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

Neo-Love.

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

Wonderment of Love.

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

Love's Lines.

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

Love's Staumrel.

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

Good Night Love.

Reported to online school to discover that - lo, behold - It really starts, the course on Beauty, in a few. And the premier week is all Hi, I am Perfect Nancy and these are my pet peeves.
Due to Hillary's Middling City visit Monday am unable to partake in Kristin Hersh's visit to Joe's Pub in Shiney Apple Sunday. Oh, velcro, sent along sad turn of events to Justy who is making it his birthday celebration of sorts. Missed her Middling City gig as 50 Foot Wave due to the odd sense that I had to get school work done and forwent that op. Then she was in the SA and that was sold out. I am destined to never witness her quipalicious skills in the flesh thus far.
It snows and it snows and I shovel and I shovel the drive so that Mr. Mailman does not turn into Mr. Mailman the Snark and stop delivering my mags, my bills, my written correspondences. And keeping at bay, doubly, the Middling City Narcs who report unshovelled walkways to the authorities and decreed by law it is that one must shovel a path of at least twenty inches and to that I say You pedestrians get a shovel's width. My own Perfect and individualized Rule of Thumb so to speak. Off now to visit with Deb and Sarah and then to points beyond.

Point of Love.

Note to self:
whenEVER you see vans driving about in the Middling City scream, call 911 and get license plate number. They are all wretched drivers. No exceptions.
As of Friday at 315PM more or less am driving new and hyper-improved Golden Forester. A big toy, a big safe toy, a big safe toy with hi-fi that plays at unsafe levels.
Heard from Thee Elliott Caplan who last corresponded from a car wash. It was cinematic, horrifying. Oh, other note to self:
no more shovelling. It sucks.
Off to points beyond.
Beth Dearest, if you're reading this, stay where you are =
Caribbean better than Nor'Easters.
Dig.

Dug Love.

Spoke with a (oh, here I'd like to say that today is an Easter as in Patti kind of jour) Shiney Apple pal last night who informed me that there were no degrees over there to the right. None. At least the Middling City has a few rattling about. Few. Far between, unlike the flakes that are congregating along my driveway. But did I mention I have a new and super-improved Golden Forester under my ass as of about twenty-four hours ago. Turned in the leased former Golden Forester and told William at the dealer's joint that I wanted more more and did not want to pay more more more. I said Look, Jerry Lundegaard, I don't give a phyling phlegm about klear-kote, none of those gadgetries. I want gold. I want manual trannie. I want same payments. I, in a nutshell, want a lot. And I sat there, in hat pulled over my eyebrows and down jacket pulled up to my chin and dykesville boots on my feet for hours negotiating until William whined But now we're not making ANY money on this car. Ummm, William, remind me to pencil in on my agenda to give a fuck about that some time. He had the car waiting just outside the door, seats set to 50 Kelvin and the moment my Perfect self hit that seat I knew it was it. It. We drove and we drove and we drove the backroads, chatting about all things vehicular. Taking high winding curves, stopping on a dime at a most inconvenient stop sign at the bottom of a hill, turning a U at a breathtaking clip. Best part is the cd changer and I've been driving the horrid blustery MC in a techno cloud. Just saw my pal Colleen at *BX who gave me a super-bonus shot of expresso (espresso in the MC) after our mutual sadness and musings on this ultimate Snapcase gig this fine evening at Snowplace. It is sold out. I will not be there as I am not shooting it and I could call Darryl and see if he wants any but really, shall I. Hmmm, now I am wondering. There are shiney bottles of tequila there to keep warm.

Warm ponderous love.

Amongst the many pop-cult things learnt from Mterm is the Ali G phenom, the trickster extraordinaire. And what reminds me of this snippet is that the Middling City was rused up a storm by an ersatz rap artiste who strode into town with entourage and more more more and took what could be manhandled from biz and vending folk. Allen was working on the project as sound engineer and want to get his poop on matters. What riled my own Perfect suspicions were that A told me how the artistes would have warm catered spreads at the studio all the dang time, even if they were no-shows. I thought that odd then but thought Gee willikers, these hi-rollers are saving so drastically they are catering the budget away. But now. But now things are revealed and all the minor hysteria surrounding the rap artistes come to the MC are blown sky high. Speaking of Sky High Gabriel's hair last night was so . . . that.
Wondering if perhaps I offended today as a client hired me to shoot a talent show manned by, of all freakin' things, dentists. She happened to marvel that there would be actual talent on the talent show stage, reputedly, reportedly.
I strongly suggested that perhaps it was the backstage usage of laughing gas that got all those creative and free-wheelin' juices a-flowin'.

Flowing Love.

Amongst other Virgin Mega things is the Neil Young non-rarities, the rough and tumble weeding versions of the biggest and baddest hitz. And subsequent Checker's throwbacks and beyond, involving Loomis, first drivings, poetry written in the warm haze of beer pitchers.
Stray cat Extra strutted in moments ago to warm his paws, give his claws a good wool rug workout and then sample some vanilla yogurt. Now he is outside, per his vocal request.
Sun shines in the Middling City as great rock and roll questions are pondered. What are the goals, the desires of this gig. Everyone's big question, the big Q of Yours Truly.
Planning and scheming, amongst other things on listy agenda, Red Dinner, annual feast of all things crimson and bought a new tome that has a few lusty, red dishes oso parfait.
Intense Laundry Time: about a year exactly ago X penned a lovenote to his concurrent and second-last X of his own about said Red Dinner, critiquing it so in a way that had my Perfect cheeks crimson. Not only lies about his sloppy concurrence but the lie of loving the Red Dinner. Rouge-related ruses all around and now how to extricate him finally and most expediently from all matters house. Once. For all. For best.

Rouged Love.

Somehow it got to be today, Monday, and haven't blogged since a few ago, much to the chagrin of a handful of the loyalest and toppermost of the poppermosts.
To be filed under G, as in Gee wasn't that interesting.
To balance Shiney Apple schoolhardiness with independence meandered into the ol' stomping grounds in midtown, as I previously mentioned, into MoMA. And other cinematic and art matters as well as gustatory retreats. Cue excellent summer memory, JW,Esq. - most notably a few vinos, a few heaps of heirloom tomato forms. Chelsea proved to be both provoking and passable. Excellent and reaffirming times with Dorota which, of course, involved bevvies of many genres, and smokes.
The week of schoolhardiness was truly a few days and a half with a smattering of interactions - and requisite lo-budg trips to salad bar for $4 lunch. JR informs me that the thesis I am to create is but 5K words, just longer than a typical mag ed piece and that the rest needs to be more. In comparing and contrasting notes with other grad students past and present haven't heard of a school as art directionalating as Parsons School of Delineations.
Time to unjumble that of art, school, work, change.

Jumbled Love (it's driving me mad, it's driving me crazy, crazy. Now that's mad Steve Miller props).

**This just so freakin' in.
Somebody decided to toss their body in front of the A train so there we sat. First the pa'd excuse was Congestion. Then the conductress sort of slipped and said A customer... then we riders so knew. We sat and we sat, sat, sat. I found an MTA employee aboard and queried thusly. So. Jumper. How long. It was then I went non-subterranean, finangled a ride from a car service with three girlies heading to PR and then they paid the driver but I tipped him and they got dropped first as they had minutes to spare and then he, very manly, circled about not knowing, just not not knowing, how to get me to Terminus JetBlueus. Finally, after my pointing out some key demarcations, that the plane I am to board in five minutes was pulling away shortly. So now, I am off. Again. Here ends this updating, informative communiqé.


Got the sOhO groove happening and actually sad to leave now. Sitting across from equally wi-fi'd Dorota who is doing some art things. Had a fab time with Fitzgerald (and some "authentic" paella that was shamed by the paella of Yours Truly, truly) and then somehow got separated from him and meandered off through the Bank Street area, one quadrant of the Shiney Apple I am so not familiarized with. Finally decided to locate a cab which got me oso much closer to the loft. There is something magical about the loft as it induces the best dreams ever. Spoke with Academie Guru last night who put It all into perspective and for that I am once again thankful. Had lunch today with Nancy Maier of Summer Camp fame and, amongst other things, she told me of her lofty climb atop Mt. Kilimanjaro and the descent through virtually each of the Earthly climates.
Time to head to the 6 to the 4 to the A to the AirTrain to the JetBlue to the Kennedy.

Love Travel.

*
This just in.
Currently blogging from the new, the uptight, the overly-staffed Museum of Modern Art. What a Vaticanlike vibe going on. You are not allowed to sit in the sculpture garden, à la Saint Peter's Place. You are chuted in and then if checking bags you are chuted again. I'm about to escalate upwards to catch some art. Profusion of security in dark jackets most noticeable thing thus far, besides the slight reminiscence of wandering through a large city airport. Communique over.


Arrived in a hurry to Carnegie Concert Spot to learn that the Kafka Fragments extravaganza was sold out, completely and 100%ly sold out thanks, in part, undoubtedly, to the fab NYT review. So called Beth to say Hey, skip this joint.
Meeting with JR art director to the stars in a little bit so there's time to wander to the French joint for a French lunch most French and Frenchalicious. Meeting later with Fitzgerald and keep reminding my Perfect self that I have not yet to date returned the call of my camp people regarding the informal camp (not campy) reunion in about a week.
Kennergy is repping me and him at the Shiney Happy Mag meeting later this fine evening at Liz's joint and I proposed that we collab on a brilliant piece about who can say. Regaled Beth last night with my April Fools prankish moments whereby I'd call editrix and pal Liz with a scheme, a dream, a fabrication. One I am still most humoured by. Involving a past gig and gallons of reserve label vino.
On agenda: digvid shooting fercrissakes. And Oban.

O, ban Love.

Not locating Patty Hearst I went to see a doc on Henry Darger, creator of somewhat-famed Vivian Girls who I knew about from Reed and Jef. In the day sort of a Mutt and Jeff situ. The boys, I might add I was there first-ever patron as their collaborative selves, turned me on to Darger and Reed gave me a drawing of me as a Vivian Girl of sorts. This transpired at Film Forum where I am a (former) card-carrying member. As I had misplaced my card and the joint is inept and cannot find its members online, I was forced - FORCED - to pay the average joe prix.
Still searching for Patty.
Here at Parsons early helping Beth set up her sculptural photo montage-alicious pieces which will be viewed and critted in about 10 minutes and counting. As usual in the world of production and such there is much scrambling for cords, cables, podiums, tables, and the like.
Fueled by an Americano. Seeing Laura later and Fitzgerald (hard at work writing in the voice and head of one Hell's Angel Founder, Sonny) on Thursday. Going to a Kafka-based opera at Carn Hall tomorrow night for a student ticket of $10. Those Carnegie Folks sure as shootin' know how to welcome students with wide open and understanding arms.

Arms full of Love.

Recurring word du jour. Irritating.
Well Editrix Liz received the masterpiece just aok and fine.
I expect the Pulitzer will be in the mail shortly.
I was just summoned to the front steps of Parsons School of De-No-Bagels for a smoke, a Coke, and a smile.
My critique went just fine. Some words here and there. I did not show one that I wish in retro that I had.
Off to hopefully conquer my lust to see the Patty Hearst docu-drama, Guerilla. It must be here somewhere.

Somewhere Love.

Yahoo squared.
The Shiney Happy Mag piece about the odd cable home decorating shows and attendant plastic hosts is complete, a masterpiece of twists and turn, unexpected adjective placements, fun facts galore. And photos to boot. And at 2600 words, nothing to sneeze at.
Had Kennedy help me with some photo illustrations and he waltzed into the moment, held the hammer just so in front of the t.v. screen and voi-fuckin-la! fini. That and a delightful portrait of my pal Jamie Johnson at her decorating helm, swatches as far as the eyes can see.
Currently just arrived in the Shiney Apple via the Fart Wagon/JetBlue and am about to embark on a brunch of relocated Middling Cityers... and salty dogs. That delicious concoction of grapefruit juice and vodka.

Salty, stinging love.

OK, no words from Annie but I trust the man whose arms I left her in is not an axe murderer but, come to think of it, he does have an odd scar on his chin, perhaps from axe grinding. Moving right along.

Perfectly situated in the midst of not only a fad, a phenom but a cultural force. Read this to read, brush up. Dig. Blog.

Email from Pahts somewhere in the bowels of MN who was once a Peace Corps Volunteer, in Thailand. You see where this is going. He was directly involved with an org in southern Thailand when there, a group that worked on keeping the fishing community there solvent while preserving eco-systems. An appeal. He asks on behalf of the org, Yadfon, for donations that can be mailed to:
St. Dominic Church/216 Spring Street North/Northfield, MN/55057. All funds, he says, wired to Yadfon at the end of January.
Here are are links to read about Yadfon and the director of Yadfon.

Another appeal is to contact Middling City Commoner Council to beg them to re-apportion funds for the lagging and sagging project to complete renovations at Ani's Church - also to be the HQ of Hallwalls. Polly, HW's Chieftain of Info, wrote a long and impassioned email to the MC's arts community to contact these erstwhile funders. A fiasco, to be sure. Touring through the church/concert hall to-be, Ed leading the way with hardcore flashlight as sole beacon of sight besides some warbling street light, I was overcome with (no, not the scent of pigeon turds) the thought that this was an empty building that hadn't progressed from the last flashlight tour I'd been on. Cold flashlight tour, I add.
Here are the people to contact, before this Tuesday. Like right now.
-Dominic Bonifacio Jr. - Niagara District - 851-5125 dbonifacio@city-buffalo.com
-Marc Coppola -Majority Leader- Delaware District- 851-5155 mcoppola@city-buffalo.com
-Brian C. Davis - Ellicott District - 851-4980 brdavis@city-buffalo.com
-David Franczyk - Fillmore District - Council Pres. - 851-4138 dfranczyk@city-buffalo.com
-Richard Fontana - Lovejoy District - 851-5151 rfontana@city-buffalo.com
-Joseph Golombek - North District - 851-5116 Fax: 851-5648
-(YIKES, ferreal)James Griffin - South District - 851-5169 jgriffin@city-buffalo.com
-Bonnie Russell - University District - 851-5165 brussell@city-buffalo.com
-Antoine Thompson - Masten District - 851-5145 athompson@city-buffalo.com


Compassionate Love.

Birthday. Sugar Cubes. The music of then discovery, of watching and not knowing (grilled tonight by a newbie to art matters of sorts on the matter of photography and the soul and I tolerated all to a point, until the champagne arrived), of Tokyo new - worms on a string - the theme music of this moment. Walks through the neighborhood Itabashiku the shops the faces every day the sun - she's painting huge books - this music of then and the memory of then and it's now. Today is her birthday and they're smoking cigars. I gave the name to his band's disc, Chain of Flowers, from this song, all a convoluted memory mess. - They lie in the bathtub - this winter night like a night so long ago, where is he now. I left Annie in the arms of a man I hardly know and it's all for the best I presume. The apartment of the now and the past all merged and I left, bereft and in search of my own memories.

Teetering, post-research (delighted I am in throes of research - vraiment), on brink of Shall I or Shalln't I regarding the usage or waiting of a certificate to use at the Shoe Addict Palace got a call from Deb. Amongst other things, in girlie fashion, we discussed the teeter. She gave me the shove I most needed and desired and now I'm blogging in slammin' realllllleather, patent, 4" heeled boots that, with great accuracy, could send you into the next hour.
Whilst researching gleaned this new Fun Fact:
Britney's husband, the faceless dancer, demands that she shop no more. I mean What the FUCK. Is this marriage, or, as PJ Harvey croons, Is this Desire. Ms. Disney Hootchie Mama needs some Johnny-Come-Lately to boss herself. Finger food for thought.
On that merry, pop culture-addled and research-infested note I end.

Shop ON, for Love.

ps: to the officious femme who meandered over my shoulder to ingest what I was up to moments earlier while in the Middling City U's Law Library - yeah, I be legit. I be so okay with my secret Okayness Card with password and all delegated to Yours Truly from a co-ed most helpful.

Despite the fact that I was shadowed for a long while by the man in the gold lamé jacket, I had a fine time at the biannual Kootsie Ball. I directed a small group of revelers to follow me towards the what I thought was an onion filled with go-go dancers in one of the Statler ballrooms to discover that, at the striking, it was filled with those cheeseball mylar balloons so prevalent at the checkout stations of grocery stores everywhere. Where were the go-go-goers.
Liz bought me a stiff scotch that sent all party wheels into turbo. The man in the gold jacket finally left me alone but kept lurking in the shadows, waiting for a moment when he might pounce. yipes.
Been making and receiving the requisite hi and happy new year to you messages, the touchstone of a new year being making contact to check in to see how is it, how was it, how will it be.
All for now and off to the resolution of making art.

Love Now.

Soul Train hits from '72 right now, a throwback to all the AM band songs from my kid room as I read novels or played Barbies. For this in the car in the Middling City it's AM 1400, same. Last night, en route to a Lackawanna-based restaurant specializing in what's so Island, looked to the left while waiting for a red light and there was a most perfect sight - something I've been looking for, a blend of industrial and living, a lit plant of some sort at the end of a street. Kind of like the wooden grain elevator that Catherine Parker brought me to one wintry afternoon, at the end of Koons Avenue along the tracks. Speaking of tracks, went with one Jim Fitzgerald of the Shiny Apple and Kennedy to the MC's fading Central Terminal where tracks are laid and trains don't stop. According to the footprints in the snow there are plenty of men who go into the terminal and when I stuck my head into an inky hole I heard water running running running. This is the joint where Spencer Tunick had several MC denizens drop their clothing and stand in the main lobby as if. So while Fitzgerald is admiring the decrepitude, a sheriff department helicopter flutters overhead and I start to thinking they're going to tell us to move along, get away from the expensive new chainlink surrounding the place. They hovered in ovals and then finally left. I have heard from a reliable source that they were looking for - and did ultimately locate - a missing person. Actually, a missing body at that point. The body had ingested a bunch of meds and meandered into the snow when it was ferocious. Helicopter brought back the September memory in Shiny Apple when Bush was in town and there was much surveilling and reshuffling of pedestrians.
In a short while it is a new year.
Happy. New. Year. Good bye to a year of tumult, change, challenge, newness.

Love changes, train changes.

Perusing a magazine that gives nature mad props mere moments ago I learnt a few fun facts that I must now share with You:
1. wolves/dogs have 25% more sniffing cells than humans - mag said sniffing cells, I did not.
2. wolves travel in packs that number approximately, according to my calcs, 15 members.
3. writing for nature mad prop mags reads sort of treacly.

In direct contrast to the hard-hitting piece I'm in throes of writing for the Shiny Happy Mag - You know, the one on televised Let-us-decorate-all-swoony-shows. Whilst on an errand ran into a person I know who shall not forthwith be named. She asked about my writing. Funny you should ask, I began. I tell her theme. She confesses that she is one of the bazillions who are addicted to these shows. As she tells me this fun fact a man next to her reveals that his wife is of these masses. Now they are part of The Story.

This is what art is: you begin, make, art becomes what it wishes to be and suddenly you are along on its ride as you ride it to the deadline's sundowny and rosey finish line.

Lines around Love.

Let us discuss something Perfectly timely and necessary to boot.
It is that time, that time that crushes us, when we must think of our resolution, our plan of attack, our modus operandi, for the new year.
This is not some frivolous gesture but, I propose, a chance to secretly or not so secretly indulge a desire to acquire a skill, a new thing, a new outlook.
So last year Yours Truly opted for this rez:
TRAVEL MORE.
And, ferfucksakes, I did.
Now. This year.
MAKE MORE ART.
Art can easily slip to the bottom of the to-do pile and Yours Truly is a Happiest Yours Truly when art is slipping forth with not only abandon but with regularity.
MORE ART.
Managed to squeeze much time in for the onslaught of travelling others, in keeping with the theme of wind in the hair, etc.
Turned Justy on to the favoured near-airport joint, Jim's. A place of bad coffee by the jug, truckers lugging small shaving kits and towels, the domain of the silver naked lady (this should conjure Westerberg).
Regarding new(er) music bought some Stevie to put my money where my heart is. And Le Tigre who found themselves on a mixCD by another and now it spins merrily.
And more.
And now time to work upon the next installation of wise words emanating forth from Yours Truly for the Shiny Happy Mag.

Magpies of Love.

Yesterday, conjured up the spirit of Sam Super B to blog.
Today back to the Perfect style that You know and You so enjoy.

How It Happened, According to Yours Truly.
There was a woman who met a man and they fooled around enough so that in time there was a pending baby and it was a problem but the woman was born without Original Sin and nobody understands that. Or any of this story's facts, for that matter, as they're mixed with fable and the default styles of translation and the retelling until the original is worn, less crisp.
So there's a meandering along and then labour pains. Water breaks while the woman is riding side saddle on the back of a donkey who is not pleased, who is being beaten along with a stick. The month is October and it is the Middle East.
They stop and out pops a baby and the baby, according to a prophecy, is the saviour of all people. There is a mysterious omen in the sky, a star with a tail, and word spreads, apparently, that something surreal/shattering has happened. Three kings find the couple months later - December - and they bring along camels, not the cigarettes, and gifts for the baby, like a shower of sorts. According to Kennedy the names of this trio are known and the names might have upwards of five syllables each.
Zoom ahead many years, to now, for example.
This birth is a baby is a man who is a founder of a philosophy that is interpreted for a long time and it, the philosophy, becomes a religion that becomes a far-reaching corporate interest whose h.q. is its own city within Rome, Italy.
This island of reinterpretation is within high walls and is full of breathtaking wealth and influence and its leader, the Pope, writes encyclicals that pronounce beliefs, interpreted belief, to its followers - and beyond. Missionaries, like door-to-door evangels, like Hispanic evangels who amplify their shouts of passionate belief out into a quiet neighborhood without regard, take it upon their believing shoulders to spread their reinterpretations.
According to lore the Pope knows the end of the world's date.
All the Popes have known this fact, revealed to the children of Fatima in visions, who smelled roses when the spirit of the Original Sinless woman appeared to them.
From a stable and a manger to a walled city, this is what transpired over thousands of years. What began as Buddha-like logic and love of peace has become a movement that has ripened beyond taste, use, intention of the founder.
This is Christmas, a time of rampant spending to show love for one another when, in fact, good deeds and aid and love should not only suffice but happen at all times.
And the music. Holiday music for this anniversary of the discovery of the Libran child Prince of Peace, light of lights, should be much better and possibly the only good one out there is by aforementioned Lennon.
Thus spaketh Perfect Me on this Holiday Matter.

Love Matters.

Most heart ache of ached, the season that has to be dig this experienced sans the other after all that time and now kapoof nothing not a card not a thing and what was all of that, a decade of wondering, of this and of that wasted, lost in a moment of honest reveal. A new season of wondering and waiting and new activity and not knowing the what is of the new but hoping and loving in a new light in a new way and what is the new locus. Thinking I don't trust I don't know but I do want to but what is it what is this what is this this season this place and time. This time of meaning full of things for others for other times and things that you do not have that you do not feel but that you do want and what would you do yes what would you do to have this that you want all the time all the place all the person now.

Love What.

'Tis the season to get cranky
FA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA...
'Tis the season to get tipsy
FA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA...
Don we nowsville our peppy apparel
FA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA...
Then we'll watch some blazing yule log
FA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LAAAAAAH.

Just got off phone with thee Elliott Caplan who says, and I really really don't think he's blowing smoke up my arse, that he digs my digvids that I dumped on him via a nice, tidy dvd.
Tomorrow afternoon we meet up in the Middling City suburbs to talk shop. Then call it a wrap. Not rap. This is so shop talk.
Out of towners are descending upon the Middling City in droves, all looking for high times and misdemeanours and squeezing them in right now to the miasmic schedule is mandatory. Justy et al will be looking to score some jubilance this evening and I am hoping beyond reasonable hope that he et al are not thinking It's Pink Flamingo Time. But, then again, holiday time is the only time Yours Truly darkens that rotting doorstep.
Until then, until later, Yours Truly remains Your Favored, Perfect Nancy.

Love's Sweet Remains.

post script, post haste:
Jesus H. Christ (the season's reason) forgot to freakin' mention that I sent off the paper. The PAPER. The brilliant essay on what completely rocks about the photographs of Gillian Wearing, Brit photog of my certain age. Sent it e-off to the instructress who I'm sure is shopping it around to various scholarly pubs.
As in pages full of brilliance, not ginjoints, ferfucksakes.

Sure does not seem like just yesterday and there are no misty tears to swab away but holy guacamole the nephew becomes thirteen today. There is an infamous Polaroid of me holding brand new him in my leather jacket and we're studying each other, really looking. My Sharpied caption reads Jacob's first sniff of black leather.
I talked to him when he was in his mother so I believe he knew my voice right off. Helloooo, this is your Auntie speaking, I'd pronounce as if I were speaking down into the Grandest Canyon. His mother/sole sistah did not mind but my father sure did when he witnessed the pronouncing once, claiming I'd deafen his forthcoming grandchild.
The nephew was born (the night he came out my friend TMO and I showed up drunk as can be about 2AM after spendiing the evening at nearby Icon, a concert I shot, I believe it may have been Pigface... or KMFDM. But we unsuccessfully tried to convince the near-asleep security man at the side door that we should be allowed to meander up to the maternity level for a quick hello.) with a keen sense of awareness and humour and I always have loved him more than just about anyone I know or have met or am sure to meet.
Since the age of six I dragged his nephew ass off to concerts so that he could experience music (and Yours Truly) firsthand and to see the underbelly, the workings of something and understand it, have a place in it. I felt as a kid that we family members toodled off and attended things, many cultural things, but we were skimming along as spectators - there was no sense of Knowing. So the nephew knows rock shows - the bands he's met, the security guys, the promoters, the merch girlies, the other backstage stragglers.
He is not a jock but a PlayStation addict, a karate kicker, a musician who plays piano, guitar and trombone. These past few years I've been pushing the rock concept at him. What a horrible rock stage auntie I would be.
Thirteen, the precipice and very start of what is exciting, heavy, transformative about It.
To that beloved kid, to You, I say rock on - faster, stronger, with more humourous abandon.

More More Love.

Once again Parsons School of Disorg just gave us practically no notice for a fab op. Last big no notice fiasco was one day's notice that all-time fav photog, Joel Peter Witkin, was speaking at school. Now it's Hey, on Monday there's a deadline to have work about NYC submitted for consideration for purchase by a corporation - 300 dpi tiffs AND 8x10 work prints of each digital file needed. Ummmm, HELLLLLLLOOOO. It's not only Friday but the semester's end AND I happen to be cross-state over here in the Middling City. As Tony the Tiger would say Guhh-reat.

Onwards.

So, Hillary was the one resplendent in topographical black leather coat and powder blue silk scarf. Eye shadow to match. Black pointy-toed boots. No gloves. Her assistants, as usual, in same. SS men handsome as usual and in black topcoats, ever muttering into their shirt cuffs.
I was in green down jacket, green Columbia hat with whimsical frills. The important hat. No gloves. Derek of Middling City News in complicated shades. Various other news types in bulky jackets. We were a scene. A photo op in ourselves.
Time to shoot the holiday card. And think about steaming email to the school. I am so like multi-tasking right now.

Love's Tasks.

The Church of the High Decibels is rocking out for the lord or for whomever they rock for over there, to the west. And here I sit, WBLK blaring out the R&B luvvin' brother (as V always described it) beats and the earplugs crammed in to their hilts. Made an executive decision mere moments ago that next purchase will be at the Mac/Geek Clubhouse - an Airport station so that I may be online over there, far away, to the southernmost corner of the pad to avoid insanity and the like. Homework beckons and home is not cooperating. So there.
Have to post thoughts most brilliant for online class about Aztecs, Freud, Discontents, Civilization, and more.
Tomorrow have a quick gig for the Shiny Happy Mag shooting that Hillary femme, at a ribbon cutting event for the Middling City's new Artspace, a joint that will house artists for living and for working.
Hillary, assuredly, will be the one in black pant suit and tasteful silk scarf held in place with a brooch. Yours Truly will be the one in workaday gear and sensible shoes.
Met with carcrash doc, McGrath, who looked at my films of shoulder, hot off the press. I was marked a tough customer as the xray tech wanted me to take off the Me and Ro necklace. To which I refused. I cannot take this off. It was very expensive. I barked. Really barked. It will interfere with the xray. It's of my shoulder, I barked some more. Yes, I know, techie said. It was a standoff there in the xray suite, the smell of photo chems most familiar wafting through the air. And the xrays were made and the necklace did not show its golden power. I rest my bejewelled case.
Dropped off a dvd for the enrapturing of Elliott Caplan.
Now waiting to hear another Nay or Yeah-You-Rock from another man in charge.

Charged Love.

Have the most brilliant of concepts. Look, this is not your average, run-of-the-grad-student-mill concepts - this is high concept. Going to write a paper that will bring tears to the eyes of all who read it. Well, that may be only two people (me, instructress), but damn, it'll fucking rock. Goes something like this: identity and faux identity in Mexican food items in Mex-American restaurants, and in modern photography. Brilliant. And I'm thinking it may be expanded into a book of sorts, maybe a novel. Along the process-oriented lines of Sophie Calle.
Well, that's all I can say for sure for now.

Academy of Love.

Primitivism. Us and Them. And I'm not talking the song by Pink Floyd. That's what Yours Truly read about last night whilst catching up on Parsons School of Dementia readings for the online thing. There was ref to the ethnographic writings of a few but the essay's writer never quoted them at length. A real bummer as it involved the prurient regarding of native peoples.
Beth the Great is not only great but a Genius as she has come up with a fab idea for my lodging in the Shiny Apple next month. Eureka I say to that and it'd mean, if all goes swell, a sublet of sorts from a classmate for the time being there.
So last night I read about the Aztecs. Sure, like everyone else, I knew about the rippings of hearts from living captives. But they were a friendly bunch to boot. If they killed you in battle they believed, well, belief is a nice consolation anyway, that the soul of the killt sped off to a heaven of lilies or flowers or some such flowery scenario. Those who just slipped away were, they also believed, sent to a much more boring place. Probably the usual celestial snooze-o-rama with angels with harps and clouds and do-gooders. All I know is I'd like to spend said afterlife with those of the rock or photo pantheon. Keith Richards naturally jumps into mind.
All for now and over and out, waiting word from JR, Mentor whether he thinks I should pawn my digvid camera - or not.

Knots of Love.

Sent words most imploring to Parsons School of Dilly-dallying this fine evening basically outlining ways I might get myself into her primo graces and glean an A or B to boot. I can be your personal chef for a while, I can shine all your shoes in your closet and out, I can walk your dog(s), I can write a book that you can sign your name to, etc.
Have no shred of guilt or shame or regret that I basically parked my ass at Kennedy's dining room table for what seemed weeks to make 20 digvids. And some, as I wrote somewhere, some time, are fucking Whitney Biennial-worthy. But we'll see what JR Art Mentor/Personal Art Designer, thinks and says about that. Talked to thee Elliott Caplan who will be watching some of my work with me this upcoming week. And then coffee and I said So what, you'll either tell me Keep up the GOOD WORK or What the fuck were you thinking. He said Oh, I never say the former, usually it's the latter. One conversation with him had my head on fire.
Speaking of fire, delivered a wedding today to one social worker type, in a building with the Middling City's elevator elder statesman. It creaked, it moaned and finally got me to floor number three. She opened the door after I buzzed (here begins Fake Plastic Trees and I'm catapulted back into my usual strong mem associated with this little, perfect tune) and there's a buzzer as the pitiful decrepit building is visited by the MC's crackheads and psychotics, to stare wondrously sans speaking at the Pentecostal-like flame arching over my forehead. I then, after said delivery, delivered myself to the doors of Jon's salon where I am always guaranteed to feel some love. Some coffee, some smokes, some laughs, some rock and roll banter and, all buoyed up, I made my way back into the chilly MC streets.

Streets Paved with Love.

Passed a taste test haranguer today as I had to return to the Mac Clubhouse to buy the correct dvd's (note to self = dashes and plus signs are of utter import when buying overpriced pieces of plastic to stuff into the overpriced pieces of plastic, i.e. PowerBook) and he either said Rock ON! - or Saigon!. Given his ethnicity I am not too sure which it was.
Last night's gig had a fateful ending. Merrily the singers onstage were a-singing and there were jazz hands in abundance and simpering and galumphing. Sudden-fuckin-ly the lights went kapoof and 32 actors, 1 photog, 1 director, 4 high school earnest ones, 1 priest (I think), 1 lighting tech, 1 mediocre band, 1 badass ghost, 5 random spectators probably related to high school earnests, et al were plunged into pure and inky darkness. Cell phones were whipped open to provide comforting light dots in the theatre/deconsecrated church. Well about 20 minutes of darkness, with the actors still onstage making the best of it and proffering up all songs they could muster forth about darkness and the like, it was time to s.p.l.i.t. It was when I rushed to my awaiting automobile that I discovered that I had pulled up at a rakish angle in my usual blustery rock star fashion and had I pulled up another centimetre I would have been over a brink. So the last time I did a gig for these singers and dancers and actors there was a fire/fire drill. Last night the entire town of Lewiston went dark. I told Brendan, the man who hires me, and the stage manager that I take full responsibility for these natural happenstances of doom. Which leads me to thinking that soon the Middling City will face another ice boom or did they pass legislation that ice booms are passé. So many Middling City facts, so little time.

Time 4 Love.

Busted out a minor version of my Perfect Paint Melt Stare today as a groupie/girlfriend of an ensemble member of the UB student variety tapped me on my rootin' tootin' shootin' shoulder to query Ummm, do you mind. Pointing to her piece of guano mini digvid recorder as she stood against a pole whilst Yours Truly documented all the jubilant holiday cheer before me and one hundred mid-day music lovers and other hangers-on. She so owned that square foot of lino, never thought perhaps of panning and wanted to warn all media hacks in the house to get the fuck outta her way.
I blog currently from the measle-down, scaled-down version of SoHo's famed MAC/geek clubhouse, in a mall. I am on errands. You do not want to get in my way when I am on errands for I:
1. do not care for errands, generally speaking.
2. loathe malls and their piped-in joviality.
3. do not care to mingle with maxed-out holiday shoppers but crapskis I have business to attend to with these nice MAC folks.
4. I am in a hurry people, not on the usual 20 mph Middling City rate of speed.
Well, that amount of mall-based surliness should suffice for now.
I leave you - breathless, feckleless, Perfectless.
I am an Americano'd streak on this horizon.

Horizontal Love.

Recently there was a blaze (word used in honour of ol' newscoot Irv Weinstein on the Middling City's Channel 7 Eyewitness News) and a building went kapoof. Was at Jon's Joint when I wandered over there and could not recall what had been there. Was it a building. A lot. Then, some steps. Then I recalled that I had not only passed this building bajillions of times but had traipsed up these steps for a job working for a former born again junkie. Former junkie, current born again. A real micro-managing, sexist, religionist ass named Dom. As in Perignon. As in Corleone. Etc.
So the steps, so the memory.
Another revelation, of a digital and less personal sort.
Working on the computer for what seems aeons lately have been sorting through not only occurent miasmas but have taken frequent sideroads whilst rendering digvid files to discover something so fab I must share it, shout it from the virtual rooftop.
Within the little package of Titanium Platinum there is a juicey bit that allows one to design one's very own cd/dvd doo-dad-rich labels. And even more... like case covers. I mean really. If You knew about this and did not tell I am like so furious.
Spoke with Justy today while he and Mattie were not hard at work at the mag. Decided that well maybe perhaps Bandmate Scott and I should make a biztrip out of NYC next week to suss out Knife Fight, Justy's band. To see if they might be suitable for our amazing double bill. Knife Call and Knife Fight: Battle of the Knives.
Saw that movie everyone raves on about. Sideways. Unexpected wacky character behaviour. Unexpected act of raging violence that had my face all sweating and hiding from an afeared mem of the X post-face-bash, with face dripping middle to bottom in fresh out of the veins blood. What a night that was. I wrapped his face, moaned in mama bear rage, put him in car and sought out the villain and believe I would have mowed down said villain and, thankfully, he was not still out on the streets and the two of us met TerryO out that night and I drank to assuage my rage and all until the newly-busted-nose X had to drive home as my head laid out the window for air and for understanding and hey let's give peace a chance.

Love's Chance.

Did a whole lot of minding my own business - ha and harumph - this weekend and am in the throes of conceptualizing how to write some ferfucksakes malarkey (as in some sort of Middling City sporting coach) for online course, get some art made, get some other items dotted and crossed and such.
If 100 magical fairies showed up at my door and they were all charged up on caffeine they might be able to lend some nec hands.
The church next door is rollicking for the lord or god or satan or saran wrap or whatever and perhaps as it's the yuletide it's turbo-charged evangelizing time. But I gleefully forget each year and so each time it's a different surprise inception at the disruptive wherewithall of these folks.
So now it's off to points beyond and then some and then some and then some and then some.
Did I mention there's some sort of malarkey abrew for Parsons School of Demarcated Anxieties?
Yours in Evangelizing Agonies.

Love's Agony and Contrapuntal Sensation.

(sung to tune of Love Machine, 70s Motown dance mega-hit)

I I I am a digital video editing ma-chine
And I don't work for nobody but Parsons
Oh oooh cha
A digital video editing machine...

I now have a plethora to send off to JR. And one, I swear, will be like so suitable for the next Whitney Biennial. No lie.
They are each little snippets of digital video editing mastery and the more I'm using this Final Cut extravaganza the more I'm meandering off the trail into black diamond territory, playing with scale, and other secret things.
About to jet off to Liz's girlie jewelry party for charity and find my sister some swingy earrings. Note to You: I do not have faux earholes. I do not wear earrings.
The last time I believe I attempted earrings was at the wedding of my beloved sister whose marriage (cue sit-com applause machine) went down in flames a few years back and whose d-word is now nearly final. (cue giant ovation)

After the jewelry purchasing power party Kennergy's free-jazz gig at Soundlab, renowned for serving the region's worst wine. At $3 per glass. O mighty God, if there is one, please prevent the temple squeezers from finding me if I so drink three of those glasses of rotgut that will rival the near-grain-alcohol vino of Thanksgiving Day when I served Stan and all the accoutrements. A-freakin-MEN.

Musing Love.

Well, file last night's charity event under Well, That Was Interesting.
First interesting fact is that I have the same, very-same, crimson chunks in my hair as does Robbie Goo and Carla, Mark Freeland's girlie companion.
Very same crimson, very same hair stylist.
Attended the VIP moment and ate about 6 Swedish meatballs and a rock sound guy queried if in Sweden the Swedes eat these. I thought not. The wine poured, the people schmoozed, the food disappeared.
Alison Pipitone played with her rollicking band and that was a highlight on the music end of matters.
Lead Boy Colleage and I spoke ever so briefly, told him about my beloved beau Kennergy who was not with me, he avoiding the rock scenario. O, velcro, I say.
I watched the video playing non-stop overhead and was delighted to hear that Yours Truly makes a cameo. It was described to me as TJ Zindle of Last Conservative fame and moi exchanging an Eskimo greeting, rubbing noses. And then, I saw it, this digitally-captured moment.
Have to FedEx off a dvd to JR for the grad student open house, sure to wow the masses my videos will be/are. Spoke with JR for a good long while yesterday, describing in full detail the work coming his way - a triumph. Triumph of use of adjectives, triumph of editing, triumph of shooting.

Triumpant, defiant Love.

A Johnny Depp look-alike meandered by in a gray poly-oly-um-cum-free suit. We danced a mean hustle. Afterwards, after twirling in a fashion that could best be described as near-arm-amputational (arms of Yours Truly), he growled in my ear Nice following, baby. The little vid made by Beth Dearest of the dancefloor encounter proves it to be not a good example of following, or leading.
Sky-high minis, sky-high 'fros, sky-drunk guys towards the evening's end, sky-high Leif Garrett of former idolatry (photographed by YT after collaring him and after his junkie eyes sort of focused upon where my voice emanated from), sky-high drink lines, sky-high bartenders in bowties, was the disco vibe.
Today I suffer from Convention Center Foot, the phenomenon that follows hours of fancy footwork upon a concrete floor.
Beth Dearest dared me (dared! me! what!) to dance with a cop guarding the point where those with all-access passes (me) could separate from the masses (them) and of course - suddenly - there I was gyrating in front of him. When the song was over he kissed me (kissed! me!) on the side of the neck and whispered into my nearby ear Thank you. It was such a touching disco moment.
Highlights Include:
Eric C not knowing who in hell Yours Truly was with my new colour-rich tresses and all, until I was practically on top of him.
Cell calls from Cheryl and Liz, somewhere in the morass.
Charlene Tilton, of Dallas fame, working up a sweat by the autograph stand where revelers were charged $10/Polaroid.
Finding a discarded Polaroid on the concrete floor of a chemical disaster that had beheaded the Polaroid's subjects = an artful triumph.
Discovering a cache of crap canned beers backstage and delivering them to the dancing girlies, and Myself.
Leaving and having to jump a curb to get out of the parking spot that I created.
Now to deadline day.

Concrete Love.

A Johnny Depp look-alike meandered by in a gray poly-oly-um-cum-free suit. We danced a mean hustle. Afterwards, after twirling in a fashion that could best be described as near-arm-amputational (arms of Yours Truly), he growled in my ear Nice following, baby. The little vid made by Beth Dearest of the dancefloor encounter proves it to be not a good example of following, or leading.
Sky-high minis, sky-high 'fros, sky-drunk guys towards the evening's end, sky-high Leif Garrett of former idolatry (photographed by YT after collaring him and after his junkie eyes sort of focused upon where my voice emanated from), sky-high drink lines, sky-high bartenders in bowties, was the disco vibe.
Today I suffer from Convention Center Foot, the phenomenon that follows hours of fancy footwork upon a concrete floor.
Beth Dearest dared me (dared! me! what!) to dance with a cop guarding the point where those with all-access passes (me) could separate from the masses (them) and of course - suddenly - there I was gyrating in front of him. When the song was over he kissed me (kissed! me!) on the side of the neck and whispered into my nearby ear Thank you. It was such a touching disco moment.
Highlights Include:
Eric C not knowing who in hell Yours Truly was with my new colour-rich tresses and all, until I was practically on top of him.
Cell calls from Cheryl and Liz, somewhere in the morass.
Charlene Tilton, of Dallas fame, working up a sweat by the autograph stand where revelers were charged $10/Polaroid.
Finding a discarded Polaroid on the concrete floor of a chemical disaster that had beheaded the Polaroid's subjects = an artful triumph.
Discovering a cache of crap canned beers backstage and delivering them to the dancing girlies, and Myself.
Leaving and having to jump a curb to get out of the parking spot that I created.
Now to deadline day.

Concrete Love.

So, minding my own business and shopping for toppings for my famed paella I actually had a family of four staring at my hair. They were making no attempt to hide the fact that they were staring and I returned their stares with my most Perfect, beatific smile. Nearing the paint-melt stare but not quite.
Shot a bar mitzvah today and this was overheard as a woman fumbled with a very decorative and overly-designed doorknob: Weeelll, that was easy after those bloooody marrrys.
To that I thought Well, yee ha to you, mid-afternoon tippler with abandon.
Tonight is the World's Largest Disco, or, rather, the Middling City's Largest Disco Scene. You know, the one where 10K people or so in flammable clothing and faux 'fros do their best hustle. Despite the fact that for most the hustle etc. was aeons before their time and if not for VH1's series loving all things retro they would just not know.
Bringing Inbal and Beth Dearest to the WLD/MCLDS vip portion of the evening for high times and no misdemeanours. Turned them on to sponge candy and now they are addicted.

Spongey Love.

*neato! this post was just completed as the previous was allegedly lost as I blogged on another internetal set-up with woeful and antedeluvian dial-up. So double post Love for You, lucky sunnuvagunn epinw reader/Lover.

The colours of crushed cranberries and sumptous, foolhardy and light-coloured pumpkin pie are running through my tresses, thanks to Jon. As of a few days ago and the visit to the salon and the espresso and - oh - it's all a blur. But I left with multi-colours. And they rock. As I told Kennedy Jon wants us all to look like we're out on tour. Speaking of tours, Robbie Goo and Jon are having a slammin' party on Monday night as part of the whole Music is Art genre of rock activities.
It's 3PM and I have not started cooking dinner for T-Day. Am I worried. Are real cranberries growing from my cranium. I rest my Martha Stewartlike case.
So I'm making duck with 40 cloves of garlique. 40. I went to B'Way Market yesterday for a special special duck from a poultry stand. I asked if the feet were extra to no noticeable mirth. Jon kept asking produce vendors if the various items in his hands were 2 for $1.19 a pound. To no noticeable mirth.
Now back to the Kennedy Kitchen for some good old-fashioned slicing, dicing, stuffing, and, most importantly, imbibing of wine all the while.

On NPR at this moment a man with one of those authoritative accents is describing the tradition of wild boar hunting on a holiday. You must make the kill... Oh, he's discussing ancient Greece and the historical figure, prince of Macedonia, Alexander, in honour, assuredly of the Oliver Stone movie starring the lips of Angelina Jolie and others. But really. No hunting of wild boars, please. Pigs are people, too. Ducks are not. Ducks are a dime a dozen as they are plentiful on ponds and in zoos feeding off the land. Alexander, a very present threat, the man accents on.

Stuffing. Love.

Cranberry and pumpkin pie colours now swirl merrily through my hair after a visit to Jon who touched up the red chunks and added anew. He and I visited B'Way Market to buy a fat pig .. home again .. home again .. jiggity-jig. Astute lovers of epinw and all things Yours Truly know, just know, I do not ever eat pig. But I did buy a duck, a solid bag of duck, no feet and no head. I asked the nice man behind the counter if I might pay more for the pair to be attached. Answer: no. Jon suggested buying a gag chicken and attaching those feet. I never swung by a shop of magick so no feet it is. Beth Dearest arrives in about an hour, onto this frost-strew gray Middling City terrain. Inbal comes on Saturday, just in time for me to drag their unsuspecting asses to the World's Largest Disco on S-a-t-u-r-d-a-y NIGHT for the beerish mayhem that it is. Now it's off to video land, cooking land, landing land, and more.

Love stuffed.

LOST:
(virtual flyer tacked with a red plastic tack, end broken from hammering, to a sapling on a busy street)
HAVE YOU SEEN MY ACADEMIC CAREER?
IF SO, PLEASE CONTACT ME.
ROCK ON,
NJP

I am in the midst of a freelance gig, part two (ding-ding) begins in a few hours. I informed one of my hirees that I am in grad school. She looked confused. SO I CAN TEACH IF I SO CHOOSE, I sort of warbled out. Well, if you ever do teach let me know. (long pause) I'd like to learn how to take better photos.

?

So, minding my own business, like fucking usual, and standing in the doorway of Jon's Salon (the man who gave me the crimson chunks and who is retouching them for brightness's sake this pending week) I see famed and lanky product and housewares designer Karim Rashid. Today, all dressed in white. Yesterday it was an all-pink ensemble, right down to his powdery pink shoes. Shot him last night at Albright-Knox Hallways of Art as he was lecturing, expostulating, espousing and effusing. Left Cheryl at the AKHA bar with one Jeff(rey) who was regaling and regaling to make the/my familiar less so, if you catch my deft storytelling drift.

So there was the imported designer, Rashid, meandering down Elmwood Avenue, the Middling City's one last outpost of pedestrianism. Spending his hard-earned design dollars in the MC. Jon ran to the window, leaving his client mid-cut, to see the man. I dared Jon to rush out and ask for an autograph, but on his left buttcheek. Jon, a rockstar, refused.

Love Refuse.

Minding my own business and about to blog this moment away as Interpol blasts away at a volume I'm sure that has the next door neighbors enjoying it completely, I glanced up at a stack of books. Dreamweaver MX for Dummies caught my eye and a cold shudder of death waved through my body.
Met Kennedy at a jazz gig at the church last night and Bandmate Scott was there, across the way/aisle/GodPath. So we go out for post-show drink(s), me and the Bandmate, at that joint Prespa. Small, functional, former storefront that pulls off the ginmill vibe well. We were glancing up at a college basketball game when - suddenly - there was a player with a face mask on. He'd had his nose busted or some such thing (as has Yours Truly - twice) and it blended his basketball head with the shiny plastic to horrifying effect. Bandmate Scott turns to me and sez "KNIFE CALL SHOULD WEAR THOSE ONSTAGE." I like so completely agree. This is like that dj that JW,Esq. was going to see last night, an alleged daddy of the suburbs who does his gigs in a metal half-mask. Masks, all the rage, suddenly.
And Bandmate Scott joins list of pals who have informed me that I must grow my hair. Puh-leez. Is it time to walk to the green line after grabbing a tall strong French coffee, wander into Diesel store before walking to Parsons, take a lunch break at Marquet and meander the streets in a visualizing stupor yet.

Love Stupor.

Awaiting the call. From Elliot Caplan, filmmaking guru and star, to meet up with him and show him a thing or two. Funny thing is I can't seem to find a critical cable needed for my one external harddrive that houses most or all of my most recent video oeuvre.
And I promised him an Americano so there's that to acquire as well.
And then I'll have one and then all hell will be breaking loose.
Got a note that I'm in the Parsons School of Delinquents Rogue's Gallery as one who has not yet registered/sent in funds. Oh, velcro, I say to that. It'll happen. Soon.
Sending off samples of work to a U for consideration to confuse and mold young minds - i.e. teach a few photo classes in the spring. Without giving away the exciting, exurban locale, it's a highway drive of two hours away. If it's a big green go Hello, books on tape. Hello, dashboard thinking.
All for now and over and out.

Love Out.

Senatorial shoot was a slammin' success, except for the lunching part. Evan, the imported (NYC) mailhouse guy that I drove about from location to location, and I had drive-thru from (gag) Wendy's. We both had the #6 with Diet Coke, should you need to gag along. Had to, at some point, coach my senator in the ways of the hand, how to wave it in front of his body like a salmon swimming upstream in a pleasing and non-threatening (continuing the metaphor, not like a salmon hung-over and threatened by a hungry, streamside grizzly) manner. Be Italian, I coached. To the softened gasps of all in the room. I'm half-Italian, I said, I can say that. At some point I bossed Like karate chops in the air.
Moments ago shot a Korean drum ensemble who marched and danced and ran while playing. Very kodo and affirming. And deafening. I was in front of them, as if they were marching into me (oh, they were) for the bestest shots e-ver.
Onwards to deadlines of redwood proportions.

Proportional Love.

Sloppy miasma, as all good parties should be. In the midst I discovered, on purpose, Polly and Mark's stash of aged rubber bands, broccoli bands, twist ties. A pet peeve. I scooped up half the collection and deposited it next to Kennedy, who was at that instant a seated reveler. I had just caught crap from him earlier for disposing of his twist ties. This has happened numerous other times when I am visiting someone. Scenario. Kitchen and Yours Truly is moseying about when lo and completely behold there is an amassment of the aforementioned and, before you can shout flotsam! jetsom!, then I dispose of them as they should have been months, nay, years, sooner. Au revoir neurotic gatherings. But then, as it was pointed out to me mere hours earlier, it is neurotic to gravitate and dispose of these.
As I was shooting at Burchfield-Penney Art Center Bearded Lady arrived, inquiring if the Cyndi Lauper show was still up. Poor testosterone-addled dear, she did mean Cindy Sherman but when I heard her request for Cyndi Lauper I turned like a cat sensing a snack, eyes lit from within, in a half whisper uttering Cyndi Lauper? Bearded Lady did not catch her artsy mis-spokulation.
Now I am putting together Regards., the column. And tomorrow an all-day shoot with a state senator doing the usual beautification and beatification.
All this and more as techno smoothness fills the space between.

Space of Love.

ps: still haven't sealed the deal, as Laura is wont to say, with Caplan. And Beth Dearest reports that Joel-Peter Witkin was not only high as a kite, but dismissive and incommunicative, this from Simone. To that I say Well ferfucksake, the man is a rock star. Does he have to be nice. Was Kurt Cobain nice backstage. I rest my haggard journalistic case.

Beth Dearest phoned me moments ago, from the computer lab at good ol' Parsons School of Deism, where she was sitting next to Mentor Jim. Upon hearing that BD was speaking to me he said to relay the message that I was in big trouble. For what, I queried. For not writing, for not calling came his basso profundo response. For. Having a sabbatical of sorts from all things grad, for having a moment of introspection in lieu of making - a commonplace must in art making, fercrissakes. Meeting up with Good W later today for some party wares as it's the b-days of both Liz and Polly and a party is afoot. Note to self: turn heat up on a more regular basis as the green plants are waning. Note to self: when the mood is of a certain nature keep the soundtrack peppy. Note to self: continue to bother the shit out of Holy Crap why Me Elliott Caplan to work with me as mentor #2, despite his wonderings if this is for money, for furthering of his fame, for coffee comp.

Compensatory Love.

ps: gleaned moments ago from Internet that the veep of this very land has been rushed or taken to hospital once again, for Shortness of breath. But he has a cold, the sniffles, so it may not be Arafat cause for alarm. Whew.

Firstly whilst shooting production shots of MacB (look, that'd be Macbeth to You), there was a fire alarm. Blaze, I wondered, a photo op of real-live flame, the lickings of orange and red that is escapable when it comes to my graphite brandishings. No. False alarm. While watching the non-burning building, housing, apparently, thousands of co-eds, as well as Leary Theatre, some co-eds thought it zany and unfettered of them to ditch their clothes so there was one nude male and one nude female. To the delight of the onlookers. I might here mention that this is a catholic (not as in universal) university. I might here also mention it's Oban time in my book, this moment, which always lends a special je ne sais quoi/feistiness/X Factor to epinw. Blaze. So there in MacB was some smoke effect(s) to accompany the Wyrd Sisters - one of the WS aided me in a moment of snack elusion when my bag of Smart Food brand over-cheesed popcorn ("dinner") landed sideways and was unable to enter my awaiting and disappointed hand, and mouth, and teeth crevices. Enter Wyrd Sister. After some magical wiggling I had my fucking Smart Food. She said Always call in a witch. To which I muttered Magick. Exeunt.
Shooting, shooting, shooting then this in Act V, Scene V, after death of Lady MacB. This quote haunted my own private moor and I reread it to Kennedy and have it now copied on one of the walls as it's the new digvid inspiration. Life's but a walking shadow, he sayeth thusly and following is most of the passage, fraught with phrases that have entered our mainstay category.

Macbeth:
To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day
To the last syllable of recorded time,
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.

Dig. Digvid.
Moving bodies shapes in space and with the gray that hovers it's time to bring the show not on the road but au contraire in the rooms that smell of perfumes. To bring the lit refs up to the 19th C.

It Ove.
Lit Love.

Embarking shortly for a theatre-related gig. And You know how much I completely am enamoured of all things theatrical. As in stages, not emphatic speech, mercury buckets. Informed moments ago that not ONLY Beth Dearest but Inbal the Newlywed Israeli are jetting to the Middling City for holiday fun with Yours Truly. Sitting currently in the new newspaper digs to discover that the printer has had a snafu of sorts and there is no paper as of yet. And today is the day. The day that it miraculously appears from our minds and fingers out onto the streets, into the eagerly-awaiting hands of the masses. Emailed famed filmmaker Elliot Caplan earlier to inquire if he'd be my on-site idea masseuse/grad school advisor and to that he replied Holy crap, why me. To that I replied Because, fuckhhead. No, not really. Told him, oh, a plethora of reasons why. Just Why. Just Because.
Time to embark.
Love to Embark.

Minding my own business, as usual, awoke to the boisterous man at the front desk informing me that 400 cops were coming and they needed my room ASAP. Not for any bust of any sort. Just a convention moving in. And Yours Truly was being evicted from her seaside abode high above the large-scale folks walking back and forth the Myrtle Beach prime real estate. So I moved out and then did some art shooting that already has a fine fine title - Towards the Ocean. Shots made from the high parking ramp where I'd been docking my rented Chrysler cherry red convertible Sebring that in a flash would have one way way over any limit of speed or prudence.
So I says to my self, Nance I sez, You have not been on a beach in a year or more and why the hell not meander down there. So I did and then proceeded to sleep for the next three or so hours, scorching my face a bit which has now evolved into a tan = egads.
Heard from JW,Esq. today who informs me, as usual, that he hit a grand show and I did not. He saw Brian Wilson on the Smile Tour.
Back to chaos, back to the mountain that is the to-do list, the holy shit you had best do this NOW list, the emails, the calls. The past three days of beach and work and pals a hovering dream. Like the blissful dreams one can have only on an autumn beach.

Love Beach.

This is it, shoulders walking strong with the rest of it, eyes looking at ideas of art swirling inside after seeing a masterwork again and again and now the haze of music that matches the outdoors and the interior perfect and also the mood collective at least among people that matter that are personal that wanted change but did not get change. And today, a question that surprised, about now an hour ago, from someone suggesting big changes and that idea hovers like the masterwork, in the dark, the messenger.
Shot last night Dem big winners, big surprises some. Walked with someone over to the bar to merrily discover that all was pro free-o, what with all the work accomplished, the lit drops, the canvassing, the stumping, and more. The spotlit crowd watching results and projections and then people up on stage until their attentions drifted back to the television set next to the stage. Big winners, big surprises. Stood on stage alongside Brian Higgins, a new congressperson, as he thanked everyone and sent out mad props to his forefathers, etc. Talked to pocket-squared Byron Brown, got a hard hug from Sam Hoyt. Got earfuls of gossip and news from various Middling City others.
Back to Mazzy Star, the stars and art and the like.

Like Love.

Yes, I am farting about with my template and that is why there are pixels askew.
File under How Democrats and Republicans Are So Like Cats and Dogs.
Takes place this Middling City morn, gray sky blazing and politics hovering in the air like tragedy or holiday anxiety.
Yours Truly: Hey Chuck (bowtied man who owns photo lab whose rent I pay, essentially), did you go out and vote already. But, wait, I do not want you to vote today, Chuck. (Chuck is a well-known Rep, a conservative one to boot, a lover of the prez, in the political sense as he's also an avowed hetero).
Chuck: Hey, Nance, remember to go out and vote tomorrow.
cue chortles.
As I just told Deb, I am preparing a dinner of flounder or sole, in honour of all the floundering souls out there who cannot get the lead (not Led, not today anyhoo) out and vote. My beloved sister is one of the lax. Oh, gravlax is another good choice for an entree today - in honour of those who are gravely lax in their inalienable right to freakin' vote.

Entree to Love.

Tenterhooks.
Collectively, good or bad/evil/anti-choice/pro-war, we are on tenterhooks - the old-school means of stretching fabric to its limit to work upon it.
Did you think these hooks were for meat, the meat of your anticipatory flesh.
The art world appropriated the def of the hook and it's what said world calls an 'L' bracket sometimes. The little L's that bend and cause one to smash one's finger(s) with hammer whilst installing artwork.
Today is Election Day's Eve and this is, historically, the one to make the difference we are ever collectively bantering about like earnest grad students. Difference keeps us apart, hopeful, suspicious.
If You have your shit together, have registered, know where in hell your polling place is, have the inclination, make the time and listen to the wise recorded words of Caroline Kennedy, professional orphan, that her pops nearly lost his prez election by 1% of a vote in each state (read differencemaking) then get the fuck out and greet the canvassers, the ladies with the boxes of doughnuts, pull the lever and impassively, prosportlike, move, tomorrow.

Moving Love.

ps: happy election day's eve with my whole dem heart pumping the B+

Had good discussion this week with X, AcademeGuru, regarding this my most favoured holiday. He gets this, always got this, about me. Halloween is adopting another persona, getting caramel stuck in one's teeth, trying to be terrified to get the ol' adrenal juices flowing, thinking of the dead and the morbid and the dying smell of rotting plants, Witkin photos that are elegant death. Halloween is not and never will be adorable Hallmark crap, cute and adorable smiling pumpkins. No, Halloween (and please toggle over to archive from last year's All Hallow's Eve) is the aforementioned as well as prankishness and smashing of jack-o-lanterns when it's proper to do so = under cover of darkness, in the middle of public streets and when the day/night is done. It is sad, but it must be done. It dispels the ghosts and after Halloween there is nothing sadder than a jack-o-lantern forlornly smirking as it implodes. Memory: Mr. Hung (whose handy diagram of the extro/into-vert dialectic I've hung alongside my desk) scooping 2-inch white fuzzy mold out of my jack-o-lantern last year, afraid I might be overly saddened that it had done its job and was sitting on a radiator festering. Fercrissakes, get that thing into the trashroom pronto, I suggested.
Be bad, be good, be everything in between.

Love, Pronto.

ps: My Annual Conceptual H'Ween Costume?
This year I am, I so am, Condoleeza Rice. Put that in yer corncob pipe and be terrified.

Hop aboard this thrilling train of Yours Truly thought.
Go to Parsons online course and holy crapskis someone actually POSTED. Instructress says read this and this and this and this and this. All of the readings pertain (very important grad word, like signify, rubicon, student loan, mentor and paradigm shift) to images of the Other. As in xenophobia and the capturing thereof. Or jungle fever and the capturing therof.
One of the links/readings is of images made, turn-of-C-style, of women of Algiers.
Go to CIA's factsheet on Algeria.
Read about Morocco, another former France-occupied spot.
Start thinking of France.
Start thinking of gai Paris.
Go to site listing apartments for rent in gai Paris.
Note that they are not très expensive, off-season, mon favori.
Meander back in memory to last visit in gai Paris, walking streets, echoing feet, speaking the tongue of gai Paris, eating the food on the tongue of gai Paris.
Jump off train speeding like the TGV, hit ground hard and body rolls until it comes to rest against a seeded, gone to autumn butterfly bush.

No love for Bush.

Blogger offers a special memo on how to blog a novel and, as much as I adore all my Perfection-loving epinw fans, I just cannot imagine tossing your collectivity into the midst of This Middling City, a sizzler, a bestseller if ever there was one.
Today's shooting included an anti-drug parade and hoopla. So I decorated the golden Forester and showed up to rep the other team. In seriosity I arrived to discover about 100 screaming children, dressed in red and holding red balloons. New special thought: hire these screamers to line my driveway for my annual red dinner in February. What a send-on for my guests as they arrive for dinner and drinks. So this parade was not a parade at all but a simple line of screamers and I could not make out the phrase that was screamed again and again and to me it sounded Japanese. Finally, I approached one of the children wranglers to ask the big question, to solve the mystery of the moment. BEEP THE HORN, BEEP THE HORN, BEEP THE HORN, BEEP THE HORN.
So when innocent motorists motored by they were greeted by this arcane phrase ordering them to beep so the children would scream louder and the motorists, if lucky and passing by at a slow rate of speed, could glean why in fuck they were beeping.
Nancy's special thoughts on baseball, parting thoughts.
The sport's uniforms are okay, varying slightly from team to team. Some look like really cheap poly. Some look better. When soiled mid-game I wonder if players are allowed to change into a clean one for telegenics's sake.
There are no supremely handsome baseball players and they tend towards awkward hairstyles. In keeping with my formula that the ire level of professional athletes is in proportion to the stylishness of their jerseys baseball players like so fit in. Hockey players look ridiculous suited up for the game and they fight most. Football players's natural looks are obscured and they are rather angry. Baseball players's physiques are open as are their faces and they are least prone to fisticuffs. Soccer players are most exposed and stylish and they don't fight. I rest my sporty case.

Sporty Spice Love.

So I had a Bon Voyage Koji party and concurrent old-fashioned throwdown to which seemingly thousands meandered into and stumbled out of. AJ brought a bday prez for me, one of his empty shotglass paintings, a marvel. I hung it immediately during a break in the baseball action - Kennedy and other fellas watched the game in my chamber and that is exactly where the painting needed to be. So up on a chair with work, hammer, nail and a wapping. AJ told me three times during the party how much he hates my new 'do. The red chunks, specifically. Had a very trying day yesterday which nearly began with the Middling City's mayor smiling into my lens after I asked his handler to Please hold the mayor's trenchcoat, and ended placidly at Kennedy's home as I drifted into SnoozleLand, the newest copy of SPIN still resting quietly in my hands. They did a fine job of amassing a chart to teach the masses of youngters and hipsters the big diffs betwixt the candidates. Shot Nader (again) on Sunday as he spoke not too far from here at the Ukrainian Party HQ on Genesee Street. It was packed with the usuals: Birkenstocks, Green Parties, Hippies, Crunchies, Crabbies - all holding oddly homogenous signs. I realized one of the Nader people had made the cheesey signs and passed them out.
Example:
Bush and Kerry make me want to Ralph.
Now really. Should a self-proclaimed peace candidate, self-reffed spoiler joke about his name being a euphemism for a politically-inspired barf, regardless of the barf's emeticlike source.
Ralph spoke of democracy, how he's not allowed to debate so therefore on his website he debates the other two sports virtually. How does one get a nose like Nader. Why does he always look like he awoke from a weeklong train ride in his suit. Did he. Stumpingly, he signed copies of his newest book, Crash!ing the Party. And sold merch, like any disaffected man with a following on the peripheries must.

Love Votes.

politico ps (pps):
Received the Pentagon conspiracy theory jet v. missile 9/11 video today. Art critique: a bit inconsistent, no firm conclusions, hearsay-ridden, no thrilling conclusion ie: links, deep facts. From me gets a big thumbs mid-way, another blip of fact to add to the heap of election year banter and warfare.

When life gives you lemons, make mojitos.
When life puts assholes along your path, make foxholes.
About to see Jon about shaping up the head of hair and will give him the same directive I gave the jaunty Israeli: short, saucey, sexy.
Ka-slosh ka-slosh ka-slosh last night, speaking of assholes and mojitos, not in that order, exactly.
No time to delve into the context of the assholes but my girlie tribe knows the slew of details.
So, on to the mojitos.
I get a call from Sam and Beth Dearest. One of those We are here and you are so there calls that has me nearly driving to the airport. But, alas, responsibility. So the Wish you were heres. No, wish I was There. Have not been in Middling City's embrace as long as I was gone so I'm still in what I call Post-Travel Limbo as my heart is split in two and I'm a distance learner, a distance yearner.
Have REM's Call Me Leper from New Adventures in Hi-Fi on the play and replay and rererererereplay mode.
Now to Jon for some good old-fashioned rockstar, Harley-driving, Marlboro-smoking, dog-loving high times.

Tribal Love.

Well. Well well well.
It's really real, the new newspaper, Buffalo Examiner - or - in epinw parlance, Middling City Examiner. I am the senior editor which means I've gathered up all the decades of journalistic experience into one big ink-spattered heap.
Received today four cd's made by Kevin Norton featuring fab fotos by Yours Truly of the quartet as a unit and then individuals. I wonder, did I recall that this disc would be featuring these or is this a surprise. Wondering still.
Got turned on to an Aboriginal artist today by a guy I shot at Middling City U - Gordon Bennett whose work reminds me in a flash of Basquiat.
All for now and over and out, think I'll attempt studenthood.

Love charade.

Completely, and I mean utterly, minding my own business yesterday after a gig, you know, sort of la-dee-dah humming and driving along Sheridan Drive in the Middling City suburbs, the golden Forester was magnetized into the lot of Shoe Universe - a place that is a port of sorts for women of all ages, trolling the aisles with intense purpose, eyes searching, boxes under arms, frenzy in the air. So, whilst talking to Beth Dearest, I find not one - but two - perfect pairs (that equals four) shoes. They are mine. Is there also guilt hovering in the air of Shoe Universe. Does the pope have the best interests of pro-choice people in his craggly heart.
Made portraits yesterday of an Iranian femme who's writing a book about Iranian contract/temp marriages - for pleasure (male) + money (female). A sort of fictionalized account of things, a là Rushdie, to be sure. I asked if she'd read Memoirs of a Geisha. But of course. Her house was a carpet museum of sorts and she made me a cup of coffee that had me whirring along the rest of the day.
Onwards to deadlines, the adrenalized onslaught I manage the best.

Best Love.

Just completed as in like so two hours ago the Coronation of Middling City U's newest baddest prez, John Simpson. Lots of my signature people looking human moments, looking ecstatic in bursts. Two nights of grazing on party food, those mysterious cheesey nuggets. Found Laura amidst all today's chaos and invited her to join me alongside one of the tables laden with crudites out the wazoo.
And just back from Philly yesterday, several days of walking through a small town, emptying (with assistance from Bill, Kennedy's bestest pal) a bottle of Oban, and best of all filming for art's sake. Just wrote to JR to inform him of such.
Onwards now to points ever beyonder.
Beyond Love.

Song du jour, du moment, is Beth Orton's Someone's Daughter.
Jaunty, rollicking, chock full of insight perfect for a day that has a chill that squeezes the remainder of life out of the perennials.
So Christopher Reeve died. And I recall shooting him near the Rainbow Bridge where one can cross from polluted Niagara Falls, NY to Vegaslike Niagara Fall, CA. His hands amazed me, all puffed out from meds and flakey. I made images of his body, his talking head, and those hands. At that time he had had no feelings yet in his body and speaking was laborious for him, intake of oxygen, phrase, repeat. It was painful to watch, I found myself holding my own breath and releasing it when he spoke. And I felt like death was upon him then, several years ago. Why was he on the Rainbow Bridge. For a film fest that never happened again, in Ontario over There.
This past weekend, post-wedding, I spoke with Father Jim of the Greek Orthodox Church in the Middling City, a man who if any, has a spirituality hovering around him - uncommon, I believe, in people of the Cloth. I helped him scoop the tray holding jordan almonds, the dual crown used in the ceremony, and some other nuptial paraphernalia, into a plastic bag. I spied the almonds. Are those jordan almonds. Yes, he said, have one for luck. I did. THEN he tells me about two seventy-year old sisters who kept jordan almonds from every wedding at that church, who put them under their respective pillows - for years - as it's superstition that the man of your dreams will come to you in the REM state. Did they ever marry, I asked. No. So much for lucky jordan almonds. I, too, now am assured a life of spinsterhood. Oh well.
Mad props to Beth Dearest for giving me her secret code to print out school readings as my own account with sheister-ridden XanEdu.com wouldn't recognize me as one who had reluctantly and yet diligently shuttled $80 or so at them for the same priviledge to discover last night that Holy Crap I can't access a thing and I'm on the road in minutes and what in hell shall I read on the trip if not good ol' snoozearific Michel Foucault et al. So now I'm armed with Foucault brilliance and won't have to pick up the latest MC News, USA Today or crapmag that I would not usually purchase but for that mysterious state of airport consciousness when suddenly flourescently-lit trash pubs look so... enticing.

Fluxes of Love.

Today I came out into the world. So therefore a bunch of us met up at the Middling City's most eldest of juicejoints, Ulrich's, for revelry's sake. Frosting, cake, gifts, singing, dancing to leder-hosed music, rat scampering quietly around a corner out of the corner of my eye, the debate raging overhead for a portion, more scotch, more dance, more frosting, cards, laughing with head tipped back. Good times were had by Yours Truly, most importantly. Then morning rolled around and it was full-throttle work all day, John Lennon's day.
Today a crisp apple day and, as is my custom, I called my mother who sprung me to discover my father, the other third of the equation, must have been online so no Hello at the exact minute - 2:01PM. Blogging now in my studio/live space getting well wisher calls and emails as the Hispanic evangels rock on for the almighty mightily and I work on various projects before ultimately heading to Kennedy's where I have a huge desire to bake sweet potatoes stuffed with crab or lobster. Tomorrow we jet off to another city for a while.
Older, wiser, stronger, faster, that's what I just told Justy.
Life might be for the living but birthdays are for the birthed.

Nascent Love.

Um, so minding my own stinkin' business (need I say - as USUAL) I'm having a, as in uno, drink with one of my most beloved editors, the Liz. Then more.
So then I query so what IS the next cover story of the next issue of the Shiny Happy. Well, wouldn't You know, it's the Asian Trends Pulitzer Piece by Yours Truly. Very Truly. Truly truly.
While out and about we are speaking to the bar owners, the chef of the joint, and assorted (not sordid) others.
Now here. Where I have the proverbial gun to the head, where I am flailing away and am assuredly looking at an old-school, charming night sans sleep. Hello! Journalism! This, kids, is what it's all about. The over-indulgence, the grace, the caffeine, the deadline pressure, the tension, the creativity. The ebb. The flow.
Love it, live it.
Called Beth in the midst of the throes of it. Noted she has not called back. She is scared. This is frightening. This is Get the fuck out of my way or I steamroll right the fuck over y'all time.
Onwards to crime.
Onwards to less time.

Onwards to Love.

Open thought to Kodak, one of several pains in mine arse. Whyowhy discontinue a winner, namely, your CN41 b&w film. I mean really. A grand film. Now to be replaced by a more expensive model, curiously named VW. Does Volkswagen know of this.
End of letter to misdirected corporation Kodak.
And just finished pondering the big questions raised by snapshots, papparazzi and daguerreotypes for skewel. Dragged philosopher Paul Virlio into it all, about his thoughts on what he dubbed the telepresence, what we all imagistically experience en masse, to global result.
“Since all presence is presence only at a distance, the telepresence of the era of the globalization of exchanges could only be established across the widest possible gap,” he writes.
Rock on, philsopher man.
Makes for further great cocktail party conversation.
Planning a bon voyage party for video artist Koji Tambaata at my joint, somewhere in the 20s. Full-on booze-a-thon with video people and rockstars and others. Or not. We have to hold a summit meeting.
And, on the subject of the day you should really be shopping for already, my bday soiree is happening Friday night at 9PM at the oldest grindingly sloppy bar in the Middling City, Ulrich's. German band live, in those cute little leather short sets.
So, if you are in the MC and are of revelling age, come and be.
Time to further my education, edit some marriage images and then, and THEN, watch the veep debate at 9PM EST. Cheney the Corporate Evil One v. The Dubiously-Credentialed Edwards.
All.

Debate on Love.
Parliamentary Rules and Roberts's Rules of Order in Full Effect.