Tomorrow is the one year anniversary of this blog. Where has all the time gone. Procrastinatingly, I'll tell you.
What do I have to show for the year?
What did you learn in this past year?
Enough reflection.
This weekend is a marathon jamboree of rock and roll. No Doubt is tonight and then Middling City talent. And then. Tomorrow night.
Dave .
My ticket was FedEx'd to me this AM and it's a laser-printed affair. And they have me close on the floor so I will be able to lob undies up there into his smiling face.

Post-Clinton shoot wandered like a merrily lost child in an enchanted forest through Target (and like all good post-modernists I pronounce it as tar-JHAY, dig?) looking for a trash can for my highly unused kitchen. I was lost, wandering in circles. Are trash cans Domestics? Housewares? Def not Electronics. I had to ask a Target Team member for assistance. I work so much that I forget/forgot about this oddly-lit world of Barbie colors and neatly-presented items. I was out of there in 20 minutes flat. Enough of that planet, back to Perfect Nancy's Photo Universe.

Bill had a cold sore. And an odd red blemish on his forehead, upper right corner. And that nose. A nose you could fuck. We press photogs were split up into two groups - Group A and Group B and I was assigned, with a few familiar boy colleagues, to Group B to which we instantly protested. The woman in charge of herding us was perplexed. We kept saying WE WANT TO BE GROUP A. Why? she asked. BECAUSE A IS BETTER THAN B. She said, to shut us all the hell up, A is for adequate but B is for best. The boy colleagues looked at Perfect Me and asked, Do you buy that Nancy? I did. And we were escorted in our groups for 2.5 minutes of Bill proximity, at the front row. And then the shoulder tap meant go to seats, little photogs, and shoot from your seats for the duration. I was shooting, seated, next to one boy colleague who was looking at his D1's camera back chuh-chuh-chuckling. Then he showed me his image, Bill with his hands about a foot apart. The cigar I smoked was THIS long, he chuckled into my ear. There were a few other cigar jokes floating about.
I would like to hire Bill to follow me around to explain many aspects of the world in his assured and even tone. What an advantage I'd have.
My assignment editrix wanted the hoopla so I talked my way up into an office of a basketball coach, made images from behind his computer credenza, smashed into the small space, lens up to the window to get the image of long lines of students entering the building. At that point I saw a lone protester - hurray - and sped outside to get not just one but THREE protesters. The MTV generation is so in love with Bill for appearing on the network that the three protesters were 1. an ugly philosophy prof, middle-aged, 2. a middle-aged man disguised as a faux billionaire and when I asked him his political party he quipped (barf) I'm a BILLIONAIRE, it doesn't matter which party I'm in, we control it all (hardy-fuckin-har), and 3. a bald student with a GO HOME BILL sign taped to his back. Oooo, very effective Mr. College Republican.
As I was driving back from that poli-hoopla here's something I misheard on the radio:
Russia has an embargo on American poetry.
I was flustered. Why poetry? Why, only this week my former college prof won the Pulitzer and he's like so safe and nice.
Then they're talking on and on and I realized it wasn't American poetry that Russia is embargoing - it's American poultry.
There is such a difference.
Love.

Did I really ever need to know that Pink fought like cats-n-dogs with her brother, who's now in the Air Force? I think not. And thanks SPIN for packing this useless info into my already disheveled rumpus room of a mind.
Last night at the Ani show shot the opener, an earnest 40 year old guy named Dan Bern who did a little Dylan channeling.
Then into the lobby to cavort with rock star men and discovered that a few guys, old hippie types/musicians/l.p. geeks who corrupted me somewhat, are friends of theirs so it was a virtual reunion (which happily involved seeing nobody from high school).
One of the guys, Kenny, lived down the street from my parents/young me and it was in his parents' house where I did my first bong hit out of a bong the size of a college basketball superstar. And that's maybe an exaggeration by about 8 or so inches.
It's always good to cavort with older guys who know their music - at any age and, having missed out on the big brother experience, it comes in musically handy.
Ani was her usual spectacular and rivetting self and I was happy to hear her give props publicly (again) to Michael Meldrum, the man about town/music joints, who taught her how to play guitar and who recently gave me a gratis copy of the latest Hawksley Workman.
Life without music would be like life without frozen organic butternut squash. Rough.
ps: one of the evening's moments exhibiting much levity was when one of my rock star acquaintances referred to me as Mary Tylor Moore at 35 playing a 21 year old. I said thanks but said I'd like to be thought of as early series, before she wore those thick polyester pant suits without irony.

Each time I attempt to write anything or think anything about NSYNC thoughts turn immediately to baby blue cotton candy bobbing along on a paper cone, held by a child in hot pursuit of good times.
Or I think of a mall fountain, there for white noise, to soothe shopping souls.
I wore my earplugs to NSYNC's show, for the screaming is not to be believed. I think even the Fab Four-inspired wails could not compete.
All the fans had their I LOVE NSYNC signs confiscated and while me and a gaggle of boy colleagues waited in the security area - pre-shooting - a security guy wheeled in a large garbage can packed with signs. I said aloud That's a huge waste of a whole lot of glitter. Post-9/11 teen schmaltz showz are signless for the "security and comfort of all of NSYNC's friends."
This just in: one of my college lit profs, Carl Dennis, it was just announced on NPR, won a Pulitzer Prize for his poetry, a far cry from There once was a girl from Nantucket...
Also in: I mean what I say... notmyprez Bush was just quoted as saying at a press conf re: Mid East problems. Just when you think you lived in a complicated yet progressive world Bush utters a phrase to remind you that Nope, you are living in a country where the Yale-educated, secret society membered, dictionless Texan leader can order other leaders, via mass media, to play nice.
Also back in: Reese Campbell, superstar, who found me via the internet system/mass media and is a welcomed addition to the select circle that makes me absolutely laugh.
Rock on world.

Whew! what a weekend for superstar merch purchases. DJ Spooky tshirt (double-sided, black, yellow logo) and last night a Hawksley Workman girlie tank top. You can tell a lot about a rockstar by their merch table.
Spooky: big tshirts, DJ Spooky-sanctioned turntable cozies/covers, cd's.
Workman: girlie tank tops, girlie undies, cd's.
The underwear was silly, and overpriced. He's not that great. I think the last band that I shot selling underwear was Aerosmith.
After Hawksley Workman zoomed over to Guided by Alcohol nearby. And, true to their nickname (band is really Guided by Voices, lest you wonder), they swallowed, according to my calculations, a case and a half of beer of assorted varieties, and a fifth of Jim Beam. The band lovingly refers to fans with smokes at the ready as Cigarette Techs. A match bearer? A Light Tech.
This week's roster of venerable shootees, in order of appearance:
Sun: Smashmouth and NSYNC (yikes)
Mon: Ani DiFranco
Wednes: Bill Clinton (hello again, Mr. Ruddy)
Thurs: Donny Osmond (kitsch value)
Fri: No Doubt
and, the cherry on top of this veritable hot fudge sundae -
SAT: DAVE MATTHEWS BAND STARRING THE ONE AND ONLY SMIRKY AND FOOT-SHUFFLING AND CHARMING DAVE MATTHEWS AND I'M GOING TO TAKE HIS PHOTO AND THEN SIT IN THE PRESS SECTION AND WATCH HIM WATCH HIM WATCH HIM SMILING AND SUCH ALL THE WHILE.
Dave, if you're reading this, I love you.

Went to an exurban art op last night mainly to speculate on how it will be much more wonderful after I and my collaborative boys (according to us, we are TEAM A) do our thing in there. That show opens on September 11th, in mere moments in art time.
After that picked up a travel companion and joined *physically, not metaphysically and certainly not scentily in the form of patchouli* the crowd at Maharishi... Mahapotato... oh whatever the fuck they're called... Orchestra.
Then onwards to the best part of the night, to bask in the vinyl luvv of DJ Spooky who was amazing though not as textural as I imagined that he'd be. It was more old school blends and starting and stopping of beats that would have your body grooving in one way and then in another completely different way. I was onstage with Spooky to get the best possible angles of him, his equipment, his laptop, his nice bottle of white wine and his floppity wool hat. I had successfully carved out an area for shooting/dancing/being in front of the stage and when an ARMY t-shirt guy wandered into the circle I looked at him shook my head and he went away. Moments later he reappeared with a candle he had found somewhere in the club, sat on a little apron jutting out from the stage, sat cross-legged and had a real moment - solo.
Spooky Moved.
and now your beloved Nancy will move herself into her darkroom to make art for the masses. Love.

Yesterday had a gig shooting the Bill T. Jones Dance Co. in rehearsal at the sprawling suburban campus of the university named for this Middling City.
In the studio I respectfully took off my shoes, in which to blend.
Was speaking with another media type when someone from the company shushed us saying Mr. Jones doesn't like it when people are talking. I looked at him, searingly.
Dancers, techies, observors, more dancers on sidelines were all talking.
Mr. Jones is one intense man and it was absolutely great to be so close to the dancers to hear them muttering things like Hands flat, open, move in closer, etc. as they interpreted their directions.
One dancer, Malcolm, was off listening to his walkman when Mr. Jones wanted him to do something and all the dancers were shouting MALCOLM until he heard.

Thursday I photographed Uber Jazz Crank Diana Krall, who sold out the 2K or so seat venue downtown. I asked the head of security if there were any good new Diana Krall stories as she's a noted crabass. He said he walked into a room to hear the singer/pianist/diva screaming I DON'T TALK TO MANAGERS .
My colleagues were photographing Krall from an odd angle, through her piano because they saw an op there. I shot from the keyboard side waiting until she turned, which I knew she would at some point. Beautiful verticals, full-length, were the result. Her, piano, her long legs, her long hair.

Tonight is a marathon night, beginning with an opulent gig at 4PM. Onwards then to art ops, DJ Spooky, more more more.
Love.

DADDIO.
I've coined yet another word. DADDIO is a condition.
Hint: It'll always happen on a Tuesday morn. And it'll always happen post-Easter.
It's Day After Dyngus Day Interior Ouch.
Minding my own business I picked up Laura. Then we proceeded to Dyngus Day party #1, a bit of a snooze but the bar owner was très excited as he'd, he felt, scored majorly by having an old time accordion star playing all night. I said to Laura Their pussy willow branches are impressive but wait until you see the next party.
A house across from DD party #1 had burnt to a crisp the night before and what I thought was a festive welcome wagon to the bar was a truck outfitted with bulbs so workers could see what the hell they were doing as they were cutting boards for all the exploded windows.
Party #2 began with Laura and I brandishing our pussy willow branches and telling the door guys that they were letting us in, pro bono-like.
Then we shimmied through the crowd to the bar where I convinced a whole lot of people that I knew and sort of knew and then knew later to do shots of Krupnik. The bartender was sad to report that the sticky, oozey-goozey Krupnik was backordered and there was only enough for one person. I made a rockstar acquaintance sip it. Laura drank the rest while we all opted for some sticky, oozey-goozey honey liqueurish thing with a little hive of holiday madness sitting atop the bottle.
Shots later, several Polish beers later, Laura was the new Dyngus Pro, squirting and swatting passersby. I photographed the polka band, convincing them to play longer as the media was in the house... a tv camera showed up... and so they launched into Roll Out the Barrel for some odd reason. Laura and I ended the evening sitting on a pooltable sipping scotch and watching a five-star Middling City rock & roll band do their impressively sweaty thing in the back room of a white trash-emulating bar. I recently hung out with these guys whilst shooting their promo shot so felt completely comfy wandering into their "stage" area and swatting the lead singer in the back of the knees with my pussy willows and he screamed lyrics into Dyngus Day night.

Basically began weekend by cohosting the cable access show again and when I walked into the "studio" there were these young pop rock-looking guys who were introduced to me as NSYNC and by golly they sort of looked like those nincompoops so I pretended it was NSYNC and we had a group hug jumping up and down. And I was wearing my beatup fuzzy bunny ears. Which I wore almost all weekend.
This band was inspired to forge a rock career after 9/11. And they call themselves State of Emergency. I kept calling them other things such as State of Confusion, etc., much to their chagrin.
At the end of the "taping" there's a customary photo shoot and this is posted on the show's website: link along here to see evidence of Your Fav Nancy as her lapindacious evil bunny alterego.
Much into the wee morning hours, when all good bunnies should be snoozing in their warrens, I was in the venerable rock and roll venue when I was approached by a boy.
Are you bringing me goodies tomorrow, Easter Bunny, he asked. I said Only if you've been a good little boy. He asked if I'd like his address. I said Sure. He shouted AHA, IF YOU WERE REALLY THE EASTER BUNNY YOU'D know MY ADDRESS. My retort: That information is all in my laptop, which I'm not carrying around at this moment. Then, traipsing along back to vehicle a big ol' station wagon slowed down... one of the Middling City's scarier-looking cabs. The cab driver unrolled his window and shouted SILLY WABBIT.
Bunny ears. What a way to meet people.

Well I suppose it's time to clear the bottle of scotch off the desk for (heraldic blasts from 1,000 angels from up on HIGH) the Shiny Mag Pieces are like so done.
Praise God, Praise Patti Smith, Praise Dave Matthews, Praise Green Tea, Praise Peeps.
NO!!!
Do not Praise those peeps which absolutely freak me out. Who eats these?
What are they? Sheep, lambs, chickens? Do not eat of their glowinthedark yellow and pink confectionary selves.
It's Easter, Holy Shit. I told Lead Boy Colleague that I think the last time I left my computer it was Christmas or thereabouts.
I am free.
Oh, I want to share with you a tale of my famed procrastinational skills.
While clearing my head of the mathematical problem that is a 3K piece I was caught by beau in this position, visualize hard:
I was singing a Meatloaf classic hit at the top of my everything, standing in front of the refrigerator, door open and my legs and arms spread in a classic rock gesture.
Time to regain my photographic composure. Writing leads to insanity. Writers are kooks. Photographers, well-balanced, and funny to boot.
Again, don't eat those fucking PEEPS.
Love.

So April 13th, Samuel Beckett's birth date, is EPINW's one year anniversary. And I know that you'll ink that onto your calendar and such and buy me a present to thank me for all the good times and erudition.
Favorites: green, shoes, Me & Ro jewelry (spec. their 18K gold rings), Oban .
I'm planning a special bloggerific party that day and there will be festive links for your joy.

Speaking of April 13th (about the time that Cobain blew his smart head off) someone is publishing a book of his diaries and other muck and I'm going to find this person and see if they want to use my haunting images of Kurt at one of his ultimate gigs.

We are all rock stars in our own special ways. Life is better when you realize this and dress accordingly.
Love.

The seminar with the classical music listening and report writing youths went swimmingly and I kept it clean, so to speak. I realized that these teens today think that all adults are in cahoots as they looked at me and queried How long is this report supposta be, narrowing their dewy eyes into disbelief when I responded I have no (censored) idea.

Found myself at some point this weekend, Saturday specifically, at 1AM seated at thigh level of an imported stripper/nouvelle burlesque mama - jetted into Middling City for entertainment purposes only.
She took almost it all off, down to thong. But she started out with a slew of fabric on her small frame and famed 23-inch waistline. Off came the hoop skirt. Off came the fuck ME pumps. Off came the fishnet stockings. Off came the big granny undies. Off came the corset. Off came the bra (under a netty robe). And then she scampered away.
Me and a girlie pal gave an impromptu report between the two of us. We felt that a little boob flash would have been okay. She had stretch marks on her butt (vertical) and we wondered how and/or why. My pal claims that she saw cellulite but I think it was the reflection of the disco ball on the wood dance floor and then that reflected up onto the burlesque and luminous self.

Following shooting a grain elevator in toxic Niagara Falls, NY on Sunday went on a short hike on a small island located not too far from Middling City. Realizing I was near a cemetery where two people I know are in repose I drove me and travel companion there. I reported how I had nearly broken my neck at this site last winter whilst hopping the cemetery gate, and then I pointed dramatically to the section which was leaning ominously as if it had just tossed off another hopper.
It was quickly pointed out to me that there was actually a small section of gate that was truly a gate - voilà.
I tidied up the grass around the friend headstones. Their shared wintertime wreath was on a stand lying on the ground and I stood it up and pressed the tripod legs into the burial ground.
Then we wandered through the very small cemetery and I fixed things: I put a pot back together, I put lots of silk flowers back in vases and I repaired a windchime whose ceramic humming bird fell to sogginess.
The Academy Awards were playing on tv sets throughout the land last night and I could not have given one tiny flying phlegm. But today the fashion reports are inescapable and I'm so sad for Gwyneth .

Lest you think my Perfect World is all about cavorting with rockstars present & future and trading in smushed vehicles for shiny new ones, here's a little story for you.
Yesterday was my absolute least fav event - ever! - to photograph for the newspaper... an ultra-boring arts award luncheon.
Two clues when something will suck: 1. it's called a BASH. 2. it's called a LUNCHEON (rhymes avec truncheon).
So this thing crawls along for 2.5 hours and there's a platform of people, many of whom give rambling speeches, a huge roomful of art community types and corporate sponsors and banquet-style fare.
The first thing I noted upon entering the sea of tables was the absolute absence of light on the high platform/at podium. There were four tiny lights about 100' back from the platform, and gelled to boot with a nice hazy orange/pink. Oh, and the background was black. What does this mean? No ambient light is available and I had to burst forth light from the flash.
Onwards.
So, as a speaker rambled, I sat with a table full of people I know close to stage (our newspaper was table #29, a good hike from stage) and one woman sweetly approached me from this org of sitters and asked if I'd speak to some youths at risk into classical music THIS EVENING and give a presentation about writing about the arts so that they can, moments later, watch the symphony perform and, hopefully, write something snazzy about it.
Of course I said yes.
Here's what I'll tell them:
1. procrastinate, it gets adrenaline flowing.
2. either caffeine or alcohol is necessary on table/desk upon which you are writing, depending on concentration level.
3. get a thesaurus.
4. be honest, you earn street cred when you're real.
5. don't be afraid to toss in a smattering of poetry or fiction to spice up your writing about music.
and, lastly,
6. don't fucking ramble.
Maybe I'll have to edit this a bit - but basically that's it.
Over, out, about, rock on.

Jetting some images off to MTV to spread Perfect Nancy world view of rockstars. Have been slightly addicted lately to Patti Smith's Easter . Why I weep for today's concert-attending youth: as they sit stupefied by MTV (oops, today we LOVE MTV) - glitzy - stage productions as popstarz lipsynch and dance the night away they'll possibly never discover and/or appreciate the pioneering artistry of Patti who could, with one phrase from one song, rip the fake tits off of any top 40 girlie.
Tonight I shoot Wesley Willis - fat, black, heavily medicated drummer of small renown. Last time I shot him he sat on the floor of a now-defunct downtown club ringed with (drunk, equally-chem-addled) teen boys... and me. He had plumber's butt. As he reached for something from his nearby bag about 5 prescription meds bottles spilled out. He scared me. It was beautiful. And tonight I'll be back for more drumming fear. When I spoke with his press guy in LA he kept phrasing out NO WORRIES. It was equally scary. People in LA really say things like that.
NO WORRIES.
Say it.
Voice must intone on the reeze part.
NO Werrr-EASE.
Got it?
Good.
NO WORRIES.

Why I'm smiling.
Today (well, yesterday, but technically, in My Book, the day doesn't change over until one's idea-teeming head hits one's barely-used pillow) I meandered into a newer and better Subaru dealer with a dollar and a dream (OK, really a bit more than a dollar... and an abused vehicle) and left with a Deal. I think my powers of positive thought persuaded these nice saleswomen that I'm wonderful and deserve all good things, including a brand new car for perusing and abusing for a little while.
Either that or they're nincompoops. Kindly nincompoops.
Went there with beau to get a replacement side mirror (as I'm sure I reported the former side mirror was dangling after I thought I might be running over a homeless man's body wrapped in carpeting), blank check from Auto Guru Pal's business in hand. Left with a mirror. And aforementioned Deal.
I got them/saleslady nincompoops to toss in a gas card, free foot massages for a year and a cd player. I'm unfortunately lying about the foot massages.
When I returned to Auto Guru Pal's repair centre I told him about the Deal. He said Well, now that I know you're getting a new car, let's go out into the lot, walk around the car and laugh at all the damage you caused it. His skilled Auto Guru eyes noted every milimeter of despair, destruction and plain old shitty luck. And we laughed heartily.
The world is never more cheery than when Perfect Nancy gets her way and gets her self into a newer and shinier vehicle.
First cd to be played in new car. An important decision. Perhaps REM to ensure the vibes are wholesome/vegetarian (= no roadkill under wheels), from the south (= no rust on the newness) and full of indecipherable words (= Murmur for secret Zenlike chants).

COMMIT A RANDOM ACT OF NEIL DIAMOND KINDNESS

Last night, amongst other engagements and duties and social irresponsibilities, made a stop to see and hear two bands of boys I know. More importantly, following is what I wore yesterday evening. Glancing at my new DIAMOND GIRL shirt from Neil's recent Middling City show I knew it was the wise and perfect choice, worn with the SoHo gold overprinted suede jacket which glimmers like the eyes of Elvis post-pillpop. A night of rock music appreciation deserves an appropriate dual musical superstar brandishing.

But before arriving at the supersets shot a local reggae cover band and when leaving, hitting the sidewalk, passed two women. One of them turned around and said Hey, DIAMOND GIRL, still walking. I shouted after her Were you at the show? Yes, she said, but I didn't buy that shirt, I bought the one with the flag on it. Oh, I murmured, sort of slightly taken aback by this stranger's merch choice. She said I'm really patriotic. (But, I'm thinking, why a flag when one's boobies can be emblazoned with the words DIAMOND GIRL?). So then I shouted, as a parting gesture of Neil Luvv Unity, WHAT'S YOUR FAVORITE NEIL SONG? Girl, You'll Be a Woman Soon the answer.
Her pal, non-believing, laughed.

My suggestion to you, blogee:
Strike up a random conversation with a stranger and discuss Neil Diamond.
Or, in a public place, hum or sing (whichever seems most appropriate) a Neil song. Cover a Neil song under your breath to make others happy, spread the love. And try it with arm gestures to boot.
Love & Over & Out

In order to avoid a possible vehicular homicidal situation I veered offpath away from a rolled up carpet in my way, in front of the building I was parking in front of, last nigt. This resulted in the car's right side mirror ending up in a dangling condition. For one instant I imagined one of a bevy of homeless people near the office building wrapped up in the carpet taking a deep (perhaps booze-induced) snooze = veering. And now I am certain that my face will be hanging up any day now in Subaru leasing offices and dealerships throughout the land: DO NOT, UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES, LEASE ANOTHER SUBARU TO THIS INDIVIDUAL. One boy colleague and boy artist assured me that it's not quite as bad as I think it is. I do not believe them. I think they wanted to avoid a non-smiling Nancy with a non-laughing face.

Today's super rock surprise is, as of noon, ultra-public.
The secret was leaked to me about a week ago that the Goo Goo Dolls were playing a free and MTV-sponsored gig at Albright-Knox Art Gallery. I contacted my MTV pal and some local rock promoting types to get a big IN, the big C(redentials).
Teenaged Middling City students believed they were on an art foray and were led into a sculpture court. The stage was wrapped with floor-to-ceiling plastic and all camera people were hidden behind curtains. I was onstage with the band, waiting for the curtain to fall, so I could shoot reactions.
A gallery docent said, This artist creates with what many feel is a difficult material to work with - they work in rock.
Curtain falls and 150 students are stunned and then rocking out (except a handful of Hispanic students with arms crossed and pouting lips).
This ("Jammin'") airs on MTV April 8th or 9th. The room was swirling with rock & roll, students having probably the best concert experiences of their teenaged lives, a dozen or so video camera shooters running about, some adult onlookers, a cranky curator thinking of asking everyone (including me) to get down off the Jenny Holzer marble benches for better views of overall mayhem and then deciding against it, one way-rocking out geeky teacher in archetypal brown cord jacket, a few boy colleagues and me (documenting more Goos history for MTV and the Middling City alterna-paper).
If you watch the show you might see me, in my excellent black fuzzy jacket and most wonderful new HYDE shoes.
All for now, love.

Highlight of week thus far:
Yesterday (3/11, as in pop-hardrock band) shot a hockey-related media frenzy surrounding former Czech citizen, Middling City resident and Buffalo Sabre Dominik Hasek who was intermingling with inner-city youth dubbed Hasek's Heroes. Bad name, good cause. It's obvious how much he digs intermingling with the kids and he spent a lot of time talking with them and then, at the end, he handed every adult-bossed child a hockey puck emblazoned with the Olympic logo.
Now here's the highlight.
The event's emcee was Danny Gare. #18. Another former Sabre and current hockey announcer.
As a child I was obsessed with Danny Gare (this might even be at the time of my Pink Floyd discovery - unrelated I am sure) and actually knew how to forge his autograph. And, when sliding off the waterslide at our country club I'd scream at the top of my lungs DANNY GARE RULES.
So there we are within arm's length of each other and I muttered to lead boy colleague also shooting the Hasek affair Please do not embarass me and tell him how much I love(d) him. Please. So I'm talking to Danny Gare and I look over at lead boy colleague who's grinning.
I finally say hello to thee Danny Gare and in the midst of our ever-so-brief conversation I told him that I could forge his signature and then he had a very odd look on his face.
Lead boy colleague photographed us together with my camera and now me and Danny hang amid the other Perfect-Nancy-Meets-VIP photos.
What I didn't tell Danny Gare:
back in disco's heyday I was an underaged pedestrian watching the grand opening of a hot new dance joint near my parents' home. The spotlights twirled. People in polyester walked by and into the club. And then Danny Gare appeared and I screamed DANNY GARE RULES and he, an adult hockey superstar on a disco mission, shot a look of disdain over his shoulder.
The End and here's le moral du jour:
no matter who you are and whom your obsession might be, you might very well end up in a hockey rink with your arms around each other for a quick photo and the jogging of a very musty memory.

During the N's and the O's of an A-to-Z Pink Floyd playlist on the occasional classic rock oasis I drove through what felt to be a movie set for a cinematic treatment of the apocalypse in Middling City exurbs.
No people. Trees upended. Old metal hotel signs lying down. A fallen phone booth. And the sky was an orange-blue with swirling dark clouds.
And I thought of Bob. Hurricaine Bob.
How I had the night off (many years ago) in Maine @ art teaching @ camp gig and thought Fuck it, so it's a hurricaine, it's my night off and I am so like outta here. And they let me drive off in my little car, knowing there's no stopping an unstoppable woman on a mission such as myself - and they had 200 kids to worry about. And I drove into Bob, branches flying past my car windows, visibility comparable to blizzard driving conditions until I had to admit that facing the choices of 1. seeing my special pal in Portland and perhaps seeing an untimely death versus 2. heading to camp and facing disaster with a slew of hysterical 8-12 year olds, staffers, etc. choice 2 was probably a good idea.
And then me and camp foundress came up with an evacuation plan for the campers and staff, we took over the gym and offices of a public school for a day and night, I tried to jump start the school's generator but didn't know the thing needed its water replaced until a crusy old man showed up from nearby, I inadvertently set off air raid sirens when trying to pull breakers, then didn't sleep all night and then visited camp to inspect damage with foundress the next AM saw old pine trees sawed in half and wires lying on the ground and then helped ship all campers back to their respective homes and complicated lives the next afternoon.
Nothing nearly that exciting happened during this afternoon's Pink Floyd driveby but the music fit the landscape and, for a moment, I was in a 1/2 hourlong movie in which a Middling City is vaporized, the skies are troubling and the only person around is me, Perfect and intrepid Nancy. Credits roll. And no Roger Waters to sue my ass for not paying for usage of his music on my soundtrack.

Prime examples of how to make someone happy whilst speaking their particular foreign tongue and how annoying insurance salesmen can be:
1. Amid a two-part freelance gig this AM/PM had 1.5 hours and 2 events to cover for newspaper gig. Motoring by a coffee joint my car, unaided by myself, came to a screeching halt, knowing what I like. And need. Standing in line at coffee place I saw a couple and thought Now don't they look French and adorable. They spoke to cashier and lo & behold, Frenchies. The woman was having some trouble with our boring-ass bills and had handed the guy over too much money. Thought she's French, what are her shoes like and looked down to see her one shoe was way untied. So, in French, I said Excuse me, your shoe is untied. She was so happy to hear French, her face shot out a glow and she thanked me in French. It's little language things, Party People.
2. So at the panel discussion (item 1 of 2 for coverage in 1.5 hours' time) venue I am wandering through the building looking for aforementioned when I come upon a table of propaganda and six or so young hooligans. They are insurance salesman. In the space of a good fifteen seconds, involving me asking them if they knew where the panel discussion was, I was inundated with pamphlets, a business card, advice of where to call for quotes (as in premiums, not media-type) and notified that one of these people at table could help me to prepare my will. Turned the corner en route once again and ditched the paperwork with the help of a strategically-placed garbage can.
Lesson of sorts #2: the riff-raff can find you no matter where you are - how safe from it you believe you are.
And on that note, it's time to careen out the door and begin documenting more more more - with French on my tongue, a spring in my step and no will in my back pocket.
Love.

New art deadline. New stress.
Ran top-speed into the slide-making emporium with my little roll of Kodak EPY 64-T with the archetypal wash of panic over face and the reassuring Buddha behind the counter said 'Let me guess...'
Of course he was right, 5PM my little bundle of joy must be dropped off at world-renowned Albright-Knox Art Gallery: 6 slides, rez, sase, brief artist statement. Check, check, check and check.
He is a compendium of sad and engaging tales of slide rushing.
His favorite story of week:
guy rushes in... can I have this in one hour? He, famed for his withering yet Buddha-like gazes, said Well, let me just toss aside the thirty or so rush orders that people are paying rush charges for...
Middling City, capital of surly business owners.

A favored team of area rockstars, Last Conservative has released their new one.They reworked their song Out of Nowhere that appeared on an ep and I've said to them that, in my most non-humble opinion, this is their hit, à la Don King or something.
Best part of story: I get thanked on the cd - after God and before the girlfriends. That is where journalists stand, you follow the big guy (who possibly for them reps their muse) but rockstars know deep down inside that you're more important to their careers than o-so disposable lovers.
Rock on guys.

On most current ride back to the orifice I had a karaoke moment in the car. On the classic rock station was Eddie Money's Baby Hold On (to Me... the future is ours to see, etc.) and I simultaneously pictured this past summer when I photographed him at a free downtown concert and he sweated through his shirt... and then his tie. So I'm thinking of the song on the radio and realized it's a perfect karoke song = not too long, no overdone guitar parts, no spoken word moments, not built for sopranos. And it's made for some choice hand gesturing which would go nicely with its drum beat.
If I'm ever allowed to sing karaoke in the Middling City again this might be my choice.

And following is why Dorota is my favored person today and forever.
So I'm minding my own business checking the mail and I see an ominous package standing on end underneath the mailbox, the snow from the roof soaking it nicely.
Of course I didn't think of anthrax, that is so over.
Waiting package is from Dorota, priority mailed over from Broome Street to my street. And she wrote fragile on the wrapping.
And guess what the hell it is?
One of those precious bottle cap people I collect from the 50's. And she must have ordered it from eBay via Canada as the package was covered with clues in the form of Canadian stamps from when this person sent it to her in NYC.
This bottlecap man has maniacal painted blue eyes, a swooping painted smile and he's wearing a floral bow tie over tiny painted buttons.
Oh, and his maker painted I heart N Y on the base.
You know you have a supersonic pal when they send you an ominous package and upon opening it all you can say is Oh My God, Oh My God.
And then your second thought is I must blog this.

Just returned to home office hovel (aka Photo Explosion or Celluloid Cave) after disseminating smiles and prints far & wide. Was sent on a wild exurban goosechase to shoot a restaurant not listed in any phonebook and out in the next county, miles from rows of chains which seemingly soothe spirits of suburbanites. Finally found the freaking place and it was closed - a nice shot of their signage will do. They also had a wreath on their door discreetly covering the name of what the restaurant had previously been called.
Nutshell: chasing down silly restaurants for pithy moola I need like I need a bottle of Captain Morgan's Spiced Rum.
While driving I heard news items via an AM NPR station:
1. Our country has a shadow government and it's staffed, loaded and ready in the event of what the announcer called "the worst." And their super-secret front door is allegedly published on the internet.
2. Scientists have discovered that acetone + electrified bubbles = a neato new way of making nuclear power.
Imagine the fun at slumber parties throughout the land when teenaged girls, bored with nail painting, rig up curling irons and the like to bottles of nail polish remover.
Listening to the brand new song - "Here is Gone"- by the Goo Goo Dolls coming out of the conspiracy theory-free rock station and it's so not great. " Pollution in me ," wow. When I logged on to AOL they claimed, erroneously, that they had the exclusive priviledge of offering a sneak listen.
Stick to blogs for news today.
Wow, the radio station is playing the Goos' song again.
Today = strange day.

Just arose from my Indigo Girls-induced coma. Experienced after shooting them for the paper, following a political event documented for the college hosting both politicians and then the set by the Boring Duo. Felt bad for a weeping lezbo who needed a ticket and, having one comp to spare, handed her one - sans thanks. In venue met up with a boy colleague whose wife was sitting in the way-back. Told him he could take my one remaining good ticket and then as I was crossing, pre-Indigo Snoozes, to other side of the room I see aforementioned lezbo squatting down between a woman's legs in the front row. Do you still need that comp I gave you? I glared. She then proceeded to pull four tix scammed from other kindhearteds so I asked for the comp back and gave it to the boy colleague.
Lesson: before handing over a good comp ticket to a weeping woman, flip her upside down and shake vigorously to see if other tickets flutter from her various pockets.
Last night, post glorious and wine-drenched art opening event featuring Yours Truly et al, popped into Gene Loves Jezebel and they were actually good. Stage was rimmed with boys and girls singing the words, one a girlie pal who has enjoyed the physical comforts of the lead singer, Michael. He caught us front row chatting about him and gave us the raised eyebrow. He might be onstage, he might be wearing leather pants, he might be in the spotlight basking in adulation, but he wants to know what's being said about him in row #1 - his women-dependent lifeforce pinpoint accurate.

Was Malcolm this ecstatic post-Hajj? I think not.
My face is still sore from smiling, basking in the love vibes of Neil.
I love him. I love him.
Oh, and you should be so happy that you're not my neighbor as I went from blasting Chemical Brothers until I thought What the hell am I doing? and then ran over to the stacks of cd's to gather forth Neil discs. Now playing on 8.
The road manager told us 30' from the stage for shooting songs 1 & 2 and then a guitar moment during song #3. So he walks us back to the floor for a pow-wow about documentary matters, why I have no idear. So I said 30', RIGHT? He gave me the loving eyeball, knowing I might be a press photog but I GOT THE NEIL LOVE. Yes, 30'. Right on. So whilst waiting for Neil to come onstage talked about Neil Love with fans all around me in rows 3-5: couple wearing Mardi Gras beads, girlies in handmade Diamond Girls t-shirts (I asked if those were a tshirt option this tour but no so I'm wearing a Neil-issued white shirt with pink and spangly letters, hey HE designed it, I sure didn't), couples, pals... all of us talking about how much we love him. A group of women were saddened as they had flowers to toss to him but were told firmly NO GIFTS. Someone asked me if I was tossing my bra onstage but I said NO, I didn't plan ahead, I'm wearing a sports bra. So more waiting.
Then... Neil. In more of those troubling poly slacks I'd like to see him dispense with amid a roaring bonfire, boring black shoes and a white sequined shirt. I'd like to ask that he wear low-rise pants of better shape. And Neil should be working out, his ass needs some definition, which it's been lacking for a long long time.
So I'm of course watching his face intently while I'm shooting and note that he's doing this new thing between phrases, licking his lips. Neil needs chapstick road manager. He is scowling more than ever. But oh, the voice.
So a so-called pal decides she can't go and I've got ***** tix and I'm sitting, post-shooting, in press section between two boy colleagues who generally LOVE NEIL so I had a great time, singing along and me and the one boy colleague would say what song was coming after notes 1 or 2 and also do whatever hand gestures he was doing onstage. This boy colleage is also in a rock ensemble and I said, You know what? You need to say Thank you SO much, like Neil does.
During Girl, You'll be a Woman Soon Neil singles out a femme in front row and sings to her in a Bono-esque fashion, lying on the ground like a jungle cat, and mid-song this front-row woman actually touched Neil's face - to wipe away a drop of sweat. I shouted OhMyGod, she touched his face, which startled one of the boy colleagues. Why, what's wrong with that? I said WOULD YOU just reach up and touch the face of GOD?
And he did Shilo. I said to rock star boy colleague You have to love a man who writes a song about his dog.
Neil is perfect. And all is perfect in Nancy's world, post-haste.

Tonight is Neil's night. Turn on your heartlight. I need to call one certain pal who hates even saying Neil Diamond, play maybe Cherry Cherry into her answering machine. Called X-Boss in NYC to ask him If I asked you to go to Neil Diamond with me tonight your answer would be? He said Well, I would go for kitsch value.
Now he is firmly planted onto my list of questionables.
No matter where you go remember this: it's all fun and games until you put a star where one should not be. In other words this: my sister and I worked on the gallery showcase which is to hold hundreds of my archival photos with information and I placed a border of stars along the top and, on a whim, placed one solitary star (a north star if you will) OUTSIDE the showcase. This morning I received two phonecalls regarding this errant star. All should be inside the showcase to preserve the integrity of the space, etc.
Stars, know your place.
Last night popped in to shoot Henry Rollins and yet once again observed the phenomenon of how he appears to be about seven feet tall. I've stood next to the man and he's a bit shorter than my average American womanly height.
Stars, know your place - and your height.
Over and out, pressing and impressive deadlines usher me forth.
Love, always.

Justice is blind. So are cops. And judges.
My diagram sketched on photo lab envelope, pal's witness statement and my explanation weren't any match for the titanium resolve of the little man in the uniform.
I watched him as he spoke and came to the following conclusions: 1. he has no friends; 2. he has no sense of humor and; 3. he shaves badly (should have mentioned that to the judge. Your honor may I approach the bench? Sir... this officer has missed huge areas on the left side of his face whilst shaving this AM. Now I ask you, your Honor, how can an officer of the law and peace and such shave so horrendously and claim to have seen that my light on the zigzagging street was red as he raced towards me? I rest my case.)
Everyone said it's your word against his and he will win. Rah-rah for the other team.
Left traffic court and watched as a minivan sped through an ultra-red light.

Called mentor artist/private guru today to tell him our wakt and forgetful waitress from last night, who brought 10 sugars for my coffee and no cream (foisting her obvious sugar-addlement upon me), is an artist-in-training. Saw her today outside the art school as I made a photo delivery, her smoking furiously and still looking slightly out of control.
Slipped by discreetly without her dropping anything else on me.

Neil Diamond is getting closer.

Completely forgot to mention that yesterday (2/2/02) goes down in epinw history as being one of thee happiest days of my life. In the midst of transferriing my energy from freelance to artmaking I received a phone call from a guy who works at the nearby mega music venue to ask me if I'd like a photo pass and review tix to see
*!*N*E*I*L***********D*I*A*M*O*N*D*!*this Thursday.
Never speechless, but I approached that state and then said Well I have put in a request for both, so, sure and... you rock.
He said he'll let me know fersher in the next few days.
I hope Neil's concert t-shirt designs have changed from last tour.

And who said that this artmaking racket is all fun & games & kissy-huggy art openings?
Why, last night I encountered (no, he encountered me) the guy who runs the gallery where I'm to be showing in May. Seems he's added a #3 artist and he was saying that he's called me 4x and I never called back. I said, Oh, (blank), that's not true, you called me once last month about something non-show related, I tried to call you back and you don't have an answering machine? On and on this goes until I felt the surge of a FuckYOU! emanating from the soles of my feet but practiced the most intense self-restraint ever. In the car I told a pal about my amazing feat of restraint and later I pondered driving my Outback through the gallery's front windows. My pal said You could tell him it was a performance piece. Does this architectural deconstruction fit into the show's theme of crumbling concrete grain elevators? You bet!

Flutters of panic.
That was just about today's first emotion. Freelance gig this early AM was to photograph an officer who specializes in incident management: in other words she is a psycho-going-nuts-in-a-public-place-taking-down-machine and I met her at a training center where she just taught a class to other officers.
And there was her drug-sniffing german shepherd. Flutters of panic.
Me, officer, dog. Not resin-coated, but still, had I been in contact with anything since laundry day a small eternity ago?
Me (in chem-free clothing) and the dog made friends.
Last night I spoke with Dorota and told her how I regretted not getting a counter on this blog nearly a year ago when I started it. It's been on epinw for 2 weeks and only shows to date a pinch over a hundred readers. Dorota told me that she was contemplating attending an overpriced MoMA affair and I said Forget that, for that kind of money take yourself out to dinner and go buy some shoes. Then I changed my mind, Maybe you should go to this MoMA thing and promote epinw so I can have more hits. So we hang up, I go to post and OK-Counter logged 8,565 or so hits on my site and I thought Wow, who knew that Dorota was secretly a computer hacker. I had the mild feeling that I had cheated on SAT's but was going with the lie of scoring a 1600.
Back to hits reality today. And I didn't score 1600 either.

I am being used as part of an experiment: how much caffeine can a person consume and how much adrenaline can course through their veins before implosion occurs.
Results to follow. Perhaps not from me.

Standing on the stage last night I was shooting the wowmighty dj from the middling city's black power station and wandered occasionally behind the curtain where a dozen or so guys were dressing for the fashion show. I have to say the students and The Source put on a great runway show. Saw a Pepe Jeans jacket which I'm now in the process of coveting, a total rock star number.
So onstage I was waiting for Tha Liks/Tha Alkaholics to get their set underway when a very large and very drunk man (his breath left me in a sweet boozey cloud - Courvoisier?), told me (taking me by the arm) that I might want to step away from the plastic on the floor which was about to become a 15-foot tall 40. Tha Liks were not impressive but the woman who hopped onstage in micro-mini and thong sure was.
My ten years as camp counselor/art instructor to crazed inner-city and rural 8-12 year old girls sure comes in handy on an almost daily basis. Secret: I see most of you as types of summer camp child. And this morning I began my day by doing corporate portraits for a company I've done loads of work for in the past. One of their oficers/founders/millionaires is a feisty crabass and as he squirmed around he asked What do you want me to do? Cooperate, I said, gesturing with my hands.
You are all campers and I, Perfect Nancy, am your in-charge camp counselor.
Cooperate.
Or else.

On break from Source Mag gig which is going swimmingly, hip-hoppingly, bustariffically, boombastically. Crudsville, I realized I forgot to have my digital likeness captured and tossed onto a faux Source cover this AM.
Source's website is down, so no special links to there. Laurent, man who hired me, says they don't know which direction to take their site. (?)
What was I shooting, you might wonder? A model search for tonight's fashion extravaganza, 13 girls and 40 guys chosen to traipse across the stage in borrowed streetwear. They were looking for size 6 girls who could float on air - which immediately (+ I am, like, working) disqualified me, a non-6-sized camera-slinging sloucher.
En route back to work hovel stopped at the middling city's sole bubble tea joint to write it up for AOL and Your Perfect Nancy let out a wonderfully unplanned EW when her first tapioca marble entered the double-wide straw and shot down her unsuspecting and unawaiting throat. This transpired much to the delight of more skilled sippers, those in the know. Second thought: can't wait to bring niece and nephew here for fieldtrip.

*Recommended listening material for this post - Tricky's Angels with Dirty Faces*

Tomorrow I will be hiphop photo girl, booked day and night for Source Magazine. So I flail to make today a today and tomorrow deadline day. Meaning, I'm typing like the jaws of hell are snapping at my ass and the Oban delivery truck has its back door swinging open and I'm running towards a case about to fall to asphalt.

One of the weekend's top images, seared into my distracted mind: a man, halfway between old & middle, doing a drunken limbo under the outstretched legs of a hippie chick sitting on a plastic lawn chair in the midst of the bomb shelter bar/music venue, her comfily-shoed feet resting on the edge of the stage. I had no idea who was playing as I was there for a small journalistic favor (and microscopic adventure) for Saturday's final destination. A highly-regarded musician walked in and it was a what're you doing here/what're YOU doing here moment.
Band comes back from break and two notes into the first song I turned to my pal and said OHMYGOD They're doing Echoes... off of Pink Floyd's Meddle... it's one side of an album, I hope they do the entire thing.
His face shrank.
My heart exploded.
Except for the paltry vocals they did a fine job. 23.5 minutes later, we left.
Still scraping fun off of my ceilings after Sunday's fete.
Please pass the espresso.
All of my bean-fuelled love.

A stop last night: annual winter fete where I par-tay with the poh-lease and the cute young one who missed his (I think) better calling as a model was there with his sporty wife. And I approached him and said Well, there's my favorite cop. Then, suddenly, in the Libran diplomatic sphere of my mind I wondered if cops like to be called cops. So during our conversation I asked Can I ask you a traffic court-related question, anticipating a surge of sighing air in my face. But no.
I said Well, I thought it would be like when I'm out and about and someone asks me to tell them all about $80 point & shoot cameras.
So I set up the I'm driving, right, down the z-curvulating street when a cop er officer does a crazed u-turn to pull me - ME! - over... and so on and so forth.
Cop pal: were you argumentative with the officer?
Me: (thinking non-aloud) wow, first question is that and not was said officer a nincompoop? (speaking) NO.
Cop pal: I didn't think so, you don't seem like the type.
Me: (thinking non-aloud) should've seen me quibbling with the man outside of the Vatican to get my souvenir way. (speaking) No, if I had run the light I would admit it and would've written the check and be done with this. So I'm fighting it (etc. etc.) because I know this OFFICER is wrong (thinking) that little rabid evil rissarassa.
Cop pal: Call me and tell me his name and I'll see what I can do.
And further secret details. Moral of scenario: cops are your pals, some of them, and cops sure know how to party in style.
Next stop last night I cavorted with mobsters and drug dealers. Ever striving for celebratory balance I am.
Mid-deadline and happily the hair smells like fixer.
Just returned from a work delivery and stopped off in the record shoppe and had thee Daryl from Snapcase aid me in finding a nice new little recording for a fete I'm hosting tomorrow night.
Invited: cops, passengers, mobsters, drug dealers, record shoppe employees and stray cats (as in real animals, not cheeseball band).
Love to you, wherever you are, in whatever condition you find yourself, always.

Johnny Depp, if you're reading this, Will you be my utmost Valentine? Dump that French bitch and BE MINE.

Living in the near-shadow of a certain circa-1950's St. Valentine's Church I wonder about this saint. O patron saint of crazed BINGO players, bad car parkers (see aforementioned) and modest stained glass windows?
No.
Valentine was one, maybe two, different people. One was martyred in or around 273 and the saintly guidebook states that both accounts of these guys "are equally unreliable." Then Chaucer of all people gets involved, although they don't mention in which part of his oeuvre mention of Valentine happens but then that gets all screwed up as Chaucer might have been talking about when birds mate mid-February, or maybe a royal hooking-up. Or it might be some remnants of the Pagan Lupercalia festival.
Anyhow, Valentine is an all-purpose saint:
beekeepers, travellers, youth, epileptics, fainters, victims of the plague and lovers can call invoke him for their very private physical reasons.
As a 70's-era rocker said:
Love you like a rock.

You know when you begin reading a Perfect Nancy blogpost which begins I was minding my own business when...
that you're in for buckets of evil malarkey.
So, I was minding my own business filing my newspaper column early, checking all facts, being so diligent, waiting for Jen to arrive so we could begin our mischief.
Diligence (OH, I should mention that I'm listening to Radiohead's The Bends in honor of the kaslosh-kaslosh in my head as my eyes move in any direction - sing on Tom, you fucking genius, wail away this hangover, suck the toxins from my cells) was replaced with debauchery in baby steps. First dinner, hobnobbing. Then the rounds of (OH, I should mention that before filing I froze my ass off waiting for the middling city's Mardi Gras micro-parade to come sailing by, wearing the odd tapestry coat with big fur trim I bought with the intention of mailing it to Dorota in NYC until I described it to her) bars and parties.
Censored highlights:
1. finding... okay, maybe not that one.
2. Convincing (I am the convincing champ of the Universe) the parole officer behind the bar at one joint that he not only should do his neat fire-breathing trick but that I should document it for next week's column. The manangement was afeared for their paper streamers and balloons. He did the stunt, I had the f5 on snap-happiest of sports readiness modes, shot away and then felt for my left eyebrow. Still there. Made further pals with strangers singing karaoke.
3. Hopped into a limo filled with drag queens, telling the driver, don't you dare leave with me in this car, dig? And as I put camera to eye more and more and more and more and more drag queens were filling the frame. I kept backing up up up in the limo, a stretch SUV limo.
4. Learning about these kaslosh-kaslosh-inducing things: IRISH CAR BOMBS which I slurped with Kelly et al as I was flailing as impromptu celebrity guest bartender, much to the delight of whoever.
Well all for now. Binges of Love.

Schedule in your disco nap, baby, because tonight is the night to be your baddest and bad-assest self:
IT'S MARDI GRAS!
This is the night, almost like Halloween, when your alter ego can and should bust loose after slipping into some party clothes and slipping a few potent beverages down. For me it's the night to photograph a slew of primo bands and to document the debauchery I might wander into.
And then, when I feel my column is under control and that I've got enough images, it's time for Perfect Nancy to become... Mardi Gras Nancy.
Love and be bad, me.
XOX

ps: theoretical question: which came first, the debauched or the debauchery?

Appeal to the Almighty, ever-able to unloose pestilence and woe:
O Mighty Numero Uno, please make those hee-haws next door who evangelize at inhuman decibels be forever vanquished from the Earth. For don't they Knoweth, Mr. Big Man, that He who screameth in your name and pisseth off the neighbors create bad Karma?
+++
Mentor #1 said that I should march into there during one of their services with my 2,000 year old arm bone - a holy relic even though it is a pedestrian - and proclaim that I'm taking over their church, heretofore known as Church of the Immediate Silence.
+++
ps: God, thanks for inventing Mike's Hard Lemonade!

Music purchases du jour:
New Jagger (his skinny ass + Lenny's skinny ass = YAHOO), Etienne de Crecy (techno pioneer from France, land of strong cheese and long handsome noses), best of CCR (everybody needs this for when the workload is piled up to one's eyebrows) and the new Chem Bros. (perfect).

Everyone, go HERE and make someone you like something nice for Valentine's Day.

The scent magnet (i.e. my hair) is full tonight: chocolate, vanilla, smoke and old perfume/Coriandre. Yesterday I thought It's been a while since my hair smelled like fixer. Soon my hair should be reeking of fixer as I should be in my fucking darkroom making art and not just documenting the artwork of others via my camera and my head/words.
Lead boy colleague wrote to me an email that says I should know better than to contact you on Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays because you are a witch on those days.
Which got me to thinking about the translation of Hansel and Gretel that I read online yesterday to write up the upcoming dance production of same name.
H & G had it real bad and if you are ever feeling sorry for yourself you should think of those poor little children whose dad was pussywhipped and the stepmother wanted them outsville and they were left to die in the woods but found their way back and then it happened again and they didn't find their way back and they met a witch who fattened up Hansel and she tried to gas Gretel to death and those were some savvy kids and they got the hell out of there after robbing the witch's stash of jewels and they find their pussywhipped dad again and lo and behold their horrible stepmom croaked and they all live onwards, happily or not we just don't know.
Here's a fact I learned today that I know I'll never forget:
Islamically-approved butchers butcher animals after first looking into the eyes of the doomed and then kill them whilst they face east/Mecca.
That and that Hitler loved golden showers - I'll never forget.
Here's a link to the fine fine Italian restaurant where I ate the best meal of my life.
Love from this perfect perfect sphere I am in at this moment.

Random ruminations of varying import.
As U2 warbles on the pop rock station (here's an antidotal link to horrifying pop) which moments ago had me quietly puking into the office's corner (in lieu of changing it I suffer, an anthropological experiment of sorts) over yonder, I think of the report of their SuperDuperBowel performance. I was informed that they are still using their heart-shaped stage and in the midst of their set they erected two "towers" with the names of those 3K Lost Ones. The person reporting this was disturbed by the "towers" and that they were dropped dramatically to the ground at song's end. Wonder: was it their song "Stuck in a Moment" - the one where HEWSON (Bono's real-live name!) is the football player who misses the big kick, Scott Norwood-style. What's with these Celtic pop rockers and football, it's not even their type of football.
Onward to better music: Luna (omigosh thee Luna) is releasing a new cd, Romantica.
The shiny happy magazine piece is done, euphoria floats about in the cockles of my caffeine-drenched brain folds.

OK, so maybe I was being a bit of a pisspot as I was leaving NYC to return to the Middling City and I had angry vibes pouring from my usually pleasant being. But was that any reason for the team staffers (perhaps on high alert due to the World Econ. Conf. at the Waldorf Astoria - but wouldn't that be surgically examine the incomings rather than excomings?) to double x-ray my bag after a handcheck, x-ray my shoes and then swipe them with the pads which are placed into the explosives-testing machine, fondle me, wand me, x-ray my money belt, ask that I watch the handcheck proceedings and not turn my back in a state of resignment. Oh, and to confiscate my brand new Sephora cuticle snipper valued at $16. Luckily they didn't ask why there was a 2,000 year old arm bone in my bag as there's no good official reason. Of course they're doing their job. Of course I was foul-minded at having to return to this place.
More thoughts on that later.

Now, another Perfect Nancy Prayer to God, ever-looking after her deadline welfare:
Almighty One, who knoweth all and understandeth the power of adrenaline and caffeine having created them, thank you for fashioning another state of weather emergency throughout the land upon which I currently reside in order that I finish my latest piece for the shiny happy magazine. You fuckin' rock, God, O Master of Timing.
And, one more thing, please let the editrix, my pal, not regain her email capabilities at her office until tomorrow when the shiny happy piece is completed and she will be none the wiser, none the worse for deadline wear and tear. Amen and Love Ya.

It was hard to leave Rome.
Note to self: after seeing so many beautiful life-digging Italians with beauty marks like yours you are so not ever removing yours from your face so remove that thought from the In Basket. You have a genetic thing going on in that little spot, baby.
One moment included a tour of San Sebastiano's catacombs, something I had to do. He's one of the Bible's sexy characters and allegedly this place not only was extensive, the oldest, the baddest but where his remains, and one of the actual arrows which pierced his Biblical flesh, linger.
Tour is 5 Euros (the Italians I asked are not digging the conversion and most shopkeepers counted the money out slowly, especially the seemingly endless variation of coin denominations) and we had a tour"guide"lady who spoke quickly in an Indian accent and she marched us along. At one point (being highly accustomed to the tour and the being led around from my international travel grant experiences) I lagged way behind to get a sense of the space on my own terms. I poked about, breathing the old dirt air. I looked into one of the body coves and discovered a small thin bone. Or stick. I put it into my jacket pocket and felt its moistness.
At the end of the tour there was not a mention of any arrow.
Where is the arrow? I asked.
Answer: In one of those boxes up on the altar (gesture of waving in general direction), it's not visible to the eye.
Wait wait and tour lady disappears behind a door and just then another tour appeared. This tour guide not only mentioned the arrow, but flashed his flashlight up onto a glass-fronted box and guess what the hell I saw? An old freakin' arrow.
Note: if you want a right answer sometimes you must wait for the right tour and mind to float along.
Examined the bone/stick later in my pocket in the sun. It's a 2,000 arm bone fragment. I told whoever's bone this was to visit me in my dreams and say Hi. They didn't, must have been a busy catacomb reunion or something.
After catacomb visited an Italian photojournalistic exhibition in another primo neighborhood, full of feistier people and the shops they require. Saw a poster advertising a Ninja Label of London event at a club in the Piramide District and at what I began to call The Embassy (vaguely English-style bar merging Italians and the English-speaking and whose slogan - on t-shirt I'm now wearing - is Forget the Trevi, Have a Bevy) asked about this hipster Piramide District. A whole mess of clubs. Went there. Ninja thing was slow at getting off the ground and into techno wonder so we walked along a street lined with dance clubs, people walking along in the warm winter air, some food vendors and cars also on the scene.
Into another club. As I watched the dance floor grow and grow I felt the moist 2,000 arm bone with one hand. The other hand held a scotch and tonic. Italians do not understand the Scotch and soda combo so I started drinking Scotch and tonic to be diplomatic and you know what they say, When in Rome.
Saw last night/early Rome morning filtered through a cloud of hashish thought compliments of generous and happy Italians having another Roman Friday night.

Two things seen today, one publicly angelic and one publicly tragic:

1. Finally picked up drycleaning and was thrilled to see that the Christmas ornament, a ceramic angel with arms outstretched, was still standing on top of the payphone in their lobby where I left it.
There are lots of believers in that neck of the middling city's woods and I imagine that some think it's a sort of Prayer to St. Jude installation.

2. En route to that neck of the middling city's woods I saw three teens on cell phones next to their car, which they had driven off the road. They were staring at in what appeared to be shock, and not an ounce of mirth. They missed their intended street by a good five feet.

In 14 hours I'll be checking myself in for international travel (with, amongst other things, helpful counter-fellow travellers tools: Radiohead cd's, Japanese music compil., earplugs, handiwipes-sample pak-, cd player). I may e-check in from over there but in the event that I do not, here are a few happy wishes from your Fav Nancy.
It really isn't possible, but I have to say it anyhow:
Don't have fun without me.

Minutes are streaming by like heliumated balloons out a speeding car's windows. Leaving in moments for Roma and still I can't say much more than Me Nancy Me want food Thank you Excuse Me. All the while trying to translate the Italian sounds into French ones.
Amongst the last several days' responsibilites was shooting a 100% dry wedding reception. Towards the end of the night I was having a Coke and a smile and a talk with the snappily-witted "bar"tender Steve and a waitress who was merrily doing "dips" and other 80's-style dance movements out of sight of the guests.
It was revealed to me that several of the guests had imported spirits in their pockets. Steve asked if I'd like a "water." I gave him the raised eyebrow in response. Older guests were drinking good ol' h2o whereas the youngster set was drinking something far far different.
Steve produced a second pitcher of "water" which was actually a pitcher of Stoli.
Being around all those good people made my badass tendencies rise to the surface at a surprising rate and, although I don't drink when shooting weddings, I had to have a glass of cool refreshing "water."
Oh, and after.
Events were documented, tequila was sucked and a house party was vacated until the youngest hours of today.
Purity is boring.
Bring on the obfuscated chaos of perilous Sin.

(another transparently ass-kissing note to God)
Almighty God who knoweth All, thank you thank you & thank you some more for hearing my super-timed and heartfelt wishes and for sending Dave Matthews Band back to Buffalo to make me happy. You fuckin' rock, God. And please, Omniscient Power of the Universe and Rock Stadiums, let me keep my head and when and if I'm near Him (oops, him) again help me to not raise my fingers in the sign language ILOVEYOU and scream DAVE I LOVE YOU, YOU ROCK - as I've done these last two times to the delight of my boy colleagues.
*
Two things, sadly, which I didn't get to utter today after much practice:
1. Ubb-jekk-shun, your honor.
2. May I approach the bench?,
as I had the wrong court date, had to post a BOND (?) and said then to the parking lot man Well, apparently I'm in the Twilight Zone...

Note to self:
I would have more confidence in our President if he were cutting lines in the Oval Office instead of choking on pretzels for crissakes.
And another, related thing.
Poor poor Prince Harry. A little teen experimentation gone from awry straight into tabs and a visit to a rehab centre.
As his wiser, better-looking older bro allegedly enjoys X like no other.

The sun is out and so is the Holga, to capture what appears to be sun out in the world. Yesterday had the most Medieval experience, as I was leaving the house I saw the blue sky reflected and sun reflected in a puddle on the driveway and was startled. Last night with each shot of Cuervo as I did some celebrity guest bartending the night became more dreamlike. Someone handed me a letter from a guy I met ten years ago at a memorial service for a poet artist who hanged himself. The letter was c/o a gallery where some of my artwork hangs like the poet was.
Hawksley Workman was doing showman things onstage and I shot his pinstriped self and after he was way done I saw him walking through the bar, trailed by a catgirl who had been perched, lips wet, above the stage on a balcony, leaning into his aura. Catgirl followed him through the bar and was collecting the posters and flyers with his likeness because, from the looks of it, she wasn't going home with the real thing.
Last night someone told me that they looked at my artwork hanging like the poet and that it ripped into his soul. Okay, maybe I'm exaggerating. But he did say it made him feel... I gathered it was horny.

Lest you think I've been blog-slacking, Blogger was unable to publish for seemingly aeons as their server was overloaded.
As every minute passes I'm closer to photographing Barry Manilow who, fittingly, started his mega-tour as a 4-night stay in Vegas/Land of Overwhelming Plastics.
LOOP.
Barry, although an obvious patron of elective/enhancing surgery, is forcing press photographers to shoot from miles away (check linked evidentiary image).
Like those suffering from what I call Aging Rock Star Syndrome (or ARSS) Barry will have us photogs at a distance so every creased nuance will be difficult to capture.

This perfect week began yesterday standing atop a hill in the middling city's noteworthy place of bones and remains, Forest Lawn, at the 202nd birthday bash for Prez13 , Mill Fill. As I told my assignment editrix it's an annual challenge, to achieve something new visually before frostbite sets in.
The crazed car people apparently don't realize that my leased vehicle is in the process of being beaten into the roadways, highways and biways and sent me a letter stating that I'm a 'Pre-Approved Renewal Customer.' I think this letter plus $30 grand or so will get me another Outback. Don't they realize that I'm putting about 3x the normal person's miles on this tired sedan?
$70 later I walked out of the bookstore laden with books about Italy and a tape of the Italian tongue, which I keep trying to speak with a french accent. I'll be, along with Dorota, throwing charms to full-throttle to achieve my social and mercantile ends in that country.
Got into heated argument with musician pal about c.w., me going on an intensive anti-nü-countree rant which blanched his ruddy winter cheeks.
Onwards to music: bought the new Pink cd which features the ifyou'renot dancing tothisyou'refuckingdead hit 'Get the Party Started' which I heard again this weekend and which I obsessed about until it was in my changer. I met her and her boy dancers about a year ago and developed a crush on one of them (a Depp-el-ganger) until he and I spoke and I noted that he had the i.q. of a digested pea.
Onwards to art: met with collaboratorative teammates last night and we received our budget (small) and deadline (imminent). We bandied about ideas which got some brush fires started, I think.

Note to self:
IF you ever meet Prez43 avoid his hands, he'll thump you on the back much like his dad, Prez41, did.
Sidebar comment:
Prez43 is obviously not at ease with people of the creative genre. During his post-unveling speech today in Austin, TX he said to the audience that they would find the artist who painted his gubernatorial portrait odd (as well as the artist's artist bro) but that 'they do what they do well.'

Homework assignment to self:
Re-watch and watch again Audrey in that charming black & white movie to glean some hot tips for upcoming international adventure.
To date all I know about Roma is that it's teeming with fluffy felines and is built over spooky spooky bones and such.
Oh, and shoe, scooter and vino emporiums are everywhere. I think.

Finally, the Goo Goo Dolls hit the historic stage - a brief set of six. The biggest hitz, of course. Afterwards went to the "catered" (a loaf of bread made to look like a snake with an apple in its mouth made by nuns amongst the spread) VIP party, more of a fanly media-style affair than post-GGD gig fetes usually are. I watched as swarms of VIP partygoers circled around wherever a Goo was, a crush wanting a look, a touch, a sharpied signature on a bejeaned thigh. Me and my cohorts were there late and able to talk to the band once the riffraff departed. Johnny held a caricature scribbled on a paper placemat out to me, bossily asking Who is this? It was underbited Dave Schulz of Taxicab Confessions fame. One reason why I didn't take that MTV cab challenge with the fish in my mouth. One interesting thing: as time marches along Robby is becoming the healthier and cuter one, but John is still handsome in a different way. Fame has changed him and I step back from the famously changed: in my own limited regional infamy I know that public observance can be crushing.
And now.
New Year's Day and dig this: a Mass. lotto had these winning numbers: 2002. What a far-out positive omen.
Tour directed last night, the big EVE: documented the rather lame First Night Buffalo which featured a torch relay for thee Olympics. Then FIREWORKS which had me shouting my biggest YAHOOS. My friend Jen had a doppelganger and I thought jeesh, there's Jen making new friends. Then I directed all of us to pour into my Outback and we rolled along to Voelker's Bowling Lane for cheap drinks, arcade games and a white trash buffet. For midnight we hit our first house party and I handed out party poppers (not of gay bar fame) and bubbly and danced around and reveled. I got delicious long distance phone calls from those wanting to touch partying greatness. Onwards.
One more party, several delicious sips from Nate's secret silver flask and a near melee between three guy friends (2 well-dressed, 1 well in a drunk fester) and then a few points beyond. Off to a famed New Year's Day gathering where Tom & Jerry make a special visit.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Well, as the gift bottle of hot sauce from James & Deb says Well slap my ass and call me sally - the link super secret code works and now it's as if a whole new universe opened afore my fingers.
Went to look into ground zero yesterday, and to visit Smithosonian's Museum of the Native American outside Battery Park. I was mistaken, my images on permanent view are in War-shington (as they say in the midwest) and not there. But it turned out that there was a traveling show about Native American beadwork there and I DID have work in that show, a documentary image of Iroquois women doing beadwork.
Before that emo-jaunt I went to my fav jewelry store in SoHo, Me and Ro , and picked up a new addition to the other gold band I wear with the la vérité éternelle (eternal truth) - this one is also gold with a small ruby and it the Tibetan word for compassion dug into it.
After ground zero went to the museum to see not only my work on display but to also see Tibetan monks making their sand mandala in honor of Yamantaka and it was even more intricate and colorful than I could ever have imagined. I watched the monks work on it with their copper tools for hours, long funnels with ridges along the sides and copper sticks to rub against them to make the sand grains come out slowly or quickly, depending on the rub. It's a mesmerizing, musical process.
I talked with one of the monks and asked him to look at my new ring.
He held it in his holy hands and pronounced that it did say compassion, pronounced neen-jay in Tibetan.
I was relieved that it didn't mistakenly or brazenly say dogpoop.
Before all of this I bumped into an MTV crew on the Chinatown streets, daring innocents to do things/thinks for cold hard cash money. $50 was offered to a handsome teen to take a raw fish into his mouth and be filmed taking a cab all the way up to Times Square. He said no and scooted away.
They approached another person, next to me. Suddenly the host saw me How about this girl? They offered me $300 cash and I said I WILL barf in the cab (I was x-tremely hungover) and he said GREAT!!! we'll get it on camera. I said But I'm not going that way. A woman said It's the holiday season. I said Then you do it! I was out for the night, knew I'd stink of fish and had ground zero and holiness waiting for me. I said no, the host was wide-eyed and off I walked. I imagined cheezball writers at the middling city's daily catching that fishy whiff and my name sprawled out in the paper: Local Photog and Her Fishy Mouth!!!! abso-fuckin-lootly not.

A former bosstype man in NYC gave me the secret to linking. I now have the perfect power, I think. So here's an experiment:
The other day I noted a woman who was disgruntled and so I said Hey bitch snap out of it.
Let's give this a whirl, Perfect Nancy's World followers.

I'm now going to dispense some Perfect holiday advice:
When shopping for others remember number one. When holiday shopping my mantra is One gift for Them, one gift for ME. It makes the holidays much happier.
You've worked hard, you made your money, it's in your pocket, you're spending your money, you see things you want so why the hell not? And who knows best what you want than you.

Off to NYC tomorrow for a few days and heard about Tibetan monks making a rare mandala sand painting at the Smithsonian's Museum of the Native American near WTC site. It's of a god, Yamantaka, "the opponent of death." I have work on permanent view at this museum and have never been there. So this trip.
Absolute words of wisdom, imparted by H.R. of Bad Brains/Soul Brains who I shot on Saturday night in a crowded venue:
It's okay to laugh, it's okay to have fun!

Shot the nice Jewish boy gone to hell in a smart multi-media hand basket last night, aka Rob Zombie. Me and the boy colleagues were warned before stepping into the pit: There are loads of pyros. You have to worry about the condition of pyros (and your immediate eyebrow safety) when a cranked-out looking roadie is attaching thick cables and wiring moments before the fall of the big black curtain.
I've seen Zombie before and I find him, his music and his explosive stage set meltingly invigorating. As I walked to my car with a boy colleague I said Hey look at my sweater, it's covered with ash.
When I arrived at the security bunker before Rob Zombie I had just missed an Ozzy Osbourne sighting: all the jacketed security guards and the photogs were in a state of mild shock as Ozzy staggered by, ashen-faced, shaking and walking with a cane.
I saw him after that during his meet & greet, I watched through the security door. We all agreed that he had received a boost of some sort.
The tour is sponsored by Mountain Dew, perhaps that's his new chem of choice.
NO PHOTO PASSES FOR OZZY, another helpless victim of Aging Rock Star Syndrome.

I had to chastise a 13 year old boy yesterday night as he had no freakin' clue how to make a scotch & soda - nor a good one. What I told him, pointedly, and in a nutshell: 1. o youngster, there is a huge difference between soda and tonic. Get the fuck away from my scotch with that tonic or I'll karate chop you. 2. sonny boy, when making a scotch & soda remember to add scotch.
The party was fun, even when an uninvited person (guest of a co-worker) was rubbing my leg until I gave him a look which can wither healthy leaves off of trees, burble paint off of walls. He knocked it off and no further near-need for karate chops ensued.
Later we all streamed out of the party and into a series of bars and clubs, including the one where a dj pal handed me a copy of his cd - it's on now, adding a nice even techno vibe.
At some point, realizing I hadn't had enough food for "dinner," I stopped in a somewhat reliable pizza joint and cavorted with the two employees - one pregnant and non-working (lots of sitting on counter) and the other a dough-tossing teen always covered with flour. I looked up and they had not changed my menu embellishment: the (apparently barely-literate) owner hand-printed their menu and their family pack looked as if it cost $2068 rather than what it must be ($20.68). So I was searching for a sharpie (I was with five other people = power in numbers) and then the hardworking teen said here's a black one, a nice stinky fat marker. So I reached up and added the words solid gold to family pack and made it officially $2,068.00. Last night the pair of pizza employees said We like you better when you're not here with your posse.

Swimming through a room of artists at a party last night I came upon one of my newspaper colleagues, in his cups. He was telling me a story - a challenge to follow over electronic music, talking everywhere and his thickening British accent. He told me about picking up novelist/theory guy Umberto Eco at the airport and how customs was giving him a hard time and he was growing angry and that he spotted Eco but thought it was a lookalike and I'm following along when suddenly I realize this is a piece of fiction he's working on not reality so I help him embellish with other essential details. Eco is going to be kidnapped and driven to San Diego via Chicago by the tipsy Brit who has been wantonly post-flight drinking at the airport. And he's also trying to screw over the woman who is really supposed to be picking up Eco for a talk at the universtiy. So she's in hot cross-country pursuit after the kidnapping. Or not. My embellishment: the car picks up a troubled teen girl who asks for a ride. His embellishment: she is carrying a small handbag and is always changing her clothes at rest stops. My embellishment: Eco secretly realizes what is happening but is digging being in this chaotic moment with the Brit thinking he's pulling a fast one on him. His embelllishment: Eco is carrying a duck-billed platypus in a pet carrier and suddenly realizes it's the wrong platypus. My embellishment: suddenly Eco is obsessed with the idea of going to a dude ranch that he's read about in Oklahoma where they custom-style your cowboy hats (bending them to and fro) to fit your personality. The person at the dude ranch has a helluva time figuring him out and the brim is steamed and resteamed and bent and rebent. For hours. His embellishment: suddenly you realize that the teen girl has an acoustic guitar and then a double bass. My embellishment: Eco has been furtively calling in details to his assistant in Italy because this will become his next novel, thanks to the tipsy Brit. I told the ex-pat that this could be a screenplay and the last scene would be a black screen for a while and then the voiceover of Eco stating that this was all his story.
Best part of the party: the Brit, growing ever-increasingly difficult to understand à la Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels (or whatever the hell it was called), stating that the nearby Portuguese guy who speaks 4 languages speaks none of them very well.

I went to CNN.com today and had every intention of downloading the US govt-ok'd transcript of OBL's found tape and my computer lost the connection. I took that as a sign from disgruntled and maybe even pissed Allah that I should not read this at this time. Either that or it was high time to complete my AOL deadlined work at hand. So I got back to work. And spared myself further Tora Bora thoughts. For now.
I've been on a mad frenzy to travel as much as possible. I was trying to squeeze two more trips out of 2001 but will only make one, I think.
2002 is the Year of NJP Making Art, for certain. I will be so art-focused that it delights me. It's getting into emotion, thought, fear, voice, intuition and the powers of self-made adrenaline. Off to events. And their worthy photo documentation. By Yours Truly. xox

I've just, as we say in the paper biz, filed and I'm glancing at the photo I took of some foie gras yesterday evening at a local finery eatery of expensively preparedly foodstuffs. Late as always, my paper called for the request and, having worked in the other biz which makes the world go 'round (the restaurant biz) I knew to call and schmooze the chef de cuisine, which I did. Upon my arrival I silently walked up their grand staircase to their upstairs banquet room. I set up lights and the shot and went downstairs to ask the hostess to tell chef de cuisine that I was ready. I had wondered upstairs how many joints I could walk in silently and set up lights and all unnoticed or how long I could hang out without anyone caring. Maybe bump around and have some free snacks, take some photos and move along. I am skillful at being invisible when need and want be.
So chef comes up with the to-be-shot food and it's foie gras with truffle-whipped potatoes, pomegranate, pea tendrils, fried salsify, shaved white truffles, and lavendar and honey glaze. Et voilà: the most expensive little plate of foie gras for miles around. I shot it, I must say, sumptuously. He and I talked as I shot and he asked if I'd like to take the food. I said yes. But I was amid a juice fast and took it anyway. Upon arriving back chez moi I gave the expensive snack to my outdoor-living cat friend named Extra - now he thinks I absolutely rock. I didn't tell him that they force-feed the goose to make the liver swell to make this treat..