greedy fingers only to slam it all back down with a crash. The water has a viscous film of giant leathery kelp at the surface, the canopy of what must be a deep dark underwater forest in constant motion.

Every edge of rock we walk over meets the sea with violence. The forces at work are of a physics our bodies can't possibly relate to, and certainly wouldn't last long in. Resilient purple & white spotted starfish grip these edges. Nick scrambles over rock to try and pry one from its perch and fails. We walk to the end of the path, climb over the wooden railing, and crab walk on all fours to the outer edges. Waves are crashing, leaving little pools of life in the crevices, where we find sea anemones out of an Ernst Haeckel coffee table book… I recognize the species from coastal exploration at Montana Oso west of San Louis Obispo. I let my fingers gently drift into the scrambled wig of the anemone as its fingers close in with a surprisingly dry sandpapery suction… it feels good! My bandmates look on with caution as I risk getting an alien sting from the tentacles. I implore Evan and Nick to sample this tactile delight (okay, from here you really have to read this in some pretentious Olde Worlde Explorer's voice, maybe I have a pipe in my mouth, retelling at the explorer's club over curated cocktails in gramercy, y'kno?) and they follow suit. Commence Comprehensive Digital Photography via Mobile Cellular Devices!!

We explore the other trail, and the beach, where we see a sea lion swimming along in the distance. The tide seems to be coming in. Not a soul around, one could potentially get "locked out" of certain spots by the tide!

We are all starving, tired, the day has been long and glorious. CB knows of one other spot in his memory where he reached a larger beach, and we decide to go for it. With tips from a local cafe, we find the narrow one-lane path where trailers dare not go and make our way to the beach. Here, we found the golden egg...

The beach was a long proper edge, lined by a forest of giant bonzai, and 20' out into the surf stood two great rocks, beach mountains. The one on the right had a great hole carved in its belly by millennia of hard pacific waves. the left mountain was spotted with succulents, and had rock formations that looked prehistoric. When I say that, I mean it appeared as though some art director fabricated the rocks for a dinosaur movie. Prehistoric, Ignatious, penetrated by millions of rock worms millions of years ago? The whole beach scene was from another world. This was a Tattouine beach, I half expected a mammoth to emerge from the woods behind a flock of saber toothed tigers to play a game of quarry-bone heehaw with a bunch of mermaids and unicorns with leis and rare healing herbs adorning their horns.

I noticed two little tiny people climbing the left mountain in the distance, and I tore off my shoes and ran for it. I had to climb to the top. Little ice cream scooped pores in the rock face support my scrambling hands and bare feet. I am quickly past the point of no return, mid face, looking down to the surf, looking up to the top. I'm a spider. I'm a monkey. I'm at the dizzying top, I can see everything the world has to offer. This was the magnetic pole of awe for me on this tour. Here we are, at the top. For the next three weeks, I will be climbing down this moutainn until I step into my apartment in Brooklyn. Every word I've written on this blog describes a step to this point. I was ear to ear teeth. I was deep deep breaths. I was longing for all my loved ones, every friend, every lover, my whole family, I wanted them all to be here with me. I decided that I'd better enjoy this for myself. I started singing, I yelled out as loud as I could. All around me was gray clouds, mist, the sea, people on the beach were little ants, mountains on the shore disappeared into nothingness. The surf attacked my mountain relentlessly all around me, impossibly below me. I imagined a great storm, how many tsunamis this mountain must have weathered through history, the white foamy fists driving into the thorax of rock with death in mind, and here I was, a little tiny rickety boney fleshy flea finally on its crest. Me and the mountain finally meet, and I was happy I got the chance to shake its hand at this exclusive password-protected secret society cocktail party that took so much effort for this van full of brooklynites to breach.

I felt truly happy. I felt the whole tour was for this moment.

I climbed down, laying back on the rock, back to the mountain, all hands and feet searching the rock for steps. and tried to express my enthusiasm. Nick, who is afraid of heights, decides to go for it, followed by Brandon. I ascend with them one more time and take a last look before we decide to leave the beach.

We go to a local bar / restaurant and order delicious food, some local beers, and reenergize before our trip back up to San Jose to get our trailer and then the final leg to San Francisco. We arrive at Toast house, say hellos & goodbyes, and ship off to San Fran. We get to 24th st and enter Dirty Thieves, take photo booth pics, drink a couple IPA's.
We walk to Nathans house but he's not home yet. We drink whiskey and water on his doorstep, take medium format pics with my holga copy, I blog on the sidewalk.
We eventually meet up with Nathan and crash on his living room floor. What a day!!!!!

be sure to check out more photos here!

Evil Orcs

2011-08-05T15:55:00.000-07:00

7.27.11

San Jose, Redwoods, Evil Orcs

We wake up in Fortuna to Monica blending berries and batter to make us deliciously decadent pancakes with butter and syrup and apples and coffee. She and Dave send us off proper, and we head to San Jose. They give us tips on great redwoods spots, which we keep an eye out for.

We're taking the Redwood Highway on the way down, and once we hit redwood country our pace slows down and we're spellbound, just looking for a place to stop and take in the scenery. the road becomes a winding tunnel through Endor, and we pull off and ecstatically skip into the forest like a bunch of smurfs.

It doesn't take but 50 feet or so to feel completely encompassed by some spiritual majesty, the trees are so huge, the ground is bursting with giant clovers the size of cup coasters, and everything is so green and leafy that sounds are quickly deadened, furnishing a little bubble of silence around your body wherever you are. We're all separated, climbing on logs the size of freight trains, running hands over soft furry sawdust-skin on felled tree arms, circumnavigating giant tree trunks the size of houses. Bigger than bodegas. Footprints that would call for $5000/month rent in the Brooklyn market. Am I being clear? Single trees older than cities, in a city of their own. One could walk in it for days completely spellbound.

We reluctantly get back in the van and move on toward San Jose. The roads are tight, winding 35mph curves that are tough on the van with the trailer. But we still manage the speed limit. Regardless, there is a cue of about 4-5 automobiles tailgating us, and when we finally reach a two-lane passing zone, we hear the roar of climbing rpms and to our left is a small car whose passenger leans way out of the window.

In the shrillest screeching vocal assault she can manage, a woman in her 20's shouts "FUCK yooooooouuuu Get off the fffffffffFUCKING ROAD you ASSHOLLLLLES!!!! AAAHHHHHHH!!!!"

It caught us so off guard that we collectively started cracking up. Until the next truck pulls up and is filled with muscular bearded demons with double handed middle finger salutes rattling off rounds like twin uzi's turning our hull to swiss cheeses. "FUCK YOU ASSHOLES!"

We have just driven through one of world's most majestic forests, apparently all but lost on these expressive impatient travelers. We are not sorry, by the way, for going the speed limit on the REDWOOD MOTHERFUCKING HIGHWAY. They screamed by us and end up 3 cars ahead of us at the next stop light.

Impressions of these two carloads of hotheads made the rounds in the van and quickly became tour memes. Endless hours of befuddled laughter has and continues to ensue as the retelling of our fellow road-goer's exclamations get more and more exaggerated. Blood curdling screams… the trees themselves must have shook their heads in collective disappointment at the human race. Shame on you, shrieking banshee lady. Shame on you, heaving truckload of impatient Orcs.

Needless to say, all of this wonderful North Cali stuff made us late to the show. Texas Toast House has had a lot of problems as of late with neighbors and cops, and had to cancel our performance due to our late arrival. We played here last fall, it was a highlight show because of how small and enthusiastic it was, everyone is there strictly to see bands, everyone is SUPER friendly and accommodating, and we had a great time. Despite not playing, they still passed a donation jar around for us and made us dinner and let us crash. THANKS Texas Toast!

It was a really cool dry night, so I actually slept in the van, which has a perfectly Matt-sized bench seat in the back you can pull down to a bed. Comfy end to a perfect day.

Whale of a time.

2011-08-01T12:36:00.001-07:00

7.26.11 (to Fortuna)

Waking up at nick's house in Portland… reeeeally early. we pack up and convene in front of nick's. Portland, like most of the coastal northwest, is flush with beautiful vegetation. Right in front of the house is a huge streetside array of flora just bursting with life… something that New York City really lacks in a block-to-block way. Sure, our botanic gardens and vegetal urban "events" are spectacular, but Portland is just leaning against a doorframe paying' no mind & chewing gum, and without jumping through hoops to create miracles of civic park glory, achieves a spectacularly peaceful lush cityscape at every crack in the pavement.

Nick hops in the van, he's IN! We're gaining critical mass! Nick's unique and super-enthusiastic energy quickly makes the rounds in the van and suddenly it feels like he's been in Ghastly the whole time. We roll outta Portland and head for our show in Fortuna, CA, where our friend Dave, an amazing musician and former bassist of Pygmy Lush calls home.

We pull off the road when we see our first proper North Cali pacific beach, where we can kiss the ocean.

We continue to drive south, passing great redwood forests, epic beach vistas

The next thing that happened on this trip would immediately cement itself in our memories forever and will probably be the highlight of this whole tour, if not in the top 3.

We pass over this bridge spanning a river cutting through mountainous forest. On one side of the bridge is a crowd of people taking pics and pointing. I am in the passenger front seat, I lean out of the window as we slow to a roll and ask what everyone is looking at.

"A Whale!"

A whale. "A whale!" I say. "A WHALE" everyone says. We are all 5 years old now. "Pull over! pull over!"

We pass the bridge and do just that. Everyone grabs cameras, iphones, and jogs out to where the hubbub is. Hands on the concrete edge, looking down just below us into the water, a 30' gray whale is slowly swimming out of view, surfacing regularly to breath a plume of mist. It makes a little turn and heads back to the bridge, surfacing like a big slow ghost, tilting to the side to look up at us, waving its big tail, breaking the surface with its barnacled skin. It was an incredible experience, something most people spend years trying to capture, spending lots of money to do so! And this was a great way to see a whale as well, we were perched right over it, front row seats. We marveled at how this day kept eclipsing itself with one amazing experience after another.

Tonights show was in Fortuna, CA. Our good friend Dave, formerly in Pygmy Lush, is going to meet us at the show. The show is in a bran at the top of a giant winding mountain.
The further we drove, the more remote it became, until we were all weirded out by how far out of the way this place was. Driving at night, taking sharp corners, we finally make it to a Barn surrounded on both dies of the street by cars, people are wandering around everywhere. We pull up, and kids are asking "Are you the New York band!?"

We get out and survey the scene. Everyone is wearing smeared warpaint. people are sweaty and drugged out. This forest elf named Quaid appears, shirtless, curly hair all mopped and exploding. He is very happy we are here, and gives us warm gentle hugs. The first barn house has a DJ playing techno electro dandy dance. Some party goers are swaying to the glitches. there is what I recall being a trough of beans, but in reality probably a long table of potluck food stuffs. I didn't touch it. We were taken to a second barn in back that had stables and horse shoes and lassos and smelled like manure. Here's where you guys can set up. Black light fluorescent bulbs were crudely hung form the rafters.
My sneakers became spaceships.

We dragged the gear through grass and barns and set up. everyone was curious, on drugs, happy to see us, and slowly the crowd gathered as we start checking our instruments and mics. I peer into one of the stables and see a giant 400 lb pig sleeping next his buddy the goat. "Oh my. Are they going to be ok if we rock out in here?" I ask Quaid.

"They love music" assures Quaid. Excellent. Two living things are guaranteed to dig it, its a start.

We play to a very attentive crowd, rock out, talk to some appreciative barn goers. Pack up, head to Dave's. I never did hear applause from the stable, but something tells me that pig and goat heard something uncommon floating on the air form the barn that night. Do pigs crack smiles in their sleep?
Dave lives with his girlfriend Monica in a cozy lil place packed with fun music gear and instruments. We sleep tight, no bedbugs bite.

Portlandia

2011-08-01T11:38:00.000-07:00

7.25.11

A thunderstorm is sweeping across Seattle, a stark contrast to the unbelievably sunny cool dry weather we'd had for the past two days. We talk about the van, the crank case cover dilemma, and decide to drive to Portland before taking the issue any further… we had a show that night with Housefire, a really great band we played with last fall in Boise ID.

We met up with are ol buddy Nick Choban, whom I met through Brandon back in Brooklyn last summer and illustrated a graphic short for. Nick is a great conversationalist, a naturalist and great appreciator of David Attenborough and NOVA, a Texan, and an incredible artist. His hand is super detailed and his drawings have a character of line thats always really pleasing to the eye. It was great to see him again, and we got to talking about our journey, our impending west coast joy ride, and before we knew it, he was considering hopping in the van and coming with us to Los Angeles!

After the show Karaoke commenced, and Evan was the only man brave enough from our caravan to partake. "Dead or Alive" by Bon Jovi… he rocked us all.

We met up with Ryan Parish, the drummer for Darkest Hour (also playing in Portland that evening), long-time friend of Brandon's, and our drummer for the Ghastly Fall '10 tour.

He took us to a bar filled with arcade games that was pouring free beers for the Darkest tour. Before I actually made it out of the van I was overcome with exhaustion and passed out! I woke up about 30 minutes later and made my way inside. The tables were all glowing white light tables. Tired, hungry, worn out, we closed the arcade down and said our goodbyes to Ryan after he showed gave us an explanation of the new "Band Wagon" phenomenon, which is a giant van -bus hybrid that bands can rent for less than a tour bus but have to drive themselves round the country… These things are HUGE, and we all agreed it'd be a nightmare to try get that thing around all the precarious nooks and crannies we find ourselves pushing Blu and the trailer through.

tired, tired tired….

we drive with Nick back to his spot, he;s staying in a 2-story old wooden house and we crash on the couches and pull-out beds.

Day off in Seattle

2011-08-01T11:30:00.000-07:00

7.24.11

I wake up and CB is already gone to move the van every hour from parking zone to parking zone (bless his heart). I got a shower and packed up my gear and headed to Victrola for some coffee. I was soon joined by the whole crew who was planning a big brunch at the hacienda. On our horizon was a trip to a salvage yard to try and find a new crank case cover and fix this vulnerability we have with the van… too bad it was a rare sunny dry cool day in Seattle!
I returned to Connor & Julie's to a full-on waffle/cheese-mushroom-jalapeno egg/home fries brunch courtesy of the household & Co. One of the best breakfasts of tour to date, for sure!
After brunch we split up, Brandon and Evan went to the block party happening in Capitol Hill to see our tour nemesis, Battles, Connor & Julie went to a BBQ, and CB and I drove north about 20 min to a salvage yard!
I put on a wifebeater and leather gloves, CB grabbed a wheelbarrow, and we took a list of comparable engines and scoured the yard for a crank case. The yard was muddy and super dirty… I got under a couple vehicles with missing cases before I found a couple we could harvest. I started unscrewing the bolts with the socket wrench only to find that the last bolt was metric, and I didn't have the size I needed! I walked over to another salvager and begged for tools.
"I charge $15/hour for my tools.." he smirked slightly.
I laughed and smiled big, and got the 10mm socket I needed and finally retrieved the cover. We drove to a Walmart to get a new trailer tire as the old one was balding - only on the right side, which is another puzzle we have to figure out. while in the parking lot, I fix the case cover to the engine and have CB start it up as I hold it in place, but the noise is still happening even with a healthily shaped cover. more puzzles, this also means we have to keep driving with the cover off.

After a long day of duty, we drive back to Capitol Hill, I do some laundry, and we prepare for our pilgrimage to In the Bowl, my favorite Thai restaurant in Seattle. Its a tiny hole in the wall covered in pictures and statues and everything on the menu is amazing. All vegan, super spicy (a "3" will chemically alter your brain, "2" tends to be the perfect balance of heat and heaven), and the owner/staff is very friendly. I ordered soy duck coconut curry with veggies and basil and cherry tomatoes.

The night ends chill back at Connor & Julie's with IPA's and music in the windows in the front lawn. I start nodding off in my chair and head for the couch.

on to Seattle

2011-08-01T11:16:00.001-07:00

7.23.11

We wake up in Missoula and Josh is already in the kitchen cooking up some eggs from the free-roaming chickens in his garden. Coffee is being pressed, Chard is being chopped, cheese grated, everything smells divine.
We all take showers, wash up, get rollin and sit at a table and enjoy the gift of a home cooked meal.
From Missoula we have about 10 hours on the road to Seattle. We are staying with Conor and Julie - Connor is Evan's older brother, we stayed with conner and Julie last fall when we toured with Ryan on the drums. It was pretty neat to have family in the circus coming through Seattle.
We head straight to the venue - Funhouse - where we got on a bill with Master Musicians of Bukake… part of the Mr. Bungle / Secret Chiefs family!!!
We loaded in, parked the van and headed out to get a meal. The show was lots of fun, I met up with my old friend Bryce with whom I've played in numerous bands… Bryce is the current drummer for Military Junior and one of the best drummers I've ever been in a band with.
We played, had a blast, and enjoyed Master's set along with our friend Cody, who plays under Young Bear - a beautiful ambient guitar & effect based project… all around great night. We were exhausted after the show and crashed hard at Conor & Julie's.

Who Knew Idaho was so Perrty?

2011-07-28T10:22:00.000-07:00

7.22.11

I wake up in the van, Cb was driving and he has stopped. Ususally, this means van trouble, I peek outside to investigate. He's outside taking pictures, and suddenly I realize where we are… or at least, the nature of it…
He had pulled off the side of the road en route to Missoula. It was dawn. Cb and I are often the first and only ones up in the morning, so we end up sharing a lot of moments like these. He smiles from a ways away and I look around and see why. We are next to the most pristine picturesque mountain stream, surrounded by steep mountains peppered with evergreens and brush, the sun kissing the river side and great mountain shadows shielding their western faces from the morning. The air was crisp and cool, everything was so perfectly still, and you could hear the water running below us. We immediately get to snapping pictures.
Cb just smiles like an ol' wise man. Words really can't express what we saw, it was pretty darn divine.

From here, Cb drives until he's ready for some sleep. His trucker DNA affording him heroic acts of geographic transportation of our little circus, he's been known to take the longest shifts of all of us. I take the wheel to get us closer to Missoula.

We are driving north through Idaho, and in case you've never been and just imagine potato fields, let me take a sec to describe it. This is my 3rd full United States tour in this van, I can say at this point that I have seen quite a bit of the states and I've been around. This was the most beautiful stretch of road I've ever seen. At this latitude in Idaho, the geographic vocabulary is like Yellowstone… the famous park itself being only a bit to the southeast. These roads were winding through huge mountains and are always flanked by rivers trickling, washing, raging over rocks. The sky is cloudless, the water deep blue, the rocks are unreal in their contrast and ruggedness, and the trees are lush and seem to go on forever. I was constantly beside myself at the wheel.

We were all a bunch of bedazzled tourists with iphone cameras glued to the windows through Montana.
Check the album for pics…

We get to Missoula and pull into a walgreens to get some supplies and contact our contact!
When we get back to the van, our rear driver's side tire is flat!!!!
This is the "new" tire CB replaced in Denver. What a miracle it happened here and not in the middle of the mountain passes we just came though!
We drive to a Firestone and they patch it up and put it back on.
Off to the venue - Zoo City Apparel, a silk screening / arts collective that inhabits a huge showroom and warehouse in downtown missoula. We get burritos, the band splits up, brandon works on getting a new phone, cb sleeps in the van, and evan and I walk around town and chill.

When we all reconvene to play the show, the tire is flat again. All places are closed, tomorrow is a sunday. We miss the first band's set because we're all outside doin' what we do on this tour - change tires!
We place the full-sized spare on the van and head inside to get ready to play.

The show turns out to be awesome, we met some new friends, played well, put all that vehicular frustration into loud guitars and drums and screaming vocals and jumps and strums and headbanging. some cans of shocktop are passed to us, we shake hands, smiles are everywhere, all is well again.

We retire to Josh's house (THANKS AGAIN FOR PUTTING US UP!!!) and clean accommodations.

another day, another dolla' into ol' blu
^_^

less money, mo' problems

2011-07-28T10:01:00.000-07:00

7.21.11

We drive to Boise without problems. Straight to the Visual Arts Collective, which is a beautiful space with an art gallery, a huge stage, pro sound system…
We played there last fall, the sound is amazing, everyone on staff is a sweetie.

As if we needed any more hardship, Just before our set the Rhodes Piano, which was previously fallen upon by a giant naked guy and had its stand broken, collapses on the rigged stand that I "fixed" with a master lock. The piano falls so hard that a plate on the stand impales the keyboard and when Brandon and CB lift it up they can't see the stand because it is stuck on the bottom of the rhodes. I was in the bathroom, Cb comes to me to break the bad news.

We sub in a lighter stand and soldier on. What else can you do?

The show goes great despite our disbelief in the continuous flow of bad luck The shows are always amazing. Everyone is focused, intensely in their own world and yet all together and orchestrating this wall of sound we call our set. Its all we got at this point, but its the reason we come out here.

I"m exhausted, I pass out on the floor after the show in between keyboard cases. Brandon finds me and laughs and wakes me up. The band drives to a diner to fuel up and make an overnight drive to Missoula MT. I stay in the van and pass out. hopefully when I wake we're alive and makin' our way to MT!

666 Devil Child - pt.2

2011-07-24T11:48:00.001-07:00

7.20.11 - 7.21.2011

666 Devilchild Part 2

at this point we are all in with Derrick. He has our trailer on his truck with over $10,000 worth of music gear inside, our van in a parking lot in his town, and all of us in his truck.
Not one minute in his truck and he's out of the gate firing…
"So let me give you a little background about myself, I just got out of prison about a month ago…"

Derrick:
At one time, one of the top 4 (high school ?) wrestlers in the country
"I learned to fight really young, my grandfather would send me to Spokane with a one-way ticket, and I'd have to fight for money to get back home."
Gun owner, but prefers hand-to-hand combat
Served in the United States military in Iraq as an army infantryman, was shot just under his arm during his service (lifted shirt to produce scar)
recovering Oxycotin & other prescription pain pill addict
Dirt bike racer & daredevil stuntman, endorsed by the Coca-Cola company. He has a 450cc bike amongst others that he practices with. In August, he will be jumping two adjacent highway overpasses, the police will be shutting down traffic for the event! His racing name is 666 Devilchild.
Is not a racist. "I own a color T.V."

He asks what kind of music we play. I seem to sense everyone gulping and thinking really hard, really fast. We never even went over this. He has a fancy bluetooth stereo in his super truck and wants to hear either our music or something we have on an ipod. "Its, like, rock, y'know"
Evan quickly produces a no-b.s. song from his collection with an edge and a sweet beat to fill the air. We all quietly sigh in relief.

He worked as a roofer for a company that screwed him over, he promised to create his own company and in turn blow them out of the water. This was his current job.
His truck was filled with disassembled picnic tables.

He's punching his turbo throttle, swearing at truckers trying to pass in the right lane, gunning it in his truck, talking about the runaway truck lanes, sinking in the sand, making jokes about our little trailer in the back, always with a quick wit and an edgy sense of humor geared to keep both smiles on our faces and the suspense in the air quite tangible.
He must have smelled our apprehension and desperation, and he ran with it. I wish I had an audio recording of our ride to SLC, he had us laughing the whole time. Something unmistakably charming about his manor, whether it be Coalville swagger, general small-town way with people, or just magic in the man himself. He was an endless well of stories, and had an aggressive "me vs. the world" shell around him that belied his bewildering generosity. He insisted that he didn't care if he got into the show or not, he'd wait outside with the trailer while we played and drive us back to Coalville and our van afterwards. Then he'd put us up in his house, his family is out of town, he has plenty of beds, a shower, and he can help us in our quest to fix the van and get to Boise.

We make it to the venue, he helps us unload, we get in the front door and the bouncer is checking ID's. Not only that, but in crazy Salt Lake fashion he's running our ID's through a scanner to verify them. Derrick is either sneaking in or getting an official exception. Due to the intense scrutiny at the door we decide to plead his case with the bouncer. He says no go, but we can ask the owner when she arrives. Derrick doesn't care a bit. We offer him some cash to get something to eat while he waits, he doesn't want it.

We played at a venue called Deluxe, it was huge!
We loaded in, checked on Derrick here and there, felt bad about him having to wait on the sidewalk, but he insisted & his truck had a movie theater in it, so he could keep entertained.

The show was weird. Hardly anyone was there, but of course, BATTLES was playing elsewhere in SLC, so there was that! X-/

we were all strung out and discombobulated from the craziness of the day, but we played through and began loading out. Derrick helped once again, we said our farewells to the show promoter, whose band we were playing with the next night in Boise. We hopped back in the truck with Derrick, who snorted some snuff and rocketed his turbo sleigh along with our exhausted asses back to Coalville and our van. More stories, more 75mph swerving and truck racing! We get back safely, grab our sleeping bags from the van and head back to Derrick's to crash.

He lives in a nice little house with a huge basement with lots of rooms and a huge entertainment center. He cleans toys off the rug, unfolds a couch bed and takes a mattress out, shows us the bathroom, shower, basically opens his home to us and hooks us up with generous accommodations. We were incredibly lucky to have happened upon him, and we couldn't thank him enough. If it weren't for him, we wouldn't have made the show and we'd be totally lost in an unfamiliar town in the mountains.

We set our alarms for 8, everyone is up early and showered. Evan and I emerge from the basement and have coffee with Derrick.

He tells us about his family, his girlfriend who just broke up with him, not believing in his rehab efforts. They had a beautiful wolf/huskie puppy together that she took and won't let him see anymore. His family is gone for a month or so, his birthday was in June (Gemini… you knew that already, right?) and he's alone for his birthday every year. He takes prescription meds to deal with pain pill withdrawals. He seriously opens up to Evan and I, and I get the feeling we're getting a side of him not many people get to see. He makes us coffee and shows us his 450cc bike that he practices on, this is the bike he'll be making the bike freeway jump with in August. He cranks it up and I videotape him doing a 10' jump off a dirt ramp in his yard.

Now its time to deal with the van. Derrick takes us back to the gas station where it sits, insists that he follow us to a mechanic he knows before he has to be at work around 2ish. The mechanic isn't around, so Derrick pushes the possibility of us taking the cover off the bottom of the crank case off ourselves. I'm ready to hop into action, its all we've got at the moment, and Derrick has tools and apparently a couple of ramps he's welded himself that we can drive the van up on to work under it. We buy a small socket set from NAPA using Derrick's company's discount and I get under the van with a 3/8" socket. We get the case off and we start the van up… NO NOISE! the gear in the crank case has been brushing against the cover all this time! This means we don't have a broken transmission!
We head back to Derrick's house with the van, since he has the ramps, more screws and bolts, and general tools to try and fix the cover so the gear doesn't hit it. We drive it up on the ramps and Brandon & I get underneath to take put all four screws in to secure it properly. It still grinds when we start it up. We take it off again, our hands covered in grease and dirt, all under our nails, dirt falling on our faces. Cb and Evan continue to provide encouragement and support. Derrick is throwing out ideas all over the place.

In the end we work for a couple hours, hammering the case out, putting it back on, still grinding, take it off, space it from the block with washers, put it on, still grinding, take it off, Derrick takes out a hand saw and suggests we cut a big channel in the case where the gear grinds it. He tells Brandon to hold it down while he's holding this saw. I offer Brandon my leather gloves, he's like "here go right ahead!" I'm seeing hands and blood flying everywhere in my head. But this is the whole experience with Derrick. Despite all of your brain's projected disastrous outcomes and cautionary red flags, this is all we've got. And Derrick is so insistent.

I put on my gloves and hold the cover down while Derrick takes the electric saw to it. "Watch your eyes!"
Sparks fly everywhere, I'm squinting but also trying to look closely at my hands, one slip on Derrick's part and I'm missing fingers, maybe a hand. I can feel sparks hitting my face.
He cuts a frankenstein jagged smile into the case and I have all of my fingers on my hands, which are also still attached to my arms. It all happened so fast, I barely had time to reason.

We replace the cover, but AAAHHHH!!!!! its still grinding!!!! WTF!?

So, in the end, we decide to just take it off and search for salvage yards or mechanics further up the road who might have the part. The van runs fine, its just a little dicey having a gear exposed under the body.

Derrick is telling stories about his biking, injuries, apparently he wrecked really bad once and had to get a metal plate in his head, 100's of stitches…

Brandon and I are struggling to take the cover off one last time. I heard Derrick say to Evan, "You like adrenaline rushes?"
Evan: "… huh?… as much as anyone else I suppose…"
The work under the van continues, but EVERYONE is thinking the same thing. Oh SHIT…
Derrick: "Take your glasses off."
Evan, takes glasses off slowly…
D: "Give 'em to him."
E: "oooohhkaaay…" Hands glasses to CB.
D: "I'll be right back!"
CB: "What the fuck did you get yourself into!"
I'm under the van covered in shit trying to get these bolts and washers off thinking Evan is really in for it, whatever it is!

The bike motor starts up, and up rides Derrick!

E: "OH, no, sorry, I'm not doing that."
D: "oh yes you are!"
E: "I don't think so, sorry man"
D: "Look, your trailer is still here, your van is okay, you just have to trust me."

We're all a little terrified for Evan, but really, what choice did he have? I rolled out from under the van, yelled "oohhhhh shiiiiit!" got my iphone and started shooting. Goodbye, Evan. And good luck.

D: "Now wrap your arms around me, hold on tight, and when I say LEAN FORWARD, you better LEAN FORWARD!!!!!"

The motor roars, and off they go. I can hear him in the distance changing gears rapidly, the 450cc bike roaring like a tiger. In the name of the father, the son, espiritu santo….

3 minutes later they're back, and Evan has a huge grin on his face. He dismounts and is speechless, I'm not sure whether he's thrilled, or has a pair of pants full of shit. He's quiet but smiling. A cigarette can't get into his mouth fast enough.

We call it quits with the van, Derrick shows us to the Gojo soap, Brandon and I scrub up, and Derrick hoses our arms off with a garden hose on the side of his house.

D: "Alright, just one thing left. Matt, its your turn!"

I can't refuse. No helmet, my arms wrapped around this 20 yr old's skinny waist, I suddenly feel as fragile as a twig.
Matt: "Where do I put my feet?"
D: "Just let 'em hang."
Me: "Just let 'em hang" I repeat nervously. There was no reason for me to say it. I just felt death watching over my shoulder and the words flew out.
D: "Hold on tight, and when I say lean forward, you better LEAN FORWARD!"

Off we go.

As soon as he has enough road he guns it up the gears, and my thighs lock to the seat! I remember distinctly the feeling of his ribs in between my fingers. My entire 32 years of life in the hands of a 20 yr old daredevil from Coalville. One ill-placed pebble and my brains on the dirt road. Pure adrenaline. We slow briefly to make a left turn and ahead of us lay a long stretch of back road with a highway over pass in the distance. I suddenly realize I hadn't asked Evan what exactly they did or where they went. Are we going to fly over this highway?

The bike lurches forward and its all I can do to clench the seat with my thighs and his body with my arms. I never do hear him say lean forward, but as God is my witness, I am leaning forward. The wind is a big palm forcing my face backwards, the engine is roaring, I simultaneously feel the terror of a complete surrender of control over my life and the blood-curdling exhilaration of ultimate freedom and incredible speed, my mind going blank, my blood flush with adrenaline and white hot like lightning…

We scream down the road to the overpass and bank up the angled side to make a left turn, and then its back up the road once more! My eyes are squinting for the wind, one more rocket blast down the road and it'll be over, so I really lose myself in this run. I know how to ride a bike and really enjoy it, but there's a big difference in being a pilot and a passenger. When you're in control of your own fate you are earning the adrenaline reward with your own skill. Sitting in back, you hang on for dear life. You're not even balancing, you're just weight. Nonetheless, the feeling was like a rollercoaster rush x1000. Super bonus level-up points.

Derrick slows down to take the turn, we bolt down the road his house is on one last time but its brief. we glide into the driveway, and I take an arm off his waist and shout out to Brandon, Cb and Evan, who is videotaping our return. I imagined myself as a badass who just returned from a fighter plane dogfight. If you look at the video, I'm leaned over pitifully hanging on to this dude for dear life like a sac of beans. It's hilarious!

I yell out again with a huge grin on my face and look to Evan for a little mutual understanding of what it feels like to have survived our little wake up call for the morning.

All this before breakfast.

We wrap up, Derrick gives us a bunch of fruit and veggies from his fridge, we can't thank him enough for everything, and we're off, engine sounding smooth as silk…

We find a little diner and sit down for breakfast. I remark, "I think that bike ride permanently altered something in my brain, I feel like a different person…"

I walk to a grocery store and buy some food instead of ordering at the restaurant. When I return, the ghastlies food still hasn't arrived. The waiter is an old retiree whose all smiles and talkin his sweet time. He tells a slow story about a disgruntled customer...

"Being from texas, and pardon my french, we don't pay attention to shit unless we step in it."

666 Devil Child - pt.1

2011-07-24T11:23:00.000-07:00

7.20.11

666 Devilchild in Salt Lake City, Part 1

Brace yourself, dear reader, this is a saga...

On a quiet Denver morning, Cb wakes up before everyone and takes the van to the tire joint to get a new full sized spare for the van. I get up and take a shower and then go back to bed. Somehow, despite last night's events, I am the last one out of the house, when it comes time to leave. We drive to our second home (Yellow Feather) and Brandon and I get coffees and make oatmeal on the sidewalk while CB and Evan go for huevos rancheros.

With the new spare tire, tires rotated, we finally feel like our troubles are over. This is the first tour with Ghastly where we've had to throw in personal $$$ for gas cause our expenses have outweighed the merch & door earnings. Into the west and to the coast, where we finally turn this thing around!

It's a hefty drive from Denver to Salt Lake City, about 10 hours for us. Denver's distant mountain view and endless manure filled plains give way to the mountains, its your first real view of high contrast bulging rock formations in the earth heading west. In past tours, we've had to play denver>boise>seattle, or even denver >seattle, which is an insanely epic drive that must include overnight shifts. Dangerous stuff to do at night alongside semi trucks on steep 6% grades where you have to downshift into D2 & D1 in order not to burn your brakes off. Growing up in Florida and driving up and down the east coast, one has no idea what this even means. I remember the smell of burning brakes as we went flying down a grade in the early morning last Fall on this same stretch of the journey… it's scary... Remember, we're hauling tons of gear in our trailer.

We are finally doing this drive in the daylight hours, and its breathtaking.

Lots of fuel fill-ups and mysterious mountainscapes later, we notice a little clicking sound that used to accompany full-throttle acceleration on past tours - something we thought we fixed last fall when we had a broken piston replaced. Evan was driving, we decide to pull over. We are about 30-40 minutes east of SLC, in the mountains, some little place called COALVILLE…

As we slow down we realize the sound is like nothing we've heard before. Its a bad clanking sound that is directly related to the engine belt rhythm. At idle it clinks along, when you accelerate, it speeds up. We pull over to gas up and investigate. We all get out and listen for the location of the problem, I slip under the van to get a closer look. The belts are fine, its coming from deep inside… Brandon is underneath at this point and has it located further back than the engine block under the hood.

I look underneath on the driver side and realize that part of the transmission is just hanging open! Its between the oil pan and the transmission pan. I photograph it with my iphone and immediately send them to J, my oldest friend and go-to car diagnostic Guru. Knowing that the sound is coming from / near the transmission unsettles me… a transmission is something that can de$troy a tour like this.

I quickly tried to think of solutions. Clanking noise, hanging transmission piece… must bolt that thing up proper, right? I go into the gas station, where I meet a very amused young blonde girl behind the counter who perpetually looks like she's on the brink of uncontrollable laughter whenever I look at her. She heard us coming… maybe all of coalville heard us clanking' into town, now that I think about it...
"do you have any hardware, screws?"
"nope, just some thangs over ther." (a place with no screws). At this point, I'll take wire too, i can wrap wire around the holes and rig it up until we get to SLC. but nothing here…

I go outside and CB has befriended an old guy coming out of a garage, who gives him a couple lengths of wire, the perfect gauge!

I went back to see if I could wire the cover back on...

I'm not sure exactly when or from where he came, but we were suddenly joined by a helpful kid who talked pretty quick and confidently, offering us advice and options, asking us questions. Things were happening fast, and we were running out of time to catch our SLC show, which meant potential & essential $$$ for this leg of the journey would be lost. He asked about our band, where we needed to be and when, etc. He listened to the clanking sound, suggested it might be the exhaust, problem solved a bit, mentioned mechanics, parts stores, and before we knew it, it sounded like we had a real coalville expert on our hands.

Something dawns on me & I try something before I wire up the cover piece. I slip back under the van and hold the cover tight against the body where it goes and tell Brandon to fire up the engine again, being careful to avoid the smoldering exhaust pipes and other hot metal under the van. He cranks it up, and the sound is almost worse when the cover is where it should be… something banging around in there? Everytime I press up on the cover, the sound gets worse, which leads me to believe the gears inside are clanking against the cover itself.

All this time, I'm trying to get a solid diagnosis, feeding data to J, who I had obviously woken up not realizing the time zone difference between Utah and Florida until I heard his sleepy but nonetheless committed voice listing options.

Meanwhile, this dude from the gas station has offered to hitch our trailer with our entire life as a band inside and drive us to Salt Lake City in order to make our show. He has a Triton turbo charged super souped-up brand new truck and guarantees us he'll get us to the show in time. His level of commitment to our situation was beginning to show, it looked like this dude really honestly wanted to help. Our options were running out.

As I'm still on the phone with J, the band is gathering their personals, and this guy has them unhitching the trailer. I say goodbye to J and get the 411…
We are taking a chance on this kid. We are putting our trailer with all of our gear on his truck. He guarantees our van will be safe in this Coalville parking lot. He has agreed to drive us to SLC to our show, and after our show, drive us back. He has offered us a place to stay too. He lives 3 minutes from the gas station. He moves quickly, talks confidently, he's kinda wild eyed and wiry, he looks like he's 18 years old. The whole group relays the story to me, he goes to get his truck. I stop him and ask "hey man, what's your name?"
"Derrick."
He's 20 years old, so we might not be able to get him into the club we're playing. He's fine with that, he insists he'll wait outside.
I quickly shake hands with him - he's kinda not into being all friendly, just gettin the job done - and head back to the van to get my personal belongings.
I change into jeans, grab my backpack, and head over to Derrick's truck, hop in shotgun while ghastlies get in the backseat, and off we go!

Dear reader, we will never forget Derrick. stay tuned for part 2…

Denver Day 2

2011-07-24T11:21:00.000-07:00

7.19.11

Denver day 2

I wake up earlier than the group and head off to the Yellow Feather to write, work on video, post photos, drink coffee and get some rare alone time on tour.
I'm pacing back and forth in front of the coffee shop talking on the phone when out comes a barista with a bell jar filled with a fresh iced cappuccino!
"this was a test, I was teaching someone how to make it, enjoy"

Denver is cloudless with the exception of a great billowing wall of cumulus cauliflowering over the rockies off in the distance.

eventually, Ghastly and all our Denver friends are there, I pack up and we head out to Goose Town Tavern for some delicious pizza and local IPA's served up by Chuck.
Across the street from Goose Town is the Bell House, which is an olde-timey looking' theater with neon lights and a big marquee. Battles is playing tonight! Battles, the new project of Don Caballero Guitarist has been following us on this tour, laying waste to all of our turn-outs and, well, making sure there's a high profile main event in every city we play in.
but we love them, so we sneak into the theater to hear the drummer sound check. We eventually get interrogated, and Evan very professionally identifies us:
"Oh, yeah, we're a touring band, we have a show tonight at 3 Kings, just wanted to see (name of Battles drummer) play."
Security politely nods as if to say,
"I don't speak your language, but I'm sure you will be leaving any moment now."
He was right.

The bursting cumulus torrent over the mountains has reached Denver, and it starts to pour…

chuck's shift is up, we load his bike in the van and head over to his house, where we say hi to his fam, drink tea, pass out, watch spiders, and weather the storm.

My sister Erin just moved to Boulder where our cousin Grace lives, they drive out and meet us at Sputnik Bar, which is like Denver's Top (g-ville). After some beers, the best grilled cheese sandwich I've ever had [asigao, tomato/pesto, thick crispy bread], & a photo booth that really can't fit a band of 4 though we tried, we head over to 3 Kings down the block and get ready to rock out with Git Some again!

I taped our entire set, which I'll post to YouTube soon. I also taped individual Git Some performances, which were stellar! The singer spent most of this show on the floor & in the arms of the crowd, everyone rocked with a ferociousness. Thanks to Michelle for running our merch table!
Whiskey shots materialized and then vanished, and by the time we got home I was done. I remember Brandon offering a bottle of champagne to me while I was brushing my teeth. I envisioned the massive hangover my bandmates would have the next day and I declined in favor of my sleeping bag. It was 4am anyhow. I have a rule on tour that if a new bottle of champagne is opened past 4am and the only people surrounding me are Ghastly City Sleep I do not touch that champagne. This old man had some dreaming' to do.

Denver Day 1

2011-07-24T11:19:00.000-07:00

7.18.11
Denver day 1

I awoke at dawn, in Colorado. I take out my earplugs, stretch, wrap up my sleeping bag. The air was so wonderfully COOL last night I am in a hoodie and a sleeping bag!
Evan is driving. We stop at a gas station. I buy a starbucks mocha frappacino drink thing and a gallon of water. I pee and brush my teeth.
We drive a little more and pass miles and miles of colorado flatlands filled with corn. Everything smells like cow shit. Miles and miles of cow shit. We burn sage sticks over and over again.

Evan passes the torch to CB, I remain in shotgun. No clouds in the sky. Cooler, drier air than the East. Big puffy hawks are perched on all the power lines.

Slowly, the smell of manure fades and the sight of the Rockies emerges on the horizon. I look back to Evan, but he's asleep. I think to myself that I appreciate the energy of traveling with someone who is seeing many of these cities & states for the first time. There's always new things to see, I'm a window seat person for life, but I have seen this landscape before.

We make it to Denver, land at our old hub the Yellow Feather coffee house, call our friends Neil & Michelle with whom we are staying, and get some time to chill.

Neil & Chuck's band Git Some headlines our show tonight… they're badasses, and the live show is intense.

Before the show Evan and I crash in the van for about an hour, its no green room, but it'll do. We drove straight through from Lincoln the night before, so we were all incredibly exhausted, plus we made the mistake of eating giant burritos and having a beer at about 5 pm, which sealed our fate.

We played at Neil's old space in downtown Denver, the stage was on a half-pipe. Our friends Cigarette were on tour headed back to VA, and passed through Denver & played the show, it was great to see them, really beautiful chill material.

Fording the Flood

2011-07-18T12:47:00.000-07:00

7.17.11

Had to wake early to make the 9 hour drive from St. Louis to Lincoln NE. It always takes us longer in the Chevy, since we can only go 65 mph and we're carrying a ton of gear in the trailer. Said our fond farewells to the Hawks' and hit the road.

The trip was mostly uneventful, Evan drove for most of the way, and then I took over. I think I was only 2-3 hours away from Lincoln when we came across a most unusual sight…

As we approached the Missouri / Nebraska border, the landscape changed very abruptly: It looked like waterworld… we were surrounded by water. Trees and rooftops, silos, powerlines… these were the only islands in an unsettlingly vast ocean in what should have been farmland. I remembered hearing about flooding and storms in the midwest about a month ago, but we were stumped as to what could have caused something at this scale.

The further we drove the more dramatic the flooding appeared. A real military hummer was perched atop a highway overpass, and we began to see detour signs along our intended route. We stopped at a gas station on a hill overlooking the floodplain. It was profound enough to warrant some photographs - all you could see was water and rooftops. CB asked a local guy taking pics what the deal was. Apparently, a Dam was released way up north that caused more dramatic water levels than intended, and on top of it all, a great deal of snow melt & storm water combined with a quickness no one anticipated.

info via NYT:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/21/us/21flood.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=missouri%20river%20flood&st=cse

We consulted our iphones, took local advice, and followed detour signs to try and cross the Missouri at a point a little further north.

Despite the grade of the land taking us up in elevation, every westward road we encountered was closed to thru traffic due to flooding. At this point we are way off course, heading north into Iowa on smaller country roads in an attempt to cross the river. The heat was intense, and any time we stopped the van & the 65mph airflow ceased, sweat was just running off our heads, into our eyes. I had to get my towel out just to wipe my face while I was driving. I applied sunscreen to my left arm and took my shoes off.

The landscape was the only comforting thing, as the detour took us from flat farmlands to lush rolling forest & wildlife preserve roads on Iowa's western border with Nebraska.
We wound around, every stop yielding the same: roads closed, river flooded!

We stopped to try and re-route even further north. A mud-worthy truck came down the little road and we flagged him down to ask his advice. I stayed in the driver's seat as Cb, Brandon and Evan approached his vehicle. I heard them ask about crossing the river, and a wide grin tore across his face as he laughed out loud. There was a woman in the passenger seat smiling too. He advised us to go north, then head back east about 10 miles to 275, north to pacific junction, and finally west connecting with I80, which goes to Omaha. We hastened to get the van up to speed to feel the air on our faces again.

All in all we remained about 150 miles from Lincoln for what seemed like 4 hours. We went north, finally crossed the river upstream, passed through Omaha, and finally made it to Lincoln. Tonight was a house show procured by our contact Vic. By the time we got there we were so exhausted and delirious we were joking about calling the cops on the show so we wouldn't have to load in our 5000 pounds of gear!

We finally got it together, hauled it in starving, suffering from heat exhaustion, and morally beaten to a pulp, and were poised to play.

I'm so far in the game this time around I"ve been enjoying being a little more vocal at shows. It's funny, at my age I'm always playing for a younger audience, and well, lets face it, Ghastly City Sleep is now officially a band of road dogs. This is our third full U.S. tour, and altogether probably our 8th or 9th tour en total, so we be seasoned like a cast iron skillet in yo' grandma's kitchen. I recapped a couple of anecdotes from the tour, letting folks know it is a minor miracle that we made it this far… our tire blow out, the naked dude, the great flood, and I thought to myself, this IS a minor miracle that we're here! I asked the audience for a beer and offered $1, but cans were handed out for free and off we went.
The show was really fun, some peeps knew our songs, we ended super strong and sweaty as hell.

We loaded up and drove to our favorite burrito spot in Lincoln and had the best burritos ever. It was more about placement than actual burrito quality, but they were good nonetheless. We were so starving and dehydrated and exhausted! Burritos are like, the ultimate tour food. Beans, rice, avocado, veggies, and if you dare to dairy, queso y sour cream. The majestic earth's bounty all wrapped up in an oiled & sauteed snuggie, bursting at the seams, just lying there on the couch watching TV getting fat and fabulous practically begging for someone to just come along and sink their teeth in and…

I'm gonna stop right there.

Get in the van, pass out, with luck we'll all be alive and in CO when consciousness comes tapping at my window again.

Blow-Out

2011-07-18T11:10:00.000-07:00

7.16.11

We get up early enough to get a good head start to St. Louis. I get to lounge in the back of the van for an hour or so, then its my turn to drive.
I'm goin for about 120 miles or so when BAM! the right rear tire explodes into a fury of shredded rubber and grinding metal against hot pavement!
I struggle briefly to maintain control of the van, swerving a bit back and forth (thank god I wasn't surrounded by other vehicles!) and bring the van to a safe gradual halt on the side of the road.

Whew.

Well now, its over 100 degrees in the hot sun, the whole caravan brought to a screeching halt, we have a show to make in a couple hours, and we're out a tire.
Everyone hops out, gloves on, we get out the spare, and we start loosening the lugs. The jack for the van is a little one-post crank jack that can barely lift the van high enough to get the wheel off the pavement! We jack it up in two different spots, but we still can't get it high enough to get the new tire on.

I was thinking we'd have to get a tow, or hitchhike to the next stop to get a better jack. The jack we had was simply not fit to raise the van appropriately. But we weren't defeated yet, and wouldn't you know this crew of gypsies and their eternally twisted smiles were still managing a few jokes here and there (I attribute it to the dash of irish on board, we'd be laughing down the throats of crocodiles if we were still in earshot) and we surveyed our collection of junk to find a solution.

We tried a number of ideas until we concluded that the best bet was to jack it up as high as it would go, place the old wheel under the brake housing, let the jack down, and shove both a table top from in the van and a 1-1/2" piece of plank wood under the jack to gain an extra 2" of height. We jack it up again, all the while warning each other about appendages and heads under the body of the van as the sheer wind of oncoming traffic shook the van on its precarious little peg leg.

A number of cranks later we had the clearance we needed to get the full-sized spare on. We snugged the lugs, let her down, tightened everything up, and jumped for joy at another seemingly impossible obstacle averted.

We broke the new tire in, stopped at the next gas station, checked all our tire's air pressure, bought ice cream for all, and I took my pants off.

To put shorts on.

An hour later we were passing the Saarinen;'s Arch, the Gateway to the West, landing at Lemp Arts where we enjoyed air conditioning, fruit & salads, & a couple retellings of the days events.

One of my oldest besets friends Dan Hawks, who now resides in St. Louis with his family, met us out at Lemp just as we were about to go on. We spent some time before eth show rigging gear up to work - our broken Rhodes stand got a master lock to hold it up, and CB & Evan used hammers, pliers and brute strength to free up the Rhodes' sustain pedal pole.

It all paid off at the end of the day - we played well, were received well, Dan & I went grocery shopping and caught up while the rest of Ghastly closed up the show, and we reconvened at Dan & Anika's to enjoy delicious gnocchi, salads, beer, Arnold Palmers with Vodka, and home made chocolate filled cakes with ice cream courtesy of Anika… who also gave us a slightly less than sober tour of her garden in the pitch black backyard, and we all crashed on comfy beds with full bellies and exhausted bodies.

Day off in Chicago''''''''

2011-07-18T11:04:00.000-07:00

7.15.11

Day off in Chicago!

I woke up early and walked west out to the lake. There was a cool dry breeze peeling off the water and it felt amazing.
Chicago is really pretty, don't get me wrong, but something' about a beach on a fresh body of water turns sand into just plain dirt in my mind.
If there's no sodium in the sediment, I fell like its missing a critical purifying element that makes fresh water seem weird to me.
I was raised on the Gulf of Mexico, so any large body of water that isn't salty and full of bitey whales and sharks is very peculiar.
Having said that, the water was the most incredible deep blue, and seemed to beg you to jump right in. I wandered around this curly cove and found myself looking south towards Navy Pier and the Chicago Skyline…

If you look out into the water, you'll notice a giant building way out there… almost looks like an island with a lighthouse on it.
This is the Wilson Avenue Crib, and its a structure that pumps water from the bottom of the lake to the city for drinking water.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/cd/Wilson_Avenue_crib_060820.jpg

We had the privilege of attending a backyard BBQ where we roasted corn, drank coronas, and ended up in a high stakes ($1/game) hot dice game.
Unlike Detroit Dice, this was the old-school hot dice I used to know, where you roll 5 at a time, 3's are zeros, and you take as many dice from your roll as you like in an attempt to get the lowest possible score. You roll until you have 1 dice left.

I lost two games until I received a magical good luck wish from the ether, and then I won every game until the crowd of 8 players or so got tired of me and walked off or left the BBQ altogether. I was on fire, like Evan had been in Detroit. If only all this dice luck could be translated to Van wellbeing or tour fortunes.

Beggars can't be choosers, especially out here on the road!

Tomorrow we head out to St. Louis to see my old friends Dan & Anika, and their new baby boy Indio Eugene!

Milwaukee Madness!

2011-07-15T16:47:00.001-07:00

7.14.11

On to Milwaukee…

We finally dealt with the van not starting this morning in chicago. cb and i took ol' blu to a shop and had the alternator tested, and sure enough, that was the problem. some precious cash and time left our hands and we were ready to head to Milwaukee to play the afterparty of an Underwear Critical Mass Bike Ride.

The drive was beautiful, and the air was dry and cool heading up the lake. We got a late start, so we missed the actual bike ride, but I got everyone to pledge that we were playing tonight's show in our underwear.

the bar… Hotel Foster… was a really cute spot, big room, and John the owner was super accommodating and helpful.
…wish I could say the same for all the rookie bands we shared the bill with, who didn't want to lend out any gear to us but felt entitled to borrow equipment from us!

Evan and I hit the bar, Cb caught a quick nap, and Brandon set up the merch table. That doesn't sound fair, I know.
We immediately made some friends in Brew City and had a great time waiting for the naked ones to show up. We were offered a place to stay for the night, but my cred in that department is shot to sh*t in Milwaukee considering what happened last time I let my flirtations deviate the band from its pre-established place to crash… once upon a time….

We played in Brew City two years ago and we were supposed to stay with Steve (our host and the guy who books our shows here - super rad dude!). I seem to recall meeting this cute girl who dug what you might call a mustache and scruff on my face.
She said we should all crash with her & her roommates, and I had some spirits in my blood and thought it a great idea.

Long story short, we end up in girls pajamas, holding kittens, watching movies and passing out in a pile on a mattress only to wake up to disgruntled roommates who have no qualms kicking us out in the early morning hours. I think they might have even kicked pat as he lay half alive on the kitchen floor in his sleeping bag.

That was the end of my credibility in Milwaukee. So naturally, when we were so kindly offered a floor this evening, I insisted our would-be host clear it with every other band member, and that I had no authority on the subject.

The pilsners were poured, and in poured the smelly naked folk with backpacks and face paint and underwear. Any of you who know seth embry and sara jackson might better understand this scene as their worst nightmare. The fun was just beginning.

The first band played, and soon enough the crowd reached about 200 or so. there was a photographer upstairs by a balcony taking group portraits of scantily clad and sometimes naked cyclists with a flash umbrella. We loaded our gear onstage and off with our clothing!

For the first time ever, I looked around the room and saw not only a sea of skin waiting for a rock show to commence, but my own beloved band mates, all skin n' bones, holding instruments in their undies.

It was incredible.

We rocked hard, I was looking' at CB every now and again and saw a big grin all over his face. Evan was super concentrated as usual, and Brandon was in Brandonland, only it was a naked Brandonland, which only made his stage presence more intriguing. I'm not doubting that the audience felt the same way.

WELL…… and here's the big finale….
we get to our last song in the set, poised and ready to go, when all of a sudden some big naked dude tries to climb over a couch flanking the stage, loses what little balance a night of drinking and doing acid and whatever other drugs these hippies were on, and falls flat on our 1970's Fender Rhodes piano, atop of which we have our mackie mixer, effects processors, cables, etc. It all came crashing down as his mammoth nakedness was too much weight for the keyboard stand to withstand.

In one split second, a whirlwind night of amazing absurdity and craziness came to a record-scratching slam-on-the-breaks screeching halt as we all stood in horror, mouths agape, skinny white legs tensed, panties all literally in a twist.

…

We snap back into reality, drop our instruments, run to the Rhodes, try to resuscitate it (i think its fine), grab it and pull it up from the ground, plant it on the piano stool, gather all our gear and wires from the ground, and call it a night. Our PA was smashed too, laying underneath the Rhodes.

Quite a sobering moment. We broke down our gear as the last band rushed the stage quite insensitively, because time was short and they wanted to play more than one song before the bar closed. I understand it, but we could've used some help and some patience in a moment like this.

Sure, if we were some local band who had some bad luck that night I can see steam rolling over us to try to get a song in, but c'mon dudes, we are from NYC, traveling across the whole nation with all our own gear on a hope and a prayer, barely making gas money at each show, dealing with a breaking down van and trailer tires all along the way, doing all of our own work, and on top of it, covering your cherry-asses when you can't even bring your own mics to your own local bar!

Plus, don't forget, everyone is naked.

Christ almighty…

We got everything sorted and loaded back in the van as the bar closed down, said a fond farewell to John from Hotel Foster, and tried to get our place to stay for the night figured out. At this point Steve, who orchestrated a truly incredible evening with hundreds of crazy folks at a great venue, seemed a bit overwhelmed with tasks and was having a little trouble procuring a place to stay.

We huddled, and decided to hit the nearest diner and high tail it back to Chicago!!!

A few chocolate chip pancakes and jalapeno quesadillas later we were on the road watching the sun rise over lake michigan, the events of the night dancing like sugar plums with skulls branded on them across our brains. Evan cranked some Elvis Costello and might have taken some speed, cause he heroically zipped us down the cost in no time and, dear reader, when this rockstar awoke we were parked outside Sharon & Chris' apartment, ready to sleep more until they woke up for work to let us in.

We finally crossed the threshold and crashed hard on our gracious host's couches once more, the gentle chicago breeze wafting over our sweaty barebacks from a quiet fan in the window…

that's all for now. tomorrow is a much-needed day off, planning for a new st louis show, and then gearing up for our big push out west…..

G'nite.

m

Chicago!

2011-07-15T16:05:00.000-07:00

7.13.11

On our way out of Detroit we stop at a little pub that Rob from Summer Pledge works at.
Rob's hearing is a little messed up right now because about 5 days ago he ruptured his ear drum.
He and a bunch of friends were out swimming at a lakeside beach spot where the currents run strong and the undertow is a little dangerous. A teenager was swept under, and Rob & others dove in to save him. The kid was taken under, and as Rob described it, there's about 20 feet of water and then another 15 feet or more of kelp / underwater seaweed forest, which basically made rescue impossible. Rob swam under as far as he could until his ear drum broke. Sadly, the teenager drowned.

Fortunately for Rob, only 25% or so of his ear was damaged, which apparently means a full recovery is possible with some time. We all wish Rob a swift recovery and commend him for his heroic efforts. I'm generally sorry for the whole situation, it must be tough for everyone surrounding it. Good luck Rob and thanks for the coffee, you'e an amazing drummer. Come to Brooklyn ;)

The drive to chicago was long but scenic. The chicago skyway is always industrially interesting… we played treasure town, which is a huge industrial loft space that some punk kids live in. We played here last fall, but this time the show had a different format - it was a round-robin of 4-5 bands, each band plays a song and then seamlessly passes the torch to another… made for an interesting evening.

We played afterwards, and although we cleared out a significant part of the crowd, we got to play on a really spread-out setting that afforded us room to jump around, always a good time.

Thanks to Sharon and Chris for putting us up / putting up with us! We had comfy couches to sleep on, coffee, tea and lots of hospitality which is always priceless on a tour like this.

Check out tour photos HERE!!!

Detroit Rock City

2011-07-14T16:08:00.000-07:00

7.12.11

We leave Sandusky without a hitch and head out to Detroit MI. We'd been hyping Detroit up to Evan the whole trip, and there's a good reason for it. The Summer Pledge calls Motor City home, and we call them friends benz.
They live in a beautiful old house in a neighborhood of ol' auto mansions, they cook us delicious home-made pizza, they're sweet as fuck, even sweeter!!! and they rock so smart I can't help but grinning like an idiot when I see them rehearse and perform. We've played with them many many times over the years, and they just keep getting better.
They had pizzas and Stroh's on the picnic table, a sweet show lined up, a comfy clean carpeted room to crash on, and hot dice all night long.
I'm still buying coffees today with my hot dice winnings, btw.
I hope Evan had a good birthday - if I had to choose a city on this tour to celebrate it in, I would have picked Detroit.
I saw a dice game where Jeremy rolled trip 6's, after which Evan immediately trip 6-ed his ass, doubled down, and then took the pot. Call it birthday mojo, call it luck, it was mind blowing.
Dustin, Andrew, Jeremy, Rob, and Matt - it was seauxe good to see you guys, and we wish you the best till we see you again.

Check out tour photos HERE!!!

Sandusky

2011-07-14T15:57:00.001-07:00

7.11.11

Wake up, meet Jyoto, head down Penn Ave to Quiet Storm and enjoy some great veggie/vegan food (thanks J!) and on to Sandusky!
….but the van won't start!!!!
We had to find someone to jump start us again, and when we did, decided to drive all the way to OH without shutting the van off!
We played at Cheap Seats - thanks to Cody and Matt of Darger for setting up the show and putting us up!
The stroke of midnight brought with it birthday wishes to our sweet prince, Evan Mitchell, who was at the ready to party like a rockstar. We had a couple beers, loaded out, got really tired, and decided to hold our efforts until Detroit.
We crashed with Cody & Matt.
From the street in front of Matt's house you can see a giant windmill, and at night its lit up in neon colors and strobe lights.
Must have been for Evan...

Ghastly Summer 2011 Tour - Naked Guns

2011-07-13T09:34:00.000-07:00

7.10.11

On the Pygmy Ranch, things are slowly & surely changing in old sterling VA… The house and all its lovely inhabitants we call our home away from home is being threatened by stale cookie-cutter development communities.
What was once a lush paradise hit factory with forest, gardens, chickens, goats, bees, ducks, trampolines, bonfires, & dear friends is now being squeezed on all sides by tractors and road blocks. Sterling is getting a big spoonful of gentrification - and has been for a while. Being back reminded me how long ago it was when I first set foot on the property… back in 2007, i believe, and how I got to see, via semi-annual glimpses, the projects bloom, house & band members change, and general porch culture endure just about any storm life can throw at it…
… what a great porch.

We had to locate the trailer, tack on a new license plate, and mocha all of our gear from the van ("BLU" the Chevy 20) and the truck to the trailer. At this point, we have all of our gear in one trailer, and we all ride in style in BLU with no gear. 4 capatin's seats and a back bed-sized bench that could potentially sleep two people of the cozy persuasion.

Our setbacks delayed us significantly, but we made it to Gooski's in Pittsburg just in time for the start of the show.
Gooski's is a long bar with a back room - its on the ground floor but it's usually a tough load 'cause you gotta' walk past the entire bar with your gear to get to the stage.
There were four tiers of olfactory assault - stale beer, patchouli, sewage, and then cigarettes. Loading in means you pass back and forth through these sentinels of swill about 20 times whilst carrying pounds and pounds of equipment. And you STILL gotta' shout "Excuse me!"
But I digest… We had a great time.
We played second, rocked it out, and then cleared the stage for Ed Hockley. As they blasted the room with a wall of amps to the ceiling, a couple dudes in the audience decided to start lettin' their junk swing about, and before you knew it, they were totally liberated of their clothing and bouncing to the music.
I'm talking some serious moves - the rubbery flail, the squat and swing, the side-to-side, etc ad nausea.

Thanks to everyone who stuck around, supported us by buying merch, and just plain paid attention for a sec while we did our thing. We love you. Thanks Jyoto for booking another Pittsburg show and rounding' up door money!

We packed up the trailer, exhausted and starving, turn the key and … no start. Is it the battery? the starter? the alternator?
We decide we need a jump, and Marlin (our angel) is there to be on the other end of our cables… but its only turning slightly still.
Out of nowhere, a Gooski's patron in all white and a panama jack hat wanders up, wasted, and lazily says something to the effect of "You, yousss should connect the ground to the chassis, not the blattery terminal….,,,, ehhhh…"
I look at the battery, the engine block, I turn around and he's floating up the street, already almost out of view.
Some kind of drunken iron city angel, that man.
And wouldn't you know, it worked!

We stayed with Jahn Ahn from Ed Hockley, crashed couches, and went swiftly to dreamland.
Well, most of us, anyway… The next morning the van had been swept & organized, and CB had lots of sweet new photos on his camera!
;)

Check out photos HERE!

Ghastly Summer 2011 Tour - Day 2

2011-07-13T09:33:00.001-07:00

7.9.2011

Traveling from New York City to Washington, D.C.

We drive to D.C. to pick up a trailer from our friends in Sterling VA. The morning starts a little hectic, we all have laundry to do, last minute packing, checking up on the tour van (a CHEVY 20 whiff captain chairs and poker tables, feathers, sage, mexican blankets, wood paneling, and plushy white fur seat covers!) and lots of other kinks.

I get a call from Brandon and CB when I'm out buying some food to make trail mix.
Brandon lost his wallet with all his tour ca$h last night some time during the show.
first a broken keyboard that's integral to the set, and now this!
I assure him we'll find it, internally wishing and prayin' for a miracle…
…and that's exactly what we got. A very kind altruistic person found his wallet and left a note on a door, which eventually re-united man and money. Thank you, whoever you are… <3 <3 <3

After a late start we finally had a long uneventful drive to D.C., where our nears & dears had pasta warm on the pot and floors for us to sleep on.

Until tomorrow… our first official show away from home.

Ghastly City Sleep Summer 2011 Tour

2011-07-12T10:49:00.001-07:00

I'll be writing here as we make our way across the country!

7.8.2011

Ghastly City Sleep (Brooklyn, NY)

We are officially embarking on our 3rd full U.S. tour. Today was hectic and crazy…
Our Prophet 600 vintage synthesizer decided to stop working last night at the end of our last practice before tour. We struggled to find a quick solution, but not until the morning of our first show did we land on one. Brandon has adapted most of his Prophet synth parts to a Korg MS2000 we'll be bringing along with us. It's not the ideal solution, but at least we're not completely derailed, and the show must go on!

We played our send-off show in Greenpoint, Brooklyn at Coco 66. I'd like to send shout-outs to all our friends who came out, and those of you who helped put this tour together, lending your time, love, and expertise. Thank you, thank you thankyou! !! !!! !!!! (thank you thank you).
The show was lots of fun, & for you geeks out there we did play some new material…
Set:
1. I Never Left my Head
2. Farewell My Friend
3. Looming
4. 33 Leagues
5. Being, or What You Will
6. Billowing

For anyone paying this much attention, we did change the ending of "Being" around a bit - - - ;)

Evan Mitchell (Oh No! and the Tiger Pit, Industries for the Blind) joined us a couple months ago and is now toting a brand new drum kit - a beautiful 1970 Slingerland 3pc - he's sounding really smart on stage…

Hurdling over an endless stream of obstacles… america, here we come again!

An Atlantic Odyssey

2010-11-21T16:08:00.000-08:00

This weekend, I sailed almost 100 miles from Atlantic City, NJ to New York Harbor in a 30-36ft sailboat.

Mark Giff0rd, who teaches Science at a school in East Harlem (where I work!) is from Kansas City, MO. He moved here to take the job at Inn0vation. Weary of his New York apartment search, he decided to step way out of the box and live on a boat. He found a marina from which he could commute to Manhattan, bought a boat that was located in Trenton, and then attempted to sail it up the coast. However, a full day of getting bashed by 8ft waves prevented him from taking it any further than Atlantic City, specifically the Trump Casino Marina.

I was always fascinated by Mark's boat idea, so when he came to me seeking a crew for the remainder of his journey, I immediately thought of my experienced sailor-friend, T3d. Before we knew it, a crew consisting of myself, T3d & Linds3ytr0n were in a car driving to Atlantic City with supplies, sleeping bags, & goodies (home-made Mead, Monnkey Bread, etc.)

I drove the majority of the way (in a Honda 5-speed... GOD I miss driving a stick-shift!) & was completely exhausted when we finally arrived. We had only about 3 -4 hours to sleep until our early departure, so we settled into our bunks in the cozy cabin and hit the sack.

I awoke to the sound of the motor starting right next to my feet. Mark was ready to go, so we climbed above deck and acclimated ourselves to various ends of the craft as we idled out to sea. While I helped shove us off from the dock with a pole, the tip slipped and I fell on one of the rail supports at the edge of the boat, right on my heart. I must have bruised a rib, cause as I write this my left ribcage is sore upon full inhalation. Ouch!!! I do some stupid acrobatic stuff, but all of my major injuries result from mundane tasks. What happened NEXT was really sobering:

Just out of the Marina is the Absecon Inlet, which connects Absecon Bay to the Atlantic. Common sense tells you that any inlet on the Atlantic has more tidal force than the surrounding waters. An enormous volume of water is concentrated through a relatively small bottleneck as tides flush in and out, so even if your forecast calls for 4 ft seas, you can expect to see larger waves in these areas.

We headed east out of the inlet, and we were immediately struck with a series of 8 - 10 ft waves that really got our attention! Everyone held on tight and a wave of panic & fear silently swept us... Ted, Lindsey and I were all thinking "is this how it's gonna be?" My heart kinda sank into my stomach, and I thought Mark was a crazy man. Of course, I wasn't really thinking much since I was hanging on to the boat for dear life. The violent waves caused a hook connecting the boom to the mast to break, and the boom fell about a foot over our heads and broke the canvas canopy. Things looked pretty effed straight outta the gates!!!

However, we turned north once we reached a cruising distance from shore, and everything calmed down a bit. Unfortunately, it was enough to render Ted seriously nauseated, and despite Dramamine being passed between Mark Lindsey & Ted, he gave a generous gift of vomit to the gods of the Atlantic, many times over. Ted & Lindsey took a nap to recover from the nausea & lack of sleep, and Mark and I debated the broken Boom/Mast connection. We couldn't figure out how the cable from Boom to Mast originally connected, it was broken in such a strange (and hard to explain in words) way that it was quite a puzzle and had us stumped. And since Mark had no tools aboard the boat (?) I felt like it was one of those engineering competition challenges where you get a fixed set of strange pieces and a big problem to solve in a short amount of time. Game on!

Then it struck me! I am a little obsessed with taking pictures, anyone who knows me can tell you I always have a camera with me and am not above setting up a timer and running into a crowd to get a shot of me & what's going on. Well, this time it paid off in a big way. I remembered that when we left in the morning, I had taken a photo of Mark, and right behind his head was the Boom connected to the Mast precisely where the cable and hardware was broken! I could review the picture I took to see how it originally connected!!!

The photo was hazy at that level of detail, but we ruled out a number of hypotheses and were able to get an idea of how it worked before the waves broke it. With this information, we decided that the hook could simply be hammered to an angle that would grab & keep hold of the eyelet attached to the boom. Unfortunately there was only a box of random boat hardware on the boat, no tools. Mark suggested I use the sailcrank to slip over the hook, gain leverage and pry it into a sharper angle. I stood above him as he continued to steer, grabbed hold of one of the shroud cables, and bent the hook. At its new angle I was able to further bend it with my own bare hands, and finally I got it into a shape that would hold the boom's eyelet.
Mark briefly let go of the rudder and helped me lift the giant boom up enough to get the newly bent hook through the eye, and finally the boom was back at operating level!

I took the rudder, and Mark decided to hoist the Mainsail to finally get some wind power generated. Below deck, ted was getting some much needed sleep. I felt really lucky that I never get motion sickness or sea sickness.

Mark got the mainsail to about 80% up the mast when the steel cable disengaged from the pulley atop the mast and froze the sail in place. We still got a generous burst of wind power, but I could tell Mark was really upset at the malfunction. We tried fixing it a number of ways, but aside from climbing the mast itself (BELIEVE me, if I could have, I would have!!!) there was nothing we could do. But now we had the sail up, and were being propelled by the wind! At this point conditions at sea became much more like the forecast. In fact, the sun was bright in the cloudless sky, the waves were tiny, and the wind died down too... and we all breathed a sigh of relief.

We came across a few inlets after the Absecon, and were ready each time. With the mainsail hoisted, the boat was stabilized against side to side swaying, which is what really got Ted sick. I roused the sleepers and updated them on our boat repairs and current status. Spirits were raised, and Breakfast commenced!

Breakfast, in its many and continuous forms, consisted of cereal, oatmeal, animal crackers, chocolate, instant coffee, cheese & crackers, water, and vitamins.

Now that Ted was back in ship shape, he suggested we raise the Jib, which is the smaller sail up on the bow. Ted attached the jib to a crank on the mast and raised it while he instructed me on attaching the hypotenuse edge to the shroud that goes from top of mast to tip of bow with small hooks. Just before we hit another choppy inlet, we had the Jib raised!!! I gave Ted a high-five and experienced, for the first time, the exhilaration of manual-labor teamwork at sea. We were physically harnessing the free wind with beautiful cables and pulleys, canvass, wood & metal on water! What a cool feeling.

Mark was beat, so he took a nap. Ted and Lindsey followed suit, and I had a good hour or two piloting the boat on my own. I gazed at the sky, I steered the ship, I took photos, checked the GPS, watching sea birds dive into schools of baitfish, and just breathed in the sea air. From this point on it was truly smooth sailing. A critical point in the journey soon followed...

Our origianl plan was to sail all day to Point Pleasant, which is the last of a series of inlets where we could conceivably anchor and stay the night. We would sleep, wake up early and make the rest of the journey to NYC on Sunday. Making it to Point Pleasant meant that about 70% of the journey would be complete, making Sunday an easier day. Mark had planted the seed early on that if we felt like it, we could just sail on through the night.

My first opinion was that we should stop. I love camping, and more importantly, I really really value my sleep these days and especially in physically demanding situations like this. However, getting back to NYC and having a full day to recover before work sounded REALLY sweet, and Mark continued to bring it up as a desirable option, and affirmed that he could personally pilot the last midnight legs of the journey. Ted & Lindsey both liked the sound of it as well. So while I was alone on deck, I approached Point Pleasant, and negotiated the inlet. I decided I wouldn't even stop to ask, we would sail straight through.

The crew slowly roused as the sun began to set. The sky became violent red with fire-streaked clouds and soothing swaths of vesper. Everyone's a poet out here! I informed the group that our course was decided, and we prepared for the second leg.

The smooth sailing continued. We ate, crawled all over the boat, sat silent soaking in the beauty of the journey, always staying within eyesight of the beach, headed due north to a distant New York Harbor. Night fell, and with it a full plate of a moon, casting a brilliant reflection over the sea. How incredible, to be sailing by moonlight... it was another world, for sure.

Mark took out some soup cans, and Lindsey fired up a camping gas grill. We all ate soup, drank Crow's Nest mead & Irish whiskey & hot apple cider cocktails. After a coupole hours we rounded Sandy Hook, and one could make out the distant towering red lights of the Verazzano-Narrows Bridge, miles and miles away!!!

My energy was fading, and I decided to take my nap! Earplugs in, snug in a sleeping bag like a caterpillar in a cocoon, I closed my eyes and enjoyed the gentle swell of waves below deck.... wake me as we make the final approach to the Verazzano-Narrows!

It wasn't more than an hour when I awoke to dramatic swells and things falling off the shelves. Was it Josh the Bitey Whale!!??? or was I dreaming? No, the trip's Karma was about to equalize, we fell into the hands of unexpected strong winds and rough seas. I quickly jumped out of bed and geared up to meet my shipmates and lend a hand.

I climbed up on deck and got a report. Past Sandy Hook, the waters lose the protection of the barrier islands, becoming subject to strong winds and waves. The wind had also shifted, and was hindering us with our sails up. Ted and I took down the Jib and stowed it down the Captain's hatch. It was much more difficult to keep balance in this condition than it was when we raised the jib. We constantly had to find cables and supports to hold onto lest we get tossed overboard.

The Verazzano-Narrows bridge was now fully visible, albeit a mile or two away. At our pace, that's a long time. We tackled the Mainsail next. Now remember, the Mainsail is stuck in it's 80% position on the mast. We can't pull it down with all our strength, so Mark suggested we detatch it from the Boom and bring it towards the mast, and then wrap it up there.

We untied the mainsail from the tip of the boom, just over the pilot's seat in the rear. Dear reader, the wind was intense. Once the mainsail was loose from its connection to the boom it became - and I want you to really meditate on this statement - possessed by a great violent demon from the sea. I can't put it any other way.

What happened next was remarkably ridiculous and dangerous. The mainsail, now a great ghost under a canvas sheet, began violently convulsing as Ted and I attempted to bring it to the mast. The wind was howling in the night, the seas tossed our silboat side to side, and the canvas flapped like a giant towel being snapped at our bodies. The end of the mainsail had a rigid flat rod sewn in that I took notice of in an instant. I yelled at Ted to warn him that our Ghost had a machete hidden in its robe and meant to do us in. I grabbed the rod with one arm, the other now wrapped desperately around the mast. Ted grabbed a coil of rope from the Starboard side for tying us up to a dock, and proceeded to wrap it around our attacker. Our aim was to tie this beast to the mast for the remainder of the journey and just motor in. But the beast would not relent.

The sail scontinued to beat us over and over, I began to laugh a little as Ted and I ducked and grabbed hold of the boat to take a rest. We were being bested by the wind in a robe, it's feet only tied to our mast, its angry body in desparate rhythmic spasms trying to get free. I joked to Ted "It's screaming 'Never, Never, Never, Never, Never!!!!!' " and I actually became a little horrified by my own characterization, that's how vivid and anthropomorphic the great ghost on the mast appeared.

Something had to be done, we had a huge pulsating snapping bubble on our mast! Ted and I revised our plans a bit and jumped back in to wrestle the beast. This time, more rope, tied higher up, to minimize the amount of wind-filled sail. We were rapidly approaching the Verazanno-Narrows, and it seemed the ghost did NOT want to accompany us past the bridge.

We wrestled and wrapped rope until we could go no further. At times, I was actually yelling "You SON of BITCH!" and just plain screaming war cries before making some crazy grab at the powerful creature, holding it to the mast, and passing rope around to Ted. You must understand, dear reader, that the wind was so strong, and the sail obviously so efficient by design at catching this wind and creating resistance, that two grown men could not successfully strong-arm the sail. Every time I grabbed a handful of sail, it took all my strength to pull it to the Mast, and a great deal of balance and care to use another hand to both grab rope and keep myself secured to the ship, which was swaying and bouncing on the waves. In this moment, I contemplated my friendship with Ted, our odd lives, how we got out here, what we were doing. I love you, Ted. Again, Ted and I dodged the swinging arms of fury and fell to the deck, grabbing hold of the railing, catching our breath.

We returned to the pilot's seat where Mark was watching us in awe & worrying that we did not have life jackets on. I asked Mark "How did that look from back here?" Absolutely Insane.
Then Ted and Mark had a plan. We would turn westward to see if meeting the wind at a different angle would kill the wind in the sail, allowing us to secure it further up the mast. It worked, so we tied the sail up to the dead ghost's chest. Now only its head would shake, and we could deal with that!

Next we crossed under the Verazanno-Narrows bridge. It was the middle of the night, and everything had a ghostly, quiet film over it. Giant freighters and barges sat silently in the black waters of New York Harbor, their glowing eyes upon us, as if we were a little cat toy slowly being dragged past giant cats with stomachs already full of mice, subdued by catnip, curious none the less.

I remarked, "I feel like I have left my life, and am now sneaking back in through a secret door." - And that's the best way to describe what I felt. I recognized New York City, Brooklyn, the Statue of Liberty, but everything was closed down and quiet, eerie like a restaurant with its chairs up on the tables, lit only by the street outside. We slipped through the black butter of the harbor at midnight.

It was really tough to enjoy the beauty of this scene, though. I was beyond exhausted, by this time FREEZING cold, beaten down by the mast monster, and feeling sick. I lost my voice, too - it was gone when I first woke up from my nap. I was watching for buoys and boats for Mark as he steered us slowly through the Harbor.

The staten Island Ferry, as viewed from a little sailboat in the harbor at night, is more like a giant freight train that moves like it wouldn't think twice about ramming us full-on if we happened to be in its path. More anxiety as we try to negotiate its path and return... There must have been 20-30 large barges and ships in the harbor, some moving slowly with tugboats, others just waiting. We had to identify them in the dark, and quickly decide if they were moving and in what direction - not an easy task in our condition!

Finally Mark pointed out the distant Jersey City shore, and a giant building that marked our final destination - the Marina!!!!

Still, at our speed, it was probably almost an hour away. We crept past the Manhattan waterfront, carefully making our way across the Ferry's path. Ted and Lindsey had retired below deck. A cute little tug boat was running parallel to us about 300 yards off the Port, so Mark changed our path to let it pass quietly. All of a sudden and out of nowhere, a GIANT rouge wave from the wake of this unassuming little tugboat hit us from the port side, and we went tilting almost horizontal, first to the right, and then to the left!!! things came crashing off the shelves, I think ted fell out of bed, we all grabbed the deck and held on for dear life!!!!!! who could see it coming!?

After all the trials and tribulations of the journey, we were almost sunk by a toy boat. Those little tugs have so much power - pushing the barges in and out of the harbor every day - they're churning up so much water with a deceptively small wake... but the repercussions were epic, for us at least.

After the tugboat disappeared into the wall of lights that was the financial district waterfront, we had a clear path to the Marina.
Mark steered us in, as I sat watching for boats, continuously passing out were I sat. Mark kept making small talk, probably to keep me awake and alert, and I'd wake up and mutter something in my lost voice, a hoarse blah blah blah, to which he'd be like, "wha?" He wanted me to stay awake for our landing at the dock, too, so I could hop out and brace us against the wood.

Somehow, I managed to retain consciousness and jump out when Mark eased her into position and stop the boat with my arms and gently guide her in. I tied up the front and looking back saw Mark on his knees, kissing the dock. We high-fived and he said" Ok! I'm going to bed, goodnight"

I took two swigs of Nyquil, inserted ear pugs, laid on my back in my bunk, arms crossed like a corpse at a wake, and essentially died.

Ribcage sore, voice gone, frozen to the bone DESPITE::: my famous gortex ski pants, snow boots, my Dad's 1960's Coast Guard Issued P-Coat (from when he was in the service), and thick wool socks::: feeling a cold coming on and generally exhausted from a full day & night at sea with no sleep... I thawed out in my sleeping bag, happy to be dry and alive and safe.

Sailing through the night was tough, but today I am in sweats and a hoodie, drinking hot tea, napping, blogging, painting, and recovering. I'm happy to be back on land, though. I can't wait until spring & summer when sailing doesn't mean wearing all of your best winter gear! I wish Mark the best of luck in his new home at the Marina, and I'm super-stoked to know someone in the NYC area who owns a sailboat!!!!!!!!!

congratulations to Mark and our crew for the successful journey. Peace, Love, goodnight.

Matt Boyle
November 21st, 2010
PHOTOS FROM THE TRIP

San Luis Obispo to Los Angeles

2010-10-16T12:34:00.001-07:00

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We drove to los angeles right after our san luis obispo show. fortunately for us, chris rock was playing the fine southern gentleman and let us roll in at 4 am and wake his ass up and let us in. he lives just off franklin and made us coffee and provided his comfy clean carpet and a couch for our crew.
We woke up to a rainy day in L.A., but we went walkin' anyhow. just chilling with a salad & coffee, waiting until our show tonight at vacation vinyl.
We play tomorrow night @ 3 clubs

Berkeley to San Luis Obispo

2010-10-16T12:32:00.002-07:00

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we left ant & kelsey's and made the long drive to san louis obispo. this was a house show, pretty small space, but a really fun show. thanks to miguel for having us, and to everyone who showed up!

San Jose to Berkeley

2010-10-16T12:32:00.001-07:00

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Technically, this was san fran to berkeley, since we drove at the end of the night.
Lights on at 8 or 9... the cleaning lady cometh!
we had to pack up at lightning speed, roll up the sleeping bags and vacate without showers or toilet time :(
and it was raining in san fran to boot! luckily, Nathan took us to a proper coffee shop and we got jacked up on fine brew and slowly came back to life. we met a cute coffee drinker named alissia and tried to get advice on what to do for 3 hours in rainy san fran until our next show. the answer was get back to nate's for showers and food and more rehabilitative rituals until showtime.
Gliman Street is a famous west coast punk/pop punk stronghold. Just check out the wikipedia page. it was kinda like an exhibit at a music museum you get to participate in... thanks to Matt for setting up this show!
video forthcoming.
Afterwards we made our way to the ruby room, where the bartendress lit the whole bar on fire!!!!!
we sadly said goodbye to the litany crew (sob, sniff, hug) and proceded to hang with ant & kelsey, who put us up and made us an INCREDIBLE breakfast with broiled eggs and kale & veggies from their garden and fresh blended juice, coffee, yerba mate, red pepper paste, yogurt, and more... it was sunny and warm in their backyard and we left their place refreshed and grateful... thanks guys!
hop in the van, it's time to drive to san luis obispo!

Santa Rosa to San Jose

2010-10-16T12:31:00.001-07:00

View Larger MapThe drive to san jose isn't so bad, so we chilled at Jef's and watched the first half of JAWS... or up until they get the first barrel on the shark. classic.
san jose was a house show at the Texas Toast house. there is a little well-constructed shed / guest room in the backyard where they play shows, and when i first stepped in, i thought that there was no way we'd all fit in there... but we set up tight and the house was PACKED with peeps, full of energy and pumped! I had soooo much fun playing this one! got it on tape too, so once I can edit a song out I'll be posting! Thanks SOOOOOOO much to texas toasters for making us pasta and a beautiful salad, it made my night.
we drove to san francisco and stayed with Nathan on 16th... Jef from litany drove with us, which was awesome. we look forward to seeing all the santa rosa crew again tomorrow at GILMAN ST!!!!

Portland to Santa Rosa

2010-10-16T12:29:00.000-07:00

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finally, reunited with Litany for the Whale, our best buddies from santa rosa california! It was, as always, great to see everyone from the crew & it lifted our spirits and put big smiles on our faces.
we chilled at the flying goat for a while and drank coffee by the train tracks, and then loaded in at the arlene francis theater, which was a gorgeous big brick space. we played a great show under blue xmas lights and then had the pleasure of watching Litany rock the house... probably the best litany performance I've seen - the new tracks were strong!
Thanks to Jef & Rochelle for putting us up!

Seattle - Jewelbox Theater

2010-10-15T16:31:00.000-07:00

We played at the jewelbox inside rendezvous, its a cute lil' theater with olive green fancy wallpaper and movie seats and a projector room. It looked like the perfect little place for us to play, but the room had a killer buzz that we could not kill, thus threatening to kill our buzz.
strings broke, the monitors buzzed, vocals fed back, but we persisted and had our bodies bathed in a wacky colorful lightshow courtesy of the lighting guy whose name escapes me from the projector booth!
all in all, we did our best, and I still enjoyed performing as per usual. -gonna try to post a song from the show if I can masterfully edit out some trip-ups. (coming soon)
***Bryce posted a couple of youtube vids of the first two songs...
no no no no no
i never left my head

Seattle to Portland

2010-10-15T13:38:00.001-07:00

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We left our gracious hosts Conor and Julie on Wednesday and hit the road for Portland, OR. We got a serious view of Mt. Rainier hanging over the horizon... its absurd that this made me think of some NES game backdrop, maybe ninja gaiden... I'd simply never seen anything like it in real life!
We arrived in portland in the early evening, showed up at the Garfield house and went to grab some food on NE Alberta st.
\\\la bonita mexican... had a great show in the garfield basement & then stayed with Sarah, whose job, among other things, is to rid portland of bedbugs like a true entomologist... I sincerely enjoyed all of her insights and anecdotes and frozen specimens!

I awoke the next morning to a brilliant breakfast with fresh beet+apple+celery+kale juice goin' in the kitchen.

oh, and I think I'm getting a little cold, so I've been zinc-ing, juicing, and resting.

Seattle

2010-10-15T11:25:00.000-07:00

We reached seattle and got in touch with Conor and Julie, who were absolute angels and let us crash at their beautiful huge apartment for three days. We settled in and made our way up 15th ave to volunteer park. Mt. Rainier was just barely visible from the observation deck of the water tower there, which is supposedly rare for october. there were spiders everywhere in seattle, one specific species Araneus Diademadus, or the Cross Spider, had dibs on every lush vegetal corner of the city.
We found our fav thai restaurant, In the Bowl, and requested 2-star heat as opposed to the 3 stars that made me hallucinate in 2008. We were in town durning mid november in '08, and the difference was amazing... every day here was sunny and beautiful.

I spent most of my time at Victrola coffee house finishing my ink work for Nick's comic back in brooklyn. Conor did take brandon and I out for a real fancy-pants coffee experience which we were all 'bout. Try this on:
Espresso Vivace... the type of place that has signs up explaining how you can best enjoy the cup of coffee you just bought. I had a cappuccino with what I swore was a bosch painting in my milk.

Ghastly hits the West Coast!

2010-10-10T15:11:00.000-07:00

We made it safely form lincoln to boise and arrived at the visual arts collective space, which kinda blew us away.
Huge, clean, pro sound, & a very sweet staff. We played with Red Hands Black Feet (whose drummer is a bad-ass) and Housefire, who had almost as much equipment as we do and really grabbed our attention.

We decided to leave later that night in order to enjoy three full days in Seattle. I fell asleep in the van and woke up to the smell of burning rubber. We had burnt our brakes during a steep descent down an Oregon mountain. We stopped the van to let the brakes cool, and after I emptied my bladder and took a peek off the mountainside I was kinda blown away. It was silent and absolutely breathtaking out there, you could hear crickets and a falcon screeching every now and then. The landscape looked unreal, like a painting.

Cutting through the cascades was amazing, I might have taken too many photos.

Held over in Denver...

2010-10-08T10:55:00.000-07:00

and loving it. I've been parking my ass at the yellow feather coffee shop every morning, drawing, blogging, & uploading photos.
Denver is sunny & beautiful this week. We ate at Illegal pete's and sputnik's, and are playing another show at 3 kings tonight! Two in a row!

Tonight (right after the show :( )we make a crazy drive from denver to boise ID for a show tomorrow night at the Garden City Visual Arts Collective Promenade Music Festival!… driving all night and day. wish us luck, we'll be breaking some mountain passes and stuff. I'm hoping I can sleep through the night and take the day shift tomorrow!
CB just changed our oil and made sure the ol' van is in tip top shape for the trip.

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I miss all my friends & fam and wish you all the best… next post will be from Idaho.

xo
m

En route to denver

2010-10-07T09:51:00.000-07:00

we just finished driving across the entire state of Iowa. Amber waves of grain, yo. Interstate 80 all the way from Iowa city to Lincoln, Nebraska where our nest show is, after tonight, we get another much needed day off to rest and regenerate before the 7 + hour drive to Denver CO where we play at 3 Kings (we played there two years ago on our first tour, when we were graciously hosted by one of the members of Planes Mistaken for Stars - I'd like to mention that this time around, when in Chicago, another member of Planes - Garret - treated us to an incredible home-cooked mexican dinner that blew us all away and left us speechless.).

The sun has been shining all day, beautiful driving weather, t-shirts and sunglasses, rolling fields & lots of windmills (more than I remember last year!) which stand incredibly tall in the landscape and appear to spin really fast for their size. I find them to be kinda terrifying in a beautiful way - I guess that's textbook sublime - the way something so huge can move so fast, it's unsettling to such small creature. I'm happy they're there, though & they're fun to videotape.

I've been shooting lots of vids & taking pics, maybe this year I'll have the time to make a proper tour doc… I also have lots of 8mm movie film from 2008 that I never had the money to develop, but now I do!

cars make dramatic dust clouds on side roads along the highway, I imagine peeling through those roads can make you feel like you're in an action movie, even if you are just driving to the store to pick up birdseed.

Lincoln nebraska has a little coffee shop with cute friendly baristas and lots of space to camp out and do the internet and draw and kill time. We are all looking forward to nesting in this place and relaxing. Something I NEVER do in New York, for sure. That's one of the coolest things about touring, you get to experience down-time, which I know only by name, myth, and faint memory these days. having a moment to just sit and reflect during the day is now a major luxury for me. Funny how all the little pie pieces of an ideal existence are always shifting - money, time, relaxation, good health, sexiness;), friends, good job you like to work at, time for yourself, solid spiritual / inner constitution, etc….. well, down-time ain't one mine, I traded it for larger pieces of other pies.

2010-10-06T13:32:00.001-07:00

The number of hardwood floors these warriors hath laid upon, like grains of sand on the beach, like stars in the sky,
for their hearts doth open wide like great baleen baskets,
through which pour both the krill of fortune and folly,
we are merely hungry, for neither ebb nor flow, yin nor yang, marsh-mellow nor marble,
deliver us life's full spectrum, so that time's vesper-tine light waves goodbye to well-rounded stories,
dreams and nightmares, well-rounded characters, seasoned
by lady luck and her bitter sisters,
we love them all one and the same.

Billowing live in Detroit

2010-10-04T09:30:00.001-07:00

Sorry I don't think the last link I posted worked...

A little suprise outro here... it's nice to go crazy and rock out the end!

2010-10-03T16:14:00.000-07:00

Saturday 10/2/2010
thoughts on the roadside world
driving across the midwest, en route to chicago & listening to strange new music.
There are huge weather fronts moving against us, we have been driving in rain all day from detroit, and it is now beginning to break. I can see brilliant rays of sun streaming through rolling grays and pale gold. But its all pale, there is no sharp high-contrast coastal color, the saturation of 5:30pm is very low, almost grayscale.
We pass a dead raccoon on the road. A church, depots, rural commerce.

I think about the intense social experience of the city, our godless intellectual dense webs of people and jobs and interactions. Out here there is god, liquor, tradition, autumnal swaths of land, duty, distance, mindless violence, beautiful human talents and graces twisted into a sparse landscape that might echo the dawn of human time.

You can go a whole day without seeing another person, even if you desperately want to see someone.

All of the food on the road is filled with sugar and chemicals. Progress is slow, a blind eye meets corporate exploitation, and enthusiasm for innovation is a flea pulling an oxcart.

Last night we played at the trumbleplex, which is a beautiful wooden warehouse with dangling Christmas lights and a big stage… felt like a giant barn in a good way. I videotaped the set, hopefully by the time I post this I'll have a link to some songs!
P.S. Billowing LIVE at the trumbleplex 10.1.2010 !!!!!

U.S. Tour with Ghastly City Sleep! no.1

2010-10-01T10:35:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone!
I am in detroit right now. We played our three-piece set last night at Hybrid Moments record shop. I got to see Matthew's noise set, which was wonderful. lots of tape machines hissing and blipping, really sweet textures.
Tonight we play our big rockin' set with Ryan from Darkest Hour, who we will be picking up form the airport momentarily. Ryan has brought a ton of fresh energy to the group and has had some great ideas that have seriously changed the way we play. our current set features some new arrangements of songs from moondrifts that really make me feel like I'm cut free from the tethers of click tracks and electronic beat backing tracks that have come to define ghastly's sound in the past few years. The result is something more organic, more expressive, & more fun! I don't think I've ever been this excited about our set!
Photos are forthcoming!
TOUR PHOTOS HERE!

maps

2010-05-05T17:20:00.001-07:00

http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&hl=en&vps=1&jsv=235a&msa=0&output=georss&...

Friend neglects to read friend's blog, fiance guilty too.

2010-04-16T19:56:00.000-07:00

Recently, a friend, neglecting to read friend's blog, sent an email to said friend about a piece of news which was previously blogged about in said friend's blog. Talk about sailing right into a storm! Said friend preceded to call the friend out on this redendant and embarassing mishap, only to expose said friend's fiance's simultaneous neglect of said friend's recent blog-abouts = double-whammy.
The moral of this story? When you have a frind who authors a blog (and it's a good blog) and you know about 40% of said friend's news sources written about on said blog, do everyone a favor and visit that blog prior to informing said friend of interesting articles you find on said news sources.
Next time you want to share said articles, consider posting a link to said friend's blog on facebook instead.

The Zen of Soccer by Buddy

2009-05-16T08:20:00.001-07:00

I attended one of my sister's indoor soccer games in March.
I have decided to make public a number of her strategies and secrets to mastering the game, and hopefully you take someting away from this lesson that you may apply to your everyday life.

First, always smile. After all, it's just a game, and it will disarm your more serious opponents.

Look ahead when you kick. Anticipate next move. Play the future.When you do kick, make it count.

I know exactly what Buddy was thinking here. Eagle-Punch. This technique can be seen in Wado-ryu, Sendo-ryu styles, and perhaps other styles too.

opponent steals your ball? subject him to multiple punches in the kidneys as he tries to escape.

Here is it again in case you thought that was a doctored photo.

Get sassy! these games are only about 45 minutes, folks. Life is short. If you see something outrageous, drop your jaw and call them out!

Patience is important. If the majority of the game takes place on the other side of the field, play it cool and let them come to you!

And finally, give 'em hell. If your opponent tries to sneak past you on the wall, fight him. Beat him up over there, the ref can't see you.

Notice in this close-up how her opponents are fleeing like prancing deer at the site of Buddy taking care of bid'nayzzz.

Job Hunting, Teaching, Charter Schools

2009-05-15T10:23:00.000-07:00

I haven't posted in a while, so there's a lot to catch up on.

First, my dreaded and fruitless job search '09 ended thankfully at the end of March, when I was given the opportunity to work at Renaissance Charter School in Queens.
My good friend (with whom I attended high school) is an English teacher and administrator at the school. Every year, the students participate in Rensizzle, a week-long intensive group project where students form focus groups and present their work at school assembly.

I was called upon to assist the music teacher, Everett Boyd, and his students, who had elected to write, produce, and perform their own music - all culminating in a full-length album engineered and mastered by the group! The school actually uses the two music sequencing and recording programs i am most familiar with - Reason and Nuendo by Steinberg, so i felt at home teaching students the programs and giving pointers to others on music composition, recording, mixing, and producing. I had a blast... and these kids can really play!

The music lab really blows me away. Imagine attending a high school where you learn Reason and Nuendo in music class, and are free to write, sequence and record your own music! This would be a dream for me back in the day, and it's a pleasure and a privledge to be able to teach kids this stuff today.

Which brings me to my next point... Charter Schools! This is what makes a program like this possible - small public schools started by teachers and activists and parents who simply want more for their kids - smaller class sizes, more creative academic curriculums, and the freedom to exist "off the grid" in relation to zoned public schools who must answer strictly to Department of Education guidlines as far as how to run a school. I'll be posting more on this in the near future, as it is a very charged issue which has brought about a lot of interesting debate... all of which i find myself deeply rooted in and concerned about since I started working at Renaissance.

Since that week, I have been on board helping Renaissance in the beginning stages of opening up their sister school, the Renaissance Charter High School for Innovation.
I am the resident graphic designer, creating logos, branding, business cards, brochures, postcards, newsprint, letterhead, and web design! Been pretty busy.
I usually work at the school, but I don't have an office, so I just float around with my laptop, in the cafeteria, library, classrooms, etc. I even have a locker.
I just recently finished all of the visual propoganda for this meeting.

We're trying to dispell the myths about charter schools that have been circulating amongst city council members and parents of traditional zoned public schools here in NYC... and there is definately a lot of myth.

More to come soon!

••• • • • • •

2009-02-25T11:35:00.000-08:00

N E V E R V I S T A

Nevervista

2009-02-13T06:58:00.000-08:00

I have decided to start a new blog.
an art blog.
nevervista.blogspot.com will focus primarily on my artwork and music, influences, and my developing portfolio.

Bailey Saliwanchik

2009-02-12T07:31:00.000-08:00

Bailey Saliwanchik makes dreamy art nouveau paintings

Sketchbooks

2009-02-12T07:27:00.000-08:00

>>>>>browse artist sketchbooks forEVr<<<<<.

James Jean

2009-02-12T07:22:00.000-08:00

Do you share my deep love and fascination with artist's sketchbooks?
yes?
well, then, please take a look at artist James Jean ---- he has posted some very beautiful sketches str8 from his moleskines.
---not to mention his amazing finished works.
all quite lovely.

Seriously,

2009-02-03T05:57:00.000-08:00

who is this Fuckhead?

In case you skipped elementary school science, here's the deal, fuckhead.
On the planet Earth, the central axis that goes through the poles is tilted at an angle of 23.5 degrees, so it's not at right angles to the way we're travelling. As we move around the Sun during the year, the amount of light each area of the planet receives varies in length.

In case you haven't paid any attention at all to what Global Warming actually is, there are plenty of pictures here.

And finally, if you are just an out-of-work cartoon artist taking a cheap stab to earn a buck because you have no soul, please consider self-administering a swirly.

Fuck you.

Next?

Brian Eno...

2009-01-29T19:18:00.000-08:00

px;" src="http://img518.imageshack.us/img518/1248/brian20eno20cigmr8.jpg" border="0" alt="" />
...On Gaza!

Julie Mehretu

2009-01-27T13:48:00.000-08:00

The aesthetic connection between Sarah Sze and Julie Mehretu is almost seamless.
Mehretu is one of my all-time favorite painters, it's easy to see why.
I've had the pleasure of viewing her work first-hand at MoMA, and it's scale is very important... her work is huge.

Sarah Sze

2009-01-27T12:53:00.000-08:00

One of my favorite contemporary artists, who i stumbled upon while wandering through the internets, is Sarah Sze. This is the stuff of dreams.
It's tough for me to get into installation, though I fancy myself an installation artist of sorts... i'm also really squeemish about sculpture. Perhaps this is why i'm so captivated by Sze, being both of those things and more + evoking images of Lebbeus Woods, Lee Bontecou, Aleksandr Vesnin, Kandinsky, Julie Mehretu & Hannah Hoch, just to name a few.

Paul Antonson

2009-01-26T13:59:00.000-08:00

I'll be featuring some posts on artists and illustrators that i like & the why's.
Check out Village Voice's illustrator Paul Antonson, i like his sketchbook pages.
For the past who knows how many years, Paul has made the voice cover for his Mermaid Parade illustrations.
I've always been a big fan of sketchbooks, leafing through other's, obsessively cataloging and gushing over my own, which i keep next to me on shelves at all times.
Sketchbooks are personal, revealing, honest, magical and precious.

CharmingBlog

2009-01-26T06:42:00.000-08:00

Charming Wall is a great little gallery in the West Village with a really fun flash site. Their artists are neat too. Check it out!

Wenceslaus Hollar

2009-01-26T06:27:00.000-08:00

I just found out who the artist responsible for my Facebook avatar is.
Wenceslaus Hollar was a Czech etcher born in Prague who lived much of his life in London. He created close to 3000 etchings in his lifetime, all beautiful works on a wide range of subjects.

Sadly, he died in poverty, "his last recorded words being a request to the bailiffs that they would not carry away the bed on which he was dying." - wikipedia

Here is a great collection of his works from the University of Toronto.

Gettin' Mugged Suuhhhhhhkz

2009-01-24T09:20:00.000-08:00

Ok, watch this video from Gothamist.
This is EXACTLY how it went down when I was mugged, as far as how they had me and the duration of time. Plus the punch to the head at the end. The only thing I was missing were all the kicks and the head-stomp finishing move.

I'm sorry, but when I see this video, my humanitarian feelings of opposition to the death penalty are severely compromised and I become engorged with passion and I fantasize about filling these criminal's mouths with my hands and ripping their jaws off of their faces with all of my concentrated rage. Lots of rage. I feel no compassion, I no longer feel sorry for them, I only wish to even the scores, and perhaps tip the scales in my favor to reward me for not being the original perpetrator.
Perhaps it was the veil of being glad to be alive and healthy after my attack that graced me with feelings of pity for my attackers. I don't know, it's tough. It's a very primitive, retarded feeling... very testosterone-driven.

Something I'm still tossin' around in my head, i guess. Age-old issue, age-old questions, no clear answers. Is there not enough love in the world to go around to get to everyone?

China censors Obama

2009-01-22T08:15:00.000-08:00

{via NYT}
How childish and afraid are communists?
check out 0:09 when obama mentions "communists"
by 0:21 the censors have cut to some banal political commentary, MID-SPEECH, to cover up the part of the speech where he references the dreaded and long-expired dogmas of fascism and communism. the reporter is caught completely off guard!
How silly is it for a ruling party to display such childish, fearful tactics and expect respect from its citizens? Who, besides the silly Chinese communist party would worry so much about shielding its people from information for fear it might be taken seriously (see previous post)? Who has such little faith in her people (see previous post)?!!

no one is buying this!

Tears of Joy

2009-01-22T08:00:00.000-08:00

The new York Times reports that many staff members of government scientific agencies had tears in their eyes at the wonderful prospect of the Obama administration reversing many of Bush's crazy anti-science regulations. I share in their tears of joy.

"In early 2004, more than 60 influential scientists, including 20 Nobel laureates, issued a statement claiming that the Bush administration had systematically distorted scientific fact in the service of policy goals on the environment, health, biomedical research and nuclear weaponry."

I know, we knew this already. But what an asshole. What a backwards shit-spitting monster he was.

Art Legal

2009-01-14T09:40:00.000-08:00

The Contract Monitor
I ran into this website while researching artist's contracts.
Since I have begun negotiating contracts of my own, I find this website to be really interesting and helpful.
It's also quite disheartening, as a short investigation will reveal how vile most companies are in terms of fucking you over and trying to give you the least amount of compensation and credit as possible.
In most cases, they fancy more power than they need, just to see if they can get away with it. This includes contracts with illustrators to renown publications such as the New Yorker and Los Angeles Times!
As if it weren't tough enough to be an artist or illustrator without having to battle with your professional clients and conduits for BASIC rights to original work.
Click here to read a contract that "illustrates" how the New Yorker, an illustration-driven publication famous for it's commissioned artwork, has changed it's standard contract over the years to deal with web rights and everything that follows in a way that backs the artist into new corners.
The attitude of these contracts is gross.
you gotta fight for your right to party.

Iraqi Journalists Must Practice Aim

2008-12-14T18:52:00.001-08:00

New York Times

An Iraqi journalist threw shoe after shoe at President Bush, narrowly missing him twice, as he shouted
“This is a gift from the Iraqis; this is the farewell kiss, you dog!”
“This is from the widows, the orphans and those who were killed in Iraq!”

NEW DRAWINGS

2008-12-11T19:08:00.001-08:00

I have begun to post the latest drawings from my current collection "Beauty Book".
My aim is to finish a book filled with my most meticulously detailed work to date.
I started this book while I was on tour with Ghastly City Sleep... we were out for 32 days, and travelled all around the continental United States.
One of the things that struck me most was the vegetation in California! We visited the beaches in Los Angeles & San Luis Obispo, and I couldn't believe the diversity of the costal plant life, what a change from the East Coast.
I started sketching bits and pieces of plants here and there, and spent a lot of time drawing details while sitting at bars in music venues before performing.
The result is this collection, which is still ongoing.

Take a Peek♥

Visit my Print Shop ♥

New Limited Edition Print

2008-12-03T14:04:00.000-08:00

Hello!

I am back from touring the United States with Ghastly City Sleep. I had an amazing trip and will be posting about that soon.
First I wanted to tell you about a new print I have available on my etsy store just in time for the holidays.
I just finished a brand new Linoleum Block Cut of an Octopus with leafy tentacles. Each print is treated with a hand-painted watercolor wash in either flesh tint or Ocre Yellow before printing. The Octupus is printed in a dark red-brown.

I am limiting these to 50 copies, and each one is signed and numbered by yours truly.

These prints can be purchased from my etsy store

happy holidays & check back soon for tour pictures!

♥matt

2008-10-04T11:08:00.001-07:00

perhaps that will get done

2008-09-28T21:12:00.000-07:00

can't sleep tonight. my mind is just racing around too fast, for no particular reason. sometimes when i'm just lying there i feel as though i can see thousands of paintings into the future, and i know i'll never live that long. i can make tiny drawings and sketches to fill every page of every book on every shelf in this room, but you can only make a finite amount of well-thought out fully-realized finished projects that speak clearly for you before your body dies.
i get ideas a lot, ideas come to me very easily. when my creativity is at peak level i can dream up lots of things. i usually think to myself "someday perhaps that will get done." but there are so many of these thoughts, even if one pushes hard and is privledged enough to be able to work at realizing them, they will not all come to fruition.
the daily struggle is getting these things to pop out from under the soil. the soil is rich, but growing things is not at all easy. the dream is an endless forest, thick and thriving, bursting at its boundaries. the reality is a rich bed of soil filled with seeds, patches of a three-inch tall canopy of sprouts turn black to green.

Sarah Palin is a Wolf-Killing Viking

2008-09-24T09:06:00.000-07:00

and Alaska sues the U.S. Government to stop the listing of the polar bear as a threatened species!

→→→Forward →→→

2008-09-23T06:28:00.000-07:00

I would like to forward this poignant warning just in from Mrs. L Babcock :

"A critical - and radical - component of the bailout package proposed by the Bush administration has thus far failed to garner the serious attention of anyone in the press. Section 8 (which ironically reminds one of the popular name of the portion of the 1937 Housing Act that paved the way for subsidized affordable housing ) of this legislation is just a single sentence of thirty-two words, but it represents a significant consolidation of power and an abdication of oversight authority that's so flat-out astounding that it ought to set one's hair on fire. It reads, in its entirety:

Decisions by the Secretary pursuant to the authority of this Act are non-reviewable and committed to agency discretion, and may not be reviewed by any court of law or any administrative agency.

In short, the so-called "mother of all bailouts," which will transfer $700 billion taxpayer dollars to purchase the distressed assets of several failed financial institutions, will be conducted in a manner unchallengeable by courts and ungovernable by the People's duly sworn representatives. All decision-making power will be consolidated into the Executive Branch - who, we remind you, will have the incentive to act upon this privilege as quickly as possible, before they leave office. The measure will run up the budget deficit by a significant amount, with no guarantee of recouping the outlay, and no fundamental means of holding those who fail to do so accountable.

Is this starting to sound familiar? Robert Kuttner cuts through much of the gloss in an article in today's American Prospect:

The deal proposed by Paulson is nothing short of outrageous. It includes no oversight of his own closed-door operations. It merely gives congressional blessing and funding to what he has already been doing, ad hoc. He plans to retain Wall Street firms as advisors to decide just how to cut deals to value and mop up Wall Street's dubious paper. There are to be no limits on executive compensation for the firms that get relief, and no equity share for the government in exchange for this massive infusion of capital. Both Obama and McCain have opposed the provision denying any judicial review of decisions made by Paulson -- a provision that evokes the Bush administration's suspension of normal constitutional safeguards in its conduct of foreign policy and national security. [...]

The differences between this proposed bailout and the three closest historical equivalents are immense. When the Reconstruction Finance Corporation of the 1930s pumped a total of $35 billion into U.S. corporations and financial institutions, there was close government supervision and quid pro quos at every step of the way. Much of the time, the RFC became a preferred shareholder, and often appointed board members. The Home Owners Loan Corporation, which eventually refinanced one in five mortgage loans, did not operate to bail out banks but to save homeowners. And the Resolution Trust Corporation of the 1980s, created to mop up the damage of the first speculative mortgage meltdown, the S&L collapse, did not pump in money to rescue bad investments; it sorted out good assets from bad after the fact, and made sure to purge bad executives as well as bad loans. And all three of these historic cases of public recapitalization were done without suspending judicial review.

Kuttner's opposition here is perhaps the strongest language I've seen used, pushing back on this piece of legislation, in any publication of repute, and even here, Section 8 is not cited by name or by content. McClatchy Newspapers also alludes to Section 8 with concern, citing the "unfettered authority" that Paulson would be granted, and noting that the "law also would preclude court review of steps Paulson might take, something Joshua Rosner, managing director of economic researcher Graham Fisher & Co. in New York, said could be used to mask previous illegal activity." Jack Balkin also gives the matter the sort of attention it deserves on his blog, Balkinization.

But elsewhere, the conversation is muted. The debate over whether Congress is going to pass the Paulson bailout package, or pass the Paulson bailout package really hard seems to have boiled down to a discussion of time and concessions. The White House has made it clear that they want this package passed yesterday. Congressional Democrats seem to be of different minds on the matter, with some pushing back hard, and others content to demand a small dollop of turd polish to make the package seem more aesthetically pleasing, at which point, they'll likely roll over and pass the bill. Neither candidate, John McCain or Barack Obama, seem all that amenable toward the bailout, but neither have either demonstrated that they are willing to risk their candidacies to do much more than exploit the issue for electoral purposes.

Sunday morning came and went, with Paulson traipsing dutifully from studio to studio, facing nary a question on Section 8. Front page articles in the New York Times, Washington Post, and the Wall Street Journal detail the wranglings, but make no mention of this section of the legislation. On TV, cable news networks are stuck in the fog of the ongoing presidential campaign.

Throughout the coverage, one catches a whiff of what seems like substantive pushback on this power grab, but it largely amounts to a facsimile of journalistic diligence. Most note, in general terms, that the bailout represents a set of "broad powers" that will be granted to the Department of the Treasury. Yet the coverage offsets these concerns through the constant hyping of the White House's overall message of "urgency."

But one cannot overstate this: Section 8 is a singularly transformative sentence of economic policy. It transfers a significant amount of power to the Executive Branch, while walling off any avenue for oversight, and offering no guarantees in return. And if the Democrats end up content with winning a few slight concessions, they risk not putting a stop-payment on the real "blank check" - the one in which they allow the erosion of their own powers.

Over in the Senate, Christopher Dodd has proposed a bailout legislation of his own, which critically calls for "an oversight board that not only includes the chairman of the Federal Reserve and the SEC, but congressionally appointed, non-governmental officials" and would require the President to appoint an "independent inspector general to investigate the Treasury asset program." In Dodd's legislation, Section 8 is effectively stripped from the bill.

Nevertheless, the fact that Section 8 of the Paulson plan seems to strike few as a de facto dealbreaker can and should astound. The failure of Congress to hold the line on this point would be truly embarrassing. But if we make it through this week with nobody in the press specifically informing the public about the implications of this single sentence - in the middle of a complicated bill, in the middle of a complicated time - then right there, you have the single largest media failure of this year."

The Bush Administration is going out in a blaze of glory, eh?

The L.A. Job

2008-09-18T19:19:00.000-07:00

From Los Angeles

Well, we finished installing "All Molecules Light as Air" at iolo headquarters in Los Angeles, CA. Everything went smooth and was a lot of fun! I'd like ot say thank you to Dan, Noah, Roxanne, Andrew, Tim at Designer Framing, and Leila♥

From Los Angeles

Photos from the whole trip can be viewed here:
http://picasaweb.google.com/utieshell/LosAngeles#

Republicans - "Freedom of Choice is Different than Pro-Choice"

2008-09-10T06:25:00.000-07:00

Republicans are up in arms defending Sarah Palin & family against Democrat's attacks on her private family business, namely her daughter, daughter's daughter daughter-daughter and ditter dotter.
Their line of defense is to argue in favor of choice, while making additional remarks to the tune of ♪♫ the government & others have no business telling a woman what they can/should be doing with her own life.
Sounds familiar, you foolz!!!!

I also get a kick out of why interviewees think Sarah is qualified!
"she's beautiful"
"she hunts"
"she makes americans feel like anyone can be president"

...what?! are you fucking serious!?
She likes this idea because she can feel more "on par" with the prez. Like, one of her friends got in therr. Like how Bush was a good ol' boy and didn't seem so "stuffy and inta-lekshul". It is this VERY distance, darlin', the distance between you and those who you deem "stuffy" and "over your head", that qualifies not only leadership, but the necessity for a feeble brain such as your own to be led. You're lucky I am not your president, or else I'd lead you and all of your friends right off a cliff. I am personally not a big leader person, and my politics are quite loopy and anarchistic. But I also fancy a good game, and in the game of contemporary politics,
I do not wish to share a nation with dimly lit brains who either wish to be president or like the idea of anyone being able to take office.

Our leaders were once talented, creative, noble and exceptional human beings. Scientists, Composers, Artists, Scholars, & Humanitarians once graced these halls (said in rambling old-man voice). Since when did being a filthy rich businessman, focused primarily on monetary self-expansion, replace attributes that really contribute to the magic and love that defines what it is to be human when considering our "leaders"?

I offer this explanation : Rednecks and Idiots reproduce very rapidly, because they are inferior and unintelligent. Thus, they have created a population that dominates the television viewing audience. Naturally, the broadcasting companies, in a fit of greed, respond by filling their broadcasts with rot to feed the hungry beasts. This further unifies the Rednecks and Idiots by giving them a national identity and common ground, which further perpetuates their growth. Now, they are a voting body, gullible and easily swayed by another breed of monster who is both more intelligent and evil - the political Right. Now cowboys, wealthy coke heads, and beauty pagent winners can be president.
= the American Dream
The Right, which in reality despises the Redneck/Idiot (Rediot) contingient and would sooner pop them off like cans at a firing range if they didn't require voters to empower them, easily takes advantage of our darlin's by feeding them propoganda such as :
"The earth is our oyster, our everlasting oyster"
"polar bears are not a currently threatened species"
"God is on our side"
"U-S-A, U-S-A"
"The Rich are on our side (give them tax breaks and privatize the world, better that we own air and sell it to you than to let it just float away)"
"the World community needs U-S-A! as a sort-of global police force. See, you can live the ultimate redneck fantasy and shoot big guns at evil-doers in the name of our great nation (actually, this is all just to further private business ventures and to squash any foreign nation's attempt at giving Right-Wing privateers a choke hold.... oh, never-you-mind! it's a gaiiiiime!!!)"
etc,etc.
i have to go, i'm busy.

Final !

2008-09-04T09:29:00.000-07:00

All Molecules Light as Air, Oil on Canvas Diptych, 120 in x 60 in (2008)

Here's a look at the Iolo Commission in it's final state before shipping.

L.A. Comission

2008-08-21T13:34:00.001-07:00

Another update on the L.A. Comission. The piece is almost complete.
Here are some images:

Arts

2008-08-13T10:41:00.000-07:00

I have been working on a big commission for Iolo in Los Angeles for the past two months.
The work will be a total of ten feet by five feet, covering two canvases, mounted on a sixteen-foot wide wall.

I'm really excited about how this has evolved - i started with a grid and began to lay out my "shifting panels" layers, developing a degree of transparency and evoking movement.

now, out of a seam in the diagonal axis of the composition, comes a flood of life at different scales, mingling with old eroded architectural elements and buildings.
When this is complete it should read in a number of ways, one of which could be that this giant mass of organic life and buildings is actually one large living organism itself, camouflaged by matching colors to a very rigid orthogonal grid...

bleh

2008-08-12T11:30:00.000-07:00

from the washington post:
Another great idea from Bush

How long are the idiots of the world going to twist the word of the late great Jesus Christ (I am not Christian, but have always admired his story) and insist on moronic ideas such as an embryo's right to life in order to increase the human population on this planet? God! I wish the world would just stop having fucking babies and stop buying cars for just ONE YEAR!!
AHHH!!!

Humans FUCKING SUCK!! WEAK SAUCE!!!
EPIC FAIL!!!!!!!

UPDATE: Art Theft & Other Info

2008-08-09T11:28:00.000-07:00

Back in February I blogged rather humorously about Art Theft, and marvelled at how evocative the concept was - the fact that the value of art is not exactly objective, like, say drugs, weapons or diamonds.
While doing my morning reading which includes PlasticBlog, I stumbled upon the Memphis Police blog, which is a juicy peek into the comically dramatic world of cops.
I wanted to know if the NYPD had sucha blog, and I found The Squad Room. The first article was about Art Theft! The FBI has an Art Crime Team!And although i couldn't access the database, the FBI has a National Stolen Art File.
From the Squad Room :"Italy is the only country whose government takes art crime as seriously as it should."
Apparently they have 300 agents, vs. our 13.

Deep Bue Whales

2008-08-01T07:42:00.000-07:00

From NYT -
Scientists believe that the mating call of the Blue Whale, the world's largest animal, has begun to decrease in pitch, up to %30. The whales are thought to have departed from their higher frequency routine after populations have recovered since whaling was banned. The higher frequencies were necessary to find mates when mates were sparse.
Females choose their mates according to size, and the larger the whale, the deeper the mating call. Now males are free to dig in deep, instead of calling out loud.

2008-07-31T07:36:00.000-07:00

From Gothamist - NYPD officer Patrick Pogan bodychecks critical mass bike rider Christopher Long during the July '08 ride.

Another worthless piece of shit in a uniform. Among the most memorable and exhilarating experiences in my entire life is the Critical Mass bike ride in NYC... not because I felt i was breaking the law, but because everything about it fucking rocks. Everything except the fucking Police, who are ordered to crush us for RIDING OUR BIKES.
May drivers sit and wait, and may cops lose their badges while cyclists win lawsuits against the city and eat cupcakes.

new

2008-07-02T10:37:00.000-07:00

I just finished a new Coney Island copper bracelet design.
Plus three more unique designs.
More pics at dominant fiction...

available for purchase at my etsy store:
arbor9fiction.etsy.com

In the Works

2008-06-03T05:59:00.001-07:00

I have begun hand-engraving copper bracelets with my illustrations.
I am offering these pieces for sale in my etsy store.

I make them one-by-one, so it takes a little while for new ones to show up.
I am engraving on three different sizes:
3/4" wide, 1/2", & 3/8"

I have also placed a few prints on the site as well.
for the complete list of my drawings available in prints, please visit the dominant fiction store - we just gave it a new makeover!
arbor9fiction.etsy.com
dominantfiction store

♥m

Lately...

2008-05-05T10:47:00.001-07:00

Every once in a while, life hits a harmonic note and everything comes together, feels balanced out, and the rare & elusive veil of peace falls over your face. I had the privilege of such an experience today as I ate lunch.

Today I got up, made my girlfriend lunch, waved goodbye to her as she left for work, hopped on a bike and rode three strenuous laps around the Prospect Park Loop. I returned home, worked on my paintings, and made myself a salad with arugula, tomatoes, asparagus, beets, goat cheese, sesame seeds, almonds, lemon juice and olive oil. I looked out the window of my Crown Heights apartment and just felt good.

It’s easy to pick up this scent when you’re unemployed and can manage to dodge the anxiety of unemployment for an afternoon. I am currently living off of the money I saved from working a full-time job for an entire year in NYC. I hated every moment of it, and tried hard to make the best of it. Now I’ve bought my freedom, at least for a while. Not exactly the most sound financial plan, but when your interests lie in endeavors that don’t exactly pay the bills on a regular basis, a full-time job that does usually equals imprisonment of the body and erosion of the soul.

Well, now I’m free, for the moment, and trying to string together art commissions and sales so as to keep riding the wave. I might try my hand at expanding my creative empire to include hand-etched copper bracelets, art prints, maybe some t-shirts, and more paintings. Working on a show for this summer…

Touring! Part 1

2008-04-08T06:54:00.001-07:00

I recently returned from a two-week tour with the band I'm in , Ghastly City Sleep.
We took a ton of photos and video, but most of it was lost, swallowed by the computer-crash deities.

I have some stories to tell, and images to post, but for now, take a look at all the polaroids i snapped! Thanks to Leila for buying me tons of film before the trip!♥
↓ ↓ ↓ ↓ ↓ ↓ ↓ ↓ ↓ ↓ ↓ ↓ ↓ ↓ ↓ ↓ ↓ ↓ ↓ ↓ ↓ ↓ ↓ ↓ ↓ ↓ ↓ ↓ ↓ ↓ ↓ ↓ ↓ ↓ ↓ ↓
http://www.flickr.com/photos/25069116@N02/sets/72157604271882036/

enjoy!

Art Theft : Bring it On.

2008-02-11T10:58:00.000-08:00

Checked the Times today?

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/12/world/europe/12swiss.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin

Armed robbers have taken 4 Impressionist paintings from a museum in Zurich, Switzerland. They are worth lots of money. A Van Gogh, Cezanne, Degas, and a Monet… now stolen from the art-loving public’s eye. Aside from creating a big stir of publicity, these thieves have deprived the world, at least for a duration of time, from viewing four masterpieces of Impressionist Art in person.

Let’s face it. Art Theft is unlike any other crime. We are not talking about the immoral depravation of personal property or assets. We are talking about Art, privately owned by museums, publicly ‘owned’ by the the world. Sure, the thieves will bank on this job, but ultimately, whoever hired them is not going to be able to make money off of these objects. They’re flagged! Sure, there’s a black market, but the paintings aren’t going to circulate for long before they reach the source – and this is where things get cool.

Someone is risking their lives to get at a few yards of canvass, and what’s driving them is dedication, appreciation, love, obsession, and a dangerous collector’s mentality (ok, and greed, selfishness, public disregard…). The fact that people value works of art in this criminal manner actually gets me excited – while these thieves may not be a cut above, they are certainly from a different dimension than your average bank robber, who is in it for the financial gain.

What does an art thief stand to gain from their spoils? In the end, it’s not financial... and unless there is an as-of-yet unknown mystical power imbued in these paintings, like the Nazi’s felt there was in the Ark of the Covenant, it’s not about medicine, power or world domination. The only borderline lame motivator might be status & thrill… a collector could possibly have no interest whatsoever in a particular artist, or art in general, but crave the attention afforded by the media and general public surrounding the outrage and mystery behind such a heist. But even this must be kept private, or at least divulged in only the inner most circles of our thief. In order to keep the mystery going, one must remain anonymous. On the subject of thrills – these types are found in all walks of robberies, but there is something both poetic and impressive about the art thief, who stands to gain symbols of history and culture, and is up against very sophisticated security systems.

So that leaves a dangerously intense passion for artwork. In reality, if anyone did possess this passion – and this passion alone – one would be stealing/acquiring anything deemed personally valuable, not just famous and extremely expensive Impressionist works hanging in museums. But this motivating factor is still more honorable, or at least admirable, than the desire for financial gain.

It is this factor that makes the entire heist more of a game played against the legal powers of the world… much like in the movie the Thomas Crown Affair (1999 – the original did not involve an art theft). I’m not saying that I admire billionaires who have nothing better to do than rob the world of it’s cultural treasures, but I am saying that reading about a successful heist of this nature does bring a smile to my face, whereas other accounts of robbery that involve money or the eventual promise of financial gain do not.

I mean, think about it! Those paintings are out there, and no one knows where. How the hell do they get away with that!? And now there will be hoax copies reproduced by those who do want to make money… and authenticators will have their work cut out for them. And who even CARES about the entire event other than a small portion of the population who appreciates art in museums?

On an interesting side note, The Thomas Crown Affair (1999) features a robbery based on a 1961 robbery of the Louvre, in which 7 Renoir paintings were supposedly taken via a dune buggy by a certain Thomas Van Der Heijden. There really is no information on this event other than in reference to the movie, and a short Wikipedia Article with no references.
Here’s an account of two researchers on the subject:

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080127114619AAjFjwu

Pork Soda

2008-02-08T08:35:00.000-08:00

Seauxe… any fans of the television series “House” will appreciate this medical mystery. According to the New York Times, a mysterious neurological illness has been noted amongst workers in a pork processing plant in Minnesota. Specific targets include the workers whose job requires them to take a compressed air hose and blow the brains out of pig heads, causing the brains to vaporize. The Pig brain vapor is subsequently splattered on the exposed skin of workers, and also inhaled. Experts believe that the illness is a result of something in the pig brains that the human immune system violently reacts to – something that is similar enough to human nerve tissue to cause the immune system to attack it’s host, the pig brain blower.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/05/health/05pork.html?pagewanted=1&ref=health

Whew. Ok, where do we start? These jobs are for real, yo. Reading stuff like this confirms my belief that the human carnivore is a carnivore by way of blissful ignorance alone. The longer I survive on this planet, the more disgusted I am by the idea of eating land animals. It could be because I am an air sign, and I prefer the flesh of things that ‘fly’ through the ocean. Flesh that is imposed upon by uniform pressure, not gravity. Flesh that comes from that mystical dreamy sea. When I look at a pig, I don’t see a meal.

Here’s where I’m going with this: if you can’t look the raw source of your meals in the living eye and lick your lips, best to stay away. That’s how it used to be! If you wanted pork for dinner, you’d find a boar in the woods, or walk outside to the pig pen with an axe and a grin.

Let’s see a show of hands: who’s hungry?

And now, the personal meat of this blog: my detailed explanation of my eating habits and how I justify the simultaneity of my love & fascination for all things aquatic and my fancy for their flesh in my mouth (marine mammals excluded, of course). I was a sushi chef for two years in Florida. In essence, a fish butcher. But I digress…

I was raised on Papy’s Bayou near Riviera Bay. By New York City standards, I was practically born in the everglades swamp, the midwife an alligator, the nurse a dolphin (the bay is a brackish mixture of salt and fresh water). My brother and father were inshore fishermen, experts at extracting the elusive inshore species of gamefish from the mazes of mangrove roots and salt flats. I fished too, but I was always more interested in seeing the creatures once they were landed – and often released to live again. Where my fellow fisherman sought the chase and the fight, I wanted the facts. I wanted to see the fish, handle it, watch it swim, swim among them. Not exactly knowing how to indulge my fishy desires, I just kept fishing, since it brought me closer to my goal.

I moved away from the swamp to go to school, and eventually disassociated myself from the fishing industry. I drew fish in my sketchbooks, I painted them on canvass… I was introduced to a cosmopolitan delicacy at a small restaurant in Gainesville – Sushi. Years later I found myself in front of a cutting board in the back of one such restaurant, learning the art of carving raw fish flesh and presenting it in a clean, aesthetically pleasing manor. I loved it, and excelled. I earned myself the honor of receiving the salmon whole from the distributor and making the first cuts from the fish, removing the head and skin and tails and fins. I felt no remorse, as the fish were already dead, and I’d witness many a cruel death of these beautiful creatures as a child of a fisherman. Raw salmon flesh is free of blood, vibrant in color, and interlaced with wonderful lines of off-white fat. I thought it a most delightful texture and color, a marvel of nature. And I loved eating it. When I ate sashimi, I meditated on every calorie, previously hunted and cultivated by a sharp toothed, free-swimming silver-blue speckled spirit or ghost of cold running waters (unfortunately I had not yet researched salmon farming and how potentially disgusting and environmentally disruptive it can be if practiced negligently, as it is of the coasts of Chile, Norway, UK, Canada).

I would often save the decapitated heads of these salmon and take them home to my roommates, extract the remaining meat and make delicious sautéed dishes. I would set the heads up on a wooden plank and photograph them. I would take the sheets of skin with the silvery blue black speckled shine and hold it, wondering what it would be like to glide through the water with this layer of aquadynamic armor covering me.

Ok, ok, I’m elaborating a bit… i don’t want this to sound like Silence of the Sealambs. But everyone who knows me is aware of my strange and complicated love of fish. But couple this with a childhood routine of such ghastly feats as pushing a hook through the eyes of a poor little whitebait to catch a larger fish and you get someone who can look a fish in the eye and lick his lips. Perhaps it’s the Gemini in me who simultaneously feels a deep love for this same fish and her ecosystem. I don’t see any discrepancy…

But show me a cow, or a pig, or a chicken, hand me an axe and call me hungry, and all I want is eggs n’ cheese on rye toast, please. We are so far removed from the processes that make our food what it is. I mean, even vegetarian delicacies like tofu and soy-meat products… I’m not particularly suspect of the safety of these processes, but who amongst the regular consumers of said food products knows how to prepare them from scratch? I always loved the simplicity of being able to eat raw fish, and felt especially lucky to be the one preparing my raw fish day after day for as long as I did. When I worked at these restaurants, I ate sushi / fish prepared by myself five nights a week... never tired of it.

I never used a compressed air hose, either. I am repulsed when I think of assembly line workers blowing pig brains all over themselves and their buddies for hours every day. The sushi “butchering” process was an art, very clean, and when executed at my own hands, not without respect.

When Photoshop is not on hand...

2008-02-07T13:21:00.000-08:00

The "internet was down" yesterday at work, so i had to spend my time on "local" projects, like MS Paint...

A Million Shoppers

2008-02-06T06:48:00.000-08:00

Thank you Curbed.com and Gowanuslounge.blogspot.com for alerting me to the following image:

first of all, is that leila & hayley in black back there? the two horsewomen of the apocalypse... I offer, for humor's sake, an alternate rendering:

Wow. I’m floored. I’ve seen a lot of shit regarding Williamsburg development in the recent past, but this tops it all.

In the course of 3-1/2 years in New York, I have lived in Jackson Heights, Williamsburg, Bushwick, and Crown Heights. Now, I’m a newcomer to NYC, I can’t claim any cred for being here for very long, or being from the area. I’m an outsider. I know that writing an entry like this is generally a controversial move for someone like me – that is, if my blog were well-read by locals. Being that it’s not, and you, dear reader, probably both know me well and are not from NYC either, I shall continue wading through this murky water.

I hopped freight trains to NYC from Florida in 2001 with my buddy. So NYC was the culmination of an amazing journey for a young man of 22. all the rules changed, everything I knew about society, architecture, urban planning, culture, day to day life, social networking, politics, education, communities – everything was dramatically different here in the big city… but I’ve mentioned that before…

I am currently reading Devil in the White City by Erik Larson. Some of the terrifyingly beautiful descriptions of turn-of-the-century Chicago recall what I felt after a few visits to NYC. I immediately thought that I had found a place whose mysteriousness and sublimity were magnetic & made sense to me, a place whose mechanics, relics, and social & architectural history were worth investigating, if not protecting.

As it turns out, I fell in love with a big gritty machine already in the midst of a great transition, and what I saw was only the tip of an iceberg that had already melted significantly.

So when I say to you that I am appalled at all the development that’s going on in the little neighborhoods I’ve lived in since moving here, I realize that it’s a “natural” real estate trend. It’s what makes us nomads.

I just can’t help but feel the sadness and anger that the above image implies. What the fuck are people thinking? And if I feel so invested and personally attacked by this rendering, I can only imagine how others who have made Brooklyn their home and feel inspired by this place, feel about it. again, wow.

But I represent a very small slice of the demographic pie. Barely visible, I imagine. And what’s more, I feel like new Yorkers in general represent a similarly small national slice of pie. Now you have representatives from the big meaty national pie imposing suburban ideas into outer-borough urban environments. Ikeas are going up. Beautifully scaled building fabrics are being raped by condominiums that dwarf their predecessors, both in height and market value. Oh, and they also all suck in terms of design, but that’s a given, sadly.

So when I see this rendering, my only solace is in the possibility that those two gothy (albeit condo-goth) ladies in the background are packing Uzis in their shopping bags, and they’re about to Matrix-bank-scene (that’s a verb) everyone else in sight. I’m sorry, mothers of the earth, but in this dystopian state my brain wants to see the woman in the salmon explode. And what’s with joe-condo in the blue strutting his shit-eating grin next to her? One slow & painful, please.

Unfortunately, those gothy-chics are just walking to the L train, which – and this goes out to CURBED commentators – is at this point working flawlessly because the money and the REAL people have finally moved in, the movers and shakers, the computer-generated doll-eyed wastoids who will eat this borough alive. They have jobs in the city, most likely because they’ve gotta pay high rents to live in those condos.

But it happens everywhere. It starts at a point when most folks are afraid to walk around at night, in places where it’s not safe to have a family, places that are commercially barren. Cheap rents attract parasites like myself, who enjoy the fringes of big cities because of the lower rent and the proximity to the beating heart of that tastey ol’ magnetic sublime. Soon, buzz is created, and you get your first brunch restaurants next to the pioneering coffee shops and bodegas. Next thing you know, you feel safe walking around with cash at 2am after drinking at the local bars or clubs, and by that time, plans for the condos have already been drawn. Sprawl hits home, as it did for the classes you and your friends replaced. Etc, etc

But what happens next? Can we rely on past models of different areas? Can we look back and see the same thing happening in the exact same area under the cloak of a couple decades? Are other adventure seekers snarking at my bitching while reading their laptops in secret cracks and loopholes in the belly of the beast? Is New York really dead?

No, it’s quite alive. This cycle is all the evidence that I need. Cities undulate at frequencies only giant sloths who live hundreds of years can comfortably read. We ants are restless, and don’t have time to wait for the next supernova. So what’s in store?

I know f’sho I’ll be making some monstrous drawings as a result.

PROPS ~

http://curbed.com/archives/2008/02/05/gateway_to_williamsburg_meets_kelloggs_diner.php

http://gowanuslounge.blogspot.com/2008/02/big-box-gateway-to-williamsburg-coming.html#links

superbowl superbugs

2008-02-01T08:44:00.000-08:00

I AM AT WORK THIS MORNING, the first of February, diddling away at my computer. The pest control guy, a big bald gruff with a true blue New Yak accent, has paused on his way out of our facility here in our receiving room, where I work alongside three red-meat men. It is the weekend before the Superbowl, and one little utterance, “you going for the Giants?” sets off an incredibly passionate and articulate conversation between three brutes of an otherwise limited vocabulary.

I am sitting here, rather amazed. These guys are talking stats, team histories, rookie stories, talkin’ ‘bout kids in college who “look good”, talking about strategy, offense, defense, player trades, contracts, etc… as if they were COACHES! Like they’ve invested in these teams. Well, as it turns out, they have, and begin talking about their personal gambling strategies for the bowl.

I’m sayin’, what an incredible amount of attention and passion these men save for football! Footballs get guys going. I’d be willing to bet that these guys are more invested in the superbowl than in the presidential elections… and I mean, considering our nation’s invincible money-run two-party system, I’m really not blaming them.

But this is what prompted me to write this blog – I try to put myself in their shoes, and I start to think… I really am the type of person who cannot obsess over anything that I can’t directly participate in. getting involved in football would just make me want to play, to experience it first-hand.

I love music, I love seeing my favorite bands play. But seriously, every time I see a musical performance, I don’t care who they are, I am wrought with anxiety! I want to DO IT, not watch it. One of my favorite bands has always been Radiohead, and when I finally got to see them live, it was one of the coolest live music experiences I can recall. But even then, there were times when all I wanted to do was run home and fire up the computer and grab a guitar and start recording. NOTHING can trump the feeling of that process, it’s truly an addiction, and it’s a condition that really defines me as a person.

When I visit MOMA or the MET, or go to an art opening and see work that blows me away, I am immediately inspired and I feel the pain. I want out, I want to get to work right away. This is one of the strongest, most driving forces in my life – to create… and when I am a spectator, I am writhing in a pool of excitement and inspiration, often uneasily until I can get home, get alone, and get to the drawing board.

So when I picture the football fan in me, I believe I’d be feeling the urge to play a pick-up game in the street, rather than watch the superbowl on Sunday. And what’s more – and why I believe I am NOT a fan of the sport, or any sport, for that matter – is because I imagine myself jumping over the stands and into the field and getting my little whimpy frame crushed to kibbles by elephantine brutes.

I back out of things I don’t excel at. I mean, I enjoy challenges… and I challenge myself / accept challenges in my own “fields of expertise” as often as possible, but when it came time to decide whether or not team sports would be a big part of my life – 7th grade – I felt totally confident in my decision to not try out for basketball despite the protests of my classmates (we had a small class – only 5 guys – and they sort of needed the extra body and couldn’t understand what I was thinking). At that age, you want to put your all into things you’re good at, into things that are somewhat rewarding, not punishing. I quit Tee-Ball too. Shortly after, so too died my enthusiasm for team sports, which had previously been bolstered by my wearing of ball caps, participating in neighborhood sports, and watching games on television.

Speaking of dying enthusiasm – as I watch the surprisingly articulate and sports-savvy pest control giant lumber out of our facility, I can’t help but imagine taking his lead. soon, soon…

ART SHOW SATURDAY

2008-01-31T10:59:00.000-08:00

i have contributed 3 new oil paintings to the "Found in Brooklyn" art exhibit at
Freddy's Bar and Backroom
485 Dean St. (@6th ave)
Brooklyn, NY

The opening is this saturday, 7-9pm

Here's a link to the host, Found In Brooklyn blog!

It's just southeast of the Atlantic Ave Station, just off Flatbush Ave...
I'm pretty excited. I have a number of projects on the horizon, including some marketing of new dominant fiction goods handmade by yours truly.
been working on the website here and there, adding new drawings and paintings..
and most importantly, i've been making a lot of new work. by this time next year, i should have a whole new world of work which has been stewing for the past two years.

2008-01-11T11:04:00.000-08:00

Thank to Ms. Brain, Messenger's sexiest correspondant, for the following heads-up~
"According to a report by the scientific committee of the International Whaling Commission, one of the world's leading bodies of whale biologists, the evidence linking sonar to a series of whale strandings in recent years is "very convincing and appears overwhelming." Despite the broad scientific consensus that military active sonar kills whales, the use of this deadly sonar in the world's oceans is spreading.
An NRDC-led coalition of wildlife advocates succeeded in restricting the U.S. Navy's use of a powerful active sonar system known as SURTASS LFA in 2003. But the fight is hardly over; other nations are developing LFA-type systems of their own, and sonar testing using mid-frequency sonar systems, which have been implicated in numerous strandings of whales worldwide, continues unabated, putting marine mammals and fisheries at risk. And the Bush administration is now appealing the legal victory that compelled the Navy into compromise."

read more : http://www.nrdc.org/wildlife/marine/sonar.asp

that's sad. do we really need LFA in 75% of the world's oceans? what kind of dumbass thinks "that's a great idear."i mean, i'd rather be undermined by international terrorists in submarines than kill a bunch of whales and be nationally secure.my - and my country's - "security" is simply not worth the death of thousands of whales, and anyone who doesn't sign this declaration with me, i will kill you, so you die anyway. in fact, the deploration of whale-killing LFA's might be grounds for going to war in the first place.United States, you'd better pray to your shallow, withering gawd that i never become a nation capable of attacking your navy. I'll fund the Farley Mowat on your ass, bitchez. give a call-up-a Cap'n Nemo, right? *click* shiiieeeeeet.

hAPPY NeW YEAR

2008-01-11T06:52:00.000-08:00

I was just reading through some of my old posts... man, i really don't know who that guy is.
what a rut i must have been in.
2007 was a muthafuckin roller coaster, my bitches, a real earth-shaker.
i emerge in 2008 feeling wonderful.

i'm in a group art show entitled "Found in Brooklyn"
The reception will be Feb 2nd, 7-9pm
at Freddy's Bar and Backroom
785 Dean St. at 6th Ave

I am contributing three new oil paintings. They are a little series of building portraits, complete with a few suprises you might expect from me thrown in for good measure.

I am currently updating my website, and i should have the paintings up there to preview soon.
Also, stay tuned for new drawings - i have a ton of new stuff and i haven't updated the website in over a year, so lots to look at... soon.

I'm going on tour with my band, Ghastly City Sleep, in March. the tour will cover the east coast and include Chicago, Louisville, and Detroit. This will be the longest i've ever been on tour, and i'm really looking forward to it. Subsequently, i will have to forfeit my job in order to go.
I've never felt better...

Speaking of, i realize that all the bullshit i was sifting through at the end of last year was because of this stupid job. I feel completely uplifted at the prospect of the coming tour and the going job in the bowels of the high seat of NYC fashion. Good riddance!

This year, my resolution (yes, i have one...) is to get an ass-load of work done and have a portfolio i'm truly proud of by the time i apply for grad school for '09. New work, my best stuff, real stuff!!!

more soon.

تلّ

2007-12-06T12:52:00.000-08:00

pARdon me, this has been a rough week.
I am finally going to exhibit new paintings, looks like February.
Something new – I have started oil painting, which for years has eluded me. I’m very excited about this new series, all different sizes, some of the themes include:
تلّ tells
Sea monsters
Brooklyn architecture
Buffalo, NC (the lost underwater town of)
Melting ice caps
The fall of civilization
The subsequent rise of fish and other aquatic life
Collectable architectural portraits

The show might be in Brooklyn

More on this as it develops

♥

sfacchinata, dřina, raadanta, 骨折り仕事, harówka, изнурительная работа

2007-12-03T13:01:00.000-08:00

i am experiencing all of the drudgery of new york city life and none of the perks.
fuck this shit.
fuck you, new york.
i'm outta here as soon as i can, i'm tired of the endless drain, i'm bandaging my wrists up and pulling out the IV. New York City, you may not have any more of my blood and guts and resources, you don't deserve it, you fucker.
you make me angry enough to sware on my blog everyday!
what kind of life is this?

a musing anarchitect

2007-11-15T09:25:00.001-08:00

“IN THE END, THERE WILL BE LITTLE ELSE FOR US TO DO BUT SHOP”

This is the core of what our capitalist consumer society has to offer. If left to grow in the Petri dish, our surroundings become more and more clearly defined as a mall. The only real inhabitants, the only real participants, the only true beneficiaries, are consumers. It you’re not shopping, you are not only not welcome, you don’t really even exist.

Is shopping your favorite activity?

What activities do you enjoy which do not require shopping?

If ‘shopping,’ which we can define as buying or exchanging goods for any goods or services, is your primary objective / most pleasurable or important activity, then you must be interested in obtaining buying power, or capital. Capital is your ticket to the show.

If you have a day off from work, what do you do? Do you get some shopping done? What else would you do?
What if you had a week off from work, and all of your shopping was done?
All of your chores are done. All of your bills are paid.
There is ALWAYS something else to buy. Shopping is never done.
The accumulation of capital is never done, either.
The system grows, continuously.

I outright reject, at times violently, the idea that the primary direction of society, and subsequently, the main objective of urban planning and architectural design, is shopping.

When I enter a city, via freight train covered in soot, or by airplane with no bags checked in, or by bicycle, I do not enter my name on the list of shoppers. 90% of my time in the urban environment is spent not shopping.

What, then, am I doing here?

Here is a list of things I ‘do’ in the city:

HERMES TERM SHIFT

Hunt
Explore
Read
Map
Exercise
Sight-see
Trespass
Escape
Recreate
Meditate
Surrender
Hide
Fall in love
Interpret
Transcribe

ADDITIONAL

Reclaim
Communicate
Fight
Defend
Rebuild
Recycle
Design
Ride
Run
Smell
Learn
Absorb
Laugh
Enjoy

Most people would look at this list and laugh, or at least find many things that they wouldn’t qualify as actual activities. Are these items programmable in urban design or architecture? Are these programs as independent and viable as “shopping?” My suggestion is that the very idea that these programs are disputable in comparison with a program like “shopping” is an indication that we are in trouble.

I want you to know that right now, in your city, there are walkers and bicycle riders who are out here for no other reason than to participate in some of the above programs. Next time you see someone walking against the grain while you are on your way to work, imagine that ‘she’s on her way to escape today’ or ‘he is out in the name of absorption alone!’

It happens. I know I do it.

We live in a city that was designed for living and shopping, with the occasional industrial complex here and there, and maritime commerce structures lining the waterfront. The row housing on commercial streets are designed to house people over a ground level of commercial activity that requires capital to ultimately participate in (I do recognize window shopping and browsing with empty pockets as an activity or program). When I think of re-programming a city commercial strip like those in old Brooklyn or parts of Manhattan, that fact is overbearing due to the repetitive shape of the buildings. In an environment designed and built with the absence (or underscoring) of shopping as precognition, the streetscape would look very different ~ at the very least, there would be little necessity for the strict uniformity of design we see in our current city streets.

This is crucial ~ being that we are proponents of architectural recycling, we express distaste for the idea of constantly tearing buildings down & creating construction waste (the vast majority of waste tonnage excreted from the city is from demolition/construction), health hazards, and disgustingly cheap & efficient new designs by architectural whores and greedy investors who care little for / have no grasp of what real design could be ~ we are working within the pre-existing skeletal structure of a relatively efficient capitalist design, and our design constraint is to take the former houses of commerce and imagine new programs and activities within these walls.

In the spirit of “Woodsian” reclamation & paradigm shifts, I am also expecting design elements to begin to grow and expand beyond this skeletal frame, as new programs demand. Changing society ~ ripping from its tight grasp the very foundation upon which all of our surroundings were built (shopping) will undoubtedly revolutionize the way we walk through the city, the way we greet each other on the street, the way we approach architecture.

I have engaged a number of individuals in argument over why I think the sequel to the film “28 Days Later” was a disgusting flop and did its predecessor no justice. After writing the previous paragraphs I feel like I can more clearly articulate my answer. Aside from being more intelligently paced and showcasing a more graceful approach to cinematography in general, the first movie presents us with a glimpse of what this undeniably evocative urban/architectural condition might be like to experience in periods of transition: every service previously offered by London’s architecture, every building designed with an express purpose in mind, every pedestrian ritual practiced verbatim every day as a result of the workweek ~ as a result of capitalism ~ is vanquished. We watch as one pedestrian walks through a city stripped of its life and program (and unfortunately most of its inhabitants) and experiences the empty shell of what once was. This moment, much like the opening ‘dream’ sequence of “Vanilla Sky” lends us some insight into re-programming existing space. What happens to the shopping carts when the cash registers are vacant? What happens to the fitting rooms when there are no retail stores?

What would we do, should we discover a city completely deserted, if we were under no obligation to pay for food and rent? What would we establish? What would become of all of those ground-floor commercial spaces lining the empty streets? If this wasn’t the result of some saddening catastrophic event or war, if this was a choice made by communities (and here we get REALLY wishy-washy – it’s hard to imagine this condition taking place willingly on such a huge scale), what would our wildly creative minds invent? And what would the architecture that cradles these inventions, societal experiments, new ways of living, look like?

This idea is what really drives my interest in architecture. I spent four years attending design classes at the University of Florida’s college of Architecture as a student of design, and every project where I was allowed to take liberties with the programmatic elements of whatever I was encouraged to propose, I started here, at this idea:

In a state of real freedom, where our consumer society is somehow abolished or radically amended ~ in short, where architecture and program is not the slave of capitalism ~ What programs do we demand?

And from here it gets really interesting ~ What would the architecture of these programs look and feel like? What role does regional diversity play in the re-shaping of pre-existing architecture? What happens to the architecture we have when we factor in our demands for food, the necessity to clean up after ourselves, the changes in communication infrastructure, transportation, family life, neighborhood life, community life? What would the programs of love, lust, exploration, community outreach, education, sharing and mutual aid look like? How would they differ from state to state, mountain to valley, Oceanside to lakefront, flatlands to canyons, city to city, block to block? Would cultural and language barriers solidify and draw more distinct lines on the maps without the smoothing-over of commerce ~ our current ‘come together’ factor?
Or would other elements of life outside of this system take the place of buying and selling and trading, perpetuating the cultural exchange?

Would this be an outright nightmare?

If so, why was it always my architectural dream?

This was an interesting read concerning gentrification:
http://sunsetparkzone.blogspot.com/2007/10/commentary-by-nyu-student-living-in.html#links

Everything’s Wrong 101 (not without humor)

2007-11-13T08:43:00.000-08:00

Everything’s Wrong 101 (not without humor)
By Matt Boyle

I can't wait to see my brother & mother this week. it means most of my immediate family will be together, and i'm a lucky one in this respect - we have a certain "energy" when we're all together that always seems to set me straight and make me feel alright.
Thinking about seeing my brother soon makes me think about my current 'way of life' up here in nyc, and how it's different from his... how it's different from the Florida lifestyle i gleefully left behind.
moving up here, and the subsequent juxtaposition of suburban FL to urban NY, has always been exciting and positive to me.

the low population density, land waste, water waste, cookie-cutter corporate architecture by regional chains and the resulting advertisement assault on the senses, the necessity for an automobile, paying for fuel + insurance for this automobile, the complete lack of cultural diversity, a dead art scene (well, it’s trying), a dead music scene (with the exception of a brave handful who are always at odds), no architectural cred whatsoever, and too many people in sandals – all of these things drove me away fired up and ready for something new.
I am perfectly comfortable living in the urban environment when it comes to high population density, but I have to admit there are mornings where I’ll back out of a packed subway car, shaking my head, insisting to the goofy sardines trying so hard to get to their crappy early jobs where they make slave wages in relation to the costs of living in the city that they are willing to physically push and shove one another in and out of trains that “this is no way to live.” The city is bulging, overflowing, growing annually. The public transit system has long begun to lag behind it’s demand. And speaking of this demand, another thing I’ve come to notice and seriously dislike about new york city, a point most new Yorkers pride themselves on – is the inherent hard-work ethic that trumps all basic human needs. Who cares to work so hard, and why? Sigh…. I feel like a teenager again, the one who indulges in running scenarios like “if everyone stopped paying rent, what could they do? If everyone stopped working, what could they do?”
Us vs. them, etc, etc.
I still have it in me, just like the weeks before I moved here, roaring in the anti-republican national convention critical mass bicycle ride, a living answer to the question “what if we all (thousands strong) rode bikes through manhattan for hours, blocking traffic, causing chaos, having the time of our lives, voicing our protest, making our statement… what could they do?” they did a lot, but they couldn’t wipe the wide smile from my face. I still smile when I think of that night.
Well, I never done that in florida!

As this becomes a point-by-point, we move on to land waste. Well, a lot can be said in any situation, this is a tough one. There are a lot of big buildings out here, and although they may be of some grand architectural significance, they serve the same purpose as the monuments to pure evil I oft loathed in florida. Three years ago, I’d have been a big advocate of vertical growth over large sprawling fertilized lawns that are generally off limits to the public. Now I’m just dissatisfied with both solutions, and even more invested ideologically in the future of urban planning. I will say this - another ‘win’ for the new york beast – here, in the hyper-urban condition, you find life resilient, creative, and illegal. Old factory buildings, deserted of their original program so some company can save money with slave labor overseas, become squats for brave anarchists and the homeless. From a design standpoint, developers take these spaces and create residential-ready renovations that offer a little more comfort (complete with commercial lease) and often end up with interesting new spaces, for interesting new ways to define one’s “home” or studio. I have experienced this first hand, and although the skyrocketing housing costs in (former) artist-friendly areas pushed me out, it works. These interesting conditions can only occur in former seats of industry, and are a result of creative-minded folk who’d rather work within the existing skeletal structure of older buildings than bulldoze & trash tons and tons of material bound for landfills. This is a sort of parasitic / recycling form of architecture, which I have ALWAYS – since the days of my design classes in architecture school in florida – been chiefly interested in. alas, I am a big fan of Lebbeus Woods. (more points for new york – I actually met professor Woods and attended a couple of his critiques of his Cooper Union students! In florida, the closest I’d get to this would be in the lonely UF arts & architecture library shelves under ‘W’)

Water waste.. errr… not sure where I was going with this, but hey! I don’t have to witness first-hand the watering of people’s vast untapped green lawns that serve little to no community purpose. I’m sure nyc is wasting more water, because of its population and infrastructure, than anywhere in florida, but I’d be willing to bet that the amount of water used/wasted PER PERSON in florida is MUCH greater than that of new york.

Cookie cutter corporate architecture!!!! Oh, here we go. I recently got caught up in a conversation at work trying to explain some of my most basic political viewpoints (big mistake) only to find that I had to continuously dumb-down my argument as it fell on deaf ears. I eventually turned to this simple perspective: design & diversity.
There are so many more important / pressing issues concerning the corporate takeover of the global community at the moment, but a nice gateway drug for those who are mildly conservative and zombified by placating television programs and deficient news coverage every night is an argument for good design vs. cheap & efficient design. We can weave (or crochet) this into anything we want to make, and take it all the way to the top (as in why we should overthrow the government and split the united states into a smaller union of self-governing countries) if we want to.

Ok. Florida is still, by most city-standards, a ripe flatland awaiting new architecture and urban planning design strategies, desperately failing in its current state. ***NOTE – by ‘new strategies’ I insist this could be interpreted as ‘no further development’ / ‘anti-development’*** big businesses sit on ‘industrial parks’ with fountains and planned landscaping that offer workers near windows a view of LIES. Wake up, dickhead! You can’t have natural florida everglades and the DANKA corporate headquarters in the same fucking fenced in park. Fuck you.
Smaller national chain businesses have fuckitects design very cheap, very specialized, very efficient cookie-cutter buildings (Starbucks, Eckerd, CVS, Duane Reade, Wal-Mart, K-Mart, SAMS Club, Best Buy, Barnes N’ Noble, to name a few) that all look the same, no matter where you go. This is part of the success of super-BRANDING, logos run-amok, and cheap design. I could be in Morocco, Vietnam, Saint Petersburg, or Manhattan – it doesn’t matter where you are, or what buildings these chains sit next to. They all look the same. This helps consumers identify services more quickly on the street, and brainwashes people into thinking that this particular company, with its logo all over your city, and wiped all over your shit, is the end-all be-all of parties offering these goods or services, and this creates consumer loyalty. This also creates, in addition to excessive landscaping, deconstruction + reconstruction (although reconstruction usually takes about 2-3 days [“wow! Where’d that come from!”])a significant lack of regional diversity in design. The more national / global chain businesses there are in an area, the more the area appears to be an “anywhere, Earth” atrocity. For those of you who might not be following as to why this is a bad thing, let me simply state that I come from the school of thought that seeks to nurture regional differences in design – and in life… I mean, c’mon! do I really have to explain this!!? To the average American, you do. Cultural diversity - such as that found in design, art, music, cuisine, morals, customs, smells, climates, languages, colors, sexual identity, temperatures, temperaments, beliefs, ideas, dreams, etc. - all serve to enrich our experience here on earth.

I believe that when a wal-mart store goes up in your neighborhood, history and culture are dying as a direct result. You will also, by participating in the activities encased in this disgusting eyesore, suffer headaches and eventual death from parking, waiting in long lines, and failing to enjoy the fruits of the labors of human history.
Wake up and smell the fuck.

Oh, and hey… What if all of the advertisements in the world that wreak havoc on the eyes and ears of zombie consumers and those who have not lost their senses were destroyed, or replaced with works of art or personal & communal expression? What if it wasn’t just an “ART-thing” and everyone could be involved in this process? What if it wasn’t even a process, but a way of life for communities, a way of communicating with no rules – more like story telling? Or is that what it is already? Are we so happy with this way of life that we are content to paint the streets red with the blood of capitalism at every corner and signpost – oftentimes on our own bodies and homes?
Is this the message we are sending to one another? Is this the visual history we are currently painting – the history of capitalism, and how we loved and supported it… how we all lived crazy busy lives for the sake of hierarchies, war, and capital gain… I am a member of this community. My voice counts. I don’t like this, and my visual surroundings don’t reflect the way I see life. I’m not some ‘radical liberal freak’, either. I am a product of this thriving / dying system. You made me, and will continue to make me. I am inevitable, and I will not stop until some things begin to change.

On the automobile – let’s face it, cars run on blood. oil/gas/fossil fuels are the subject of war. They represent the biggest, most powerful businesses in the world, and these businesses are run by some of the most dangerously greedy and careless individuals in the world. By driving a car, you support this industry, which is why people have been dying for years, the cause of great wars, and the source of power for a privileged, dangerous few. Stop driving immediately. Stop flying planes. Sound ridiculous? Let’s build magnetic trains. Let’s fund engineers to design new human-powered methods of transportation, let’s design them ourselves, let’s address the need for business travel, let’s address the need for business, let’s talk talk talk.
Let us change things. Whew. So I sold my car before coming to new york city. I use an electric train to get around, if I’m not on my bicycle. I know that the trains get electricity from fossil fuel-powered plants, but let’s face it – cars suck at the scale they are currently used at in the world.

I like new york city because of the population diversity. I grew up in florida, in a city that is 68.6% ‘white.’ Not too bad, but considering the geographical racial divide in this city, it felt more like 85%. I live in brooklyn now, where the white percentage of the population is 41.2%, I have also lived in queens, where it’s 44.1%. even in manhattan where the percentage is 54.4%, the actual geographic mix of race is much greater in new york city, or in any big thriving city, for that matter. In my hometown, there really was a “black” part of town. The social divide was clear, and it mirrored the economic divide. This actually made the ‘south side’ of saint Petersburg (68.6%W) far more dangerous than the crown heights section of Brooklyn (41.2%W) I currently live in. when you segregate - socially, economically, racially – you send a message, you create a divide in community, and you create ill feelings.
Businesses refrain from certain areas because of prejudice and economy, and commercial strips in these areas die as you lose certain components of ‘leisure commerce.’
Now I’m getting into areas that would be interesting to discuss in both areas – both a more segregated suburban community and a dense urban city. But for now, let’s just say I prefer to live in a diverse community, on all levels.
Variety is the spice of life.

Art in florida is pretty much fish, pelicans, scenery, and whatever else the boring, aging snowbirds want to spend money on. Although things are looking up in my hometown thanks to a few establishments… I mean, really, this is obvious. New york city is the (self-proclaimed) center of the art world. now, you can take that statement and suck it, big deal. I don’t give a fuck, I’ll make my art anywhere. But there are a lot of artists in nyc, and when you have that many people around with all that creative energy, things pop up here and there, and you start to feed off of that energy. There is another edge to this blade, and you can get lost in the shear number of ‘creative’ types arting and farting all over the gaddamned place… I know I’m lost myself, but for the three years I’ve lived here, I sure have soaked up a lot of amazing shit. And it inspires one to be immersed in an environment that simply cares about the arts as much as new york city does. I’ll take that sentiment along with a lot of other positive things with me if/when I leave this shit hole.
Yay nyc!

As far as music goes – much more so than art, at least in my life – you need that energy. You need an audience, you need collaborators, and you like finding people who come from different places and are willing to try new things. Hello, new york. I’ve been in bands in florida all my life, but here, everywhere I turn there’s someone to make music with – and I’m not talking about some cover-band dickass douche-bag, or some guitar wanker dickass douche-bag fuck (I’ve heard my fair share). You meet them (the good ones)everywhere, they’re at your job, they’re in the subway station, they’re at the park, they carry their instruments to work. Pretty soon you’re playing in a band in a giant church and you feel like you’re in a moment in your life that you’ll never forget, and you’re old enough to enjoy it for what it is, all because of the energy and draw to the new york art and music scene.
Yay nyc!

Well, I feel like I’ve talked enough about urban vs. suburban architecture for one blog, and as for people in sandals? Welcome to winter, fuck-ass. Fuck you.
More later.
♥

Fight!

2007-10-30T07:33:00.000-07:00

-for those of you who believe that 'protest' is ugly, uncalled for, or meaningless... and you're out there, I know... I say it clearly and with confidence -
Fuck You.
New York City's proposed new regulations on public photography/videography, which were met by fierce opposition from those in fear of further empowering the current police state, have been drastically amended in "our" favor.

http://gothamist.com/2007/10/28/new_york_again.php

The Secret to Happiness (the art of complaining)

2007-09-24T11:30:00.001-07:00

I have never felt better, i've often concluded, in the physical and subsequent mental sense, than i did when i was a messenger.
After a few months of trotting around the city at a needlessly quickened pace, dodging nyc pedestrians and efficient trajectories alike with vigor and expertise, i began to notice a difference in my physiology, my moods, my sleep patterns, and my appetite. any of you who have spoken to me in the past 6 months have heard this already, but it bears repeating.
i calculated that i must have been walking around 20-30 miles per day. i ate three big meals and stuff in between. i slept deeply from the moment i laid my head on the pillow to the moment my alarm would go off in the morning. i experienced physical exhaustion at the end of every day, which translated to a state of bliss. my appetite was huge, my digestive system worked like a well-oiled machine (heh).
perhaps my greatest piece of evidence was that during this time, i was in serious debt to my friend, i was very lonely, over-worked (i also had a restaurant job by night), and under played - i seldom went out or saw my friends... sounds like a recipe for disater.
but i was fine. i felt great. perhaps it was simply an effective blinder from whatever else was going on at the time.
but ever since i left that job and began my desky office job, i've been dreaming of returning. it's romantic to me. i video taped everything, everywhere i went. i often slipped into cathedrals and meditated. i would stretch my delivery times to the limit, cut through parks, visit friends for lunch, take N train trips over the Manhattan bridge to tape the river...
i mean, the more i think about it, the more i miss what i had. i was paid to wander one of the most amazing cities in the world.
and even though i am now paid 50% more to do things like write this blog and read the news, i often consider taking the pay cut and returning to the position. i held the messenger job during the dead of winter, and owed much of my success to my infamous ski pants, which i took great pride in... especially when i entered an interior space and had the opportunity to take my pants off in front of complete strangers. if i were to take the messenger job again, i think i would do so when the winter hits. when i switched jobs and hung the pants up in my closet i felt like i was retiring a superhero cape.
when i bring this issue up to my friends and loved ones, they often encourage me to try to get my old job back. it seems like a no-brainer; take the pay cut and stop talking about how great being a messenger was, if you love it so much, if the health benefits were so great, than isn't that enough?
the answer to this question is part of an even bigger issue, which is where the meat of this blog entry lies...

I am trying to save some money up, preferably more than i've ever held in a bank account before, to prepare for the next phase of my life, where i propose returning to school to get my Master's degree in fine arts. In the past few years i have written a number of passionate and dumbed-down rants about my hatred for life in new york. i am always on the fence, rocking back and forth between loving it up here and despising my quality of life since leaving florida. these rants have never concluded with a desire to return to florida, but they have left me hungry for leaving New York. One of the big reasons is that i feel like i have no time for nurturing my passions. rent is so high that we are forced to work long hours, the commutes are so long... the result is a scramble to enjoy a few things on the weekends. this is terrible, stupid, and will not do. sorry if i sound like a baby, but i have things i want to do in life, places i want to go, and i'll do it wearing rags and stoing away on ships if i have to.
i started thinking that if i went back to school, i would not only have the time to focus on what i want to do, i'd have dedicated professors devoting time to me, and i'd be connected to the industry that might someday support me. the financial strain troubles me a bit, but i'd rather be a failed and impoverished artist than a mildly successful and disgruntled shipping coordinator.
I've thought of just taking out a huge loan, paying for school and not working much, if at all, and just living the dream in NYC while i'm here.i didn't come here to work my ass off at dead-end jobs. i did that in florida. i came here in an effort to immerse myself in a world that might embrace what i love to do, extending tethers out in all directions, holding on to the idea that one might eventually grab hold to something with a charge. isn't that why every dreamer comes to nyc?
so far i have these truths to hold on to:
doing the art thing independently/non-academically while working a full-time job to support myself is not working for me.
debt is not something that i fear enough to stay completely away from.
a rigorous physical routine is essential to general happiness and well being.
the more money i make, the more money i spend. my bank account doesn't seem to grow in relation to my income.
i have spent three years in new york this month. i feel like i am at square one. many times i feel like moving back to florida and re-grouping, planning another 'push' in another place. as reliable as the wonderful distraction of NYC is in making me smile from time to time, i can rely equally on the return of my anxiety and discontent.
I was all geared up to start this new plan when i started researching grad schools, and reading their application requirements.
i felt a little stupid when reality bit me in the ass... i have done practically no new work in the past year. aside from sketchbooks, which are a strong point for me, i have made one sculpture. no new paintings, significant drawings, and i never completed a series of boats like i had planned to. i really don't have the time. the schools i want to apply to require recent work in submission portfolios, preferably from the previous year.
all of this means that i have a lot of work to do, if i want to apply to school for Fall 2008.
thinking about waiting until 2009 is a downer. So i have decided to get on it, and if i don't make my deadlines, then at least i'll have a relevant, updated portfolio ready to go for 2009.
as far as everything else goes, i have relocated and lowered my monthly rent, which helps immensely. i feel a little more in control of my life, and i love my new apartment.
i'm sick of feeling like every moment has to count up here, too. that's definitely a new yorkism that can suck it. i like to relax.
i don't give a shit about how hard people work up here. that doesn't sound like fun to me.
whatever.
'till next time,
~m
p.s. read plasticblog, it's good.

welcome

2007-09-24T11:30:00.000-07:00

my current plan is to write a monthly blog.