Yesterday, all deadlines/parties/driving, was also about music.
Ran top speed post-gig into a Starbucks conveniently located next to a Middling City discshoppe, suddenly recalling I had not yet purchased At War witih the Mystics, the new Flaming Lips.
It is a triumph.
And Yours Truly is going on record for this important discovery made by YT a long time ago. And I do recall telling Artie this, so You may call him for confirmation.
Track 7 on any given disc is usually a winner.
And good ol It Overtakes Me/The Stars Are So Big...I Am So Small...Do I Stand A Chance?
does not disappoint.
All other tracks - Perfect.
So on another errand acquiring a pal's holiday gift via a big box pharm if You can believe this I spot a bin of discs and the benevolent powers of the universe pulled me towards said bin where I spotted 20th Century Masters: The Best of Neil Diamond. Now YT has many Neil collections, discs, programmes, you name it. But this collection has a few not usually on his comps. The only real minus is no Cherry Cherry. But the photos on back and front make up for that - on the front there's Neil when his hair was at its poofiest, sort of way atop and brushing out away from his intent eyes which are gazing at his left hand, perhaps the mic stand, perhaps a woman in the near rows about to flash him.
On the back there is Neil in a white shirt gazing into Your eyes so intently. Neil is about to sing you a song to warm your heart. Neil, in other words, is about to say I Love YOU. You.
And then you look at the lips. No, not Lips as in Flaming Lips.
Neil is about to tell you something but he's holding it back.
Neil is kind of sneering and now you might doubt his intentions.
But you remember This is Neil. The singer of Stones, Holly Holy, Play Me.
Suddenly you think Is there more, more images of Neil and open the jewel case and so begins a brilliant essay by someone named Joseph F. Laredo who opens with
The distinctive, romantic baritone voice of Neil Diamond is one of the most recognizable sounds in popular music.
There's more but really the important thing is the vertical image of Neil in some fantastic brown suede, square-toed boots and one of those embarassing fringey jackets people wore back then. Now suddenly his hairy chest is visible beyond that jacket and wackily-printed shirt.
This is all a lot of pleasure for $6.99.
The Lips's disc was more than double that but just as pleasurable.
So ends the music/pleasure report.
Time for more deadlines/driving/shooting/erranding and a lunch date with Vincenzo before more of the d/d/s/e routine and a few more events this fine evening which Jamal reports, is Synchronized Global Orgasm day.
It should also be noted that this very same Jamal sent YT a truly deft Nancycentric rap that was accidentally ejected out of the inbox.
It was a work of art.

Happy Global Neil and Lips and Art Day, Love.

This just in.

Miss USA Tara Conner, who had come under criticism amid rumors she had been frequenting bars while underage, will be allowed to keep her title, Donald Trump announced Tuesday.
"I've always been a believer in second chances," Trump, who owns the
Miss Universe Organization with NBC, said with Conner at his side.

The only thing, well, one thing, Yours Truly has to say about the above is Are you freakin' kidding me.
For one, the Middling City has few joints suitable for teens and demi-adults to congregate and engage in social, bonding activities. Bars filled and continue to fill this gap. Marjorie and I would enter our teen haven, Checker's, with assurance as we took turns holding the lit cig and the other swinging car keys ever so casually. See, these iconic gestures were to signify, we are like so relaxed about driving, about smoking in public. Now, mind you, the legal age is older, smoking in bars is punishable by death, and underage drinking in bars remains a strong American tradition.
So Miss Conner has to live up to some unreasonable goals and standards.
Her teeth must glimmer, her breasts must be seamless, her hair must shimmer, her moods must not simmer, and she is never to have posed for a nudie mag nor done a few Jäger shots as a teen. But thank the good goddesses of beauty up above - Venus and Aphrodite - that Trump steps in for redemption a man, to be sure, with the highest scruples of all.
Speaking of nudie mags, tomorrow's gigs includes a photo shoot with a femme who wishes to be all erotic in front of the cam of YT for gifting to her beau.
She mentioned a sable coat. And a few other props.
As I am wont to say
Bring on the props but do not forget the confidence from within.

Confident, nude Love.

Today I experienced some band name confusion.
I was hired today to make some in-store images of the band Newfound Glory at New Era Cap Co., You know, the company responsible for providing def lids for rockstars, sportsmen, sportsgals, urbanites, and the like the world over.
Newfound Glory is at this time already done with their set at the annual Kissmas Bash that happens at the venue where the drunken lady tried to drive through bricks.
See a few posts ago.
So in come three of the five members of Newfound Glory, one in very interesting shoes, all three of them nice-looking gentlemen. No egoes. Or were they just half-asleep. One member was clutching one of those canned Starbucks quadruply-super-charged bevvies. They had, they told me, just rolled off their tour bus, having played in Poughkeepsie last night. They had rolled off their bus and into a black stretch Hummer - a lot of car for three guys, even if they were rather large in scale.
So between this shoot and edits I somehow mismanaged my memory of their bandname and altered it into Bound for Glory.
Not sure how this transpired but before I wrote up the invoice and such I thought I'd Google away just for double-checking's sake and Geeeez wasn't Yours Truly quite astonished by the latter, a quote-unquote pro-white band.
Let us erase this bandname for forever.
Did take a drive yesterday with Jana up to Castle Annie's (i.e. what YT has dubbed Castellani Art Museum, one of my old stomping grounds of sorts with Liz et al) and was most sad to not see the Longo print of Janus-like heads that inspired that one digvid I made. The Basquiat was also put away but there was a very fab Motherwell collage out on the wall, the best thing in the joint du jour. Any time I've been in front of a Motherwell I have been aware of what we in the rigid and erudite academia realm call aura. That Motherwell is a mother of an aura maker.
Over and out.
Onwards to more pixel management.

Splendid Aura Love.