Merrily stealing wi-fi molecules from the stratoscopic atmosphere about the home of Kennergy (Theory: emanating from across the street, a far and sad cry from the immediate wi-fi steal in Soho - missed in general like a lover gone untrustworthily bad) and having a vrai Cinderella moment as I am not at the Red Ball (You, do not confuse this with my savoury Red Dinner not yet happened) as the guest of the Shiney Happy Mag but am in grad student throes. Rather than in the strapless, complicated Nicole Miller dress I am in gradstudentwear suitable for studies, imbibing, procrastination, nimble walks amongst Nature. On that note we Parsons School of Détente enthusiasts are reading about what I am going to heretofore refer to only as The Sublime. You know - beauty, aesthetics. Usual hackneyed to smither kingdom come words. Last night watched neo-gypsy music at the Dungeon/SoundLab (The Feathers, from MA) and it was surprisingly not delving down into the Frost Zone in the joint. Saw Bandmate Scott there and I chastised him for falling down on the job of calling me nightly to remind Perfect Me to eat din-din and then we discussed not only our pending stagewear but our practice schedule.
This is a joke, a little epinw humour.
And I am afeared You do not recognize this as such as I feel our band totally rocks and does not need practice. I have designed the logo, the merch. We know what we're wearing on stage, our m.o. is in place. No matter that we have not practiced once. Rock & roll is so not about practice, it is attitude and forthright confidence. And good merch. So the neo-gypsies treacled away and you could definitely tell the wealthy/parent-fund-injected neo-gypsies from the typical struggling and leaving-wardrobe-to-chance neo-gypsies.

Neo-Love.

Minding my own business met up with girlies Liz and Cheryl at Hardware, Goldman's joint. There saw, firstly, the girlies and Mark and Kittie - ringside. Kittie was one of those at The Fainting of Hillary and we recapped. I'm shooting their daughter's wedding and said that I'm coining a new phrase "gripping the podium," sort of like driving the porcelain bus. You don't want to be seen doing either, if you catch my Perfect drift.
So, again minding my own business, Mark says (and he's the boss, the proprietor, the founder if you will) he wishes to buy me a cocktail and ever-obliging Scott the Bartender meanders over to listen to my wish/plan/order. I warble out Chardonnay, puh-leez. To that he says What . . . no scotch. Coming to my senses I said Of course. He says I have something new - Dewar's Green. I say What the hell. He then pours me a tumbler full of it in front of Mr. Goldman. Thanks for the $28 glassa scotcha, Mr. Goldman, I think to myself and join the girls.
Moments later Mark, Amy and Jeff saunter in from a dinner at Sinatra's. Amy is carrying a Kangol purse and to that I say Amy, when you die can I have that. She says she's buying me one and what colour. I marvel at her generosity then.
Back at Home Office Hovel and it's time to brainstorm as to how I'm going to squeeze many hours of grad school reading amongst a day of freelance gigs and the like and other social engagements. Who really has the time for this grad school thing, I wonder.

Wonderment of Love.

Saw The Death Grip Hillary image on Inside Edition and to ratchet up the drama they referred to it as "this scarey picture." This gets my grad student brain to thinking of what a picture v. image is and is that Beth Dearest I hear groaning in the background over there in the corner. Note to self: school's in session so get out the highlighter and start reading fercrissakes. Got a call from Thee Elliott Caplan today and will have to inform him that, according to JR, there is no Mechanism in place for EC to be my informal, Middling City advisor of sorts. We can still meet and discuss drawings and the like but to no grand offical end.
It should be noted here that I am listening at this moment, to construct a picture/a pixel-based image in Your mind of Me, to a 70s comp of Soul Train classics and am digging ever second of the grooving, falling backwards into a first-run beanbag chair that hasn't yet lost its tiny white internal beads of toxic plastique, when the Middling City still had its dramatic smoke-filled industry choking up the waterfront to the south, hope, post-60s style and tri-coloured bicentennial public offerings like garage doors, lampposts, bunting and Neil Diamond was still considered hip (although in My mind he still remains so). Next note to self: suggest to Marky Norris that he cover our fav ND song - Cherry Cherry.
Declined an on-cam interview last night for MC NBC affiliate, after requesting my pal Marc to do the shooting. Consulted with two wizened souls who helped me confirm my gut sensation that this was so not necessary. They wanted an eye-witness account of Hillary's faint and to that I said There were 120 others in the room, get one of them. They wanted to talk about the drama of surge of interest in The Scarey Picture and to that I said Nope. Which calls to mind when MTV showed up here and interviewed me and followed me about for a night, even mid-shoot, for the Goo Goo Dolls Behind the Music gig which ended up in a later edit of the show but not in its final, eliminated and not command z'd back in. But that moment did yield onscreen images made by Yours Truly and a little wrangle with ViaCom's Rights and Clearances team. Read between lines if you will.

Love's Lines.

Mere and meager moments ago finished watching one Coen Bros. movie with George Clooney and Catherine Bodacious-Jones. What in hell was that called. Indecent Proposal Law and Order Sense and Sensibility Love is a Battlefield. A study of brown eyes - the dark bottomless pools v. the dark brown with the ember glow, ie. his v. hers. I found this movie to be as affrontive as that piece of shit Pretty Woman starring a younger and pre-Buddhistic Richard Gere and that big toothy woman, Julia Roberts. Despite the fact that I've met Richard and received some unwanted media attention after one of my tv cam buddies captured us walking nearly arm in arm at a fundraiser for one Louise Slaughter, I find this movie, Pretty Woman, as well as the former, to be abso-freakin-lutely the ultimate portrayals of women as opportunistic capitalist at the expense, literally, of men. Intolerable Cruelty, thar she blows.
Found two words on a private, post-haste wordquest this fine evening that I must share, that I am trying to resucitate and drag (kicking, screaming) into today's parlance. They are: nymphology (one who shoots for stars whilst pipe-dreamed) and staumrel (dim-witted one). As they said in grammar school, use them 3x and they are yours, yours, yours. I have given You something and do not say Perfect me never has as uttering this will render you a staumrel.

Love's Staumrel.

Where in the name of all the teeming and adrenalized photogods did the days go and, fercrissakes, I know You have missed Perfect me. But where the fuck to begin.
Firstly, premierment to my fellow Francophiles, this and thusly.
Marky Norris, former officemate and one of the favoured Middling City rockstars and the second person eVER to know I was toodling off to Parsons, opened for the pinstriped and skunky-haired Tommy Stinson, formerly of the Replacements.
And jeez didn't Mr. Stinson learn a thing, maybe three, from Paul Westerberg about The Crabbies. He bounds up onto the stage, but not before Michele noted that his handshake was limp, drab. Oh no, that was another. She pointed out that amongst the cognoscenti she had no idea who in blazes this Stinson was. There he was, in his cornball TO-ish bumper car shoes (he did compare and contrast the MC with TO, needlessly, foolishly) of patent leather. And, I will argue to my death, you can ALWAYS judge a man by what is on his feet. No exceptions. Not even You.
Stinson. Sucked. I told Marky that he truly stole the show in my non-humble opinion. And that says it all. Marky was out for the first time solo, no band (GirlPoop/Pope) in tow. Stinson. Crab. Gets up on stage and complains nearly immediately about the club's temp. About its chilliness. Renee twists some knobs. Then he's too warm. Then he's too chilly. And on. Suddenly he's annoyed that in the barroom there're a few conversations and he leaps off the stage and performs for a handful of people at the bar, stopping mid-strum to do a shot. Now that is so rock and roll. Made some images of that moment, real real keepers with the bar rimmed with suddenly-awake-and-thriving-in-rock's-gentle-glow fans and tipplers.
I that night bathed in said glow of My People, my rock and roll famille.
Then.
More more more and then I find myself with Kennergy looking at the lame-arsed Georgia O'Keefe show at MC's Albright-Knox Art Gallery. I mean really, my pal of yore Georgia Davidson (who turned Perfect me onto all things scotch) could have made better art. Adding insult to visual imagery were the mediocre digital prints hanging alongside said paintings.
Then.
Today, while minding my own business was at a thing, a bennie, for a pro-choice group featuring in the hotseat Hillary Clinton, former First Lady, former brunette, former maxi-dress wearer. I am a huge fan. I was shooting this for the pro-choice org and did the requisite meet & (no, not potatoes) greet moments and then the Talk. HC says OOOh, I am not 100%, I need to sit. She sits. Then she needs to remove her sweater under her suit. She leaves and comes back one layer less. She sits. Her voice is fading and drifting and you can see that her usual steely resolve is waning. Finally she says I cannot go on like this. Rain check. She has food poisoning or a flu, she says. She stands. She clings podium. I make an image of The Death Grip, her eyes all zonky. Then. SHE'S FALLING. CATCH HER. Down goes HC. I made no more images, believing in dignity but waiting to see if there was some such thing that would need to be doc'd - like when I (amongst the plethora) got the shot of the teen catapulted into the crowd at the outdoor gig which resulted in one very sad broken neck for real.
So HC is on the ground. Show's over. But not for Perfect me. Suddenly I am barraged with calls from media far, further and furthest. Conversations and consultations happened. The Death Grip image appears in various media now. By me. No images that are ruinatious and nothing making her look worse than at her next gig, at Canisius College about an hour later and howinhell did she make that anyhoo, after her collapse. So, she is not dead, not dying just yet and no animals were harmed in the making of those images as they were made and e-shipped off into the good night.

Good Night Love.