I am proud to report that your favorite, Perfect Nancy has been spoofed in the infernal Middling City newspaper The Beast. They made an ELKHASHAPPENED column by Elk J. Elk – in honour of my WHATHASHAPPENED, replete with three snaps of elk as a quarter page spread, unfortunately way in the rear of the paper. I'm going to take EHH to Kinko's to have it fashioned into a tshirt.
Now I am forced to remember the tshirt shoppes of yore when you went into a joint and there, before your marveling eyes, were seemingly hundreds of decals to choose from and the scent of scorched poly-cotton fibres hung in the air (and let's fabricate, too that the scent of cheeba did, too, as it was the 70s for mulletted Christ's sake).
A favored shirt in the 70s: a photograph of two lions and bubble letters stating Let's Snuggle Up!
Today one of my favored shirts is the new Flaming Lips tshirt of multi-colors and also my Paul Frank how-to shirt detailing how to turn two socks into a freakin' sock monkey.
Plus ça change c'est le meme chose.
For you non-Frenchyphiles that means as Perfect Nancy gets older (and surlier) she's realizing that she really is the same ol' lovable madcap kid inside that she was in the early 70s when she was, oh, about 10 and more thensome and Danny Gare of the Buffalo Sabres was her favorite celeb and her first glass of Oban was about two decades away.
Still marveling over the conversation at a wedding I shot this past Saturday, had with a very average-looking woman who works at a very nondescript diner in the exurbs that I had the misfortune of visiting recently on an AOL foray. I asked her if she and her sister on my other side were, in fact, sisters, as I was just meeting them. She said, eyes widening, OH NO, we're not sisters... we're TWINS.
It was one of those moments where I tell myself in a flash to be diplomatic, that if I were in a foreign land and some foreign chick said this to me so earnestly and stupidly I'd be thinking Geeee, this is so charming.
We talked and she revealed to me that she is a gigantic Dave Matthews fan so then we had a zillion things to talk about, including how he raises his one eybrow and also (for this part I got up from the table and behind my chair did the DM kicky dance) how he gets ovations for the kicky dance.
Moral: in every cloudy wedding scenario you're shooting for ca$h money there is a silver DMB lining in the form of a twinly woman.
Love.

Apparently I was on television looking like I was walking alongside Richard Gere, today all day people (mainly women) came up to me asking (before any other sort of salutation)
Is he as good-looking in person as he is on camera?
At an art opening yesterday evening I began to tell people that he and I are dating, that the relationship has been happening for 24 hours and it's flourishing.

Two Canadian conversations of yesterday, with (slight) apologies to George:
1.
Heading into Canada yesterday I was pulled over by the man in the booth for carrying artwork in the back of the Forester, my pieces from Conflagration.
Was sent over, with slip of paper, to be examined. I was there for 40 minutes explaining to a man whose face said I've eaten entirely too many doughnuts/Timbits this lifetime, that the pieces had no value as they were not for sale, were not sold, were not being sold and sundry other fun facts about the show.
He said:
They must be worth a pretty penny, ay?
I nearly burst out laughing.
Then I did some careful explaining of how the silkscreen-on-metal thing was not my usual métier, that the image size was this and my usual photographic price was that... etc. until I thought I had lulled him into a stupor of pricing and art making and transporting and art storage.
I asked Would you like to hang onto them here, all 13, and I'll come back and get them later? Rather snarky, I must say, but it fit the moment as I was realizing he was somewhat putty in my earnest little hands.
No, he said, I can't do that. Would you like one of them? I was really pushing things. No, he said, I can't do that. So, 40 minutes later, I was on my way, again.

2.
Was magnetized into a true blue, mapleized surf/board shop up there, mesmerized by the thoughts that my dollars were being stretched internationally to greater proportions.
Have been noting those with Helly Hansen jackets and doing some serious coveting.
Bought a lovely sage green one with more secret compartments than George Bush's odd persona.
I was playing with a do-dad on the hood when the intense little salesguy said
Oh, that's for making sure that your tuque doesn't come off.
I stopped playing with the hoodal do-dad, trying to make pretend I wasn't so amazed by the word tuque.
I guess now I have to go tuque shopping.

Morals (and I have a few): Canada is a different land, full of pretty pennies, tuques, loonies and toonies.

If I had a dollar for every time I wrote Geee, if I knew the html code for inserting my photos into epinw I could run down and get myself a boutique coffee or something.
So instead here's Imagination Time: your favorite Nancy arm in arm with Richard Gere, honest-to-goodness smiles on our shining faces. And why are we having such a fun glowy moment? Because Richard, after talking to him and after witnessing some of my shenanigans out of the corner of his soft warm brown right eye (youngest boy colleague, Derek, had my d1 and was awaiting a turn by RG towards me, standing behind RG for the perfect snap of me and superstar when, getting rather feisty as the throng who had paid $500 each for a moment of Gere gladhanding was closing in and my photo op chances were looking slim so I shot up a double rockstar ILOVEYOU hand gesture behind Gere and Derek shot that and then a body guard near Gere stepped towards me, pushing me ever so slightly saying DON'T DO THAT with the most derisive disgust in his voice like I had just shot Gere the moon or was about to banana creme pie him or something) and then I got to stand alongside him and he took his right hand, cupped it around my neck and, in true friendliness, gave my neck a little throttle, said Hey, you're the photographer, what're you doing on this side of the lens, we commented on the tv anchor, Helen, manning my d1, both wondering aloud if she knew what in hell she was doing, then we wrapped our arms around each other as if we were former neighbors and I wondered if I should show him my most prized, well, one of my most prized possessions (my thoughts race to quickly index the most prized possessions and I wonder how and if some friends can count amongst the list), my Me and Ro rings on my middle finger of right hand, especially the one that says Compassion in Tibetan as I decided against wearing the Tibetan word Love and I'm wearing the other with the rubies and seed pearls but I think, No, fuckit, forget the rings so the photo op is done, I step back, get the camera from Helen and make several images of others aglow near the celeb and then step back to where Derek is hanging in the shadows and watch the throng press against, all around, Gere as he makes his way from the $500 reception to the $250 per person reception.
He has nice eyes. His hair is all gray. His manner was placid and for the Love of God (to borrow one of my father's pet expressions) I could not think of one of Gere's movies, well, except that godawful one with Julia Lips Roberts that I saw one night with other administrative staff of summer camp and I was truly horrified (think now of the Bongwater song about this movie... to quote Ann Magnuson That's all women really want... sucking and shopping, sucking and shopping, etc.)
at this smirky crap. Gere has not made great movies. There's the one with Debra Winger, that perky little thing in cowboy hat and boots. And then my mind goes blank.
Does this guy make movies any more?
Is he famous for being famous?
How tall is the Dalai Lama?
Will I ever learn the html code for inserting images?
Will you ever stop learning epinw code for inserting joy?

If I had a dollar for every time I wrote Geee, if I knew the html code for inserting my photos into epinw I could run down and get myself a boutique coffee or something.
So instead here's Imagination Time: your favorite Nancy arm in arm with Richard Gere, honest-to-goodness smiles on our shining faces. And why are we having such a fun glowy moment? Because Richard, after talking to him and after witnessing some of my shenanigans out of the corner of his soft warm brown right eye (youngest boy colleague, Derek, had my d1 and was awaiting a turn by RG towards me, standing behind RG for the perfect snap of me and superstar when, getting rather feisty as the throng who had paid $500 each for a moment of Gere gladhanding was closing in and my photo op chances were looking slim so I shot up a double rockstar ILOVEYOU hand gesture behind Gere and Derek shot that and then a body guard near Gere stepped towards me, pushing me ever so slightly saying DON'T DO THAT with the most derisive disgust in his voice like I had just shot Gere the moon or was about to banana creme pie him or something) and then I got to stand alongside him and he took his right hand, cupped it around my neck and, in true friendliness, gave my neck a little throttle, said Hey, you're the photographer, what're you doing on this side of the lens, we commented on the tv anchor, Helen, manning my d1, both wondering aloud if she knew what in hell she was doing, then we wrapped our arms around each other as if we were former neighbors and I wondered if I should show him my most prized, well, one of my most prized possessions (my thoughts race to quickly index the most prized possessions and I wonder how and if some friends can count amongst the list), my Me and Ro rings on my middle finger of right hand, especially the one that says Compassion in Tibetan as I decided against wearing the Tibetan word Love and I'm wearing the other with the rubies and seed pearls but I think, No, fuckit, forget the rings so the photo op is done, I step back, get the camera from Helen and make several images of others aglow near the celeb and then step back to where Derek is hanging in the shadows and watch the throng press against, all around, Gere as he makes his way from the $500 reception to the $250 per person reception.
He has nice eyes. His hair is all gray. His manner was placid and for the Love of God (to borrow one of my father's pet expressions) I could not think of one of Gere's movies, well, except that godawful one with Julia Lips Roberts that I saw one night with other administrative staff of summer camp and I was truly horrified (think now of the Bongwater song about this movie... to quote Ann Magnuson That's all women really want... sucking and shopping, sucking and shopping, etc.)
at this smirky crap. Gere has not made great movies. There's the one with Debra Winger, that perky little thing in cowboy hat and boots. And then my mind goes blank.
Does this guy make movies any more?
Is he famous for being famous?
How tall is the Dalai Lama?
Will I ever learn the html code for inserting images?
Will you ever stop learning epinw code for inserting joy?

In one hour I'll be freezing my ass off shooting 50 rescue workers in orange jumpsuits with a helicopter. Who looks good in orange? I'll tell you.
Nobody on this planet looks good in orange.
When Dorota and I were in gai Paris I bought a great top, it's orange. Does the fact that it's Parisian make it less orange? No.
I rest my case.
Then, after the helicopter moment, I'm traipsing across town to shoot Richard Gere of gerbil (or was it hamster fame?) who's in town supporting Louise Slaughter, Dem Congressman.
Gere - provider of love vibes from soup to nuts... from Dalai Lama to Slaughter.
Gere and Slaughter are appearing in an elegant, restored nightclub from Middling City heyday, a business too large and lavish and destined for a short life unless they proverbially hop into bed with every rock promoter in town to get mid-sized rock acts booked into the mid-sized venue.
But tonight the joint's a venue for a political act.
The act of schmoozing, my fav.
Love.

Well here's one for the in-basket lest you need hard evidence that shooting, attending rock and roll events causes hardness of hearing, deafness, lack of understanding.
Listening to far-superiour Canadian radio today I heard an advert for a six-metre container of beer. Holy shit, I thought, driving at the speed limit, fyi, that's a lot of cubic beer. So I'm making cursory calculations before I realized Nope, that would be six liters. Onwards.
After being completely computer-paralyzed yesterday as the iBook isn't always able to keep up with the rigors of my demanding digital image needs, I ordered a 40-gig external harddrive from the nice tech boy in Austin, TX. I wanted to grill him on the local music scene but thought He's probably all paranoid because these calls are all taped so he won't open up about thrilling new acts and going out on the live music prowl. Or, perhaps more likely, he's a cute-sounding, white sock wearer.
I'm nearly finished with the Venti six-metre cuppa joe from Starbucks, following the massive university delivery of information and I'm firing on all 8.
Back to deadlines. Back to deadlines. Back to the ever-informative, yet with delicate snarky undertones, of writing me. Perfect stringer-together of adjectives and the like.
No love today, just coffee, my heart pumping and spewing coffee, not B+ today.

Massey Hall, despite being a popular venue in TO, was fraught with beacoup sound troubles last night for the Beck/Flaming Lips gig.
Scored five-star ticket last second, obviously comp seats unused and released just hours before all they rock mayhem began - second row center balcony, mere feet from where my pals sat.
The Lips were, of course, absolutely amazing, Wayne Coyne had one of those spycams on his mic stand which distorted his face, projected disconcertingly above him - twenty feet of tangled hair, haggard eyes, Okie voice and interesting nose.
He was, as usual, obsessed with gadgets and there was plenty of bright light waving, recurring spinning of a worklamp from an extension cord, two gaggles of people dressed in mascotwear (bunnies, bears and a goldfish who sadly stepped on a cord which began the deluge of sound troubles) onstage at all times. And the non-Coyne Lips were dressed in animal costumes, heads human, free to see chords, etc.
I was so happy to be seeing the band that twice my eyes filled with tears of absolute and complete joy.
And then intermission to buy a supersonic shirt of theirs for $30 Canadian which equals $7.15 American!
Two other surprise Buffalonians were in attendance, in addition to me + 2 pals. The others, assumedly, were happy-go-lucky Canadians, proud hosts.
Beck. Oh, Beck. His much-publicized superstar girlfriend breakup has seemingly sapped the joy from his soul, his performance was earnest, competent and the first 3 songs nearly had me napping in the historic Massey Hall aisle.
The Flaming Lips (ya-fucking-hoo) are his backing band this tour and they bound onto the stage to much applause and joy. And I think they stole the show, at least Wayne Coyne did.
At one moment, my fav part of the show, Beck wandered over to WC and tossled his mad curly hair because it had glitter and crap in it. And then just wandered away. It was a pure yet odd childlike rockstar moment.
Beck, of course, played the radio songs.
We all left happy.
Every last one of us.
Then back to the USofA, the Middling City, responsibility, work, deadlines.
And the rockstars (touring in the bus of Dave Matthews) roll on to more play.
Oh, I watched my Canadian colleagues wander over to stage right to wait their time and noted this: 4 out of 5 Canadian shooters choose Canon.
Love.

Lead boy colleague asked today Where's the blog progress?
Today, amongst other things, shot the Middling City University homecoming football major Loss in the autumnal sun, making Norman/l Rockwell-quality images of ye olde crowning of the king and queen, university president with his face painted and the marching band. Amongst the clubs marching into the stadium at half-time was a gay club with gigantic rainbow flags and I was struck that they had the courage to markedly march in amid a throng of chowderheaded sporty fans.
I am now back to freelance gig, back into the car/home-away-from-home.
And then to shoot the lead singer of my pet band, more music and then Simon and the Bar Sinisters... where I'll meet my fellow members of Janet Reno Fan Club, where the bartenders know my name, my drink, my proclivities.
Tomorrow interesting potpourri of happenings, including hanging of mine art at a bookstore, meeting up with out-of-town pals, working on freelance orders and then...
then...
TORONTO road trip to see Beck and Flaming Lips.
I am much more ecstatic about seeing the Lips, who I've seen since the mid-80s, who confound me as a photographer (as they usually dig going apeshit with bubble and/or fog machines) and who were pals of my most recent ex.
Beck I've seen twice and live he's enchanting and such but the openers (openers!) are the shit.
Rock & roll t-shirt purchase for sure.
And to be proudly worn Monday, here, there, everywhere and then some.
My rock & roll heart full of rock & roll love.

Lady, wake up, I'm going to flag down a Yellow Cab to take you the rest of the way.
So began the beginning of the chaos of getting out of NYC on 10/11.
I was moved from cab #1 to cab #2 amid a throng of cars meandering out to JFK on a Boulevard as all biways were still lifes. The car service ordered by Dorota was late, then not really ever coming. So the cab.
In cab #2 I sat next to the driver while in the back seat were two well-dressed and handsome businessmen, one French and one Brit but living in Paris. I was third to be dropped off, a mistake by cabbie #2 as I was to be, at Brit requested, dropped to not miss my 515.
So I missed the 515, The flight's closed, said the JetBlue guy with the wandering eye. His legs wandered off with my passport to inquire if I could get onto the flight, which hadn't left.
I snapped as loud as the doors of a JetBlue plane shutting hard, Nancyless, for him to hand over my passport. I snapped even louder as he put me on standby for the next and last flight in 1.5 hours. I asked where I was on the list of waiters and he said he couldn't tell me that priviledged info. And why not, I asked, eyes shooting flames into his wandering and non-wandering eyes. OK, you're #5.
Off I ran to the ground transportation centre to reserve the last car Budget had.
Then 4 hours of jams, bad rain. Then highway action, good ol' 87. Then another hour waiting.
Two naps, one snack, one pee, one mission later and I was in The Middling City at 530, at the airport dropping the rental, getting into my awaiting car and then awaiting bed for a brief snooze before shooting freelance gigs and rock shows.
The Mooney Suzuki. Tall boys in black spending much of their set time in the midst of their fans, lost in a sea of smiling heads and still playing guitars. I was standing on the edge of the stage shooting into the crowd. I had gone backstage, grabbed some Marty-made snacks en route, and skittled over the stage like a cockroach for the vantage point. There must have been 400+ people in Mohawk Place, a place that can comfortably hold 100.
Chameleons were also grand that night.
Today, in a few hours, I'm off to a New Orleans-style jazz funeral for Tim Switala, a great multi-media guy who was married to one of my former editors at UB Office of News Services.
A sunny day for a funeral.
A march of sadness.
And memories now of the jazz funeral I shot in thee N.O. for Ernie K. Doe -- raucous and equally sunny.
Love.

Still in the city surpassing all others.
Last night, birthdate anniversary night, dined +3 at Gotham, h.q. of superstar chef Alfred Portale. Passed an envelope of two photographs I made of him, his wifey and a Buffalo restaurateur and this was handed along to him. The gift was to thank him for the rez at 8 for 4 on 10/10 and Portale in turn sent out a tray of champagne, an app and a bevy of his hand-picked desserts. We were informed by one of his on-floor eyes&ears that Portale would be out to see us between courses. And out he came his unsassuming self and I had Jason take a snap of me and Portale with my exciting and new Pop9 Lomo camera with 9 lenses making 9 images on one 35mm frame = shithole resolution. However. That is not the point.
So Portale was fascinated by the Pop9, asking where he could buy one for his photocentric brother.
I want at least one of my pieces to hang in Gotham. I'm going to send Portale a small 8x10 art print for his erudition/joy/seduction. My art must hang in Gotham.
I must head back to the Middling City today, where, I just learned, the weekly fucked with my Congressman John LaFalce images, the title and something else and the writer is fuming and has me terrified to look. But she will probably not say anything to the publisher... but I will.
So off to a hot meatloaf lunch with Dorota and then poutingly tossing myself in the back of a Town Car to be airlifted out of here to there. Sadly.
It rains.
Love.

Tomorrow is John Lennon's birthday and here's how best to celebrate it, in my Perfect opinion.
If you are in NYC lay flowers on the IMAGINE mosaic in Strawberry Fields. Yoko says we must remember his birth, not death, day.
If not in NYC, play his music, reflect on his genius and interesting nose and then, as the night rolls in, drink plenty of brandy alexanders and act like a crazed rock star. He would be, according to my calculations, 62. Would he have had a saggy old guy arse? All-gray hairs? Ridiculous facial hair that says I've made it and aesthetics can go to hell?
We will never know.
Last night dreamed a dream that there was a corpse at a wake and it was generally believed that I had been a friend of the corpse when it was a person. I had to pretend all through the wake that I knew this person, a woman, so as not to make the familiar more sad.
John Lennon was sometimes harsh to those he loved most.
Love can be harsh.
But a John Lennon lost early at the hands of a lunatic fanatic is better than not ever having had a John Lennon to love.
Love.

Well, well, well.
A weekend it was of talking and talking.
The last post was shock-driven and I retract it.
No relief, now in relationship negotiations.
Tonight is Bruce Springsteen and I sent Lead Boy Colleague to do the shooting. We photo types were to be relegated to the soundboard for working and that's not a perfect photo op, to be sure.
Flying to NYC now on Wednesday AM not Tuesday for the birthday festivities and will still be dining on 10/10, the big #39, at Gotham, hq of chef Alfred Portale - former Buffalo jewelry designer.
I sign off, stress-laden and deadline-ful.
Love.

Columbus Day, according to Your Perfect Nancy:
One day, in Spain, the King and Queen spaketh to a feisty sailor named Christopherus Columbus. He, Columbus, was hankering to set sail and find spices and high times. So, later that month, he did so aboard one of these three ships: The Don Cuervo, The Pinto Bean and the Santa Ria. After spying octopii, sirens, goblins and the like he landed upon the shores of Indian territory near the time, five hundred years later, that Nancy J. Parisi was born into the world - early October.
The End.
Historical love.

Well I think I sufficiently frightened Pete the lead singer of The Pee Wee Fist this weekend before he jumped on the Mohawk Place stage. Laura and I were having several at the bar when he ambled by in the most interesting, non-Middling City shoes which we remarked upon. I blurted at him I have a shotgun bruise. Now I'm sure he thinks all women here are all rednecked kooks. Well, that is fairly accurate.
If I knew what the hell I was Blogger Pro doing there'd be a great image of the bruise (red, blue, purple and the size of a Kennedy half dollar) on this page. Use your imagination, that's what it's there for.
Off to Sunday adventures, after the standing brunch gig with Janet Reno Fan Club.
Love.

Today was a good shooting day. Not in usual sense. In firearms sense. Got to take aim and FIRE an MP5 9mm, an MP5 10mm, a glock, a shotgun and a revolver. Hung with two Boy Colleagues, one who conveniently studied at University of Texas so he knew a shitload about firearms, or at least that's how he explained it all. I had, like darts and my profession, exquisite aim, as did Bobby Kirkham. The FBI guys were truly dazzled by our marksmanship... Bobby would have great groupings in the head region whereas my style is to group them in the belly. Women always aim for the BALLS, one of the firing range FBI guys told Bobby, watching me shoot. I thought it was more belly than balls but no matter what, the fucking evildoer I'm aiming at won't be bragging over Sunday dinner about his exploits. So I dig shooting guns. It was way better than my past 22 experiences, my cyber-gun video shooting. The FBI men saw my excitement and skill and asked if I'd consider the FBI as a career. In talking it was duly noted the cutoff age is 37 so I'm done in their eyes. I said What about Special Ops. They sort of just gazed at me unsure if I was serious or not.
There are shots of me made by Kirkham shooting all the above and then later wearing a whole load of FBI gear: kevlar vest, FBI cap, limited edition FBI jacket with special stitched-on letters emblazoned across the chest only it's hard to see the I, sort of tucked under the left armpit.
Rockstars shoot a lot of guns. Badasses shoot guns.
Of course I dig shooting.
Bullets of love.

Now I'm on Blogger Pro and that means that one day I will teach myself how to put images on epinw AND anyone can have perfect me email the blog to them as it's posted. A supersonic thrill to be sure.

Where are all the rock stars? Avoiding the Middling City, apparently.
Next big up is politicized Bruce Springsteen on 10/7.
Quick posting as I'm off to darkroom for making prints for an art exhibition, opening TOMORROW night.
Again, art kicks me in the ass and reminds me that there are but 24 hours in each and every day, no more, unfortunately.
My caffeine heart says Love.

Yesterday I attempted, with the help of a scrubbed and non-eyecontact-making tech, to send myself down the 8' cigar tube that is an MRI machine, non-open variety. Three times, no go.
Got about four feet in and said I'm not doing this.
Three times. I wept. I left. Now to find an open MRI machine, quickly.
Onwards then to a press event I was hired to shoot for the university, the big Bioinformatics Human Genome Code-Busting center groundbreaking. And the governor was there, some fake ground/dirt, some 'golden' shovels, a shitload of politicoes, every media outlet, etc. Oh, and a handful of handsome secret service guys. One I had seen before at the recent casino pact-signing affair, a compact red-headed man unfortunately sporting a wedding band.
So the event is over, I'm burning a cd in my car for my client and then I hear running. I look up to see Mr. Married Secret Service Guy running top speed towards my car (I'm sitting on the passenger side, illegally parked - of course- with the door open so I'm a straight shot up the sidewalk) and I sat there in stunned silence watching him running. Then he started banking right and just before his turn I semi-shouted I thought you were running towards me and I was going to tell you I hadn't done anything wrong. We both laughed and off he sped in his black, tricked-out Chevy Lumina to follow Governor Pataki to god knows where.
So I'm still burning my cd when the Mayor of all people and a prominent millionaire business man I've done work for are having an extremely sensitive, privee, conversation about seven feet from my car. I am trying not to pay attention and I'm thinking Surely they know I'm here, for crissakes they're politicians, they're supposed to note all people within a five mile radius of their public selves. So after about 10 minutes the business leader notes that my door is wide open and I'm in there, motions very undiscreetly to the Mayor with an elbow in my direction and, obviously, the Mayor didn't get it and there's another pantomime in my direction and then they drifted away.
I now fear that my life might have a contract out against it.
So here I say If I turn up mysteriously absent, in Photo and Blog Land, you know why.
My love.

Well yesterday, what a day was that.
Full of serendipity, full of Samuel Beckett moments planned and unplanned.
As I'll be in NYC for the b-day and am hoping to see the production of his Happy Days there at the theatre where it premiered thought I'd give it a re-read. This is one of his plays I've never seen live and it's full of Sam's customary yin/yang characters (Winnie/Willie), mobility/immobility issues, reminiscences.
Towards the end of yesterday's freelance booking full of people that I like, mistook a lawyer for a guy I had just seen a few days earlier at physical therapy. Unbelievably, the lawyer had been in a bad car wreck like mine in '99 and we talked about our respective details, recovery, hauntings. I told him that I'm taking part in a car crash study at the university. Later on in the night I went to a performance by Pat Oleszko at Hallwalls and don't think I realized the magnitude of the pathos I'd be watching as she is an artist who first watched the building of the WTC towers and then their demise and then worked as a relief person. As I watched more post-crash trauma washed over me until I had to leave. I sat there frozen thinking Confront this, Nancy. But I lost. Trauma won, I left, sat in the car for a while connecting with others on the cell phone until I mustered up enough rock & rollness to move onwards to a reliable bar with good scotch, company and live music.
The night ended on a fun-loving note with celebrity guest bartending, information gathering, loud conversations with musicians about matters of the heart, matters of the world.
Heavy? Not really.
Had Samuel Beckett-inspired dreams and woke today most happy. Happy Days.
Words of love.

Well yesterday, what a day was that.
Full of serendipity, full of Samuel Beckett moments planned and unplanned.
As I'll be in NYC for the b-day and am hoping to see the production of his Happy Days there at the theatre where it premiered thought I'd give it a re-read. This is one of his plays I've never seen live and it's full of Sam's customary yin/yang characters (Winnie/Willie), mobility/immobility issues, reminiscences.
Towards the end of yesterday's freelance booking full of people that I like, mistook a lawyer for a guy I had just seen a few days earlier at physical therapy. Unbelievably, the lawyer had been in a bad car wreck like mine in '99 and we talked about our respective details, recovery, hauntings. I told him that I'm taking part in a car crash study at the university. Later on in the night I went to a performance by Pat Oleszko at Hallwalls and don't think I realized the magnitude of the pathos I'd be watching as she is an artist who first watched the building of the WTC towers and then their demise and then worked as a relief person. As I watched more post-crash trauma washed over me until I had to leave. I sat there frozen thinking Confront this, Nancy. But I lost. Trauma won, I left, sat in the car for a while connecting with others on the cell phone until I mustered up enough rock & rollness to move onwards to a reliable bar with good scotch, company and live music.
The night ended on a fun-loving note with celebrity guest bartending, information gathering, loud conversations with musicians about matters of the heart, matters of the world.
Heavy? Not really.
Had Samuel Beckett-inspired dreams and woke today most happy. Happy Days.
Words of love.

Now the FBI's gone too far.
And this proves that if a person stays in one place for long enough suddenly people think they're a person of honor, a model citizen, deserving of theoretical merit badges. The letter, dated September 12th, reads:

Ms. Parisi: On behalf of the Buffalo Division of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), I would like to invite you to participate in the FBI's Citizens' Academy.
...
Special Agents will discuss various business and community concerns including the FBI's responsibilities in the areas of white collar crime, violent crime, drugs, couterintelligence, counterterrorism, and civil rights among others. We will specifically address areas such as our deadly force policy...

All this as the national media ring the Middling City's Niagara Square, perched under white craft fair-like tents to talk about the men of bleak Lackawanna who allegedly sent emails of 'large meals' which would overstuff their home turf with smart bomb calories and deadly goodness.
Oh, and three lorikeets at the Buffalo Zoo have West Nile croaked.
Welcome to the Middling City, international topics of conversation.

My unbadged and curmudgeonly love.

Perfect update:

Dig this, me and my paper editor are spending a day at an FBI training camp where we get to fire firearms all the day long. I'm also hellion hoping that I get deft training in the roll and come up shooting maneuver, learn to shoot a gun sideways and get to scream FREEZE OR I'LL END YOUR WORM-LIKE EXISTENCE NOW, MOTHERFUCKER.
Will they attempt to recruit us: I have a horrific memory of when Justin had a grand idea to grab a snack and get out of the rain by entering the defunct God is Love storefront (now a pseudo gay club) for shits & giggles. I said Justin, if they lock us in here I'll kick yer ass and mid-rant we heard the undeniable and ghastly click. Maybe the FBI will collar us, not let us leave until we each swear to sign our lives over for a stint short and volatile, specials ops-like and secret. I'm hoping there's a tank on the premises so I can finally drive a tank as that op ages ago never panned out via the scary, mysterious Army guy who turned up on the Icon scene and promised Yours Truly a chance at the helm of a tank for a short drive around Connecticut Street Armory.

Conflagration opening was suitable fiery. Jen drove into town and we did pre-opening errands together, including the buying of dollar store Barbies to represent the model twins Kathleen and Colleen for their b-day cake (they turned 23 on 9/13- opening night) and later I did no better than when I was eight of chopping silky Barbie hair so the dolls would resemble them, sort of.
Lopping. Regret. Fixing. Regret.
The opening was boozy and I forgot to bring b-day cake candles and Laura and Jen said Well, set the back wall of the cake (I fashioned a cake to look just like the kitchen set that Josh built for the Conflagration art shoot) on fire. And who am I not to oblige the idea and desire for fire? A paper napkin was lit, the wall was minutely torched and I have a delightful Polaroid of the twins blowing frantically on it and later shots of them licking frosting off the legs of their Barbie selves.
We drove afterwards en masse to an Irish joint and Jen and I did a spontaneous ballet to Bohemian Rhapsody and collaborative Ted pulled up, jumped out of his car and ran to join us, doing mad pushups.

Back to normal? Ha.
During the Conflagration opening a fellow artiste pressed a bunch of postcards into my hand for an upcoming show. Godammit, I thought, why can't I have a flyer-free night, esp when it's my Big Nite? Next day I glanced at the card and, get this, I'm listed as one of 15 artists in a small works show opening... September 29th.
And then I have an opening on October 4th.

My love.
My over-caffeinated heart full of love.

Joys of artmaking, continued.
Went to the framing woman's shop to pick up the empty frames/fields of cherry red. She began explaining how blocks of wood would have to be used to hold the pieces and longer screws and ...
anxiety rose and just then (of course) someone calls from the newspaper undoubtedly to ask me for something.
Do you have a minute? No. No? No. etc. etc.
After that went back to framing catastrophe (in the sense that it would be involving power tools, a diagram she prepared for me) and then she said You know what? I'll do the affixing, just bring me the stainless steel pieces.
Halle-fucking-lujah.
Brought them to her at 930PM or so after poly-oly-urethening my last two pieces, wrapping all the work, saying goodbyes to my new printing pals - and vowing (perhaps in a fit of post-polyurethene idiocy) to return for more silkscreening madness.
Oh and then. Before the newspaper call in the framing summit I received casual word that the gallery has cement walls. No artist on this dear planet wants to hear the words cement and wall in the same sentence, especially the week of their art opening.
This means war.
This means jackhammers and hardhats and determination and holes and runs to Home Depot and swearing and molly bolts and promises of touchups.
If art wasn't so beneficial, so balancing and a non-choice it would be called punishment.
Love.
And more love this 9/11 commemoration day.

Still, still working on the prints for the show, opening in about 20 minutes or so.
And I'm writing this from the handy open office with iMac and t-1 line that grad students have access to... as well as errant photojournalists on time-consuming art quests.
The images look great and there are only two out of thirteen that still need to be worked on, needing to be re-outputted onto acetate, re-exposed and re-printed. This can all be done, theoretically, by Tuesday night and that leaves Wednesday, Thursday and Friday AM to put these fuckers in their frames that I am NOT calling frames.

Today.
Awoke happy in Chautauqua (after late gate crashing a wedding there as guest of guest Matthew XBoss - and seeing rock star pal Reese Campbell there), community of elder crunchy goodness on a long skinny lake. I looked across the lake and for a moment believed I was looking at Canada, a byproduct of growing up, living in the Middling City where across the lush green & mighty Niagara rests our polite neighbors = Canada.

Stopped in the grand Westfield Diner, where I have consumed many cups of their awful coffee, lumpy meatloaf and other items. Today it was an omelet that came after an undinerlike interval.
A chainsmoking waitress, hard to ignore, was pondering the artist responsible for the song I Love Myself Today that she heard on a tv commercial, wrongly assuming that it was Joan Jett. I had to intervene. It's Bif Naked, she's from Canada, I tossed in her direction. Bif Who? And so that went. I said I'm 99% sure (actually more, but why say that? I photographed Bif Naked at some music event last summer and her live rendition was, how do you say, kickass?) that that's who that is. I said If you have a computer you can always do a search for the song by title. Blank stare through the cig haze.
A lunkheaded-looking young fellow to my left, eating and staring blankly into space, sometimes at another, younger and non-cahinsmoking waitress, when I asked him how far something in Dunkirk was from Westfield queried? Do you drive like it's Sunday morning or Tuesday evening?
I said, well, today I'm driving like it's Tuesday at 5:05PM.

Diner Zen and wisdom is part of what makes our country so wondrous, a small surprise in every road trip.

One more tale. En route to printing studio did some AOL writing, researching and happened upon an exurban faire (not fair) devoted to gardens, etc.
In the midst of it sat an older woman making hats and giving them away. I photographed her, asked her name, she's the mom of famed artist Charlie Clough and she gave me a golden metallic rain hat festooned with all sorts of silk flowers that she insisted on plunking down upon my sweaty mind and head.
She took my face in her hands, looked at me hard and said You do good work. You never say anything negative about anybody. Why is that?
I said There's already enough negative energy in the world.
She said Keep on doing what you do and I then floated away back to my car that matches my nouveau chapeau.
Love.

"I dreamed of a circle, I dreamed of a circle round. And in that circle was a face. Her eyes looked upon me with fondness. Her warmth coming near, calling me 'sweetness,' calling me 'dear.' But I whispered 'no, I can't rest here.'" - Merchant

So I'm brushing all of my teeth, last night or early, they all blend together, and VH1 is on as the news is insufferable as of late, and there on the screen is a man who I swear is Rob Buck, but from three or four or more years ago when he was plump and seemingly healthy and I'm amazed, thinking I'm watching a televised ghost until the end of the video and the info-area says it's Uncle Kracker's lead singer. Not Rob.
That leads me to thinking about old, ancient 10KM Days and all my compiled band stories and experiences which leads to the reaching for Our Time in Eden before all hell broke loose with Her/Merchant leaving, the band imploding for a while, grabbing a hold of Mary and John who were doing just fine without them, ensuing small and large chaoses and then Rob's untimely, tragic death.
Circle Dream is a compact and effective Her/Merchant item.
And art moves on.
Old stylish shoes get dated and beat to shit, prized guitars get auctioned off, new methods of image making are explored, art openings are imminent and dreams crash with wake.
Love.

Ponderments du jour:

1
Will my new cut-down-on-caffeine-you've-got-enough-adrenaline-teeming-through-your-veins stance render me less a merry workaholic.

2
Will the nightshade growing through the torn screen of my living room window latch onto a house plant. Could it survive the winter in some greenhouse way and cheer me with its determination.

3
Will people love this new work I'm making in the printing studio.

4
Will I care if the charred remains look of it confounds them.

5
Will my post-carcrash driving anxiety and shoulder pain ever leave me.

6
Will I ever remember to purchase a new bottle of Oban for the work station.

7
Will I ever stop procrastinating or is it my truest occasional self.

8
Will the Middling City implode.

9
Will this blog end.

10
Will your love end.

Ye Olde Encapsoulation and Odd Thoughts for Greater Joy:

1.
I am in blissful, greater-than-ever adrenalized art mode and have been subsumed in the basement of the art building in a printing studio where my cell phone does not work (immediate sidenote: today, at newspaper office, whilst talking with two collegial colleagues, I mentioned a moment of anxiety when I realized this past weekend when I was shooting a wedding and noted my cell wasn't working, etc. They said that they wish to do an intervention for my work-addicted ways. I said Interesting, today NPR was all about people of my ilk... but overall it was agreed by 'experts' that those, like me, who run their own businesses are slightly in different work-addict categories. Then I karate chopped them in their heads and they laid off.) and the only thing that arrives in the radio in the studio is an all-talk AM station upon which the world's most arrogant and conservative man bloats about his opinion until I can't take it any more, attempt to massage some music out of the dial and then give up and return to my ink-covered project.
What am I making? 13 16x20 images printed on sheets of stainless steel that I had custom-cut with pre-drilled holes and these images are from the famed Conflagration photo shoot of about a month ago whereby I had the 6' twins interacting and posing in the midst of a kitchen on fire.
These 13 images (I chose 13 as the opening happens on Friday the 13th of September and numbers have always been my secret passion in my photography and poetry) are screened in blackest black and look, I hope, like charred image remains.
These sheets of steel will be set onto a field of cherry red rimmed with wood strips of a darkish green stain and these are being made by another artist, Penny Wyatt, and I've given her complete artistic freedom so I won't see them finished until they're finished.

2.
The last little bit of hearing that I had in ears left & right was decimated after last Thursday night's gig at the University at Buffalo homecoming football game when, during halftime entertainment moment, I thought it'd be really neato to get closer to Rocket Man - a U.B. Engineering grad student strapped into a real-live jet pak. So I'm on the field with Rocket Man, 5 techs wearing airport-grade headphones/protectors (should've been Perfect Nancy Hint #1) and a kooky video guy. So they make an announcement to the folks up in the bleachers This'll be REAL LOUD so you might want to cover them there ears...
I'm on the field, a camera in my hands. Rocket Man lifts off about 20 feet from me. I can feel my ear drums vibrating. I don't know whether to cover my ears or shoot but, being photojournalistically sound, I shoot.
Did you just say something? Oh, I thought I heard something. Then again, maybe I didn't hear anything.
If only I chronicled the hilarious mis-hearings this past weekend. Too many, way too, to remember.

3.
This new Coldplay cd is perfect, as far as I can tell.

4.
The scent Ylang Ylang is also perfect, as far as I can smell.


My Love.

Squatting and blogging, blogging and squatting.
Waiting on printing master to assist me with the inking of silk and placing of template. Last time, I'm hoping, that I require his assistance and from then on I'll be independently printing up a storm, a squeegee in each hand, making art like the wind.
Yesterday's Polaroid booth was a flop as all concession tents were about half a mile from the stage action and the geniuses that set up the event had all stages in a line on one end of the large park. No matter, I had to hop off to another event for an hour or so, returned, asked the twinnies how it had gone, they said lamely so we broke it down, I hijacked a golfcart of drunk boys who then drove me and my large plastic crate of items to my car, nearly creaming about a hundred dazed festival attendees in the process. They were about to drop and dash when I said Hey wait, I want a ride back. So back we drove to the venue/park, again making wild turns and scaring youngsters en route.

Shot my pet band, Last Conservative, who played first - for paper and for cash money. They absolutely fucking rocked.
I got that butterfly feeling that they'll make it and my butterflies are never wrong.
Afterwards they went to the autograph tent and I finished Mike's smoke as I grabbed Roger's smoke out of his mouth as he was signing away for young thrilled girlies.
It's bad for your image I stated, most big sister-like.
I moved on.
Later I had lunch with the band and Roger told me that he got to sign his first boob. Congratulations, I said, Now it's official - you're a rock star.
He described how the girl asked Can you sign my boob and flopped it out.
It was big, he said.
The other guys said it was the first one he'd ever touched.
Later in the day Lead Boy Colleague and I were waiting for The Tea Party to get going before we ran off to shoot Peter Frampton (ahhhh, early rock memories) about two miles away at a free downtown concert.
As we stood next to the stage a security clone shouted into my ear Hey, there's a girl without a top. He then radioed the other security clones to dispatch them for a good gander.
We three stood and watched her toplessness float above the hands as the hands worked to remove her jeans. They nearly did before she was dumped in the midst of the hands attached to a whole messa testosterone.
Lead Boy Colleague had galloped toward this action.
The security man said Well, they'll help her up now, pick her up just like a 6-pack, motioning his fingers down like they'd go into a bowling ball.
'Tis better to be one of the boys than to be a girlie-girl at all-day gritty music fests.
Onwards.
My love.

Forget WWJD.
WWPBT?
As in What Was Pat Benatar Thinking?
Had to shoot her last night for a university gig and out she trounces in cheezy auburn extensions, a bandanna on her head, bulky plastic hip hop boy pants and - get this - platform sneakers.
I nearly screamed but then I recalled that I never liked her or her music so I let her look completely odd, shot a quick 40 or so frames and split.
Her tshirts now have her and her hubby's name on them... like they're this equally hot pair of stars like Siefried and Roy or whomever those scary, Dr. Smith-looking guys are with the white tigers in Vegas.
And why do all men of a certain age who wear mascara come out looking like Dr. Smith of Lost in Space?
Another memory of last night.
Went to shoot Buckwheat Zydeco and in front of the stage was an errant blonde, also of a certain age, in 80s-era little layered dress and biking shorts underneath. She was out solo and was dancing for the band. I watched in great amusement as the guys watched each time she flipped her dress up and sent meaningful glances her way when they performed a song basically entitled 'She's My Little Hot Pepper.'
Two large drunk guys behind me decided to love this song and quickly caught on to the song's repeating of the key phrase so they grasped the two words - hot and pepper - and shouted that at appropriate intervals.
Tomorrow, Edgefest 9.
And amongst my photographic duties and such I'm running a Polaroid vending tent like ones I've previously fashioned with this one being more rock-related. I've got my 6' twin models running the show. I'm hoping that they'll know how to handle drunks that traipse in. Crowd control is key.
All for now.
Onwards.

This is when one knows that one has perhaps spent entirely too much time in front of a computer -or- that technology, like it or not has infiltrated one's fine mind.
It's late, you've worked an 18 hour day but managed to meet pals out for salads at some point to create much-needed levity. So after calling it a day's wrap at about 3AM you watch MSNBC or whatever the hell it's called and think Hey this is much better than CNN and think (pay attention, here comes the computer-infiltration part)
Oh, I'll just BOOKMARK this station so I know where to find it.
As in bookmarking an item online on your mac, dig?

Dorota, Supersonic Gal Pal, read yesterday's post and emailed that she wished that she could expense a table for the honorific lunch to her display company in NYC.
Public note to Dorota: reserve 11/23 as the Experience Music Project gig is fersher happening in Seattle, The Land Where Starbucks Began.

Off to printing studio, encore.
TMBG cancelled, due to the monsoon that spread through the Middling City.
Tonight it's Pat Benatar for the university, a pep rally.
Pep, my secret middle name.
Love.

They Might Be Giants play a free Middling City gig outdoors and it's raining. Peggy from Buffalo Place hangs a rosary out in the bushes and every Thursday it's rainy but then the Almighty Gods of Rock & Roll see that rosary and haul off the rain so the throngs can drink their beers in a dry state and the performers onstage don't get electrocuted.
I shot TMBG at Hallwalls when I was a baby intern there for a whole year, either in '84 or '85, with a borrowed camera, a song in my heart, a dollar in my pocket and a dream.
Oh, the newspaper publisher (Mr. X) where I work says he won't be buying a business-financed table for the luncheon that's honoring me as a 40 Under 40 on 11/7 as someone who has contributed to the community via the column I've been printing in aforementioned for 13 years - amongst other things.
Other honorees will have companies that have bought tables.
He said I can't afford a table... maybe me and (Ms. X) will go to the lunch... how much is it?
Yikes-a-roni!
This is a guy I call somewhat of a pal, whose pre-baby's shower I hostessed at my home and spent a fast $400 on, who just bought a Victorian home and is having beaucoup expensive improvements done to it as I write this.
Well, some things never do change.
Onwards.
Onwards to Rigidized Metals to pick up my stainless steel plates, to university's printing studio, They Might Be Giants and many points beyond.

Love.

According to the Ansel Adams calendar the full moon happens later this week but today right now feels very loonie.
Called my beloved former dentist's "replacement" and his bitchy secretary told me that Chester died and that I couldn't get my teeth cleaned for six months... then I could arrange to have fillings six months after that.
I processed this and just about screamed That's completely ridiculous (and my favorite word when dealing with the world's nincompoops) AND UNACCEPTABLE. And a slap in the face to Chester who dug this guy and handed him his clients.

Chester Memories:
1. the faux lemon tree in the waiting room
2. the mod lemon yellow vinyl setees in the waiting room
3. his rambling stories (my mentor!), that would have him leaning back against the counter, pulling his mask off of his face so you could understand the rambling better
4. the rubber animals and fake ring after-visit prizes

When I finally get to speak to my attorney I have this giant question:
Is it customary to receive letters (not one but two) stating that I must appear before a doctor chosen by the defendant's insurance company with ALL of my accident-related medical records at a designated time and date as if I were a small child or someone trying to rip somebody off rather than a person coping with the aftereffects of nearly getting cremed by a drunk driving an 80s sedan at top speeds?
Please, someone, pass the Oban and tell the moon to behave.
Love.
ps: Andrew WK, if you're reading this, I think that you might be dreamier than Johnny.

Arms pumped out of a small American car on the expressway as I headed back to the Middling City from shooting white-trasherific Allman Bros.
I (as were the driver & passengers of the small American car) was listening to the ye olde classic rock station with BOHEMIAN RHAPSODY in full throttle. Voices were high as were pumping fists. They had spotted my singing and acknowledged the joint rock moment with aforementioned out-window gesture.
At Allman Bros. I had a tiny window of op to shoot the remaining A.Bro. at organ/keyboards and, thanks to a kindly video guy atop a platform, captured the shaggy rock star. Afterwards me and Boy Colleague Mark drank a few large-scale draft Buds and watched the staggering, tattooed masses until it was near concert end and it was time to beat everybody out onto the roadways.
Back into town headed into a bar reviewing assignment, a joint called Classic Roxx, in the suburbs and reviewed whilst simultaneously enjoying a cocktail and, apparently, the final 10 minutes of the evilness of The Bachelor on t.v. where an ugly man selected one of two finalists to be his maybe future lucky lady. The girl bartender was angry because she had endured ten whole weeks of this ridiculousness for this most, in her words, unsatisfying ending.
Onwards to live music shooting with girlie pals in tow, some celebrity guest bartending, some celbrity guest price fabricating, some celebrity guest schmoozing and shot sipping.
One final weekend thought: the one-armed bartender at another suburban bar that I AOL'd has completely captured my roving imagination. My two companions hadn't noted his missing arm. When we were leaving and I said Wow, did you watch how he changed the bottle pourer with one hand they were perplexed. How do you miss a missing arm? How do you lose a missing arm? His absence throws him off balance and therefore, I duly noted, he pours drinks slightly stronger to compensate.
Love.

Warped Tour highlight was Andrew WK's set, of course.
Who doesn't or can't love a man who hasn't done laundry in maybe a year and is wearing an ensemble (white t-shirt and light jeans) to prove so?
I followed my 6th or so sense and meandered over to a lesser stage after his set and noted his guitar player, James (in embarassingly tiny shorts of near-Speedo proportions) shooting away. Then onto the stage bolts thee Andrew WK to play a final song with The Casualties.
At the end of the song I said to James Give me your email address and I'll send you a couple of jpegs.
His response?
OK, then we can be friends!!!
These guys are a cross between Barney and rock & roll high times.
Speaking of jpegs, shot a university prof yesterday and those jpegs within a few hours were e-catapulted over to Business Week Online and India Abroad which supposedly has the largest circulation of any pub in the universe.
Technology rules.
Love.

Look, I never thought for one micro-moment that it's easy to be my sister, sister to the most Perfect Nancy... ME. But really. I called her today at her office job to query OK, so the kid's been tortured enough, can my nephew come to Warped Tour with me today? Forget this goofball punishment for some bad grade, this is a fucking family tradition, baby!!! (not in such language, but smooth-like)
And the answer, most mom-like, no, prison warden-like was:
And what about Katharine (his 5 year old sister), what about her? And we mean business with this punishment for he's to learn that school... (blah, blah, blah)
I hung up.
I thought about kidnapping the kid. But I'm off to Warped Tour now, nephew-less.
Love.

The mud, the mayhem and the all-day music that is Warped Tour is tomorrow. The day that ends with a plethora of images and high times as well as fine dust over all of my camera equipment. The park, LaSalle, has an off-lake breeze and during the day all the dirt molecules float into the air and throw themselves into eyes, pores and electronic equipment.
Still hoarse from moments ago when I called my dad/pops/father to sing at the top of my strong lungs and intersperse the song with some wailing harmonic riffs for the occasion of his birthday. Please pass the lozenges.
Wondering if the Bosstones feel like ancient farts for still doing WT but they do seem to be its anchor. So refreshingly non-flavor du jour.
Ordered my steel (not aluminum) for my art project and had a panic when the guy helping with the order started going nuts with numbers and lots of zeroes. All is coming to $100 and I'll have custom-cut pieces of stainless steel with pre-drilled holes to my specs.
Then it's onto, later this week, the printing studio where I'll be attempting to recall all I gleaned in my 5 or so hours with printing master Jeff.
Art is so not easy to schedule.
Art is so easy to make one feel happy and balanced.
Art is so shiny when made on steel plates.
Art is so beautiful when it sells off the walls.
Art rules.
Art rocks.
Rock stars are art.
Love is art.
Art.
Love.

Yesterday's many tiny journeys included a stop at Middling City's 2nd annual Karibana Festival with a parade, allegedly, down one Delaware Avenue. Went with Lead Boy Colleague at appointed midday and at about 130 a micro-parade went creaking by featuring a non-drilling drill team, a convertible from which an elderly lady waved and a bunch of cops leading the way and then a fire truck signalled that all was micro-over. We were told that Karibana Parade pt. II was to take place at 2 so we booked over to another event, returned at 2 and then at about 4 (mind you all sorts of impromptu meetings and media gatherings are taking place during this time as well as a hearty ingestion of caffeine) IT happened with loads of skyhigh streamers, half-nekkid people and razzly-dazzliness.
Towards the end of the night stood backstage with most of the Boy Colleagues at HSBC Arena awaiting the Goo Goo Dolls late appearance and was surprised that we were all sent packing to the sound board to shoot from that mega-distance. Last time I shot them was from the stage and anywhere during their surprise engagement at Albright-Knox Art Gallery. Now this. This rivalled Rod Stewart Aging Rockstar Syndrome as we were all practically outside the fucking venue. But long lenses, slight riser, holding of breath and patience prevailed and some images happened.
Still haunted by the image, mid-wedding shoot, of a preteened guest of the B&G dancing solo on the dance floor. She, clearly Britneyed beyond belief, was doing one of those choreographed pop dance routines she had seen on cable and didn't realize that solo and on the dance floor of a wedding banquet hall she looked like a demented stripper. I watched as an older, non-hip and obviously cable-less couple watched in rising horror and embarassment. In her preteened mind, I imagine, she was in belly-baring spandex and surrounded by a plethora of buff young things. She was not.
It was a beautiful moment.
You are all my beautiful moments.
My love.
My camera-centric love.

A new day. Is it time for coffee yet?
Back in Middling City where I do and must hit the ground running.
The M.C. can learn a lot from Portland, ME. For a small city, with a generous heaping of travelers spending wads of cash, there is an impressive amount of restaurants - most better than here and in an unpretentious way. There is a greater sense of design and artfulness in Portland. This I always attributed to artists who have remained in the community and that the city embraced creative types rather than trying to squeeze them out of the scene via attitude and fire codes.
Portland has better restaurant selections (more sushi joints, more vegetarian and healthy places to eat), a busier downtown art film house, small businesses selling clothing and shoes (basically an impossibility in most of Buffalo) and an accessible waterfront.
Minus, and this is a giant one: bars close at 1AM.
When I worked at the non-profit summer camp for 10 years (and roared out of camp with my NYC pals) this took a whole lot of getting accustomed to. You want to say Hey, look, I'm from Buffalo and I'm a grownup and I will NOT be leaving at 1AM.
Other Portland Maine minus: too many pairs of comfy sandals. Sure, the cobblestones rival the ankle pain-causing ones of Rome, but what about fashion?
Love.

Attempting to blog from a Mac I spotted in the "lobby" of my former hotel in Portland, Maine (where I'm confronting ghosts of my Maine self from a decade or so ago), I was tossed off by an insistent girl.
But nobody is using this iMac, I stated, and I'll just be a sec...
Off I was tossed.
As I'm allegedly on vacation, you know, unwinding as the masses do (a concept completely foreign to Yours Truly), I didn't stand up and karate chop her.
Why did I unbook, unlatch, from the so-called *** hotel where I was attempting to blog? How about dead flowers in the lobby. How about unkempt staffers? How about armoire in the room with the doors missing! Three STRIKES and goodbye. While meandering about the Old Port streets in search of high times and Oban I spotted a true hotel, a brand new **** joint where I will be, the rest of this sojourn, resting my unweary head and enjoying the subtle tinkling of their Zen-like garden.
Caveat: when in Portland as in Maine do not wander into Eastland Park Hotel. It totally sucks.
Portland Harbor Hotel rocks, that's where you should rockstar stay.
I'm now on a rented Kinko's computer, typing fast as the meter is ticking.
Off for more salty good times.
Love.

Two stories.

1
The departed Beatles and I were hanging about and they were both moody. I was surprised by their sudden needs to cry and be sad. I'm not sure if the garden was celestial or Earthly but suddenly I glance over and John is raking a very lush garden and as I'm thinking Holy Shit, why is John Lennon doing garden work, he throws down the rake and is despondent as George comes up and says Hey, remember that old blues song we sang a long time ago, about the tree buried six feet under the ground?
At that point they walk away, arms about shoulders singing the song.

2
The man whose weiner I now know too much about was sitting in front of a, for lack of more suddenly polite and available term, café, with his date and was complaining about his dinner, Too fishy, he said. What type of fish was it, I queried. Haddock was the answer and I commented that haddock should not be fishy and did he feel well? He and his date said, in unison, that he had just vomited on the sidewalk and pointed at it about ten feet away. I was shocked that I didn't vomit myself at the sight of the fresh puke as I'm a complete lightweight at the sight of bodily fluids - snot, earwax, puke, piss, shit, blood, especially blood, on the scene and your Fav Nancy is a puddle of... all of the above and bones and such.
So as we're talking and I'm facing them - and the puke - a woman walks down the street with a puppy on a leash. As she's busy window shopping the puppy is busy eating up the puke. She notices this, screams, and yanks the puppy away. Weiner Boy and the date don't notice this and when she's out of earshot I replay the scene most vividly. Of course.
Onwards.

Finished mere moments ago shooting a wedding for a boy colleague who got all traditional and such with the big T reigning supreme.
Last night was a flurry of art opening activity which included Albright-Knox's WNY Show, a solid crowd and nothing but cookies (cookies!) for snaxx... yikes.
Shot a bunch of the artists individually and talked to my printing guru about assisting me with coating my screens for the big printing days to come.
Last night, amid the flowing of scotch, someone pointed to a better-known writer type and said... I have photos of him dancing naked. More details followed like that this writer type has red pubic hair and then a full description of the involved, exposed you-know-what. Yet another assembly of fun facts to clog my Oban-soaked mind.
Speaking of such...
don't the people of the sponsoring newspaper know all this? Don't they read epinw? Well, guess snot as I've been named to the 40 Under 40 annual list of overachievers. I was nominated and Annie called to tell me that I'm on the list yesterday AM. A bunch of people congratulated me last night and this AM I panicked that a speech might be involved so I quickly lined up three people* I would have to thank, etc. and then - RELIEF - found out that there's no speechmaking involved only a slide show and fun facts about Your Fav Nancy and the others.
Getting my pop music fix before heading out this afternoon to document the sunny, soon-to-be-sunstroked, culturally-enjoying masses.
Love.


* Tony Bannon, director of Eastman House, Charles Rand-Penney, art collector, and Jamie Moses, publisher of ARTVOICE. Tony + Charlie = ardent supporters of my society page-style column What Has Happened for the past 13 years and helping me see how it fits into Middling City's social/historical context. Jamie = space giver to voice.

This post will read much like the one on July 5th.
Well, it's August 1st and nobody lost any fingers, hair, sanity, etc. at the happening yesterday-at the making of Conflagration by Team A.
Arrived at designated shooting spot @ 5PM with Laura (after AOL deadline, after prop shopping and loading table, chairs, etc. into car), who I asked to come with as she's a great frazzlement antidote.
So we arrive out in the country to find Josh (1/3 of TEAM A) still sanding, compiling, listening to James, cranky and I felt a sweat of panic. A short walk into the middle of an overgrown field, like wading into a body of water, was wonderful and I said to myself You have to make this work, this has to work.
Onwards.
Models arrives with their brother, people trickled in and Josh was still building. Light was still good. As things were being constructed I talked with the twins about what I wanted them to do and we did some practice setups.
Finally all was built and gasoline was sprinkled on the kitchen set and things began.
Two hours or so later my shots were made that I had desired, the kitchen was completely torched, my metal vase of white lilies in the set was trashed, cabinet doors dropped off, the window popped and then broke and the group of us watched the hot fire. It was beautiful. No police showed up. The East Aurora fire department drove by and did not stop. Perfect shoot.
Now these images will be made into black & white 5x7's, scanned, made into 16x20 transparant positives and silkscreened onto sheets of metal and then framed.
Love.

Today is a day of firsts.
But first let me tell you. I am so hooked on my images, so obsessed with the ideas. I will talk privately to my models tonight to tell them my ideas so they are it. It makes a difference.
Firstly it's the premier time I'll be photographing twin six foot girls who are my models and current muses as their brother, I believe an even seven feet, et al (especially boys with heightened interest in my art project after hearing about the twin six footers who are 22) watch.
Second first is that I'll be shooting with such an audience out in the woods as the models do my thing in a burning set. All watchers will be put to good use, be asked to hold reflectors and the like. Thanks to parents (Thanks Joe. Thanks Annette) for making me an eldest = perfect practice for bossing. I told someone today That's why I became a photographer, to be able to boss people around the rest of my life:
SMILE! Look here. Avert gaze there. etc.
Third first is the shooting as the set burns.
Fourth first is the shooting in a set I'm not creating. Secret hope: that Josh is right now ingesting large amounts of caffeine to finish building.
Fifth first is that the shoot will end with 'smores as Josh and I discussed how there'll be huge amounts of fire and then embers and what better thing to make than those little campy treats?
Will my life ever be normal, full of expected happenings and not serendipitous oddities?
Dangblamit, I hope not.
My distracted love. My art-infused and directorial mind says so long.
At all moments ask yourself:
WWJLD*



*What Would John Lennon Do?

It's nearly August and why haven't I been launching my balloon launcher (gift from Kunji) at unsuspecting sweaty people.
Saw beautiful Sarah for first time yesterday as she only emerged from Deb at yesterday's 1AM. I held her warm, breathing and squeezed her a couple of times and then felt a newborn butt rumbling. I looked at Deb and said I think I broke Sarah... or she just pooped. Then it happened again. I can tell Sarah when she's much older that I squeezed, quite literally, the shit out of her when she was brand new.
New silkscreening trails were blazed yesterday by your fav Nancy.
Five hours of my life evaporated in a schoolish time vacuum and the forces of the universe conspired against me and my cell phone was little more than injected plastic and an lcd screen down in the bowels of the art building.
$400 & 1 ink-spattered DMB tshirt later I reconnected with my screening Zen and now feel set for turning tomorrow night's photo shoot/production into twelve photo silkscreens on either steel or anodized aluminum - set lushly into velvet-lined shadowboxes of flaming libido red.
I brought my '93 pre-headlost image of Kurt Cobain (scanned at 400dpi and a 16x20) as a test image and left yesterday with a stack of silkscreened Kurts, one on metal, and must say it's gorgeous.
As, hopefully, gorgeous as two twin 6' models in a burning set deep in the country perhaps ringed with semi-drunken assistants and onlooker pals.
Conflagration.
Love.

The foot was not real.
And I was slightly disappointed.
As I was Middling City returning last night, oh at about 9PM if you need such timeline clarification, from the traditional Greek Orthodox wedding I was hired to socially document (and at which the priest, Fr. Jim - who looks like a 70s rock star - forgot, I mean completely FORGOT, to do two whole portions of the wedding ceremony so that it wasn't legit and the couple, me and the priest had to go back into the church and do a few little maneuvers), I spotted a foot lying in the street.
William Street just under the 190 overpass. I thought OH wow, a foot.
I mean how David Lynch, non?
I turned around onto a deadend and went back and yup, a foot.
Met some people out for drinks and general merriment and said Oh, I saw a foot. And the filmmaker in the bunch (of course) expressed the most amazement.
I returned to the site.
I had my camera.
I parked this time and walked over.
Standing over it I still wasn't sure.
I, of course, took lots of dramatic photos, some showing oncoming traffic up William Street.
I got braver and then touched the foot with my foot.
So plastic.
So bummed.

This week is the artmaking with Team A boys. I have to rustle together my twin girl models and assure them that they will NOT be naked, in peril, and will look great.
I am going today to private silk screen printing lessons.
Wednesday it better not *bleeping* rain.
This week is also Lenny Kravitz. And Pink. And a big photo no to Creed as I think Scott's face is probably as wide as a billboard now and his chest hair is probably overtaking his arms and his J.C. poses are now impossible so therefore no snaps.
Dorota and Jason were in town and that meant that the upstairs rooms were actually occupied, my personal happiness levels were increased and the liver is crying for mercy.
Love.

The possibility of Papal infusion, of being engulfed by Pilgrims, was great enough to keep me out of Toronto and merrily in rural Orangeville yesterday after having a series of acupuncutre needles needling my shoulder. The pints of Sleeman's are just as sweet. The Canadian sun just as bright. In Orangeville by the River Hockley. When I read Hockley I think drunk Canadians mis-spelling Hockey, their national pasttime.
Off on another loaded weekend adventure of loaded behaviour.
Love.

(Written whilst listening to the best remnant of the most recent ex - Jesus and Mary Chain... one of the universe's most challenging bands to shoot - up there with Dinosaur Jr., Flaming Lips and Neil Young)

Everyone got boned tonight, said head of Metropolitan security, Chip, with an extreme sunburn all over his face except where his aviator framed sunglasses had been on his head. I snapped into OHNOMYDEARFUCKINGGODIDON'TTHINKSO Nancy. One of the creepiest Boy Colleagues was slumped into a corner, resigned and accepting that he would probably not be shooting Dave Matthews Band while I was on a supersweet pushy bitch tear. So, after half an hour of dangling over fate and waiting in our little chain-linked pen outside of the side willcall window watching a few drunks get arrested (one dramatically thrown against our chain-linked pen) and some girls stumble and stagger inwards we were walked in by Chip, following behind him like hungry little ducklings through the DMB throng. My teammates? Have a little difficulty alligning myself with the fratboys and fratgirlies who follow Dave. Although I have liked talking to a few tapers I've met at his shows.
So he starts and he looks down and sees me in the pit a magma blob of love looking up at him, hands clasped together with camera & 80-200 a-danglin' and I startled him... he looked at Perfect Me and did a little jolt and during the first 3 he periodically looked at me and by then I was shooting, hands unclasped and working.
The weekend's shooting ended with me in the celebratory roped-off area of Greased Pole Competition guys covered in axle grease, me shooting the exuberance and trying not to get slathered by the 15 or so guys hootin' and hollerin.'
Love.

Oversized greasy arm prints are all over the passenger side windows of my car - the unfortunate product of having a bumbling AAA person come to my rescue. And I will be suing Brooks Brothers for making women's shorts with shallow pocket which ensues in keys floating out of pockets, onto car seat - necessitating calls to big and bumbling AAA men who fail after 40 minutes of fishing around with a T-19 and keep joking about with their little buddy in the truck blocking one of two lanes of traffic and you're holding the guy's greasy flashlight shouting You've almost got it as you watch the orange-colored latch nearly pop open but then the bumbling man stops and then he and his little buddy roll up the tool kit, heading back to their truck as you ask/shout NOW What? A locksmith's coming, they announce, and wheel off into the night. So then you call AAA and say This is unacceptable, ridiculous even as the AAA men call you back and say Oh, we found a NEW tool and we're on our way back and all I can think is the dispatcher might tell them about my tirade but nope, they show up, retrieve the wedges that they left in my windows from before, fish around with the NEW tool and 8 seconds later I am absolutely free, a former LOCK-OUT.

A weekend, just as I prefer:
Concerts each and every night, including an all-day 2-day music festival and an appearance by thee Dave - as in Matthews, bien sur.
I'm shooting for a third... DAVE I LOVE YOU YOU ROCK with the Iloveyou sign language gesture backstage to surprise him. Maybe he'll recall his mad photojournalist stalker.
There's grayness hanging over the Middling City which throws little shiny and tiny wrenches into the imaging works for
(P)recipitation + D1H/camera + (E)xuberance = shorted-out camera and sadness.
Nothing goes worse with cameras than water, sand and car crashes.
Made appointment with printing guru yesterday to learn, one-on-one, the secrets of making digital files into screenprinting screens for upcoming NYSCA-funded revelry of exhibitionistic variety. Told printing guru that I'm going to print on steel, that they're monochromatic and that they will abso-fuckin-lutely rock.
I can't divulge what the images are as Team A gives up no secrets.
Our opening happens on Friday the 13th of September - come and play and see.
More details later. On to rock. On to roll. On to turbo-powered COFFEE at my favored joint where the girls are forgetful, the patio is art-strewn and the food is better than anything I'd ever muster from the dusty kitchen hellhole.
Love.

(Said Laura, I want to check out that other bar, Aluminum. She screamed.)
Dig: when I write Said Laura it means I/Perfect Nancy am saying "Laura..." but without the corny quotation marks. So Laura calls today and says I did NOT say that I wanted to check out Aluminum and I was most confused. People, work with me. Quotes begin with caps and sometimes you have to read between the proverbial lines. And another thing, if I hang with you on Saturday and have raucous good fun must I always report so? The mission of epinw is not to give away all my perfect secrets or to report all.
Oh, tonight Eminem is performing at the hockey concert complex and he said a big NO to me/my newspaper and said YES only to AP and to the musty daily. His photo documentation loss.
Onwards. Love.

430: alarm sounds
515: arrive at new Krispy Kreme in Cheektowaga, New York - built over the ghosts of the K-Mart automotive shop.
530: officially punch in after schmoozing about. Shoot two guys, one in pj's, who arrived at 4AM to be the first through the KK side doors!
545: shoot other mayhem
615: mayhem subsides
630: KK officials are visibly disappointed. Your Perfect Nancy eats a doughnut, hot off the presses.
635: some nice guy fetches your Fav and Perfect Nancy a cuppa joe and it does not suck as the last cup of KK koffee did.
640: abandon cuppa joe and schmooze about more.
700: stand with a few other media types, of the radio variety, and one of them muses This is a great country, when we can all stand around watching the sun come up, eating doughnuts and getting PAID. We all concur.
702: develop my theory that the guy sitting at the edge of the parking lot facing new KK, staring at new KK, is a stalker and his stalkee is a new KK employee inside. One of the radio types embellishes - the stalker has a rifle that will be whipped out at some point. I note that the "stalker" has only a tshirt and shorts on... impossible.
704: woman from KK, in shiny new KK tshirt, brings a dozen out to the guy in the lot = not a stalker after all.
705: I comment to Oldies radio types that I still think their station rocks as they play Neil. The most aged radio "personality" says Neil does not test well amongst their listeners. I run into KK, grab hot doughnut grease and toss it at that silly geezer. KIDDING!
707: get into conversation with another media type about piercings, etc.
715: really getting to be time to split and finish up the film, say goodbyes and at 745: hit the ol' highway for points beyond.

What did I learn from 530-730?
People love doughnuts, love freebies from radio stations, that they look sort of rumpled at 530AM, that KK tosses out the rumpled doughnuts and that all people who appear to be stalkers are not.
Love.

My big ol' corporate gig for tomorrow AM - for Krispy Kreme - has been changed from an 830 start time to... dig this... 530. I haven't seen the other side of 530 in ages. The last time I had a gig shooting another KK opening I was hired at 7+ and there CROWDS OF PEOPLE WHO HAD DRIVEN FROM FAR AND WIDE TO BE THERE WHEN THE DOORS OPENED, AND SOME EVEN SLEPT OVERNIGHT IN THE P-LOT, concert style. People trouble me. Some.
So your dear sweet tarpit-hearted perfect Nancy will begin tomorrow with a spring in her step, joy in her eyes and glistening blobs of fat and sugar in her imaging system/body.
Onwards to deadlines, more deadlines, chaos and tapas.
Love.

Yesterday night Laura and I were trapped in a parallel universe of oddities, bars closed on a Friday night and other sundry head-scratchers.
I had/HAVE an AOL list of places to regard, to review and a quick glance revealed that they were not only A-list joints but ones I've hardly ever... visited. So onwards we sped on what I promised would be Loser Tour 2002. And was it. First joint, closed. Said Laura, I want to check out that other bar, Aluminum. She screamed. We walked up to the yellow-shirted buzz of borderlinely functioning guys/Aluminum bouncers and the lead guy jumped off a stool and met us halfway down their walkway. Hi, I said, wearing a summer outfit best described as Brooks Brothers meets the Gap, waving my official reporter pad, we'd like to come in and review this place. The guy nearly shouted WE DON'T LET IN OUTSIDERS. I tried hard not to burst out laughing, we turned and left and then burst out laughing a few feet away. Then the next joint was closed, tumbleweeds practically flying through the parking lot. There were a few cars also parked, I went up to the doors - locked - but all sorts of lights on inside, an LCD moving display telling me that their Buds are only $2 per bottle. But no action. We sat in the lot, planning the next Loser Tour 2002 stop when a car pulled up, sort of near us. I think the two guys in the car were going to get busy smoking pot, crack or each other's you-know-whats. Is this place still open, I asked. One of the guys, said Well, it looks pretty closed to me. Onwards. Said Laura, I won't be satisfied until we sit and have a drink in a hellhole that you and I would never be caught dead in. So we stopped at an unnamed place and had a drink after I cracked a failed joke with the bartender.
Overweight bartender lady: you need a glass for the beer?
Me: (picking up my scotch and the bottle of beer, laughingly) What do we look like?, of course we don't need a glass.
OBL: whuh?
Me: No, we don't need a glass, what do we look like? aha-ha-ha.
OBL: whuh?, sort of glancing over my shoulder.
Me: NO, we don't need a glass.
OBL: Oh, you're with someone, I thought you were saying that I was supposed to see someone standing next to you and there's nobody there...
(yikes)
Loser Tour 2002 ended on an appropriate note and then we high-fuckin-tailed it to a bar where there may be a few losers, but they're OUR losers.
Love.

Foul mood coursing through my veins can only mean one thing... back to Middling City tomorrow after NYC respite of culture and high ideas around every corner, nearly.
Spent much of today wandering and into at one point The Whitney where I looked at images from their collection including a wondrous Joel-Peter Witkin, 'Man Without a Head.' Surveyed nearly every square inch of it and there were funny tiny creases in the print.
Last night was all about the mixing of cocktails and later and late into the wee hours of AM was sitting in a silly Bowery bar, Remote, with 12 or so people of the art market world and talked with a girl Christine of interestingly tight tendrils of hair about JPW. We both remembered the print in the Whitney (I had not yet been to W show but remembered the image from a book ) and both thought the man without a head had a head in his hands. This man without a head had no head. Absolutely no head on the premises.
I thought I could nearly smell his dead skin. I want to one day meet JPW to ask him about not only the acquisition of his bodies but the touching, the arranging.
Into the wee hours were cocktails and this afternoon my kidneys rebelled and Dorota's liver cried out for mercy.
To that we both said HA, we are the bosses of you thoughtless organs.
Love.

New York Ci-tay.
Love to be here.
Was here all of perhaps 20 minutes when I found myself deep inside B&H playing with all sorts of gear... and buying some gear to boot.
The same guy was there who aided me with picking out my backpack and I bought yet another strap as the d1H comes with a neckstrap I'm convinced is modeled on sandpaper - when I wore it for the all-day music festival I thought I'd have to go in for neck skin grafting.
So I'm writing this from Dorota's swanky ACd 5th Avenue office near the FlatIron Building and I was just wandering around trying to remember the word grafting and was peering into offices all the while until I thought of the word and said 'GRAFTING' aloud.
I'm guessing I won't be allowed to squat here no mo.
Since me and boy teammates decided that we're working on theme of conflagration I see fire and flames virtually everywhere and it happily freaks me out.
Off shuttle bus (where I gained another hour+ of sleep) I saw immediately a woman with large calves and large motorcycle-worthy flames licking up her left ankle. I thought of asking her why. But I would rather imagine the why.
Love.

Perfect Nancy's Escape to New York.

Need to sit in my corner counter spot of Café Habana and read the Post and eat those odd triangles of whatever that breakfast thing I order is, slurping down a large Cuban coffee all the while. Oh, and drifting in my visual video bank to the images of Lenny in here flirting with that girl behind the counter before leaving, going to perform his rock show, flighting with his equally-luscious girlfriend, then returning to the joint and the girl's not there. Heart Break!
Need to cavort with beloved Dorota in the style that can best be described as at a rockstar level unattainable by most mortals.
Will be sitting and writing in that cyber café joint where I can write more clearly than in this Middling City for some reason.
Will be sucking in visuals for inspiration and buying more art supplies in real life simply not available in Middling City "art" stores and, dig, when you buy art supplies you want to fondle them a while. Same goes for the camera store visit, also on list.
And more pleasure. And more edification.

What I learnt this weekend?
1. Certain Rabbis hate usage of flash during wedding ceremonies but simply won't tell you so that they can openly hate you for millennia, telling many others that there's a Rabbinical thought to ban you from his temple for forever.
2. That somehow wedding cake seems to be attracted to my being and Sunday AM realized it was smeared on my suit's pants, two of my gear bags. A shoe. Why?
3. The Fixx, 80s band I barely remember, still sucks. But if you have to shoot them for your column along with two local bands, hunkering down in a nearby bar where you know Todd the barkeep, and intermittently trotting down the street to the stage and back to bar again makes the whole thing much more favorable.

On that note I race off to more more more.
How do you like it? How do you like it?

Love.

Well it's July 5th and I have all my digits.
Only mishap was when I set off a quadruple bottle rocket which slunk lower in its bottle as it was getting ready to blow up, sailing down my driveway and that of my neighbor (Frank, the affable Viet Nam vet), missing him by about 2 feet as he sat on his front porch with three others. I went over there and said Sorry Frank to which he said Good thing I changed the batteries in my pacemaker.
Then Chris's bottle rocket went awry, hitting a car passing by. They didn't stop, probably assuming that we were a bunch of drunk badasses. Oh, we were/are. Partially due to Laura's two trays of Jell-O shots. Turned my mom & dad onto Jell-O shots and I was rather surprised that my party worldly parents had never had them.
Patriotic Love.
ps: Deborah's baby didn't come out during my shift, dammit.

It's time for the annual putting on of the Budweiser sneakers as it's Independence Day. Time to have booze, snacks and blow shit up.
Slept at Deborah & Jamie's house and the baby did not come out. Today Deb took me out for breakfast and while we were sitting and talking she felt a twinge. I put my head under the table and said COME ON OUT, SARAH, WE'RE READY FOR YOU.
Deb said NO, I want to wait for Jamie.
Head back under table HOLD ON SARAH.
No baby, but Bud sneaks there are.
Flag Love.

I, Miss Oh-my-Buddah-if-I-see-blood-I-get-all-woozie, am now officially really oncall for taking Deborah to the emergency door of the Middling City's Children's Hospital. I'll be sleeping at her house every night as my publisher/editor/pal has jetted off to NYC and I have a nice roomy Forester and nerves of steel (apart from blood issue). Today I realized that she will not be able to look into my eyes and scream LOOK WHAT YOU FUCKING DID TO ME, AS SHE WOULD BE ABLE TO WITH HIM. So, I am hoping that this baby, Sarah, comes out while he's away so I can be there, of course camera in hand(s). Come on Sarah. Come out. Ready.
Just had a freelance gig at the Canadian Consulate photographing Canadian Members of Parliament and a lone US Congressman - my pal John LaFalce. In the midst of documenting the jovial wine pouring and thumping of backs John looked up at me and said Kerry! (a woman who works at the Consulate) get a photo of me with Nancy!!! This stopped most of the activity in the room. We threw our arms around each other and that'll be one for the ol' wall of face.
MP's prefer Canadian wine over any other swill from any other rotgut country. Canadian MP's know a whole lot more about our government than I do. And they say AY just like those other million or so Canadians up there, too.
Onwards to a crushing AOL deadline and then zooming out to photograph affable Mr. Tom Petty and a few Heartbreakers.
Love.

The perfect music festival day ended in a timeless floating of friends and walking and drinks and warmweather laughing until late. Talked to John Lombardo amongst others and he said on the new John & Mary release they're using backwards guitar parts by late great Robert Buck.
Oh, had to, amid revelry, call an ambulance for a man I spotted nestling into some dirt on the outer edge of a parking lot, his cane next to him. Went over to talk to him and he suggested the ambulance. One of my pals said that the calling was unnecessary but I didn't think so. It took a while but he finally got up and went away with the emt's, who, I thought, were rather rude to the guy.
There was a mild amount of behind-the-scenes chaos but nothing too serious... a band here and there late, garbage issues, promotional banner issues, beer truck volunteer issues. Oh, and interpersonal struggles including the appearance of one guy with a stack of the paper The Beast which goes to great lengths to slam the publisher of my newspaper, the man behind the street festival. I approached the guy and took his picture and asked his name. He said (I thought, via my concert-addled ears) Lucas Fosse. OHH! I said, the CHOREOGRAPHER? (It's Bob Fosse... see, part of my charm is my mislocutions and mishearings and such and all or most of the people at this nasty little rag The Beast use noms de plumes) He said NO, Luke Fox, I'm an intern. I then shouted Well I'm NANCY from ARTVOICE and off I wandered. Now I'm wondering if there'll be a special cover drawing of ME... my likeness with big question marks coming from both ears.
So I had my premier post-festival cocktail at 830PM on the dot when I invited one and all to meet me for margaritas. After a few of those there was a pileup of three of us (of course I was involved with this) on a plastic Adirondack chair which collapsed. A nearby tippler shouted Hey, my Adirondack chair... you owe me five dollars.
Best sets: Last Conservative (well on their way), Sheila Divine, Jackdaw, Turnstones (formerly Velour).
Over and out.
Way out.

Marathons.
That's this weekend theme.
Friday marathon was non-stop bluegrass at the exurban outside venue @ the Down from the Mountain tour stop... produced by the wacky Coen Brothers. It could have only been improved by a special visit by hottie George Clooney.
And wasn't that night's treatment of photographers night to the ol' day of the Britney Spears Extravaganza for we photogs (actually only me +1 boy colleague) were not even subjected to anal cavity searches!!!
Saturday marathon schmoozing, driving, darkroom production.
Sunday/today is marathon music shooting at my newspaper's Street Festival. I wish I had a pedometer to clock the amount I'll walk between stages from 1-8PM with intermittent stops at the beer truck where pourers will be pals and drafts will be gratis. And it's a 100% digital day to boot.
Tequila in the forecast?
Does your fav Nancy bring joy to your heart?
I rest my case.
Love.

Britney briefing included the following to me + 15 boy colleagues (some mysteriously never seen before): do not put hands or cameras on stage, don't turn back to stage, don't photograph audience members, give us credit card/driver license in exchange for one-time security Britney pass which you'll turn in at end of 3 songs... and sign agreement that states all images made tonight will not be sold but may be included in your portfolio (!). What fun! At one point had to see something on my camera and, as it was very dark, turned back - sans thinking - on stage. I thought Oops (I did it again) hope they didn't see that and then realized just how fucked the whole situation last night was.
She, as in BS, had Pepsi commercials playing, the Pepsi logo on a spot that swept the arena, didn't even try to pretend that she was trying to lip-synch, changed costumes after disappearing via a trap door/Dracula-style exit system that a devil man in cape "playing" guitar had appeared in earlier as loads of pyros went off (much to my colleague Mark's chagrin) and dancers looking like voodoo mall shoppers pranced about. Did I mention the million-dollar green strobe lights, how she barely came near us photogs clutched around "Stage B" and how she kept grabbing her right tit?
Who needs surrealism with Britney Spears around.
Onwards.

Evidence that I'm an everyday badass:

1. Physical therapist yestiddy said You need cortisone injection in your shoulder (what I now refer to as my rotary cuff) to help the swelling/crap and I said nope. Then they suggested I might need eventual surgery. I said Hell no and proceeded to trash the medical office with high karate kicks.

2. As I'm being photographed this evening at 7PM for my special Britney photo id I'm going to throw up some gansta-style hand gesture that I've been practicing in the car all the livelong day - an inverted/backwards ILOVEYOU rock gesture while looking real pouty and sexy like Pink. Except, unlike Pink, I won't be captured in the middle of ripping my own clothes off. Pink, if you're reading this - stop with the self-ripping.

3. I think 2 examples are plenty. And now I sign off with Love. Oozy-goozy Britney beyond Spandex and frosty eyeshadow Love. Love that can accept the need to lipsynch one's brains out as one is dancing too hard with an ensemble of boys and girls who've practiced their lives away to join you onstage for one fleeting moment in hot lights, hoping all the while you catch the eye of someone who can make you a star and hoping not to, on the other foot, catch any sparks from any onstage pyros because nothing says unsexy like 3rd-degree burns.

ps: Whomever logged in as epinw reader #1000 you win a special prize!!!... contact me at njparisi@netscape.net for a special email from me. For you. Prized you.

Wednesday at the ol' Arena me and boy colleagues must and will check in at 7PM for our photo id photo shoot to shoot Britney. Then we must report back at 8:30PM on the journalistic dot to be ushered in for 3. Wondering what backstage mayhem led to the needing of photo id's. If this becomes de rigeur I will have a neat new collection of credential stickers/geek passes bearing my likeness!
Saturday night drove up to Toronto with Reese, beau, pal to see the post-5-year hiatus of band The Pursuit of Happiness. They officially rocked and rocked out. Many attend events in Canada for the turbo-powered Canadian beer. But guess what? Single malt scotch tastes the same, trips across the tongue and other vital organs the same.
Love.