When the Whip Comes Down, Stones song classique about working It on the mean streets, was emanating from that Middling City rock & roll station that embraces not only their steadfast playlist con brio but attendant rock philosophies - machismo, and blue-collarism, for example.
97 Rock, in common parlance, was blaring a bit as Yours Truly was wending about the MC's downtown en route to a Dorothy visit - that quippalicious femme fatale who chops hairs collectively for a living. YT stomped and stomped some more along the Pergo© floor to de-snow and rounded the corner to note that everyone in the floofparlour had disengaged from conversation and was looking up directly - or in mirrors - to see just what in h.e.l.l. was calamitying around the corner. Voi-freakin-là! Moi!

sidebar: (the haircut script)
YT: Hi, Dorothy, it's Nancy.
D: Hi, Nancy.
YT: I woke up today and I hate my hair, can you squeeze me in.
D: Yeah, sure, no problem Nancy, how is 1 p.m.?
YT: Yay! See you then, thanks!

As I listened to Mick's emphatic embrace of the song's phrases I was struck that as a frontman he must like so believe in these repetitive words, as an actor might with a part, to pull off the whole damned presentation. Refrains. Hand gestures. Hip thursts. More refraining.
This all, YT went on to further conclude, is a fine musical thesis to carry into any rock performance or karaoke session. Karaoke might be on agenda soon with some pals who take the big K real seriouslike.
What kills a karaoke presentation worse than just not believing in the lyrics (as Mick must or any other primo frontman/gal), or worser yetter, one's own veracity/profusion/rock&rollness?
Breaking down into a fit of laughter.
That's what.
In a midwestern town YT had a barroom in her grips during a tune. But suddenly the spell was broken, I began to hate the selection and then chortled through the second half of the song, leaving the elevated stage in a somewhat-authentic cloud of disgrace.
I did just regale Kennedy last night with my most triumphant karaoke tale.
I was in Japan, in a private karaoke room with a group.
Table, banquette seating. Killer hi-fi (any ol' joint in Japan has such), killer amenities for such a gathering (read drinks).
YT brought down the high-rise with a sparkling and searing rendition of ABBA's Dancing Queen.
FF to another, later Japan karaoke incident. And I do mean incident.
I had scoped out during the day while making images a few bars.
Later, after some official business, grabbed two artists and made our way to this bar, which I later dubbed Danger Bar as it was festooned with DANGER ZONE plastic tape (in English, assuredly a prized, kitsch touch).
We three sang into the cordless mic for hours and hours, at one point YT getting on top of the bar and strutting along to an early Madonna tune.
Well, when it was time to leave we were saddled with the heftiest of bills.
Not understanding that this particular joint charged per song.
So we scraped together the Y(en) and split.

Moral: know when Art and freedom of expression are just that.

Free, expressed Love.

For Your edification, the annual Valentine-related blogpost about Valentine.
We have all heard that this gushy, red-infused day is named for two martyrs and is celebrated a day before the ancient pagan holiday of Lupercal.
Lupercal was celebrated by shepherds, word has it, who ran naked through streets, whacking the crap out of anyone on the streets with shaggy horns.
Another entry about Lupercal mentions human sacrifice that gave way to the sacrifice of two male goats and a dog and the rubbing of blood on young, selected Luperci's faces.
To this I say a big Yikes and thank goodness that nowadays it is all overwroughtly about cards, chocolate, flowers.
At a post office today talking to a non-postal employee, discussed the day.
He bought his Love some chocolate-covered molasses treats.
For my near and dear I tossed together my annual Red Dinner, a Bacchanalian of sorts with all-red foods, red drinks, guests in crimson.
This all transpired this past Saturday night and the floor still has a few wine-red spots, party tattoos, if You will.
Happiest of Lupercal/Valentine wishes to You.
May you run naked in Your mind through warm streets, pelted by chocolate kisses, Your path strewn with red rose petals.
Today the Middling City is frigid, began the day in a chaotic manner I'd best forget.
Onwards to happy, Lupercal times.

Red Red Wine, and Love.
As Neil, that great harbinger of all things passionate, might intone.

An appropriate, seasonal Middling City tale.
When one grows up in the MC one has accoutrements that are both sporty and wintry.
One might find in one's holdings things such as snowshoes, x-c skiis, hockey sticks (2), hockey balls for warm and cold weather, gaitors, and the like.
Attempting to try out new snowshoes headed down to what is termed the South Towns, a.k.a. Ski Country, to strap them on and give them a whirl but was thwarted by seasonal white-outs along the way - on Routes 219 and 20A specifically.
Left the former for the latter and was looking at one giant wall of snow, not unlike the venerable Wall of Sound so popularized by Phil Spector of gunplay fame.
Turned back, if You will, abandoning the snowshoe plan, returning to the Middling City which was all sun. This all happened on Our national sporty holiday, Super Bowl Sunday. A holiday like most other USofA holidays, focusing on food, gathering, and cheer(ing).
Writing an informative piece for the Shiney Happy Mag about area diners, the best around which, unsurprisingly, have unsurprising menus that creatively re-assemble house ingredients and serve up coffee both tepid and strong.
Have two more on the list but one of these, in the MC's so-called Cobblestone District, has rather odd hours that are sometimes disregarded.
The other on the list of remaining sites is the east side diner of note, Gigi's, serving soul food in a real diner setting peppered with 8x10 glossies of notables who have darkened the doorstep.
Off to points beyond for documentation and oso much more.

Diner documentation Love.

Ahhh, it's that time of year when the word prognostication gets dragged out of the lexicon into the light of day for it is Groundhog Day. At least in the northeastern portion of the USofA.
This is thee day when rodents, viable and stuffed, get to do just that regarding the duration of the season at hand. Prognostication of snaps, fronts, bands, accumulation.
Today at the university, between buildings, Ridge Lee Larry worked his deader-than-doorknob magic.
He, stuffed and adorned, and mounted onto a sliver of a log, is placed on a mound of snow in front of a faux groundhog hole and stares glassily out, in a twenty-yard stare, to tell the assembled if there will be more weeks of winter.
Or not.
There was no shadow (surprise) and so it is more winter.
While waiting for the festivities attached to the mounting of the dead and mounted Larry spoke to a few safety officers who showed up. They had nice, embroidered jackets and were there, they said, to check up on things. They had just run a fire alarm check but thought they'd check to see if the crockpots in a vestibule were not in danger of shortcircuiting. They said. I asked if perhaps they might also be concerned that Ridge Lee Larry was in harm's way - Larry's handler left him rather precariously next to the gas grill where dogs and burgers were roasting away. He is stuffed, old. I'm sure his pelt is quite crisp. I have never touched Larry. There was, in a scrapbook, an image of a student kissing Larry's face.
In conclusion:
Happy Ridge Lee Larry Day, Middling City.

Rodential Love.

Jubilant Immature Moment (a JIM, if You will) #87,433.
If You are like really incensed by generalizations, breeze along.
backstory: Middling City cabs are frightening and if viewed on any MC roadway steer clear for they are, generally speaking, un-maintained cabins of death. Their drivers are, generally speaking once again, people who are unaware, or perhaps on the lam. They are smoking. The cars have missing hubcaps. They are rust buckets, as we say in this grand Rust Belt. The cabbies resemble the little rectangles of photographic images of those who have done something grave in mags of distinction amid a harrowing piece of non-fiction.
In a more edgy sector of the MC I was being waved down by a cabbie. Immediate thought was of carjacking or something until the next thought was Of course, they have no GPS in the vehicle, nor maps, I presume, so he is lost and in need of coordinates. But I really was not into stopping where I was and rolling down passenger window and shouting directions across a thoroughfare so I did the natural thing. I pretended to not notice the large flailing arm rising out of the cab window. I motored along at law-abiding speed and the cabbie was driving alongside my vehicle flailing wildly. I pretended to be not only not noticing but singing along to a phantom loud tune on the radio. He began beeping madly. Still I stared emphatically ahead, singing along to … rien.
I was priding myself on not laughing and continued the ruse through a red light and a left turn.
The cabbie flagged down a poor, defenseless pedestrian.

Met Liz last night for vino. She does not get the whole Perfect Nancy Gun Moll Thing.
I tried to explain. It did not work. You either groove on the adrenaline of shooting targets well – or not.

Jubilant, immature Love.

Shoot for New Era went photographically, swimmingly.
Spike Lee of 40 Acres and a Mule fame directed this commercial featuring about eight or so national league baseball players - most surprisingly huge. One of average height, the rest sky high.
The shoot took place in front of the New Era joint (in honour of Spike and his Joints that select word) on e4. The baseballers were queued up, as were other fans, outside of the store meant to look as if they're waiting for ... caps.
A player arrives, a Twin. Number 33.
He stands in front of a lifesized cut-out of himself. There is a ruckus. A hotdog is thrown, a metal spatula is brandished. But this intrepid player will not go to the end of the line. He barges into the store as, as luck would have it, an actor playing a New Era employee shows up to unlock the stylish cap co.
Number 33 (have not yet given him a Google) enters and the others mutter GGGRRR, MVP, GRRR.
Justin Morneau.
Yayyyyyyyyyyyyy Twins, Yayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy Google.
So there Yours Truly is all brushed up against these players and I'm trying to overhear who in hell they might be. There were Mets, Yankees, uhhh, Devils. Nope, no Devils.
There was a prevalent Detroit brunette.
Spike is, as I had witnessed live and in person before, hesitant to show any type of joie de vivre, the man is all biz. Show biz.
It was only here and there when he'd pat a player on the back or praise one of their takes that he'd smile. Some t.v. newscrews asked him about the commercial but mostly about football. He gushed about going to the You-know-what.
At the lunch break I made some images of him demi-reposed in the front window of the New Era shoppe on some stylish chairs, Blackberrying away.
Notez bien: Mr. Lee is wearing a model of New Era cap that takes a special head and demeanour. I tried on said cap at the New Era grand op in the Middling City. It was so not me and I opted for the greenest of choices, sans earflaps.
I asked one of the New Era execs if they'd like an image with Mr. Lee.
Made some happy snaps of Spike with John of New Era and then of him and another New Era other.
Back to the Middling City shortly.
Happy in my vagabond state.

Spiked Love.

Realized that to date there was no epinw-based images of Yours Truly foisting firearm for Your beseeching eyes.

Spent yesterday in Perfect zone of looking, drifted from Kiki Smith show to a meander through the Whitney. I learned to absolutely love the Whitney several years ago after a strange belief that the venue was too department storelike - 4th floor Lingerie! 3rd floor Comestibles! But the stairwell is so warrenlike and soothing to YT now between the glowing exhibitions. The Kiki show was a swim in her many many objects and trials of different materials, all body/myth/Nature/wondrousness.

Hopped onto a bus a few blocks and debussed for the Met to see the Tiffany Laurelton Hall installation as I saw his magnolia windows in print and had to see these in the flesh/glass/lead/wood casements. And then found myself spending much time looking at metalworks from the Middle Ages, reliquaries mainly, metal arms outstretched with spots for the bone fragments of whomever, and silver birds, and Byzantine wonders. A treat, this whole journey, like a crispy Cortland with perfect white flesh on an equally crisp and perfect October day.

Also of note: opening in TriBeCa with Jason and Dorota up up up a rickety stairwell in a building on Walker that seemed near-demo quality to be met with a room of seated watchers watching a triad of digvids projected. Next room an atomic burst of flourescent tubes lashed together and forming a very large kind of non-functional shelter and the ineffectual volunteer was having a helluva time keeping tipplers and patrons from walking amid the glowing white that seered the eyes in a most KMart way. Much after had dinner with a bunch of Brooklyn creatives at Pink Pony and finangled the rock star circular booth in the back. Then onwards to the Knife Fight gig which was excellent, a complete 180, if You will, from the venue itself. Top floor jungled and smokey hanging. Second level people walking from back to front, club employees handling colored laser pointers randomly pointing them at people as if they were cattle to be controlled, moved, cajoled. Basement, where the music happened, was the most Middling Citylike of the levels, very Continental. Knife Fight was on. Their drummer, Foxy, is moving from the Shiney Apple back to KY. I thought that Geez, this kid will wake up one fine morn down there and rush right back on the next Greyhound to recapture the magic of being a rockstar and noticed and imbued with Shiney Apple purpose.

Speaking of such, time for out again into the Shiney Apple for more more and more.

Crisp fragment of Love.

Taxi'd over to The Gun Store on Tropicana Boulevard, named for the casino that is now showing that Bodies show of cadavers injected with plastiques. Sadly, no time left for that. But The Gun Store. There was scheduled time for that.
Arrived and chose the Saddam Hussein target.
Literal Harold (who'd never shot before) and I split rounds for two automatic weapons, the M16 with holographic scope, and the FBI-sanctioned MP5. Really not to be confused with the ol' MP3.
Got some quick coaching from gun guy Sean, and, after putting on the Ears and eyes, got down to target practice.
Preferred the smooth-firing M16 and obliterated the face of the paper target.
Sean said We need you for our SWAT team.
Not sure if he was on a real or virtual SWAT team.
Speaking of virtual v. real, went to Midway's computer gaming event yesterday and watched as there was a group launching of games and then as the chosen gamers merrily gamed away.
We were all fairly starved and glanced periodically at the Hard Rock's concert venue perimeters to see if the chafing dishes were chafed yet.
Games were played and played and then some nice food arrived.
Ran into the chef AGAIN, this time on the toppermost floor of the hotel, him sitting solo in an adjoining elegant-looking restaurant.
Wandered about in interconnected casinos and such for a while and now, quite now, it's time to smash things back into the bag and jet back east.

Back East Love.

Jetted way early a.m. from Middling City to the JFK, my former hangout of several years where I'd blog/email/wait/read/study.
On the flight from the far Rockaways to Las Vegas, where Yours Truly is presently for a junket to Midway's computer games extravaganza to make scintillating images of such for VH1, I spotted thee Alfred Portale of Gotham fame.
I fairly gushed that on Sunday night, as I'll be wending back towards that other, rightmost timezone of the USofA Friday and then shooting stills from a shoot for a commerical for New Era Cap Co of Derby, NY - for real - fame, that Dorota and I will be plunked down at a table somewhere in his joint at 12e12 in the Shiney Apple.
Yesterday on the flight, when I wasn't soundly snoozing, watched a marathon, apparently, of Top Chef. Think I saw about five seconds of this once but watched their challenges and, despite the fact that I would say my cooking skills are fairly unfair in the sense that they rock, that I do have a lot to learn indeed. When the cooks were faced with the challenge of what to do with mounds of offal (think chef Mario Batali of orange clog fame) I mused that I would not know a god-danged thing to do with chicken feet, cow tongue, maybe something with sweetbreads, but never kidneys. No. Never.
Also to be noted is that YT did not note that the flight was five hours and did not have more than a light breakfast at the JFK so watching all this food prep was torturous. JetBlue tossed some snacks at us a few times. A man two seats down opened up a sub/hoagey/hero and I nearly shouted Geez Up There! A FIRE so I could grab this white bread monstrosity for a bite to assuage the pangs.
Once in Vegas, in this desert, and then once in Mandalay Bay, noted and remembered the grandness of Vegas in the most mallacious way. It's all big and brash and sort of tasteful but sort of way way too.
In one transem of the Mandalay lobby were tiered Andy Warhol cammie paintings, eight in all, up the wall. Across more art. There is really art in Vegas. Not as plentiful as the faux boobs, but there is a lot.
Worked out in the Mandalay gym and it was also elegant.
Seconds ago got a call from Literal Harold (VH1's computer gaming blog star) who is down the hall, asking if I'd collect some hotel soaps for him, apparently he collects hotel soaps. I should probably share with him that I grabbed about 6 bottles of water at the workout centre as I'd paid $20 for the daypass and I'll be dang-blamed if I'll shell out another $3.25 for a small bottle of water.
Should humans have to pay for water. In posh hotels.
In gymnasiums.
Onwards to the desert momentum, this city ringed with gray mountains off on the landscape's horizon.

Desert, not always Dessert, Love.

veni vidi rolli.
Went to Queen City Roller Girls benefit Saturday night to roll and not derby.
In vehicle was also Annie and Jana and up north met up with Cheryl, Liz, Erin and saw The Jens as well as rockabilly and art types.
As well as one Middling City politico whose hippie wedding I shot a number of years ago. They wore sandals. It did not last.
There is a moral there.
So what did last in his closet were some 80s acid-wash jeans that had some streaks of bedazzlement, worn as the night was themed 80s-era prom.
On the wooden floor was a panoply of hideous bridesmaid dresses, corsages.
The QCRG team, numbering at about thirty, is half bruisers and half lithe types who, if they were your grocery checkout girl, you'd feel the need, perhaps, depending upon mood, to help her foist a grocery bag into the cart.
Witnessed were, de rigeur, some stupendous wipeouts (not to be confused of the top ten selection of Yours Truly) with limbs akimbo, people holding onto wall, people holding the wobbly up, some scoping, and lipgloss.
I made sure that, while blading along, lipgloss was firmly applied.
And one of my dearest, Liz, gets my ribbon for roller gumption, lacing up and, in grand Liz style, hitting the activity con brio. I whizzed past her at one point as she was falling and had to go around before I could find her again. I was helping her with some technique issues and she said the greatest quote of all, to be included on the calendar of YT if ever there is to be one, accompanied with image of Liz on skates,
I don't mind falling.
Now those are words to muster up and forge ahead with on a diurnal basis.
Also of special note was the boy in drag who wore a rather unflattering maxi dress that happened to match the odd ochre of the rental skates.
Onwards after the rink headed more north to find a dismal hotel bar so that Jana could review it for some reason, assumedly to assuage those in Niagara County who feel that if ever there is news about their limping burg it is about what transpires (entertainmently speaking) over at the former convention center, The Jackpot Centre.
The bar is not worth discussing (special mention deserved for the bar owner's dyed eyebrows ... no man should dye his eyebrows, and the unchilled white box wine, so Niagara Falls, so OUcH) but the activities of YT and pals are - dancing to a dj who busted out all the party tunes, a stranger (a woman) doing the forbidden dance with YT and I thought it was Jana until she meandered by and then I discovered this elfish drunkish lady behind me all juicey-goosey, and the earnest cover band onhand (A-List, such a grabby name) who not only proffered up one primo homonym typo on their set list (If You Don't No Me By Now), but did a rather overly-syncopatic but welcomed rendition of Neil's Sweet Caroline. To which I did an interpretive solo dance to express my deepest love for Neil, not the A-Team.
You see, the love of Neil is spread far and wide.
To the south, to the north.
In homes, in cars, in cheezey hotel bars the world over.
Wherever It may be, there is Neil Love.

Neil Love, Love.

Went to Cowboy Junkies last night, comps from Blair, their manager.
As per riders, Margot had her fresh flowers next to her mic stand.
And she had less of the snarks than usual.
The new material was fine and about halfway into their gig I felt like I'd had the CJ experience, and was essentially waiting for their Sweet Jane.
From there went over to Liz's, for the tail end of her writerly meeting.
Everyone was in the proverbial bag when I arrived, as writers are wont to be all toasty when gathered, when discussing such arduous things such as serial commas.
Off to see those cute Canadians, Sloan, tonight with Annie and Michele, or Mish, as she prefers to be dubbed.
Sloan, the foursome most famed in the mind of Yours Truly for onstage instrument swaps.
In mere minutes I'll be running over to Trinity Church with another art donation that will hopefully fetch a good price so the joint won't have to shut its art-encouraging doors.
All for now and over and out the door.

Rock on Canadian rockers Love.

The Middling City News today is so slim that I believe an average PennySaver is beefier - section A today is several pages of ads, wire service stories, a few pages of hard, local fact.
If You were motoring in a west to easterly fashion down Hertel Avenue last night you, if You glanced into the convoluted window displays and saw beyond the neon and piñatas and such of that rather awful cheese fiesta known as Gramma Mora's, You may have noted a person wearing a sombrero the size of a golf umbrella, outsizing any respectable Parisian café table by at least 125%.
That was Yours Truly.
Met the Art Mentor last night at the Mexjoint and noted a stack of sombreros and asked barkeep about said stack. He tried to warble out a tune about how you had to imbibe a certain amount of tequila or whatnot to earn the right to wear a sombrero. I would have none of that and wrangled the largest onto my head.
The thing was heavy, a real neck workout.
This was sort of an r&d foray as one of my back-burnered concepts is to market public laptop work sombreros for those who wish to be unnoticed, undisturbed whilst working on their machines. A rollable, flexible sombrero.
Last night's sombrero was not only heavy but inflexible.
It also prevented me from watching the end of the Sabres game properly as looking up at the television over my head to the left was a slippery slope.
But, mark these words.
If I do ever acquire a burro I am definitely getting that Gramma Mora's sombrero.
The Sabres won, I won.
Today, in mere moments, Yours Truly is heading down to the very bunkeresque and uncheering MC Convention Center for a rubber chix lunch, a charity event honouring several for their community contribs, including one of my art pals, Gerald Mead.
Something for Your mulling pleasure.
Doing the (rubber) chicken dance wearing an XL sombrero would be quite a feat, a test of will, neck, derring-do.

Obliterated Love.

Big and great Middling City news - in grand banner style - is that the Bike Path Rapist has been apprehended after over two decades.
I had a gig out at Middling City U this fine morning and was informed by an official there that this very rapist (a wily, sociopath who was a church-attending, lawn mowing, model dad in cahoots with his dark self) registered to run in the annual Linda Yalem Memorial Run - named for his first victim who he also murdered.
I said Incomprehensible.
And just now, with all that horrid news somewhere in the mind, wrote a one-page artist statement full of joy and love and hopefulness about making art and such for a grant. Granted, the thing was due yesterday, on Martin's Day, but there were no po's open and so they should just say What the hell, c'mon in and let us have a look, and then, oh then, they should cry Eu-fuckin-reka, give this woman a grant.
Well, now that I have blogged about this all it will not happen, as that's how these art things work. Say and reveal too much and *ka-poof* there it goes.
Planning a Girlie Roller Outing via eVite which is so very new millennium. This event is a mere handful of dollars and all the dollars go to the Middling City roller derby team.
Everyone has a bat story. Everyone has a ghost story. Everyone has an I got my heart smashed like an atom story. Everyone, seemingly, also has a rollerskating story.
Mine.
I was an athlete. I was very thin. Read between the lines.
All the other girls lined up against the wall would get picked for the boy choice skate. I would be nearly the last but, You know, the boys were usually so bad at skating and had such gross, sweaty hands that it was usually, in retrospect always, better to skate solo and emulate Raquel Welch than be subjected to that nonsense.
And everyone has a song or bevy of songs they attribute to skating.
On all these divergent notes I end, skating away to the post office to get this hopeful packet of documentation and such off to wherever, whomever.

Rolling, Love.

First things first.
Happy Martin Luther King, Jr. Day's Eve.
There is a movement to make this holiday a national day of service and at an event shot by Yours Truly on Friday night there was big emphasis on literacy and helping non-readers to love words.
Tomorrow was the actual b-day and, renewing knowledge of MLKjr Fun Facts, retrieved the one that notes he began college at the age of fifteen.
Just read the harrowing tale of a former child soldier in Sierra Leone, Ishmael Beah, in the NYT mag.

Sometimes I feel that living in New York City, having a good family and friends, and just being alive is a dream.

There was just, it should be noted, a Middling City skyclatter, thunder like nobody's business. Today it hailed. This is NOT snow, I shouted into the sky. It's time for snow. The snow shovel looks bereft and I do imagine that all the plowing guys are digging their long run of contracted coffee breaks.

It is time to edit like the wind, like the blustering wind in the dark Middling City clouds.
It should be noted that YT will be at a press junket for VH1 soon for a few out in the freaky desert bowl that is Las Vegas. In Spanish that means The Chips.
Scouting out shooting ops, the sort with rented guns, not the other, renowning sort.

Scouting, hailing Love.

Patti Smith and REM, two of the toppermost of this blogger's poppermost.
And do either Patti or the solid GA guys of REM give a damn about their inductions into the Hall of Fame in the Land of Cleves in OH?
There was, post-announcement, some alleged gushy quotes from Michael Stipe who was in London, about this rock honour and that he got a call from rock poet Patti saying big congrats and he got to congrat her back and isn't it just so supernuts being so super-famed and inducted.
Lest You have not been, here is my super-famed and inducted take on the R&R Hall of Fame, which I traipsed to several years ago for the John Lennon show which I did not regret.
You arrive and, as with all Cleveland lakeside attractions, there is efficency, and expense.
Not Middling City expense, but real, bona fide pay for the priviledge expense.
You ditch the car and meander into what could be a mall. A mall of music and high ceilings and windows and wondrous electronics and a cheesey stage in one corner and, if You are really lucky, there will be someone on the stage warbling, earnestly.
There are escalators and you might think of the Pompidou Centre but you can stop right now if You are. You escalate and have not paid any ransom and you might think Hey I am like so in but You are not. You still must pay and, when wandering amongst the attractions, the perma-collection, if You will, You will be overwhelmed by two, concurrent things.
The girth and age of several of Your fellow attendees.
Then it will possibly occur that Hell, this is a rather old genre, after all, I came along in nineteen-whatever and righto these folks were rocking around the clock a long while before that. So there's that.
Then you will see do-dads, trinkets, broken guitars, signed picks, signed jockstraps, signed pizza boxes, just about every thing signed and splintered and oso rock and oso roll.
You will begin to not only feel amazed like You're at one of those travelling curiosity shows maybe gleaned here and there in Life but you will be thinking perhaps a trip out to Seattle's Experience Music joint with the Gehry lines is in order.
So a telling thing is that the Rock & Roll induction gig with this year's all worthy and hexcellent inductees - Ronettes, VH, Run DMC, and aforementioned - happens in the Shiney Apple. Not over there down 90 in Cleveland. Not at the M/Hall of Fame, not in any other COH venue. The Shiney Apple, the city that is more rock than over there and, frankly, anywhere.
Long Live Rock. Long Live the Shining Shiney Apple.

Long Live Love.

afterthought:
Google the COH R&R Hall of Fame and a troubling message flits across the backlit world. Going to that site will harm your computer. Forewarned is forehappy.

So Vincenzo hands me a bag last night. A reused holiday giftbag.

*sidenote, to be read/thought in bitchy intonations: I hate giftbags, especially those bedecked with Whimsy. Wrapping with personality is the way to go, is my gifto credo. End bitchy sidenote*

I open the bag to learn what the trinket, as he'd described it, is.
Two cd's with John Lennon's ultimate radio interview burnt upon them.
His vibrancy about the pending album and how grand his life was feeling that day, December 8, 1980, his last one.
I looked down at the cd's and, after Vincenzo told me what they are, I felt almost like I did when I peered into the plexi box those several years ago at Rock and Roll Hall O' Fame at the brown paper shopping bag from the hospital containing his personal objets, and the broken and blood-spattered iconic lunettes.
Just overcome with It.
I have not listened, yet.
+ +
With assurance I can say that Yours Truly began her day in a manner in which You did not.
I began my day, nearly, at Forest Lawn Cemetery hunting for the god-danged gravesite of one Millard Fillmore who did some nice philanthropical things for the Middling City and who, according to some, was the anti-christ who prolonged slavery via The Compromise of 1850 of which YT needs to learn more about.
To get to the designated photospot I had to wend and wend some more back to Forest Lawn's gatehouse where I checked in and checked out their bitchin' 2007 calendar. Actually, they need some art direction. There was a ledger on the front desk and my hands were doing their own wending toward it but really I needed to find MillFill's space amongst the still-wrecked trees, rolling hills, restive vibes in a flash. Please enjoy my small photo pun now.
A small woman with large hair with the features and make up choices and such that seemed utterly perfect in such a setting (a stone gatehouse in a sprawl of eternal repose) grabbed a map and drew a line for YT to follow.
I shoot this every year and I can't find, I follow the YELLOW line, right.
She, The Diminutive Messenger of Deathly Orientation, said YESS, follow the yellow line until here (gesturing, drawing) and continue here to here and you'll see it.
It was found.
The regular KofC gentlemen were not at graveside and, to be quite journalistically honest and photojournalistically frank, it was a loss visually but a treat to not have to shoot above and around the epaulettes, the swords, the Columbus-worthy caps with plumes out the Wazoo.
In lieu of the annual freeze-out today was all graveside mud.
+ +
I dreamed last night of dancing/swimming through familiar and sunny Shiney Apple streets, directed at one point by two aproned waiters on the patio of a French restaurant and then swam over to a flower shop where I swam/flew into a hummingbird.
It was magical and is stuck for a while.

So like MillFill, stuck in his mud.

Muddy Hummingbird Muse Love.

Yours Truly has decided that in this newewst of world years to create an exciting new twist on the resolution concept.
This year YT is doling out corporate resolutions to benefit me.
1. Starbucks will deliver to me, via the location closest to me to be determined by GPS device, a grande coffee du jour as needed. Black.
2. DSW, recognizing the magnitude of their allure on this blogger, will offer me a special discount in this new year of 50% on all styles.
3. Subaru, recognizing me as a longtime consumer or participant in their brand, is to extend to me a special few months of lease free in exchange for my thoughts and feelings about said brand.
Tooling about on the internet last fine evening whilst researching an article for the Shiney Happy Mag (before stepping out for a party) Googled the following keywords: patron saint internet.
Lo, Behold, and Alle-freakin-lujah there is a proposed patron saint (a karmic lookout, if You will) for the masses who spend time reading from The Backlit World.
Saint Isidore:
And here's a snippet of the invocation for Isidore to guide You through the dodgey online landscape:

... through the intercession of Saint Isidore,
bishop and doctor,
during our journeys through the internet we will direct our hands and eyes only to that which is pleasing to Thee
and treat with charity and patience all those souls whom we encounter.

If this whole wobbly patron saint thing does not work for You, give dance pioneer Isadora Duncan a whirl.

Patronizing, Dancing Love.

Just completed shooting a house wedding, truly the most enchanting of the wedding genres usually. There was much tear-shedding by bride, groom, two singers (one of which was Sean whose drag name cannot be recalled at this juncture), various guests, and Yours Truly. As I am wont to say Any wedding that inspires a few tears out of this wizened/hardened photog must have Something.
Annual Friend Dinner was fab, as usual. Actually, there was some early sniping and I pointed out that as a gang of old pals this was actually very good that we could verbalize our various annoyances whereas with family and others less familiar all that irritation is encased.
So today is the final day of this year.
A year that was fairly positive and suddenly I am recalling a most horrid year, I think it was 2003, and I shouted from Matt Kantar's rooftop on East Huron out into the fireworks before our faces GOODBYE 2003 YOU SUCKED with such vitriol. That is past.
Onwards to another year of travel, art, friendship, general bon vivant ways tempered with general workaholism.
At today's wedding I had a brief, parting conversation with the mom of the bride as we stood near some true Anglican Christmas cake, aka fruitcake. The real fruit cake. Actually, I can imagine legions of Americans still not digging this but who cares about their pedestrian tastes for fast and fried foods, religious zealotry and Republicanisms.
So, there we are, mom of bride and YT grooving on the fruitcake. I asked her, the mom of the bride, Paula, So, do you find that you are the only person that you know who loves fruitcake.
She replied a Yes.
I said Same for me. Did not mention I've been known to enjoy very antique fruitcake found in and on top of refrigerators.
We merrily munched through some slender slices when the groom and groom's father (both Scots) appeared from around a corner.
I merrily blurted This is the besssst fruitcake I have EVER had.
To which the mother of the bride/Paula spit out her mouthful of the imported cake crumbs in a quick, heaving gesture.
I pretended to not notice, as did the Scotsmen.
I was not sure, as I made my exit then, if she spit uproariously because of my unbridled enthusiasm or because she thought I was a fruitcake newbie.
In either event YT wishes she had more.

More Love.

parting. thought.
Passed a bunch of flagstaffs the past few days and marvelled that the Middling City was so musical, so on top of pop milestones. Wow, City Hall's flags at half-mast for the passing of James Brown. Only about an hour or so later did the sooth emerge that it was all, that half-masting, for departed Gerald, who YT sent a fan letter to as a very young person despite the fact that deep within my heart even back then I knew that I was a liberal Democrat.
The body of James Brown, I must docublog, made its way from the Shiney Apple to Augusta, GA this week.
And there was a wardrobe change - purple suit in the Apollo. Black and red in James Brown Stadium.
What next.

Added to my list of accomps is the following.
But premierly a little backstory.
There was - past like tense - a doorknob situation and there was another doorknob situation. Things like old locks suddenly springing into action and then a staged break-in of the home office hovel from a second story window featuring smashed pane and crawling. Then the replacement of the offending knob.
Then another knob issue. This all takes place over several years and the second-last knob was, Yours Truly learnt today, designed for indoors. This $6 knob finally spun its last turn today as YT had a new and improved model that was purchased from the big box for $28.
Then came the truly interesting part, the putting together and, in retrospect, it was not harder than the sump pump situation. But patience. I mean, after drinking coffee with Kunji, Allen, Laura, Geoff and then some it was a real trial.
But done, finally.
And, it's one of those nice Euro numbers. Some strange lady in the big box assured me it was easy. Hell, I've got an MFA fercrissakes from that school over there in the Shiney Apple. What's a little forged steel and such after the wending to and fro and mastery of gradstudentspeak and digvids.
I rest my locksmithy case.
I had to break some bad party news to Molly last night while we were inspecting the tray of stuffed shells Laura made for her soiree.
I noted the several giant cloves of garlic. Molly insisted that they were white beans. I disagreed. She disagreed even after I pulled one from the red sauce.
White bean. Garlic clove.
Molly had eaten one and still was convinced it was a bean. This is a potential party disaster. Hot party noshing tip: Always inspect what You suspect are white beans.
Off to points beyond and beyond.

Beyond garlic Love.

Subtheme of this day was fab accomps of two Shiney Apple boys, Dragon Boy and Literal Harold. Dragon Boy has a new site replete with his fun facts and images of his very serene-looking self taken in Chinatown not too far from where Yours Truly rested and rests still her weary head in that woodneck. The Shiney Apple is where I dream the best dreams and have the best sleeps. And serendipity. And dinners. And lunches. And ideas.
So there is Dragon Boy all famed and such and I felt such a tsunami swell of pride for him. When he doubted himself I was his cheerleading YouCanDoIt gal. There is no more generous heart than that of Dragon Boy.
Then there's Literal Harold all denoted by Newsweek as a kryptonite to stupid re: his VH1 Game Break blog and again the pride parade of YT.
Me, I'm over here in the Middling City writing about lame-arsed film projects and posting them chock full of fun facts and then getting the bizness from one of the film project harpies who states the film crew and such is not Comfortable - dig that - with what was written. I not only rebut the stupidity with statements such as You will, you realize, not be able to control the media once your precious film hits the international cinema, but daydream about gigs much superior and full of import again with people who just know what is what and are not teeming with nonsensical MC trifles.
*A beautiful Neil interlude.*You are the words I am the tune come play me.*You are the sun, I am the moon.*
Last stop du jour a conflation, a carcrash, of friends from several venues all mixed together in the sodium-lit large windows of a west side joint with pretensions.
It is time to dream small MC dreams.

Small-dreamed Love.

Papa's got a brand new bag alright.
Like up in the heavens, from which some good things flow.
Some people die at the age of 73. Like James Brown, Ray Charles and Mr. Cochrane.
The time I first recall really - and I do mean really - grooving on the music of James Brown was when Tony Billoni was dj'ing at The Pink somewhere in the 80s and suddenly in that throng it all just worked (for me) for the first time.
I did see and photograph him once that I recall.
Now as I blog (but Blogger is in Cali time so this may still be dated as Christmas), it is Boxing Day which is the holiday that not too many people understand. Pugilism. Day to gift at helpers in life. Whatever. Point is Christmas is done and now it is time to wend one's way toward the new year.
I did blog over on Buffalo Rising Online about how to avoid death in traffic circles (aka rotaries, not to be confused with that nice, fraternal order that sent Yours Truly over to the Philippines for one month in her salad days), my special gift to the Middling City.
Goodbye James Brown.
Goodbye Christmas.
Goodbye legions of sad, wasted evergreen trees, sad misunderstood pagan icon.

Evergreen Love.
Not to be confused with Babs l.p. of same name, Love.

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

Happy Global Neil and Lips and Art Day, Love.

This just in.

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

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

Confident, nude Love.

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

Splendid Aura Love.

This epinw blogpost brought to You via stolen wi-fi molecules from that suburban bread joint, Panera. Yours Truly has sharked up alongside their big box to grab and read and post and such.
Quite a quality girlie throw-down last night beginning with quaffs of Veuve and we old-timers did note that there was no gunplay, no ambulances called, this time around.
Liz had her pad wired with motion-detecting devices that chimed, sang, carolled.
On her three-foot tall snowman she'd recorded herself singing a tasteful snippet of a carole.
YT queried how to edit the thing and then recorded a hearty HoHoHO you skanky ho.
Moments ago, following a trek to the big U, ran into the PO to mail off a bunch of happy images made by me to clients and pals all over the dang place.
I eschew the lines and head straight to the nice, geek-friendly automated machines and usually end up helping a few others who are just baffled.
Well, up comes Middling City piano bar fixture Jackie Jocko.
He needed instruction, headed straight for me, as I was helping a lanky woman mailing off a package with wimpy lettering I could barely see, let alone some harried, nearly-going-postal postal worker. No wonder.
So there is JJ with his sprayed-on eyebrows and hair. Really an artform.
I told him he'd need a debit or credit card to use the auto-device.
Honnnney, he stated, I don't carry those around with me.
Well, I said, pointing off into the dank and distant corner, you'll have to weigh your package on the scale and buy the postage you need - over there.
Well off he meandered. He was back in a flash.
Missssssssss, he asked, can you help me with that when you're done.
There I was, using my handy cellphone calculator, math whizz that You know I am, dividing $1.83 by .39 to come up with five or so and then showed the MC Piano Man how to then purchase his separate first-class stamps.
Out came a wad of cash, high roller style.
I grabbed a few bills and shoved them into the machine, thinking that this part of the process would just more dauntation.
The stamps were spit out.
He was very excited.
I said Now lick and stick.
Happpppppppppppppppy Holllllllllllllllidays Missssssssssssssss Jackie Jocko said.
Same to you.
I didn't tell him I knew he is a star.
A real Middling City star.


Starry Love.

VH1 and Yours Truly will be entwined once again, or shall I say Viacom. The Ramjac of the media world, to ref the nearly-invisible, highly-influential Vonnegut.
To recap: images sold to them of various bands of national and Middling City ilk, documentation of Save the Music activities, Real World documentation, etc.
Going on a junket to document some of the madness for aforementioned in the desert, the plastique land of Siegried and Roy. Vegas.
And of course must recollect for You the fun facts gleaned by my wedding chapel fact-finding mission there several years ago. When I timed that one could land in an aeroplane in that desert, cab on over to City Hall and be married at a chapel on the Strip within two hours.
One very dear pal, who shall be unnamed at this juncture, did so and then a few years later realized the harsh realities of post-connubial-bliss extrications. Months, nay, years of extricating with assistance of lawyer/booze/fate. And thousands of dollars.
Those wedding chapels, resplendent with cakes of faux confection (pose with them for an extra fee added to wedding package), onhand photogs, earnest chaplains and Elvises to pretend that they're marrying you when in actuality the marriage has happened in a back room and Elvis is merely for show. Show show show.
A Middling City Holiday Tale.

I do mean tale.
We will call the lead Meredith for that seems festive, worldly, earthy.
Well Meredith looked forward to her office party, a little affair (with an office worker nobody knew about but eyebrows raised when they were near each other, as did pheromone levels) at a Middling City swillhole.
She had several and had a grand time to boot.
The next thing Meredith knew she had driven into the front of HSBC Arena, where Neil Diamond has performed. Where that sports team plays.
Where the hotdogs are way overpriced.
Meredith was face-to-face with a wall.
The police and such arrived.
I missed the stop sign, she said.
The Holiday End.

Love of Telling Tales.

This Just In.
Yoko is being extorted by her former, wily driver who says he has bad photos of her.
There are several bad photos of YT out in the world. Extort away.
Does one really care about such things in this reality, share-all world.
I think not.

The Middling City is awash in temperance of the weathery kind.
Bulbs are confused. People are confused. Scarves or not. Sunscreen or not.
Really or not.
Yesterday I had to make environmental ports of a newbie to the big U, a nouveau PhD in the communications department who postulates/theorizes/writes about this very type of online fascination.
I told him some fun facts about epinw, that I'm a long-time blogger via Blogger, and a few other (m)usings, including how there have been moments when a reader feels they must disguise the fact that they have done some epinw reading.
According to the blog theorist, Stefanone, this is all about Equity Theory.
A fun mathematic equation. You. You say. Me. YT says.
And if there is no parity there and then then the awkwards set in.
He's asked me to write a narrative about this experience, about the years. He asked the big Why. Because once I discovered blogging I knew that it would be a way to record the ongoing, sometimes odd, narratives around me. And gathering narratives becomes a hobby, when you become forensic with the world it is another place and keeps your hands in creation. We moved onwards to discuss MySpace & Facebook, and he demo'd Facebook, a Blade Runneresque way of discovery in a flash - the pet peeves and the like of others out in the world who've tossed together a summation of their personas. Stefanone mentioned the Machiavellian possibs of all this scanning, forecasting, e-learning of others.
It's just layering of narratives to be used in wise moderation.
Dig.
Was shooting gig numero threeo yesterday when I was spotted by a teen I have known, who I have enjoyed talking to. NANCY she shouted. So I sat with her whilst she took a break from her history homework. My parents are taking me to a therapist she blurted out. And then I missed suddenly the blurts of young girls, like those I taught at the summer camp that Maine-rich decade.
I asked her if she is crazy. She said no. And I think I know this girl enough to know that she might recognize if she were crazy. She does not feel it to be so. We discussed the differences between crazy and creative, and the feeling of not being with one's people. I talked to another child, request of the mom, about being a creative in a sometimes kookily straight world. That those people are out there and you have to keep on truckin' and writing or whatever that impulse is until those people are found. So I kept on talking about crazy v. not crazy with this teen child. One man's crazy is another man's creative.

Creative, crazed Love.

And so please tell Yours Truly why DSL is running like not running at all but standing still. Very still.

Today is Ignominious Day, the day the world lost one of its biggest peaceniks, a beautiful Libran man of art, John, who would be sixty-six at this time. And what would he make of this war ever dubbed anything but, disenfranchised voters, violence in so-called art including the evil rubbish spewed out by a studio and written and produced by anti-semitic Mr. Gibson, global warming, 9/11, his Sean's musical and stylistic change-ups, the loss of CBGB, the deaccessioning of antiquities by the short-sighted and so-called directorship of Albright-Knox Art Gallery in the Middling City, and oso much more.

As always, big WWJT questions.

It is fitting that today is an MC day that is bitter cold.
A day without news watching, a day of hunger, a day of working, a day of writing, a day of listening to recorded music and planning an art project for the coming year. And ordering a funereal bouquet for a girl of ten who mysteriously died in her sleep, whose wake happens on Sunday and for that YT ordered a girl-worthy splash of purple and pink flowers.

John's lovely and timeless words.

Chanting the Mantra peace on earth
We all been playing those mind games forever
Some kinda druid dudes lifting the veil
Doing the mind guerrilla
Some call it magic the search for the grail
Love is the answer and you know that for sure
Love is a flower you got to let it, you got to let it grow.

Love Love Love.

Sang along with Cat Power all down the soggy Main Middling City drag noting the smattering of holiday decs. Just had finished a gig at a residential place (making memento-worthy photox) with halls decked but, upon commenting to a femme in this joint working as a waitress, gleaned that not everyone has the same sensibilities of what is (emph on is) decorating.
This was tasteful botanicals, rich colors, emphasis on living and petite trees. There were no santas, twinkly little white lights, sheets of faux snow, overly-scented candles.
The waitress divulged to me and others on the waitstaff that her house is transformed during the holidays and I asked a multitude of questions, utterly fascinated that she even has holiday-themed canisters in her kitchen, and a holiday-themed bathroom.
Then, she continued, her and her husband, all hung over on New Year's Day, pack it all up whilst hungover.
She went on to illustrate for me her various collections.
I was oso curio curious.
And then I thought what in hell does Yours Truly collect.
I have collections of varied worth - both market-based and YT-based.
Cherry stems bent by others, wheatback pennies, bellybutton lint, men made of bottle caps from the 50s, various artwork by MC artists, and more things I just cannot think of at this time.
Onwards to very late dinner and more ruminations on curios, and rampant curiosity.

Love of catlike curiosity.

Nephew and I motored out to the Middling City Cement Coliseum to first bypass that whole scene by mishap of coordinates and continue along until Yours Truly noted that there were no giant sporty lights on the horizon to left or ahead. So we continued along and passed the fairgrounds and then were heading into the hinterlands and then made a scenic left turn and wended along until we could make yet another left and then lo and behold we were on Abbott Road, the real road of choice for MCCC access. We parked and trekked along with thousands of others and thanks Dave Pietrowski for placing us on the 48 yard line behind the home bench.
Of course I sang both national anthems and no this is not an error as today was Canada Day which included their festive and more voluminous country tune. Due to Canada Day there was mention of Stephen Brereton, Canadian Consul Général as well as some Canadian national beauty queens-all three in front of the game-cam.
Fireworks, vertical flame shooter, singing, occasional beers, a bona fide American fun success story and going to these sporty things makes you not only want to sing anthems and such but just groove on the joys of organized enjoyment.
From there a complete swing back to art of another genre and made images for Michelle Gigante's annual dance theatrics and live music. This was the best one yet, it zipped along for an hour and her and Paul Todaro read from Sam's Unnamable. A real sonic, visual, poetic treat. Saw Annie Deck there and afterwards held court so to speak in a corner of the vaulted reception area and talked to Cam Miller and Yes, I said, I would still be interested in doing an arts installation at Trinity. And doing that I will dive into the visual language of those ancient tales told to keep people in order, like a veritable rule book, an attempt to keep the defense strong against the bad things, the devil, the opposing team.
Time to wend on over to edits.

Rule of Love.

See this. Evidence.
Of Yours Truly being oso sporty when the occasion calls for standing up and being effusive and mugging all sportylike when one's sports shooter pal wends his way up the aisle to document above. Hockey. Sabres v. Penguins.
The former won as YT sat in seat number eighteen, one of the luckiest numbers.
YT was also recently on the front page of local section of Middling City News. There were several calls and emails telling me that my likeness appeared.
MCN is, apparently, trying out a super-secret new feature. Where's Nance, much like that Waldo or Elvis phenom past. To this date the likeness has been in this journal three times this year. Me working, me shopping for a cap, me walking. Just me, me, me. Here and there.
And, for Your absolute amusement and budding collection.


Collectible, wandering Love.

Recently Yours Truly was hobnobbing with a Middling City homicide detective.
A thug.
An intimidating man who made it his sudden m.o. to fetch YT a small slice of pizza. Hot peppers or not he inquired. Hot peppers, I warbled, imperiously. My cohort, who shall be unnamed here, caught the thug lying to his little lady near the back corner of the bar by the peestops, pretending to be at a press conference or a holding tank or somewhere else quite loud, important and workful.
The homicide thug pointed out the latest arrival, a shoe shine man, one of those sorts who looks like a dusting of cocoa powder happened and, come to think of local lore, this idiomatic twist could resemble the dustings of yore that straggled onto homes in the vicinity of Bethlehem Steel Corp., all those benzene molecules and such nestling into lungs.
So there is the shoe shine man, all obsequiousness, on the floor doing his thing.
All of his front and near-front teeth are, it seems, a distant memory, and the thug starts to shout at the shoe shine man.
When'dja get out of jail. Still smoking crack.
And more along those lines.
It was oddly uncomfortable, the thug intimidating the slavish shiner and when me and palsy-walsy left I stated that that scenario in that venue, which shall also be left unnamed, was like visiting a movie set.
We were in the roles of writerly watchers, anecdote makers.
Time to see Dorothy, who deftly shapes the auburn hairs I make.

Idiomatic, thematic Love.

There Yours Truly was and I can, perhaps, for the premier time, admit that I was not minding my own business.
I went to World's Largest Disco last night, having volunteered again to docudramaticize all the sub-happenings for Dave Pietrowski, knowing that YT wished to have a likeness captured via photons with celeb du soir, Danny Bonaduce. That kooky loose cannon filled in for snoozey Erik Estrada and Danny did not disappoint, first thing he did upon entering the VIP party was to march over to the top-40 dj in the house (Roger Christian) who earnestly slapped on "I Woke up in Love This Morning." Danny BonVivant asked Roger his name and he turned around in his faux Sabres jersey to reveal his name on the back - Roger. Well, Roger, Danny said in his spent-yet-distinctive voice, I always said that if I ever heard this song again I'd blow my brains out.
So there, song gone, Danny resumes standing alongside fans who shelt out $15 to have a Polaroid snap made of them, and him.
He wore a fire engine red suit with black shirt underneath and later, when he was upstairs doing more meet & greet & schmooze & smile I noted that his black shirt had fallen by the wayside and his hairy chest just hung there between the red lapels.
When he was on the mainstage with Dave Pietrowski he noted that many ladies in the house, probably braced by slutty polyester ensembles and scads of Grey Goose molecules and the like, had grabbed his nether regions. Not that he minded, he said.
When I had my likeness captured with him he held my shoulders oso tight as I asked if he'd liked the hockey game he had gone to with Dave P. the night before. He said he dug it, his first ever. I told him I'd just gone to my first game, too, thanks to Dave P. The man. The mover.
The usual mayhemish situs arose that one eyewitnesses at parties: polyester ass-grabs, dancefloor charisma and its yang ... the dancefloor wipeout, faux 'fro pickings, Sly Stone leanings, party train effusiveness, tentative shuffles, and Saturday Night Fever imaginings.
At some point it was time to give this annual 70s moment the slip before all the revelationized dancers became too too boogey-oogey-oogeyed.

Slippery poly-oly-ester Love.

As You know, Yours Truly is a Lore Lover, especially in these sobering, non-sober holiday times.
Who does not enjoy heartening and soul-bracing tales of scrappy determination and struggles, peppered perhaps with physical harm and confrontations with wild animals.
Or the ingesting of same.
Animals, not others of said scrappy determination.
Resulting, of course, in a party.
YT is attempting to parallel The Donner Party, always referred to as ill-fated, with The Pilgrims Party.
Both were groups who dug travel and adventure. One ended not very well, the other better. Both groups probably had to eat raccoons and other things gleaned from Nature.
Just completed a piece for Buffalo Rising Mag about intrepid Mark Goldman and his newest book, City on the Edge, with cover art by rising art star Julian Montague.
Met up with Julian and Cynnie last week and Julian says his artwork prices are soaring and I am wondering if I should get one now.
Great other art news is that recently I discovered two prints in my possession from circa 1842 are authentic and have value in the art market and it's time to have them properly framed.
Speaking of frames, the New Era Cap Co. gave each and every attendee yesterday a goodie bag and who on this Earth doesn't dig a goodie bag. I ask You.
Inside were several little favours, including a doll-sized New Era Cap in a glass box, on a wood base, tied with a black ribbon. It is a keepsake.
Here is the big question du jour and tomorrow jour.
Would you prefer to be an Indian or a Pilgrim.
Or is that indian or pilgrim.
Shopped and did not find yesterday paper party hats of indian headdresses and pilgrim chapeaux. Sorely disappointed. But not that I looked très hard.
Time to wend and write and do.

Indian Love of Nature Love.

Today has been one of those eclectic days and so far one of the biggest highlights has been seeing the inside of the former gun turret at the former Fed Reserve Bank on Delaware Avenue in the Middling City.
I was hired by my pal Dana Marciniak, now of New Era Cap Co., to document the hoopla surrounding the grand opening of their new h.q. and jumped from tour group to tour group and discovered this turret-related fun fact, provided by the co's project manager in brown blazer-no ballcap.
Moments later I met the retail head, standing amongst a whole lot of demi-spheres that will soon be topped off with caps of all colours, teams, affinities. To be truthful, Yours Truly had no inkling of the enormity of this whole cap phenom, or that New Era is as astronomically international as they are.
In the CEO office, where I was tempted to sit on his chair as I've done on a few other photo shoots, just to get a whiff of what it feels like to be a Captain of Industry, I did see a ballcap designed by a rap star whose name escapes me, featuring a real-live diamond accenting the New Era logo.
In mere moments YT is off to photograph gingerbread house construction.
My goal on that particular shoot is to offer my services as Taster of Shutters.
Off to Gingerbreadville.

Ginger, candied Love.
*in honour of the one side dish YT insists on making, when possible, for T-G, trying to cram culinary tradition down the throats of others. Ginger Candied Carrots. Love them. Make them.

So el grande Mercury Buckets to Dave Pietrowski for Sabres tix for tonight-premier time for Yours Truly, former diligent floor hockey and street hockey left wing.
Still have to contact Dave about the big huge f-up in the mag that mysteriously published an incorrect date for World's Largest Disco. Twice. Even in the title. I was, to say the least, mortified. As if there was not enough to be edited and done on the mag without mucking up an otherwise stellar piece which does, in sooth, state that the WLD happens the Saturday aft T-G, which any Tom, Dick & Harry would just know is not the titular date given. Egads again.
Saw Marky Mulville last night at gig out in the dark exurbs and he says he is iceside tonight, shooting the game, so I said I'd give him my coordinates so he could doc my sporty moment.
We were both at a gig sans cheese cubes, lots of crudites but, curiously, no cubes of solid milkfat in sight.
Moseyed afterwards to meatballs and vino for a well-balanced, nutritious evening.
Today garnered an advance copy of Mark Goldman's pending book of Middling City troubles, City on the Edge. Pub date = January.
Spoke to a Prometheus Books employee and, at some point, mentioned that YT had worked for them back in the day when they were in the MC, at the then-not-so-terrifying corner of East Amherst and Bailey Avenue. Back when YT slogged away as assistant to both directors of advertising and promotions, choking on secondhand smoke puffed out by nearly everyone in the basement office with orange shag carpeting which yielded a small crop of mushrooms after each and every rainfall.
YT took fresh air breaks, hanging/hiding out with either the acerbic (in attitude towards the joint, not YT) designer or the shipping and receiving guys where the titles were piled up awaiting loving eyes.

Lovingly-eyed Love.

Urban, vehicular fable.
Written, demi-appropriately, to near-vintage Roxy Music in a Shiney Apple-related memory jag. This is driving music in the far and away sense.
Fable:
And by fable Yours Truly means You read a parallel meaning, dig.
Yesterday, amongst a typical marathon day of several gigs far and wide, interspersed with necessary electronic linkage to the world-at-large, decided to try one of those small, vehicular gestures that can make all the proverbial difference.
The car had been pulling to the right, often. It got me to thinking that perhaps I should motor over to see ol' Mat Sims at the dealership to swap out cars - again.
But no.
For a mere 75¢ in quarters YT wrestled with a borrowed hose (three minutes and counting) and its attached air-o-meter, filling all four sporty tires.
To the brim.
The tires were at 20 p.s.i. and they prefer to be about 45 p.s.i. That is shop talk for pounds per square inch, whatever the hell that really means and, being a very busy freelancing woman on the g.o. go, who can really care.
That is another matter altogether, to be Googled or Wiki'd perhaps never.
So in lieu of frustration, possible substitution, YT invested a meager amount of time and money to meliorate. Problem solved.
This fable may be applied, in whole, to the concept of relationships and to friendships.
Thank you for Your attention in this matter.

Respectfully Submitted, Love.

Sitting alongside a window facing the Great Lake and watching (You see Yours Truly is a highly-evolved typist) the waves breaking over the breakwall but Dig This YT is not in the Middling City.
Chicago is eerily much like the MC in the genre of people who live here - open-faced, eager, and oftentimes quite spontaneously hilarious. On purpose.
Why-o-why am I Perfectly ensconced in a business centre facing a great lake in a great hotel.
Well, I will tell You.
I am here to see Art, lots of Art, and to hear free jazz by some pals, including Peter Broetzmann and Fred Lonberg-Holm. PB played last night in a gallery and interspersed were words by a poet, who charmingly leant against the wall where his work was hanging with lots of sand-blasted bricks.
Found inspiration in this sprawling place of six, maybe seven million people - depends who you ask.
Time to wend some more before flying back to the MC, where the Albright-Knox Art Gallery announced yesterday that they're unloosing all of their antiquities. A sad move, I believe, as there's no place for them to hang and be viewed and inspire just as the modernist pieces et al do.
Modern, modern, modern is the AKAG mission and m.o. so goodbye Old Masters and ancient artifacts and g.o. go to Sotheby's and points far beyond.
Artists get inspired by all of the above. Just not in the MC any more.

More more Modernist Love.

Auto-Portrait, for Your viewing pleasure.
Dem dere Dems did DYN-oh!-MITE, to quote Jimmy Walker.

Vintage Love.

in any event, i think we need to try the Enlightened Dictator model. i have been pushing for it. i feel like i could be named the Dictator of America and the whole world would be such a better place. i would do all the good things we need to do to make this world work better. more money for education. higher fuel efficiency standards so we reduce dependence on foreign oil. more money for the arts. fewer tax breaks for oil companies. i had this discussion recently with a friend and of course another famous political quote came up.... absolute power corrupts absolutely. and then we debated whether I would be corrupted. i said i wouldn't. really. she doubted me.

Before Yours Truly blogs right on about this quote above, penned by an ever-faithful epinw reader (but close scrutinization of all things epinw and you might recall one castmember in particular), I discuss the evening's soundtrack. It shifted radically since the last gig du jour from old-time rock and roll to Barry White. Is it pre-election musings. I think so. Let us think about Love, the eternal, worldly constant.
All things are fair in matters of Love and war, it has been said.
YT would prefer not to discuss Love and war in the same breath.

The quote above reveals a few things.
*aside. I have been thinking that we should reinstate the custom of curtseys and bows. The bow is a very nice way of regarding and greeting and leaving others in Japan, I dig it. Ladies would curtsey, gentlemen bow - of course.
And, I just emailed the quotee above this addition to the so-called platform, in addition to a special new, silent way of greeting with jazz hands.
Firstly, that YT knows some hard-hitting dreamers and schemers.
Secondly, that the world-at-large is seemingly going to h.e.l.l. in a very troubling and yet vainglorious handbasket.
There will be a savage, Victorian hanging, if Sadam's appeal does not go well.
Capital punishment is wrong, always as wrong as domestic violence, female genital mutilation, child pornography, the fiasco of the Iraq Invasion, and shoving one's spiritual beliefs onto others in the name of spotty, nebulous Justice.

Tomorrow is Voting Day. Vote.

Vote, Love, Vote.

Aside & disclaimer:
Hips and Makers by one and only rockchick Kristin Hersh blares to comp for The Church of Pathetic Sonic Profferings.
I think their drummer might be grasping the concept of A Beat (goes on) but the yelling on the mic thing should stop, it is like so contrapuntal and obviously ghetto. It really destroys - on a regular basis - the masquerade that this is crafty urban pioneerism.
The screeching will abate – after several more hours, peppered with occasional prayerful respites.
You see all civic help or interest on such matters flies away as politicoes and police realize the noise emanates from a church, a church of God-fearing, God-screaming Hispanics. Longtime homeowners be damned.
Baited JW,Esq. with questions about his costume of a few days ago.
And the details that followed were up to his impressive party boy standards.
He was a naughty schoolboy, replete with lollipop, knickers, beanie.
In his words he was A la angus young of AC/DC.
He also added a super bonus, obviously knowing this was epinw fodder, informative history of identity-shifts and costume mongering in San Fran.
He then, as the night progressed, according to his report, began to inject the notion of rep/page shenanigans and even used the word cornholing. You fill in the blanks.
Soundtrack shift to Interpol as it's quick becoming more an Interpol kind of night and I've just been contacted to go out and play (again) and an executive decision must be made.
I share now some details dispelling the notion that YT is truly uly Perfect.
Once I had a roomie who brought to the table, so to speak, a vintage microwave. I recall it had a hole in its door and we ironically put a DYMO label on the rift stating something ironic. Maybe it said Run. Or Uh-Oh. I just don't recall. I hated the thing and never used it. Roomie, on the other hand, popped popcorn in it.
So, minding my own business, I was looking for something usefully necessary in Target and chanced upon some microwaves. Somehow Laura sprung to mind and I will not explain. But there I was, suddenly inspecting their shining exteriors, comparing their prices, their respective radioactivity levels. On the toppermost shelf, about fifteen feet up in the air, I noted some real loser klunker microwaves marked down to a mere pittance, $23 to be exact. I found some nice young man and he excavated it and I bought the thing. I am still rather afraid of it. I leave the room when it's on and it's only been on a few times. And one of those times, like today, was a raging fiasco. Working like a madwoman I thought Oh, veggie burger. I cranked the machine up to five minutes, left the room. Maybe four minutes later there was a whiff of smoke. There was the sad, little veggie burger with a big scorch mark at its center. It wasn't quite like Hiroshima, where only the shadows remained. Maybe a few minutes later, but there was a whole lot of scorch on the plate, a whole lot of chokingly pungent smoke. I hate microwaves. Why is it here. They are evil and make me think of chef Harry Kelly who once stated Slow cookin' is good cookin.'
I have one other domestic tale of disorder involving a sweater, a washing machine, and dashed dreams of wearing it that very same night. And subsequent triumph of returning the little potholder of a former sweater and exchanging it for some very ultimate boots.

Onwards to more work.
And then more work.
And then.

Then Love.

An elf, Yours Truly queried thusly.
No, my teddy bear, the barista answered.
And so began my day of mis-guessing the Halloween costumes of others yesterday.
Are you supposed to be a doctor, I asked a tall, handsome fellow in scrubs.
No, he answered, I'm a medical parts specialist and I have to take part in some open heart surgery in about an hour.
There were more people in scrubs at the movie theatre last night (but I was like so over the guessing) when Kennedy and I went to see the new Scorsese movie that rather rocked.
Laura did not like the movie but I am betting that it had something to do with the odd old comedian with whom she attended the screening.
There were a few moments I confused the two whiteboys in the lead roles - Leonardo and that Matt D. I wished for more more more Marky Mark screentime. Now there's a superstar. And he does get the final, surprise twist at the ending.
Soundtrack was fab as it included not only a John Lennon song sung by himself, but a Pink Floyd cover. Or at least YT thought it was a cover. It was Roger Waters with The Band. Most shocking.
Time to wend and wend some more after hours of editing, pixel pushing as I am wont to say.

Wont Love.

I've never been one to dig descending into the basement.
Well, not since I printed art down in the darkroom amongst the doom, gloom, spider webs.
In the basement is where all the terrifying mechanicals hang, all the things that mysteriously work, do not go bump (one hopes) in day or night, and where there all sorts of things that can go completely wrong.
Like the sump pump.
Speaking of such, as well as the descending aversion, Yours Truly has been skipping down the stairs at a few moments to see if the duct tape is holding, if the lifetime-warrantied sump pump is still working, and to marvel at my woman of the new milennium pluck.
Brucey called this morning as I was en route to the John Edwards (yes, as in former running mate of the John Kerry, spouse of ketchup heiress) gig at the big U to ask if the above problem (the sump pump, not the loss of the Johns) had been fixed.
Uhhh, YEAH, I kind of snarked, DAYS ago.
John Edwards punched out fun facts. And I noted that he is a big-time Blinker.
YT also found herself today going through what was a Being John Malkovich door out of the undergrad library at the big U to walk out onto a roof to photograph some solar panels.
Can You say you walked on a rooftop laden with solar panels.
I thought not.
I came back in the BJM door and asked someone nearby if I was very tan as the Middling City sun beat down upon me and about a thousand panels converting sun molecules into power molecules.
It's like what happens in the basements of the world - best left to experts.
Ours is just to consume, pay, shoot.

Being Love.

Minding my own business, or at least attempting to with a plethora of distractions and a pending meeting and such the sump pump continued to buzz louder and louder at intervals. Until it would not stop its buzzing and closer inspection revealed a burning electrical smell and a burning hot sump pump that had finally given up its ghost.
Laughingly, I called two immediate plumbing options - TonyC and Seneca Plumbing. TonyC was unavailable and Seneca told me they could give me a hand with the sump pump fiasco in December but by then the house would have floated away.
So during the meeting Seneca did call back (shock) and said I had to measure the sump pump - how many hoses, how wide the hose(s), etc.
Measurements happened and I rushed over there.
I spotted a man floating in space holding a toilet seat and told him the woes at hand. He said I do not work here. But, I warbled, you LOOK like you are working, nodding toward the seat.
An x-biker did help and I told him this.
One hose, 4 and three quarters, as high as my leg.
He looked somewhat dazed.
I looked over their handy sump pump display nearby and discovered the leg-sized sump pump is basically a piece of unsuitable crap meant for the occasional sump pumper, not an everyday user.
The new sump pump is three-quarter horse power and I asked the x-biker how fast, were it a motorcycle, the thing would run.
Oh, are you a biker, he queried. This is how Yours Truly learned of his x-status.
No, I said most emphatically. You.
He said Yes and mumbled something when I asked if he'd been in a club.
Oh, is this a SECRET, YT pushed.
He showed off a small tattoo on his arm while saying Chosen Few and answered that this sump pump soon to be in my possession could run seventeen m.p.h.
Not bad, YT thought.
So x-biker hooks up, after my description, a length of p.v.c. pipe about four feet up into the air. After I'd told him a flexible hose is what had been there.
I thought to myself Well, he must know this will work.
I hint at the unfortunate circumstances to follow.
I make a little bed of bricks for the new pump in the well, I put it in atop. I cut some flex host from p.v.c. to p.v.c. that leads to the sewer pipe and plug it in and then witness an enourmous tsunami of brown water shooting out all over the area.
I unplug.
I run for the duct tape.
I tape like there's no sump pump tomorrow and wait and wait for the little 17 m.p.h. machine to work its magic.
Water streams out about three feet from a few spots so I get busy with the duct tape and cover and recover the spots.
Now, when I have a spare hour, I will figure out how to connect these pipes in a more orderly fashion with more pipe, some clamps, some goop, some other do-dads still unknown to YT at this juncture.
This sump pump has a lifetime warranty.
This just oozes confidence that this pump, unlike the other, will not let off periodic troubling noises and smells.
Time to gussy up and head to gig du jour, leaving the plumbing world and all its cares behind. For now.


Plumb Love.

Found myself at some point today standing within a soundproof box, if You will, a sort of portable recording room contraption, out on the muddy campus of Middling City U. Amongst others I was making some portraits of a guy who studies neurological and musical things that he explained well and I will merely paraphrase. He spoke of slip of the finger happenings, like slip of the tongue. He also studies people who cannot sing as well as those with passable karaoke voices by putting them into said booth and having them sing while they hear altered recordings of themselves singing. It was a bit over my head but I offered up my (imPerfect) voice for his study. He said Some people think they have a bad singing voice but really don't.
Oh, Yours Truly replied, believe You me, I heard mine is quite bad. I did not go on to tell him of that one night down at Winnie's with the drunk midget with YT warbling DreamWeaver. I didn't think it was all that bad. Justy had another op.
This researcher of bad singers and such says he'll email me if he needs another under-microscope volunteer.
Onwards then to a photo shoot in one of those dreaded, added-on hospitals which make no sense whatsoever as to which elevator leads to what floor and rooms seemingly numbered randomly by a dyslexic.
So I finally find the sinus/fungi guy in his strewn office and wished I had left a trail of popcorn for myself as I had joked to the helpful lady at the helful desk. Finally the correct door was discovered and I was like so out of this hospital and, while driving down the Avenue, spotted two guys messing around with red plastic sunglasses at the bus stop. I thought Oh, right, Halloween, how utterly silly of them to be putting on those archetypal wacky glasses probably with the mirrored googly eyes.
Wrong.
The one man lifted the red plastic sunglasses off the other guy's face and I nearly fainted behind the wheel, being all bloodsqueamed and all. There was a Perfect Japanese flag underneath where the right eye should have been peeping out. Swoon. Swoon. Onwards then.

Swooning, Love.