Saturday, December 29, 2001

Due to recent developments the streets are narrower, friendliness is full-tilt and rock and roll & social extravaganzas have all been rescheduled. Oh, and stray cats are missing and so are the fire hydrants.
Ani and the Goo Goo Dolls (visiting from afar) float about town unable to leave while those unfamous and once from here split asap in rented cars, white knuckling it until about an hour or so away frantic to get back to NYC, Chicago, wherever. The clutches of the darkness, the act of God, breathing down the necks of the leaving in icy pursuit.
My own harrowing tale involves the highly efficient car, me, a tequila buzz and classic rock radio tunes becoming lost in a blizzard a few nights ago. I could not decipher which street(s) I was on or where the grocery store had gone to.
Two carfuls of police officers (sometimes my pals, sometimes the bane of my existence) sent me back from whence I came and then I did so, again feeling my way along and passing stuck trucks. Harrowing moments, adrenalinized.
Last night drove around after the driving ban was lifted and upon returning home went in for a crash landing into the driveway only to get hung up on a small iceberg. A drunk meandered by and wanted to help. He was none. I nearly gave myself a black eye with a shovel but should have instead aimed for the bossy drunk. Get in... turn the wheel... do this... do that. It's an odd thing, the politics of snow help. You know someone might be nincompooping yet you're being helped and can't say Ummmm, shut the hell up. Then they will leave, etc.
The car was rescued this morning and now I'm off again, into the still sunny and ominous early night.

Thursday, December 27, 2001

Crackers prevented most of Blogger users to post as they jiggled into our secret spaces like elusive spores of anthrax.
And speaking of crackers I'm still amazed by the Pope saying that war must not be waged on God's behalf.
He obviously has dementia and church history has evaporated from his mind.
God cannot, should not, be named as your wartime m.o., keep that in mind.
God, however, was my writing co-pilot again and I thank God for that.
2 feet of snow + 2 computers + 1 snow-moated mind = a whole lot of work completed.
And now time to venture out into the blanketed middling city to enjoy some cocktails. As it snowed so hardily there was no Goo Goo Dolls show and that's a sad thing.
I'm going to stop by the alterna-music ginmill to see if The Jacklords are made of more titanium stuff and will forge on with their engagement.
Holiday thoughts:
The Eve was good, headed to family event after an Oban fix. My aunt who I haven't seen in a while was speaking in sound poem style coming in a rhythm until she could grab the next batch. It reminded me of an Allen Ginsburg's reading I saw
BOMB we bomb them we BOMB you, you BOMB them... something to that effect.
Faced self-induced word loss the next morn after I organized a caravan out to the exurbs for Marty's annual Norman Rock&Roll-Well (I have to tell him I constructed this term for his fete) party. That meant a 6AM grappling for sugar plum fairy sleep.
Next day, no snow. No skiing, just roast beef with a bunch of artists and then a pathetic movie starring a certain actor accused of being gay all the time, and then points beyond.
The Jesus & Mary Chain's Stoned & Dethroned sounds still solid right now.
Note to self: buy the new Hope Sandoval. Sometimes Always jogged that.
Photojournalistic memory: elusive Reid Bros. under dimmest of light.

Monday, December 24, 2001

Next big rock shooting is the Goo Goo Dolls on the 27th, a short set for charity at the historic joint that they sold out 3x in '99. One of the bearded boy colleagues wants to gather up all of us photographers for some sort of group shot or something or other. Talked to Robby Goo a couple of times this past five or so days as he has been back in town and prowling about in the downtown music venues. He actually looks good, thinner and ferocious manic panic red stripes in his hair. Allegedly he's bought or is buying a recording studio here.
Christmas is tomorrow and I am not giving a grand flying phlegm. Every year it feels like a lullish zone which disrupts the work flow. The partying for us regular revelers reaches feverish levels at moments and that's a damned good thing. One annual complaint: people who wait until about 12/21 or so to place a holiday order. You can last-minute shop at a plastic-coated mall but your photo pal is not the mall: no food court, no extended shopping hours, no minimally-waged servants and no oversized holiday decorations for your amusement and general feeling of well-being.

Sunday, December 23, 2001

A pair of sex dice and a pair of jumping boots can spice up any dinner party - during cocktail hour and post-dessert. And that's what happened last evening. Big wooden dice from Niagara Falls, NY (sleazeball honeymoon capital of the world) which show location suggestions and very incognito interpretations of human forms in flagrante delicto. One resembles twirling jellyfish . One only gives its erotic purpose away by depicting one form with dots for nipples = she's twisting away from a man, whose face she sits squarely upon.
Afterwards onwards to a reunion show of middling city punk rockers. How many? I wondered amid the din as an audience member shouted out a request. It's been twenty years and you still shout out requests, get it through your thick heads. He, it might be added, has no front teeth and my dim memory forgets the tale of how these went out of his head.