Eureka!!!
this fancy-ass hotel and their high-powered business centre - The Pierre on 5th Avenue - has blogging capabilities.
NYC for high times and no misdemeanors and about to engage in another full evening of debauchery.
Ended the evening, as is custom, at Clay with Edward the owner excusing all the hired help and after the last customer leaves hopping behind the bar to pour forth his hospitality.
Last night had to suffer through what seemend an eternal Dylan Fest and Edward playing air organ and/or guitar along whilst singing. This transpiring as Jason asks my special journalistic and humanistic impressions of B.D. and me giving my uncensored opinion(s). His farty behaviour regarding hating photogs and even the mere thought that someone like me could or would capture his craggly likeness on stage. ie: what I call ARSS (aging rock star syndrome).
Or, as I put forth to Jason, perhaps a life of people poring over one's garbage makes one rather paranoid.
Onwards.
Finally got Edward to move on to PJ Harvey, more appropriate to the night.
Today happy wending down the streets here, now onwards to aforementioned.
Walked again through thee park and failed to intersect with Strawberry Fields, not to be.
But the loving spirit of John Lennon hanging over my life.
Tomorrow is 2003's eve and there is the driving back to the Middling City to join others in a banquet and party points beyond.
NYC love, for now.

Resolutions for 2003... and beyond.
Mine: to continue being the very best and most perfect Nancy possible.
And to travel to more and new far-flung lands whilst photographing.
Yours: to continue reading blogged-out words by Yours Truly.

So wasn't I consumed by the roving and undulating party blob about me these past several days.
Highlights, and lowlights, merged:
1. freak wine bottle/opener accident at parents' home which nearly cost me my right thumb
2. creating a stellar cake topper for Jen and Eric's wedding on 12/27, it reaching a height of 2.5 feet and weighing the same as a full bottle of vino. Thank goodness that Dr. Eric baked a by-scratch cake dense with cake molecules. Live flowers, large marshmallows, ribbon, beads and assorted do-dads were all spared for my breathtaking project.
3. cavorting at Marty Boratin's excellent eve of the birth of JC party, only marred (ever so slightly) by the reelings of Bad Penny, who lunged at various people to tell them how much she hated them. As I left the party in the wee hours I spotted her amid a pile of coats on one of his several beds in the expansive exurban home and contemplated her angelic face sleeping off the stew of substances in her. I've been hearing how many people saw her sleeping and contemplated quietly smothering her Bad Sleepiness.
4. post-holiday joy upon hearing - finally - a good show is touring into the Middling City. Apples in Stereo about a month + away after I thought they must absolutely be dufunct.
5. receiving the world's oddest belt from sister and feigning delight and tactfully answering where it was purchased.
6. planning a car-dash to NYC for a trans-state bacchanalia as my newspaper is taking an unpaid-holiday respite = byesville but back for the Janet Reno Fan Club outing and column rootin' tootin' shootin'.

Onwards and onwardly love.

Ended the evening on a barstool at Dorota's side, in the lavish steakhouse, watching giant and thick-necked Buffalo Bills cavorting about with their girlie toys. One of them, the final Bill, tried to leave without paying his other sort of bill until the barkeep called his attention to that little slip of the mind. To (over)compensate the Buffalo Bill tossed a large bill in his grateful, now-obsequious direction.
And from the velvet curtain heading out this Buffalo Bill pronounced I'll be back with my wife, she'll love this place, as he left arm in arm with his lady friend.
The lavish steakhouse, unbelievably, was OUT OF OBAN and I had to settle for a lesser, less peaty scotch which, like the Buffalo Bill, is not worth naming.
Earlier had been the Janet Reno Fan Club Christmas banquet with usual mayhem following wine, gift exchanging, Polaroid documentation by Yours Truly, then a drive to the airport to p/u Dorota, a house party then the sad scotch moment.
Today is the eve of Christmas, the day when Jesus was allegedly born although once I read he was truly a Libra as is Your Favored Nancy. Of course Jesus was a Libra, a fairminded Buddhist who liked the drink.
December was when those dusty, scraggly-assed wisemen found him.
Happy days, happy holidays and happy nights.

Hansel and Gretel were bitches.
I had to shoot them, their rents, a witch, a fairy and assorted gingerbread kids and angels for the Middling City Orchestra (MCO) today, moments ago.
Not only were they both female, but both approaching middle age and, when I saw them backstage at halftime, they saw the camera and decided to give me small bits of diva attitude.
What, a camera, no flash... and on, and on.
The hirers told Hansel and Gretel that all was cool, that I had been shooting the first half of their performance and would forge on, all unobtrusive like.
What lesson can be learnt from Hansel and Gretel, the story, not the backstage gripers?
Well, some parents can be downright forgetful and neglectful, thus tossing their children into Fate's sometimes evil clutches.
And nothing is more jubilant, heartwarming, than the reunification of the Aryan nuclear family, after a hungry and pedocidal witch (Das Kinder Killer) has been gassed in an oven.
The End.
Onwards to an early newspaper deadline, an early AOL deadline and thenothen the Janet Reno Fan Club Christmas Banquet tomorrow evening, replete with nametags - per my request.
I am to be labeled as archivist.
I am always the archivist.
Archived Love.

Playing John and Mary's new cd, Pinwheel Galaxy, and it's beautiful though not fitting this mood. Time for more classic rock, a little rough drumming. Mary's vocals sit on top of the mix in a very odd way.
Onwards to Flaming Lips' Do You Realize, on the new one.
... do you realize that you have... the most beautiful face. do you realize... we're floating in space.
Speaking of Okies, dug out a favored holiday image made by the Okie Ex, a Christmas manger scene comprised of day-glo painted lawn jockeys and a B.V.M. front and center, a burro and a babe at her side.
Just returned from delivering holiday gifts to a refugee family that lives two doors down from Yours Truly. Deb called to say that her and Grandma Peggy were at my back door and so I accompanied their good cheer and purchases. The father, Sunday, showed us a video of the overarching evilness of Shell Oil in their former homeland, Nigeria. The fam has 6 beautiful kids and Sunday was laid off from the nearby processed meat plant (makers of surreal olive loaf, amongst others) and is in school and Deb and Peggy et al purchased hundreds of dollars worth of clothing, toys and food.
I have made my usual end-of-year donations to arts orgs and donation to the News Neediest Fund, lest you think Your Favored Nancy is a lump coalhearted bitch - not in this context.
Last night the final stop, avec Laura, was rocked-out Mohawk Place where Barrel Harbor and Ice Boom Theory (I think) played their collective hearts out and I presented Marty B a b-day gift of artful cheese cutting set for his pending holiday party (and 12/19 b-day) on the 24th. I gave him 42 hardass spanks and asked Is it 42? When he responded 46 I whacked him 4 times more, with relish.
Robyn reported that a femmette had puked all over the femme lavatory which perfectly explained the sour looks on faces of post-pee girls. So I and a stranger headed into the boy bathroom, where I collected my quote of the month, perhaps year:
(as I'm in the stall with girl stationed at the door and a guy who was peeing into the urinal is STILL THERE and I've asked What, is he STILL peeing?)
girl: What's that white thing?
guy: That's my dick.
Back in the fray Robyn points out Barfgirl and said she had to clean up the barf twice, as she's the only chick Mohawk Place employee who had the misfortune of being there.
We discuss said girl and determined that she's underage, or must be, given her lack of finesse.
I marched over and asked to see her id.
As she's fishing out the id her pal decided to pretend that I had chipped her front tooth to which I sent one of my famed paint-melting glances and waited further for the id.
And the barfer was legit.
Laura and I had been earlier wined & dined - gratis - at the new steak emporium in town, a lavish affair for sure, teeming with hardballers, highrollers, harddrinkers.
Owner, in a holiday-induced change of personality, was gracious and insisted that L and I eat there so we split the 32 ounces of USDA flesh before us, and sides. Afterwards he asked if we'd like a cocktail and in the blink of a dead cow's eye I gushed OBAN, THREE ROCKS to the man's concurrent amazement and impression.
Today work. A small wedding in the mix to shoot from the hip.

Tonight.
An exclusive whispered in my ear during set number two of John and Mary et al. And the voice saying It is so minty, not boozey, and I am confused - this voice is always whiskey-laden, not Scope-rich. Again my implorement that this photo op be offered only to me, not to the daily and the tv stations.
And how were John and Mary? Excellent, excellent I shout. I stood next to the former manager of 10,000 Maniacs who wasn't digging the scenario and I was pitching what was good with the presentation and he was not buying It. Bought him a drink (O'Doul's - ???) and talked about the bands he manages, including a Canadian band I always thought deserved huge fame, far huger than the doofaloppolises of Barenaked Ladies, The Hip, etc.
And I realize that in these parts those words invite firebombing of my home but to hell with peer pressurized nonsense.
So Ani was at John and Mary but I could not rope her into the small and impromptu twist moment to one of the more bopped-out versions of an older song. When she left, with my friend Tanya, I shouted after Tanya Goodbye Sexy Mama and Ani turned her head. That sentiment was not intended for her but I pursed my lips and sent her out the door with a pantomimend big sloshy kiss.
'Tis the season for big sloppy and earnest kisses.
Slobber on, vials of love.

It's a snack, techno & Oban sort of evening to finish the column. In lieu of some semblance of dinner.
All this following the gospel funeral of bebop pianist Al Tinney.
One of the uniformed church ladies on hand, all in crisp whites, asked if I wanted a seat but I said No, I want to move around and take photos and I don't want to bother anyone.
When the preacher was preaching another lady came over to tell me that no photos were allowed at that moment. I said I want the choir and then they noted my note taking and they understood and started saying Excuse me as they ferried others to seats and passed me.

The preacher talked about how life was hard for Al because he had music in him and heard all sorts of vibrations. I think he's right. Al had a placid zone about him, an enlightenment. I had two portrait sessions with him, one in color and one in black & white and it was hard to make Al laugh though I do think I have one image of him that is him. I shot him playing frequently and I can picture his wide open eyes always looking up at the other players, tunes interspersed with bars of classical or children's music.

Sip, sip, sip.
We all want, though do not deserve, a gospel funeral, or, for that matter, a New Orleans jazz funeral like the one I shot for Ernie K. Doe under the hot sun.

Onwards Al.

Late/early I write after seeing growling band of hairy men, Slobberbone.
Excellent and the room full of exceptional Middling City rock types and desirables.
Well, one undesirable was in attendance, the volatile Bad Penny who took every op to come up to me as I was shooting to growl at me, grab at me, general mini-mayhem. She harangued the bandmembers and an occasional, unsuspecting manly audience member as well. So I did not feel so in the Bad Penny Limelight.
One of the writers I wish to meet was not out, as usual, so delayed is the chance and anticipated crossroading.
Robyn and I talked at the clubby bar after I told Doug (who was unsuspectingly there, with Adva) I was hitting the proverbial highway and during the course of intercourse she told me that she might be, after seven arduous years, leaving her video shoppe gig.
Amongst other reasons she said I'm sick of renting porn videos to pear-shaped men.
I said But what's great is that it's you... and them... and they have no shame. (This video joint prides itself on renting hard-to-find Euro films, art films, etc. and Vincent Gallo, when he was in town, praised the shopkeep).
She told me that one of the shoppe's biggest customers is a reverend.
No, make that Reverend.
A regular Reverend pornographic purveyor.
Separation of church and state.
Separation of church and smut.

Phenom/glitch:
Sunday's post is below Saturday's.
Beloved nephew Jake is turning 11 on Thursday and his kooky parents mis-planned a sledding party for yesterday only there was zero snow on the designated hills and they were informed of all this by one of their guests. Words cannot express how this mind boggles such an anal pro party planner such as Yours Truly.
Onwards.
Shopped for music for the child only to realize I had no idear if he had POD or even wanted more alternative choices I would enjoy. So gift certificate time and then more music shop time for ME.
New ones: (and all fabulosic party choices)
– Ivy. Disc is Guestroom, worth the price of admission for The Cure remake of Let's Go to Bed.
And their righton cover (disc = all covers, dig?) of Streets of Your Town by The Go-Betweens is superb.
(Nate, if you are reading this your assignment is to run topspeed to New World today and acquire)
(I think it was Reese who brought my hyper awareness to this band with one of his primo mixed tapes/discs)
Is there anything of late so smart and happy? I think not. Plus they cover superfreak Serge Gainsbourg.
– I Love Paris: The Fashion Chill Out Lounge Collection, 2-discs and it's parfait.
– Tori's new one, Scarlet's Walk. Was prepared to find it heavyhanded as I found that animated foot video so repugnant but it's surprisingly fine and I appreciate an artist tossing in lyrics as I have been known to be one of those 'ScuseMeWhileIKissthisGuy' types.
– The Flaming Lips. Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots. Was cheaping out and not buying it for some oddball psychological reasons which I worked out yesterday. Words can never express my canyons full of love and respect for Wayne Coyne, a real artist.
*Remember: one for them (those on the holiday gift giving receiving end) and one for me.

Containment, deportment.
Good breeding: listening to someone, or a slew of someones, report endlessly about themselves and instead of screaming for mercy, or running for the nearest bottle of booze, smile merrily and use all energy to maintain a body language of interest - all the while ignoring the inner badass suggesting a karate chop to the speaker's forehead.
Last stop of samedi soir (Bay City Rollers title song to you non-frenchyphiles) was at a joint with a swingy 50s-loving band and I'm watching these rascals thinking how there's a community of these folks with tattoos, hush puppies, hair swoops and the wardrobes, smiling maniacal 50s smiles and generally gesticulating in a way we irony-minded tribesmen recognize as such.
So the lead man, Pete Worden, is out there playing the hell out of his guitar and I'm watching the band when suddenly I flashed back to Japan, in a scene amid thousands of Americana-loving Japanese youth. Revelation: these 50s-loving people are doing the same thing half a world away. Just because one network is born of the culture doesn't mean there's any greater affinity. It's all about the style, lifestyle.
Swept into the indie record shoppe with Jen and Laura and instantly had R.S.A. (record store amnesia), the running list of must-gets gone in a poof.
Laura raved, lifted from shelf, handed into my hands and exclaimed about Sigur Ros's new one.
It's on now, an instrumental minimal maze of introspection. It's a landscape covered with deep snow and if in the wrong mood it'd be nearly lethal.
I was going to write about the bong filled with white wine in lieu of water at last night's holiday gathering of old friends but I'm censoring... and still coughing.
Holiday pots of love.

I travelled this week and discovered that many servers are not compatible with that of Blogger, the SF-based wonder that makes epinw a reality, a major joy in your life.
So that means intrepid me wished to blog only to get a sad sorry message saying Nope.
Was shocked and stunned to read on cnn.com that Moby of all little bespectacled fuckers was coldcocked outside of a Boston club by three thugs. Poor Moby, on his blog he writes that he wants to know the reason why why why and that he's curious so would the assailants please write to him to let him know.
I think he'll turn it into a song and then sell it perhaps to Bandaid or the makers of Bactine. The headline for the Moby bashing story was surprisingly hip: We are all made of Scars
Last night jetted back into the Middling City, raced home, ditched luggage for camera gear and was back out the door in record time to attend a group art opening for yours truly et al and to go to the annual drunkfest that is the work holiday cocktail party where sushi, laughs and booze flow like melted snow in May.
The rooms were teeming with a whole buffet of favored people that I work with and who were guests of those who I work with and just regular neato people who should be at the party.
At the art opening I invited all the remainders to be my posse and attend the work fete and they all showed. Most excitingly was the arrival of a tv guy and his artist girlfriend (both friends) who handed me a Happy Kwanzaa present and lo and behold inside was the mini crossbow that I encouraged him to buy this past year at the ARTVOICE Street Festival for $10 and it was a minor regret all those days.
And now it's mine.
It shoots steel-tipped long darts. The party host and hostess, Betsy & Craig (or Cretsy and Baig, if you've had several)_would not let me shoot it in their kitchen, at a wall.
Several people in the kitchen marveled than anyone would give Yours Truly a crossbow of any size.
Did I mention it's mine?
So instead me and some rock boys cocked the thingamajiggie back and loaded up the crossbow with mini carrots which flew about fifteen or so feet at a not very high velocity but it was satisfying enough.
Onwards to recuperation and more mayhem.
All of my crossbowed love.

As an interesting side mental project du jour I've been trying to decide which song or recording artists best illustrate/soundtrack this day. Something frenetic with some quiet flourishes - perhaps a collaborative song featuring Bjork and Rob Zombie. A little diabolica, a tough spriteliness - jubilant schizophrenia.
A strange happenstance, happening at 845AM today.
I was reading the Middling City daily (mainly looking at the pix made by my boy colleagues) with an ice pack on my left shoulder after physical therapy and I was deep into a soccer mom's musings/editorial on Eminem.
More smarmy writing attempting to tug on my tarpit heart's heartstrings. It was not working.
This woman was stating Marshall I'll never call you Eminem, do your friends call you Eminem...
and on and on.
She dubbed him a brilliant wordsmith (that he is) and she was disagreeing with all the bandying of fucks etc in 8 Mile and in the lyrics she researched online when
*WHAM*
another physical therapy person, a member of the shoulder team (we failed shoulders know each other by the exercise routines we keep), hit the back of a chair next to me blustering, at me
Forget the poor, forget education Let's Go to WAR WITH IRAQ. That's what Bush wants.
I was looking at him for a moment before muttering, paper still in hands
Well, he's not MY president.
We were all, in that physical therapy capsule, deep in the suburbs where I assume the vibe is mallish, hawkish and righteous.
The chair thumping sales shoulderman type went away and then I was left to wonder
How in hell did he peg me as a member of Team Liberal?
Lack of appliqués on sweater? Lack of cheery disposition? Lack of layered haircut?
Now all I can think of is the image of Zombie and Bjork crowding together cheek to cheek to share a mic, the crowd is happy and I'm shooting underneth neither gelled blue nor red but a warm yellow and it's coming from two sides and the stage isn't too high and after the set me and my boy colleagues are invited to go backstage for some hospitality.
Onwards.
Back to multiple deadlines, attempted greatness, caffeine forays.

Santa Secrets,
the titillating topic of this day's blogpost as it snows and NPR is confirming my sense that Bowling for Columbine is truly a movie I never need to sit through. Well, actually, I have a difficult time sitting still through any movie for ninety or so minutes.
Yesterday I had the pleasure of getting into the head of a man who doesn't simply play the role of Santa Claus, but Believes he is Santa, who has believed he is Santa for over three decades.
The man's real name is Scott and he was laden with silver and turquoise jewelry and had a small sense of humor. He bragged about having had friendships with several members of the glitterati, including John Denver. I asked several questions before I could get to the creamy nougat question:
So do you think he was loaded when he crashed his plane?
Santa's answer after a pause, pause, pause?
(hey, that makes me think of that Xmas tune:
Up on the rooftop the reindeer pause, out jumps good ol' Santa Claus. Down through the chimney with lots of toys, all for the little girls and boys.)
Ohabsolutelynot, he drank a lot, but not when flying.
Santa then went on to tell me how John Denver had a driver to chauffeur his drunk self about in his Porsche.
Santa let out a few of his own secrets.
He was frying-panned once while hearing toyly wishes of inner-city children.
I asked How was that possible, where did the kid get a frying pan?
The line of kids was at a community center which are all seemingly outfitted with kitchens. The kid had been beaten up by someone in a Santa suit so the kid seized the day, seized the op, seized the pan and let loose his hatred and fear upon poor Santa's head, sending him to the hospital for six stitches.
Similarly,
Santa Claus, this very Santa, was stabbed and he showed me the scar in his Santa jacket which he's patched with unmatching fur.
A drunk man, again a hater of Santa, attacked him instead of sitting upon his lap.
Oh, you wonder, Precious Perfect Nancy, why were you hanging with Santa?
Well, epinw readers, I enlisted myself for three hours of Santa time so little kids et al could have a non-suburban Santa experience - my idea. It was not publicized by the event producers but Santa and I rustled up some business.
Santa lives in a house on Abbott Road just outside the Middling City which is over 200 years old and is full of secret passageways that were used for the Underground RR. Faux walls, a ladder built into a wall and a ceiling over the true ceiling with large rooms for those en route to the big free north.
Santa painted this house bright red, of course.
Now put that all in your snowman's corncob pipe and smoke the shit out of it.
Secret Love.

Last night's rock and roll sojourn involved the shooting of the pop rock mecca radio station's annual Christmass BASH (that is one word I would love to banish from this language. Hot tip: anything dubbed a BASH is anything but) - Kissmas Bash - at the local oversized gym.
Me and two boy colleagues marveled at the outie of one of the backup dancers for Nivea, an underdressed R&B starlet. This outie reached out two inches. Boy colleague Mark thought it was some sort of piercing to which boy colleague Harry and I shook our heads. I semi-shouted into Mark's ear thusly:
No that's not a piercing, that's something she should be suing somebody over.
Dig this: I nearly broke my own goddamn right leg yesterday scrambling for a new angle in our hopeless photo shooting position within the pit when my leg got tangled in the metal barricade and I went down, protecting camera but all twisted on the floor. And not one boy colleague noticed. It was quite a near-tragedy. Imagine telling people, I went down at Kissmas Bash, in the barricade, solo.
Nothing sexy like I was up on the pa at the Pigface gig when the surging crowd bumped into me and the pa and we tumbled to the floor. Actually that happened but did not result in a broken limb.
So then onwards to the annual John Lennon tribute night where there were Middling City musicians doing their best Johns. Didn't hear a single Imagine.
So then a femme from Righteous Babe Records tried to give away Ani's live video but no numbers were matching and so for RBR to save face, somehow I end up with the video... hip hip hoooooooray.

Picked up the two dozen pink roses at the newspaper office. One had a card reading Please be my guest at the HSBC party at Albright-Knox Art Gallery Wednesday night. I shall be wearing a yellow tie.
The second note read Thanks for being you, hope to see you Wednesday, your new friend.
Well, tonight is Wednesday and this poor bastard in the yellow tie will be waiting forever as I won't be within miles of AKAG tonight.
Even if I didn't have a meeting at 4 and two advisiory council meetings for two different orgs at the same time following I still wouldn't be there...
especially after I deciphered who this person is.
And, guess who he is?
He is part of an old money Middling City clan who's a member of all the right clubs, oh, and went to all the right academies abroad, yet chooses to while away his life by owning a downtown shithole bar, bragging about his jazz knowledge/jukebox, spurting out sexist commentary and basically never leaving any customer unattended whilst sipping away on a bevvie.
I was briefly marooned as my pal sauntered off to the peehole when this astray heir leaned in close to ask So are you and this guy close, basically figuring out his chances with Yours Perfect Truly.
And now roses. Gave one dozen away to my mother and the other sits all lonely and pink in the corner of my kitchen and I'm thinking who would like quickly-aging roses today?
Onwards.
Last night nearly threw off an email from a sender I didn't recognize, from the UK no less.
Opened it and it's a Nirvana freak who's building a fansite and heard about my Kurt images and read an interview I did for an online music mag... which went bankrupt... Throttle Box.
Today I'm especially hating the Middling City, after listening to my local NPR station telling about yet more and more fiscal crises abrew, and reporting on a co. that has headquarters here and all the pathetic and gushing questions from the local reporter
So, do you have a hard time recruiting people to Buffalo? Do people like Buffalo when they're here...
the underlying self-hatred made me gag, it's contagious, that attitude. Next I'm noticing that people aren't as well-dressed as they could be, that some cars are too rusty, that monuments don't have that certain X-factor.
But at least we don't have the preponderance of Canadian lilt, after doing business on the phone with a Canadian woman yesterday I thought that forever every thought in my head would end up a few notes in a singsongy reach for the sunshine.
Hey, wait a minute, Canadians think their country is all that. (Oh, Georgiesan, forgive this sidebar rant from an obviously cranky American, who happens to be your pal)
Assignment: anyone residing in the Middling City today must use the Canadian lilt, upwards to the sunshine. And sun is out there, suss it out lock a rock star in need of a little fun.
Off to more.

Unhappy auto equation:
1 drunk drives 50mph into Yours Truly x silver 2002 Forester (totaled) on 4/21/02 + 1 insurance company of 15+ years = 1 golden 2002 Forester on 5/1/02 + rates raised 500% as of 12/16/02 due to "losses."
Fun with math.
*new factor*
+ 3 cheers to Lawyer Tom who just called me to say OK, I'll call Geico (chosen new company of bandits/insurance agents) and get your rates even lower... he completely rocks, I hope.

My Krist Novoselic story, from this past Saturday night.
His average white band, Eyes Adrift, played Mohawk Place and although it was crowded several people I knew were heading towards the bar, having heard enough of them.
I was standing to the side of the stage, next to Krist, trying to get a good angle of the three. Suddenly I was noting that the band was boring, that Krist (memories of when he was Chris float to mind, until the fateful SPIN assignment which had him heading to Bosnia, his heritage and a neato new first name) looked into eyes (adrift) about the room and that Curt from the Meat Puppets was barely functioning.
The x-Sublime drummer broke a drumstick and the beer tech (yes, I wrote beer tech) was trying to lift it up before Krist stepped on it. Unsuccessful. When he took a step forward I grabbed it.
I asked the beer tech, So you're the beer tech? And he said Among other things, not proud, not mad.
The set was nearly over and Krist bent down to ask me What was the name of the opening band? I said I don't know, I got here for you, I'll find out.
Asked a nearby boy and didn't trust his answer so I asked a girlie, who handed me The Hook Generation cd. I pointed to it and Krist took it and placed it on his set list. I sensed the girlie agitation so I told her that he had it. He thanked The Hook Generation, graciously, and went about his bass business when I noted the band had taken a more classic rock turn.
The girlie's cd was now on top of the giant amp next to Krist. They finished. He walked by me, took my hands in his and said Thanks and good night, eyes adriffffft into mine.
They skedaddled out the bar and then signed autographs for about half an hour before their bus roared away to some joint in Pennsyltucky.
The End.
I hear there is a gigantic bouquet for me at the newspaper office, two different people called to tell me so. I bet they're from Krist.
I'm kidding.
The flowers exist, but I don't think they're from the former Nirvana tall guy.
All rock stars should love me, but only because I make them look oso much more rocking than any other photog in the music documentation racket.
In my most Perfect, Humble Opinion.
Self-love love.

Defiantly not following my own (now seemingly) ridiculous rule of Thanksgiving hostessing, stayed out and had a good old fashioned rock and roll Thanksgiving Eve evening – ie: to HELL with staying in and prepping, get out there and do it up, pilgrim.
Yesterday had the Exclusive photo op with the band The Sheila Divine at Albright-Knox Art Gallery, shooting them looking at art, loving art. A few of them talked with me about harrowing life on the road, fighting jadedness and mutiny.
The AKAG pr girlie, Maureen, called to inquire if I was into a photo op with the band and I agreed only if she didn't call the daily, which would have run the image (maybe) yesterday whilst my image will appear on December 5th. So I got my way and the Universe rejoiced for the world is best when Your Perfect Nancy has her way with it.
Shot them later in concert, in a mellow college auditorium, adequate yet teeming with sit-downess.
Finally Aaron said Hey Buffalo, will you please stand up?
They were, of course, excellent and had behind them ongoing video images that were actually good, not just that Here's the band way closer thing you see from time to time.
Afterwards rolled on to Robbie Goo's recording studio for a private Studiowarming party and marveled at his multi-colored hair, truly more interesting than I've ever seen it. His breath was loaded with cigar aftereffects and he was his usual gracious funloving self.
The rooms were filled with Middling City rock types and it was mega.
Then on to meet up with members of Janet Reno Fan Club and Annie and Mary et al et al for a dual band extravaganza and bought an Iriving Klaws shirt, way too gigantic so I wore it over my jacket and loads of people said That's what's so great about you, Nancy, you're not afraid of looking HUGE.
Fear. No, thanks.
Huge, why yes I am, although not in size.
Off to continue slicing and dicing for in six or so hours there will be a warm house filled with people who I will entertain like Martha Stewart on too much Oban.
Lights...
cameras...
stuffing.

Apparently several of you were frightened by the last blogpost about mean-spirited Freckleface. Do not despair, she's only a poseur whose boobs are wrapped too tightly in synthetic fabrics, thereby resulting in a most negative purview. Plus, I can be ferocious when need be and when my camera equipment is imperiled.
Interesting sidebar of sorts:
On a gig a few summers ago I was hired to photograph several buildings for a developer and I was using my trusty Subaru as a stepladder, as I do from time to time. You get the car into position and climb on top.
So during this gig I was up and down, up and down and on one of the ups I came crashing down on the hood and my instant thought was to protect the camera, not me and my bones.
That's being a pro.
To hell with personal injury - it's a lot cheaper to fix my biological contusions than those injuries to a delicate electronic machine.
Talked to Canadian Georgie last night who said that sometimes he can't understand the American jargon of epinw. So I regaled him with my best Canadian impersonation:
Let's get some Timbits and crullers, ay?
Canadians, they look so much like us but are so... different.
Still shocked by the Missy Elliott song Let's Work It which they play on top pop radio. As I wrote to my pal Matthew Guru it puts that Tootsie Roll song of yore to absolute shame.
Tomorrow I'm attending the grand ol' opening of Robbie from the Goos' recording studio opening and before that I have an exclusive with Sheila Divine (or so I made the p.r. lady promise me) at a to-be-divulged -tomorrow location.
I'm breaking my past rules and will be out all day tomorrow/T-G Eve, shooting like a madwoman and perhaps tippling a few to boot.
All.
Turkey & all those starchy fixins of love.

Goth girls and boys crowded around a stage at last night's final stop as Janet Reno Fan Club were out on a musical tear. And what angry Goth girls and boys they were. As I shimmied between them to get closer for shooting Rasputina (3 of similar batcave persuasion, looking like withered Courtney Loves from her babydoll dress phase - including the boy in the band) one of them, with faux freckles on her face the size of dimes turned and looked at me and hissed And where do you think YOU'RE going? To work, I snarled into her freckled direction. Well, we're all working here = the puzzling reply. I was lifted off my feet and sucked into the vortex of hate by my temples and left her with these choice and unoriginal words - Fuck off, asshole. It should be noted that as I shot away several around me respectfully arched out of my way and one guy in heavy eyeliner shouted at Freckleface to shut the fuck up and to stop talking to the guy in the wheelchair she was leaning on.
So then I waded back through the vinyled and corseted crowd, went backstage where I was met by a true VIP scene of sundry band members and promoters and one of them handed me a joint on a long pin. Then I went to the back curtain, stood next to the Rasputina drummer boy and put the flash on nuclear to flash and flash and flash into the languid eyes of the watchers.
It was then that I noted that Freckleface was involved in a volley of fists, actually in a fistfight with another audience member.
We backstage people were very loudly cavorting and I said You know what? I think all those Goth people are going to start chanting SHUT UP at the stage.
Earlier JRFC convoyed up to toxic Niagara Falls, NY to see Doug's band of confusing sibilant name - Saw Secret Scene, really hard to say after a few scotch & soders.
It was their first gig in an elaborate old theatre, Pleasuredome 2, not to be confused with Pleasuredome 1 where I shot the Goo Goo Dolls in '92.
Saw Secret Scene's (or is that Saw Secret Seen?) lead singer, Todd, had never hit a stage before but is the equal of the other musical pros.
For a joint in NF, NY the stage, lights and sound were impressively mega.
Downside, of course, is the location.
Oh, and the bartender. Laura and I watched in amazement as he had difficulty finding bottles and I wondered if I should offer up this helpful hint: the bar is a mirror image on the other side, ie there are two topshelf setups in your bar so stop running in a gigantic circle to find the proper scotch you nincompoop, it's about 3 feet from your face.
Please address all mixology and musicology and humorology requests to Yours Truly.
Love.
And loads of that.

Filth from the top to bottom of a 16-story apartment building, and surrounding awnings, washed in raindrops and down my face last night as I stopped to think amid the shine of warmer spaces and reflections of walkers.
Out again in the anonymous dark of the city that envelops in a sense of purpose.
The MOMAqns space is industrial and never lets you forget that with ugly Starbucks-type ceiling busy with pipes and ducts and an unforgiving floor that one security man said he hates.
The works on paper show worth the travels and there was a catastrophe on Line 7 so travel back to the Promised Land was hard, took a train in opposite direction several stops to get off, run topspeed across platform with the others and get back down to downtown.
Today went to look at the show of Sylvia Plachy images at Bateman and it was grand - her usual quirky ways in black & white. Her prices were surprisingly low but I bought nothing.
Came very close to buying a new Me & Ro ring but did not, and now maybe feeling a small slice of regret.
So back in Middling City and it's nearly time to hit the highway and partyway again.
My one small obsession this time around in NYC was to be jettisoned from bars so I requested a jettisoning from the bartendress at Big Bar on 7th St (a longtime fav) and she complied with a gentle push.
Last night cavorted with Jason and Dorota at Clay and asked Edward to do same so he picked up up and carried me out. When we got to the doorway I stuck out my legs to thwart him and when I landed on the sidewalk I did so dramatically, so dramatically that a cabbie stopped to see what in hell was up.
Today my cabbie out to LaGuardia was way chatty and trying to be flirty, of all things.
All for now, rainy love.

Yesterday went down to see Mr. Avedon's show at The Met and was not surprised and not titillated but still a worthy destination. The mainest of reasons to see the show, in my Sam-loving mind, was to see the Beckett portrait and I was happy to see it was a diptych, double the Sam Power.
The show was also good for framing ideas as they had Avedon's images floating many times on foamcore inside steel shadow boxes about an inch deep.
Also, how he and his techs put rolls of paper together to make one big long image area. This is what Chaz Burchfield did during one of the big wars when he couldn't get paper large enough for big paintings. A little overlap. A little glue.
Today is the day to throw myself back down into the subterranean world to get to MOMAqns to see the much-vaunted works on paper show.
And eat more sushi, and slargle more scotch and laugh a few more laughs and dream a few more dreams.
I am the dreamer of dreams, to quote Willie Wonka quoting another who might, in fact, be quoting another.
Good writers borrow but fab bloggers steal.
Outta-sight/outta-town Love.

NY NY big city of dreams but sometimes NY ain't what it seems.
And so goes that ol' wrap.
Wandered through Chelsea just moments ago looking looking looking.
The new Inka Essenhigh oils are smart and odd and leave a rather positively grotesque feeling.
Last night wandered into Portale's joint again to deliver an art piece, handed it to the front of house staffers and then sat at the longass bar to await Dorota's arrival for vino. Chef Portale came out to say Hello and we talked, he and I, about him designing furniture and about the small framed piece I gave him - an image from the Conflagration series, a silver print about 4x5 inches and in a very wonderful wood frame, painted silver.
He dug the piece completely and I hope he hangs it in Gotham.
Dorota arrived, we had vino, more vino then the maitre d/Charles asked if we'd be staying for dinner. I said possibly. Then after a while Yes.
So they sat us at a table for 2 near the bar, elevated and looking out over the dining room. We had, of course, a perfect dinner followed by perfect confections tiny and midsized.
Then they came to say Portale was - unbelievably - picking up the bill so I/we left a very generous tip.
Onwards to cocktails.
Onwards to art.
I'm in NY and it's time for more art.
More more more.
How do you like it, how do you like it?
Days and nights, nights and days.
Consuming love.

Well, as I am wont to say, at the asscrack of dawn I'll be sprinting out of bed to gather up camera gear, clothing and a few other small items (cd's of choice this trip = DJ Shadow/The Private Press, Tricky/Blowback & Daft Punk/Discovery, usually travel with Radiohead but I'm trying to be inciteful), what you others call "packing" and then driving to that hospital-aroma-ridden place full of treakly art and goofballs that they call the airport.
Lead Boy Colleague said that if I get to the USAir gate and there's a certain guy working I'm supposed to say that I know him and all that jazz. Why, I asked, so I can be graciously bumped up to first class?
I know Hillary C flies first class between the Middling City and Warshington, but does anyone else partake of the joys of inflight segregation besides politicoes on such short trips?
Hey, welcome to first class to NY Miss Parisi, here are some extry peanuts for your pleasure.
Still not sure about flying to Seattle for a gig after NYC to shoot the disco event at EMP.
If I end up doing that that'll be one primo primo tale.
Whirlwind Love.

Surprised to hear earlier one of the most perfect new Flaming Lips songs on the "new rock alternative" radio station, Wayne's voice warbling amongst the sno-globe flakes coming down as I drove down Main Street from a meatloaf engagement in renovated 50s diner to newspaper office for late late late workings.
(Nearly walked into the diner wearing my bunny ears as I had been working hard at the home orifice and needed to keep these freaking tresses out of the way lest I chop them off like a time-waster at the pass.
So I'm strolling away from car and catch the bunny ears before I hit the door and tossed them onto the front seat. Did wear them into the paper office and my publisher/pal Jamie gave me a withering look which only he can raygun.)
There's so much mundane crap in Music Land and then whoosh, there are the Lips to explode your heart in joy, nearly enough to make you cash in your chips and follow them on the road for a good long while.
Attorney Tom finally called back and there were details bandied about about how & why my car insurance company could – and did – drop me like a nuclear potato. Sometimes, when speaking to Tom, my mind is wandering and I'm realizing that as soon as I hang up the phone all he mapped out for me will evaporate.
Onwards.
Was there fine music in the Middling City this weekend? Well, gosh, not really.
But on AOL assignment I plunged into a new dance club, solo, really fashionably sticking out like a sore thumb with my photog-wothy HH way-green jacket, legal pad in hand and a haughty air of detached critique. But, ultimately, the place won me over and I'm thinking How in HELL do I get members of Janet Reno Fan Club into this joint, what with its $6 cover, lines down the block and inside ignorable yet annoying mall-clad clones. But it's two stories of flash and there's a sideroom all white and luxe.
Worth a spin, I say.
Life, a big tangle of details just waiting for writing. And sipping.

Who the hell's idea was it to mix scotch, tequila and Jagermeister all in one night?
Abso-freakin-lootly could not have been mine.
Went out to see Jennie Stearns and backing band of boys and they were surprisingly wonderful. Every band that promoter pal Blair Woods recommends is always good and I think he's managing them in addition to Over the Rhine and a few others.
If not for these smallish gigs the Middling City would be completely bereft of rock activity as no chart-topper seems to be darkening these city limits.
Other bigtime promoter pals, Artie and Marcel, bring acts to Syracuse, Rochester but not here as often. Even beloved Dave Matthews has skipped here this next concert foray. His people have extended me tix and asked if I'd prefer Syracuse or Roch. Hmmmm, drive 4 hours or 1 to see lovely Dave.
Off to temple pressure-relieving measures and a plethora of deadlines to accomplish on superspeeeeed as Tuesday at the asscrack of dawn I'm on a plane to cavort in NYC. Dorota my love, ready your liver.
Rockingest rollingest love.
ps: forgot to mention the GWAR show and it was juicey. Within a minute I was drenched with "blood" by the headless man. Ran a shot of ersatz Saddam H., holding a huge rubber dick in his hands, shooting a giant stream of "pee-pee" into the crowd.
pss: bought the most bitchin' green metal tripod last night, made in Italy by a Bogen subsidiary and I cannot wait to use it. Artwork, still-life, wildlife, holding still wild people can all be tripod victims.

Minding my own business, walking briskly and looking sideways whilst addressing an official type guy from the university this fine evening I nearly ran into NYC's 107th mayor – His Honor Giuliani, one-time TIME Man of the Year.
When my eyes alighted upon his friendly, over-tanned and long face I was momentarily stunned, let out an OHHI as I stopped seconds before crashing into him. When thinking back to that moment a few hours ago I wonder how the nearby ring of secret service agents speaking into their cufflinks allowed my photog self to get that close to the former tabloid hero.
After photographing Mayor 107 at the private mega-donor party where I was hired to shoot I borrowed a tripod from a boy colleague, sped off to the cross-town rival college and shot slides of an artist's installation in a library when, suddenly, I heard my name and turned around to see a loose cannon acquaintance wandering through the lobby en route to internet fun.
Two fun facts about this guy: I made an image of him a long-ass time ago when he was in drag for Halloween and every time I see him I see him in blonde wig and trashy dress, red lipstick smeared about his big guy mouth.
I wasn't surprised a while back to hear that he'd gone off to join the INS. That was an image that I truly found disturbing, him kicking in doors and tossing unfortunate immigrants out of the USofA.
As I'm setting up lights and tripod and making long exposures I'm really indulging in a string of nosy questions about the INS gig and about the firearms he carried and here's what I learnt: One doesn't need any sort of permit to pack when they've signed on for Team USA. It's issued to you. When you leave, you un-issue it.
Without prompting he neatly printed out the supersecret codes I need to get onto the rival college's free internet access computer bank and sped off to go do whatever online instead of enduring more questions by Yours Truly.
Another thing I learned today: Giuliani is as tall as I am and wears good shoes.
L'End.

Standing in the elementary school office waiting for a Miss Wexler or someone to escort me to the dance studios where I was being paid to document an African dance co. teaching the local students I began messing with a computer touchscreen contraption as a secretary jumped out of her seat surprisingly quick to assist me. Whereas I thought I was goofing around with a machine to make kid safety kind of MacGruff items it was actually protocol for visitors to have temp badges and this had been forgotten. Right, she said, swipe your driver's license (whoah!, I'm thinking, just to meander to a dance studio) and then input who you're seeing and the reason. My reason? NEWSPAPER. That is always a grand reason for anything I do.
The shooting was great, the light was great, the sounds were great. I asked my editor at the university news bureau if ever the online edition might have sound files which would be way fab.
For the last two days, as a mental respite, I've been thinking how Elvis and Michael Jackson have similar star-turned-nut qualities.
This began while I was looking at an artist's work whereby the artist pairs oddball Elvis belongings, most notably an image of his handgun and his honorary narc badge from Nixon.
I'm going on the record as a person in the I Don't Get It column re: Elvis.
And Vegas didn't help matters.
Nor the VH1 ads that discourse at me that if not for Elvis there would basically be no rock and roll universe, no rock and roll photography, no rock and roll wardrobes, drugs, drink, mayhem and the like.
Tonight: Robert Creeley poetry reading then... GWAR.
Can I be smiling any larger?
I don't think so.
Toothy love.

Jeez, it's been... millennia... since I was sexually harassed whilst shooting a wedding such as last night's fiasco of Manhannite Diva Bride & The Hatfields & McCoys. It was my drag queen diva pal/florist who pointed out that the families were Hatfield/McCoy combo to perfection. All started out swell when Bridey called to see if her 90 folks at church could be photographed on the front steps of the church after their (let us not forget the pussy-flagellated guy/lawyer she bagged who bought her a yellow diamond and diamond-encircled wedding band, that, Diva Bitch told me, earned her a spot at the stove for the duration of her life, cooking him dinner) 530PM service. Uhhhh, I began, flabbergasted, have you seen the light at 630 these days? Thinking, suddenly, I'm dealing with an ADD type and ohno.
Then she asks for me to be at her mom's house at 330PM for getting ready shots. But you're getting married at 530, that's way too early. I relented, was greeted by sister/co-Diva Bitch at the door in bathrobe and proceeded to wait a good 45 minutes for the gals to get their bridal day shit together.
And the weird uncle sexual harassment thing happened approximately 7 unfortunate and interminable hours later in a hallway dotted with relatives and friends as equally redfaced loaded as this geezer who inquired Yours Truly thusly: Has anyone told you yet tonight how beautiful you are? (To which I'm choking back vomit in my throat) Give me your right hand. I with much trepidation handed over the hand which he stroked roughly along his left cheek. Several relatives, including co-Diva Bitch are watching as he yells And I don't leave whisker brushburns. I'm still disinfecting my hand.
Thank goodness for the filmmaker chainsmoker and occasional wedding video guy who I've worked with before for the humorous breaks where we'd chat about how fucked up the crowd was and how we'd never touch weddings again if all weddings were like this one.
Onwards.
Afterwards a quick change in the car and sped off to music, mayhem, a party stop and more mayhem.
Shared the wedding horrors with three drinking buddies at the nearest of favored watering holes and slargled down a few or more scotches before I felt like my most Perfect self again.
Liquid refreshment, liquid therapy, liquid forgetfulness.
In two nights I'll be shooting GWAR again and I abso-freakin-lootly cannot wait. All my little concert promoter pals were asking if I'd be there, as they know I completely dig that spectacle.
I am the smart photog in the pack who comes donned in clear plastic garbage bags - one for me, one for camera/flash. One time I shot GWAR and forever after that one particular flash was impregnated with their red faux blood. Another time I went the rest of the night with dried red/blue/yellow smears of their 'bodily fluids.'
Spectacles, what life is made for.
What life is made of.
What photogs thrive upon.
Water cannons of fluid love.

All attempts every made by Yours Truly to be, to exude, alternativeness is blown to smithereens as tomorrow roughly at some moment between noon and 1:30PM EST I'm receiving a coveted civic awars: Business First's 40 Under Forty Award. Or is that Forty Under 40?
1K+ attendees will watch me + 39 stand before them (I'll be the one with the really flushed face as I'm more accustomed to being in front of such podiums being all snap-happy) as we one by one, alphabetically, have a verbal and slide presentation of ourselves, receive a plaque, get a good handshake, some ovations (I'm freakin' flushing thinking of that part) and then walk offstage to our tables of attendees, friends, family.
OK, so these award people must not have ever read epinw.
Don't they know?
I dance in my bra in lezbo bars, drink Oban at times like it's purified water (oh, wait that's pretty close), act out badass ventures and the like?
Well, from now on I would appreciate one and all addressing me as Honorable.
As in Honorable Yours Truly.
Honorable Perfect Nancy.
Dig?
Onwards to listening to more Sonic Youth, loud like.
Favored song du semaine: Sunday.
Love.
Awards of love.
Bushels of respectable love.

She's wearing turquoise leather pants, the tightest pants I've ever seen, and she's this big around (hands gesture to a separated width of, oh, 10 inches) and she has breasts the size of MUSK MELONS.

This is how the tipsy white suburban lady tonight at the godly college described Ice T's girlfriend, Coco, about half an hour before he hit the badly-lit stage in front of an estimated crowd of 500.
She continued:
And wait Nancy (I don't know this woman, please add her to the list of unknown knowers in your epinw workbook, page 18, righthand side of the page) until you see what HE'S wearing – a jogging suit.

Before Ice T arrived I floated near the corner of the stage at the edge of the seats and overheard another couple of suburban folks discuss the rap star and meeting him at the godly college president's house, querying if Ice T had been Agreeable. Then they raised eyebrows that he and Coco actually wanted the college to pay for them to go out to dinner following his lecture/presentation/rap about worldly matters.

The suburban banter was disturbing, whiffed from gin-soaked mouths fresh from the college president's rez and Ice T had only nice things to say about these conservatives who he had found, he said, actually engaging. And he stated that he was impressed that the college was liberalminded enough to not censor his speaking engagement, hand him parameters.
There is no free speech, he said, but maybe there is in here tonight.
I glowed up at him and he was surprised to see me sitting on the floor, legs akimbo, in the gulf between stage and seating, camera standing up on its lens as I intently watched him and wished, between my watching shooting, that the lighting was not so drastic and miserable. Knew the sound and lighting guys and should have asked if they could adjust them but oh well.
Onwards.
Onwards then to The Donnas where I stood stageside with my erstwhile and ersatz husband, Ronald of the band Bad Ronald. If you're a rapt follower of epinw you may (should) recall that I was married to Ronald on The Greg Sterlace show by attorney Ross Runfola of ersatz tan.
The lighting at the venerable Continental also was lacking, like as in was hardly turned on.
The Donnas shirts were Bo-RING.
Club owners of the universe:
Media photographers are trying to do a job. When you hit the stage with no light it makes the job of press photographers very very difficult. It is bad karma to thwart the work of hardworking press photogs and God, in his infinite and media-savvy wisdom, will punish you with fruitflies in your topshelf booze, underage kids passed out under your pool table and ongoing toilet paper pilferage.

Ice T parting shot/thought:
No matter the race, the sexes are on different teams and will fight Until the wheels fall off.
&
When he was approached about starring in Tank Girl he misheard what the part was and instead of hearing Ripper (the cute kangaroo morphed being with dreads) he heard stripper and started doing scads of crunches to ready himself. When they showed him a storyboard for the part and he saw the kanga-ears, etc. he thought it was his kanga-pouch that would reveal his juicy bits.

Fun fact I cannot shake: kangaroos have joeys and they are born into the world and crawl up to the pouch. They are the size of a teaspoon or so. The end.
And love.

(Is it my imagination or did I just spend half an hour of my life filling out the 'MTV Blue Book' for freelancers? I had the standard standardized test-taking anxiety as I penned in my info to get paid whenever the mood strikes the ViaCom gods and godlettes and shrews and shrewds and accounts payables.)
So after freelancing Saturday away, and shooting for the column, met up with members of Janet Reno Fanclub at a bistro-style Italian joint and then headed out with the willing to hit rock venues beyond, and worthy dance floors.
Second-last stop was a bar of dyke variety, Adva's special request, and after we all paid the nominal cover she circled the room, determined that nobody there was thrilling and was ready to leave only to find that Yours Truly + 3 were engaged in the act of freeform Dancing - in what was once the dining room of a stately Middling City mansion but what is sadly now decorated in the style best described as gay bar bunker.
So dance, dance, dance, then I said to Doug Let's jump on podium and go-go, baby, those two boring gay boys have hopped down. So up we hopped. Then, as the boys had been half-nekkid I whipped off my top to dance - en bra - and Doug removed his top. Adva fumbled with my camera bag to attempt some social documentation, NJP-style, and I laughed at her, mid-gyration, as she tried to shoot us sans flash. Then she got wise to the lighting situation and then fumbled to throw on the flash and, I am still astonished, got off two decent frames of us. None of which will be posted on epinw as 1. who in hell knows this html crap to make it happen and 2. your imagination is a powerful tool, so fucking use it, s'il te plait.
Tomorrow night is a gourmet buffet of events, first Ice-T at a local godly college then badasses The Donnas at the venerable punk club.
Off to deadline points beyond, catching up on things to clear the way for more mad fun, and go-go lifestyle fun.
My unabashed love.

Fuckhead du jour, experienced this AM at the ungodly and gray hour of 6.
*Changed background soundtrack music from glorious A Thousand Leaves via Sonic Yoof to its equal (albeit way more mellow) So Tonight That I Might See by Mazzy Star with the universe's most deft tamourine player, blowing Laurie Partridge out of the lake, Hope Sandoval.*
So I'm driving.
Driving home from all-night journalism following all-day shooting and earlier deadline and a few errands.
It's gray, as I mentioned.
And it's 6.
At a light from a one-way to a one-way I'm at a red light, not going left as I don't think there's left on red at this corner and you cannot see here what might be coming down the pike at you there - much like the nearby corner of similar format where I just missed the Xpress shuttle to meet my maker on 4/21.
So I'm sitting in the car, blinker on, waiting for the light to go left when suddenly from nowhere is an SUV, big and red. A woman is obviously in a mad dash and goes around me and makes the left on red from the center lane. As I see her moving about I'm looking around to see if maybe turning on red at the corner is ok.
Not like I'm all about following rules and such, but it's 6, it's gray, I've been working all night and there's a station teeming with cops literally inches away.
So the SUV lady goes around me, in a puff.
Light finally changes, turn and as I'm driving up to the next red light (because we're within Middling City limits where lights are timed to infuriate rather than ease along commuting) I see red SUV aggresive driver.
I'm chuckling. Ha ha, hurry up to that red light, hardy-har, moment of levity this gray 6AM.
So I pull up to the light, now on her right side, shooting her a quick glance and there, just for me, your precious and Perfect Nancy, was her manicured finger, center one, right hand, red nail polish, up in the air! For me!
And her lower jaw was sticking out an unnatural three or so inches from her face. Defiance! Anger!
This, of course, made me burst out laughing, that this woman was sitting here waiting for me, this gesture for me nearly missed, like death at a nearby corner.
So now we both traverse along the street to the green to the next red light.
She's noticed I'm having barrel of monkey laughs.
At this next light she's gesturing her car towards thinking of cutting me off and I'm thinking in a flash Cheez and crackers does this crazed bitch have a gun? What's she going to do, run into my car because she's provided me with a great 6AM package of guffaws?
So onwards to sleep. And, I suppose, a fine story.
Moral: don't fuck with me. It's only fodder for epinw.
My absolute, safety-minded, ironic, workaholic, deadlined, tar-pit-hearted Love.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

My unbadged and curmudgeonly love.

Perfect update:

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

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

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

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