Amongst other messages left on the Perfect answering machine is one from an attorney and I'm dreading calling this person back - I have a feeling it's the esq. of the batoned man who not only gave me his okay but purchased a few copies of his bruised likeness. I sent him a few lo-rez jpegs so he could have a sneak peek of what'll be in his mail and in the alternweekly.
For the record:
I have applied and been accepted to be part of the first group/class of 15 MFA students in Parsons School of Design's Photography and Applied Technologies. The mere mention of the word technologies makes my heart gleefully skip beats... me, data, experimentation, imaging more than ever, images, technology, calculations, more experimentation.
The program is designed to have us in NYC for short intensive bursts in the summer when no undergrads are around the labs. Then they prefer us to depart and resume our careers whilst keeping in touch with fellow PRT MFAs and faculty via... technology!
Finally received my packet of overwhelming amounts of information including my student freakin' number. That and $400 means it's for real.
Tuition, frighteningly, is higher than I realized.
I may have to start a part-time career in bank robbery to finance this experimentation in higher learning.
26 months from now you will all have to get on all fours and kiss my MFAd arse.
Thanks for your attention in this matter.
NJP, PSD student #NP28887.25

I'm sorry, I just don't care right now.
Turning off NPR and the pending death threats and reaching for brilliant Stephen Malkmus/Pavement's appropriate-for-now Terror Twilight from 1999 when the world was still sort of innocent and fresh.
Among the sights shot by Yours Truly this past weekend was a man of a Middling City suburb with a perfect baton mark across his face, getting shuffled into a waiting squad car by two Middling City cops. I'm going to phone him tonight (if he's out of the klink/hospital) to ask if he's okay with his likeness and name running in the alternative newsweekly that sort of pays me.
Full of himself Lead Boy Colleague said he sent the same man's likeness to AP and that it was seen all over the country. I think the bashee still has a right to a yes or no on being run in his hometown alternapaper and being named.
Yesterday shot the St. Patrick's Day parade, a flash of pomp, circumstance, drunks and green. Escaped the mean green streets to a friendly gay bar for an icy one, dabbing some beer foam onto the small lips of baby Sarah until her mom said No more.
Although Crispin Glover is one of the best freaks on celluloid (and what a fine fine nose) do not - DO NOT - waste money seeing his newest movie Willard.
I liked it for showing me some interesting camera angles. In a nutshell it's a fucked-up tribute to Michael Jackson and his movie Ben.
Onwards to more music, more work, no more news today and more images.
Love.

Prowling the darkened Middling City streets is next on the Perfect Agenda.
Last night Tori was a huge el grande NO. A certain Margo from Sony said Tori is saying no to media in all secondary markets.
So in case you didn't believe me that the MC is secondary, there's backup.
Or perhaps it's another case of ARSS (Aging Rock Star Syndrome).
Tonight is art then music then music then music before a visit to the Tequila Maiden.
As I had to deliver handiwork north of the city I made a very politically incorrect visit to the Seneca Casino as a plus one. At the entrance several security guards converged upon us at the sight of my camera bag... red-faced and hands a-grabbin.' I talked my way into keeping the bag with the warning that if the camera popped out they'd take it.
Hopped aboard machine but wasn't feeling It. I was fixated on a Tabasco-themed slot machine, $1 + a shot with meager results. Surrounded by the sunken-faced elders who spend way too much time in front of the mesmerizing music and flourescent lights of the machines.
We curiously took a look at the buffet - a half-mile of all the starches and fried items a body could hanker.
Off to points pointy and blunt.

9580.
Every person reading epinw remember this 4-digit number and use the hell out of it.
It comes to me at a very steep price, compliments of Verizon and Verizon DSL so please use it and pass the number along.
9580.
Pick up a phone and dial it and nothing else and wait until the recording comes on and tells you what phone number belongs to the phone that you are holding in your listening and holding hand.
Use it at payphones, someone's mysterious phone.
Why am I passing this along after Verizon made me promise I'd never remember the number, let along pass it along?
Well, hang on to your hats as your Favored Nancy is currently a Steaming Nancy.
Friday I was in NYC and called my residence to find a stranger at the other end of the line.
Are you in my house?
No, I'm in my house.
So my land line now shows up as if I'm calling from her house, she has been getting my phone calls and I have no internet access. According to my neighbor, who I called yesterday on my cell phone, she's been receiving most of my calls since Friday and she took a call from someone who wanted to hire me as a freelancer.
Thinking of making Sprint PCS my sole phone and cable my new internet provider.
Goodbye Verizon. Well, unless they comp me about $1K.
Onwards.
My undying and communicational woeful love.

At the Old Fart Concert me and my boy colleagues were made to participate in a biathalon of sorts. We were shown the diagram of the stage with our photo positions near center stage back about 5 rows and then either side back about the same distance. For the intro (cheeseball music, pianos rising from below stage, Billy Joel then Elton John waddling to stage, meeting at center and raising their joined hands in a victorious geture underneath huge circles of snippets of the American and British flag conjuring up thoughts of the pending Bush/Blair war) we were at center and for song 1 my half-group was escorted to Joel's side of the stage. For song 2 we were ushered over to John's side of the stage. This meant running from one position to the other, dodging folding chairs, ushers, people carrying snacks on trays. Realized back about 40' was a better angle for Elton John (who looked like hell in shaggy red-head wig and sunglasses, puffy jowls jiggling about) and then tried to escape my group to return to Billy Joel's side to make more images of him from reverse, better angle. That's when our usher, Jesse, caught sight of me jogging away and I was busted. Nancy, come back to your group, he shouted. I obliged.
Then onwards to Flogging Molly show and shot the opener before standing in pit with security men. I was next to one guy and I glanced up and commented that if the oversized disco ball let go from up at the celing we'd be kaput. He said his secret passion is disco so it would be appropriate. We discussed the panic and horrors of the Rhode Island club disaster and I said that people will grab for those they know in time of pandemonium and that one slip and fall means crushing and piling. This conversation took place a few minutes before Flogging Molly (Guinness-guzzling lovelies) hit the stage and the barricades were nearly collapsing from the crush of punk rock and Celtic music-loving fans. It was time for Your Favored Nancy to evacuate and shoot from the wings.
Thanks to Joey Marcella I now know the club's many secret passageways and navigated through a secret door to walk behind the bar and leave unscathed.
Onwards.

En route to a really really really really fabulous show pairing one decent guy and one complete jerk. Of course I mean the Elton John and Billy Joel Face-Off in mere moments. Have to show up at security for check-in in about half an hour. Happened to catch something on cable tooting Billy Joel's sad horn - how he granted some misguided young girl backstage access to Him and he was Mr. Finesse, basically saying Yeah, we do a lot of good here and if it makes somebody's day...
Yeah, whatever.
It's two pictures in my column, and I believe it's sold out.
Afterwards a quick stop into the Flogging Molly show downtown and then that should be sufficient for today's wheelings and dealings.
Off to see two puffy pop stars.
The joy of the night will be, of course, seeing the boy colleagues en masse - it's been a while and it's usually a time of laughs and usual equipment banter.
Pop rock shooting star Love.

Believe this or not I was going to blog from Parsons School of Design - Parsons School of De-zign - and their network did not support Mozilla, how all this magic happens. Oh velcro and moved along, after checking numerous emails from there.
•
Tonight is Dorota's el grande gallery night, Joseph Helman Gallery from 6-8 she'll be in the white hot spotlight and I'm to help her, allegedly, shop for the ensemble today. Yesterday we found some smart earrings. My outfit is ready, as if that's any surprise. Many Middling City people (imported and relocated) will be there tonight so it promises to be an excellent schmoozathon.
•
It is time to rush out the door as NYC is calling my name and I'm indoors. Despite the breathtakingly cold air it's still NYC calling, NYC walking to do out there.
Sadly, it's back to M.C. tomorrow - when I literally run from plane, to car, to a gig.
I'll be educating little eager children on how to write about music, as part of the Symphony Scholar event at Kleinhans Music Hall.
Note to self: if in a very post-art opening/soiree condition, bring the mints•
A pickled role model is still a role model albeit an aromatic one.

Well happy freakin' Mardi Gras to you, too.
It's impossible for me to think the words Mardi and Gras without thinking of my roadtrip ending in a one-week stay in New Orleans for the visual orgy that is MG NO, LA.
Days and nights of parades, spectacles that are unforgettable (one: a man in a boxing match with a USA Today box until the cops hauled him away, bloody), the booze, the music, the stay-up-all-night Monday until Tuesday events, dancing on the levee at dawn at a free shroom-enhanced punch soirée. Ahh, Mardi Gras.
Leaving on a jet plane tomorrow to, amongst other things, celebrate the wondrous landscape images that have sprung forth from the brain of Dorota.
My pal Tom Calderone at MTV sent me some MTV2 swag, a gigantic and hip jacket with a typically jocular note from him stating that he's been promoted and therefore is sending all sorts of presents to his Middling City cohorts.
And, on a final note, I appear again on the cable access show/fiasco this upcoming Friday - taped last Friday. I arrived after a dinner date with a bunch of people, slightly tipsy and very feisty. I thought the taping was a chaotic disaster but the host and producer thought it was my best appearance ever, that I've really developed my television persona. Yeah, that and four cocktails will get you on the path to high times. The producer created a monologue about Yours Truly and I find it completely horrifying. There's a still of my face with a voice-over... Here's Nancy, mild-mannered. (laughter) Cut to live shots of me later in the show, and a moment where I did an impromptu interpretive dance to the music they were playing in the background.
I'll absolutely never be able to run for public office.
Oh well.
Mardi Gras love and such.

More Middling City rock & roll anti-incendiary madness.
Doug, Allen, Craig and Tyler's gig (The Neighbors and, yes, there was a fitting and subtle tribute to Mr. Fred Rogers) was moved from Mohawk Place to Sphere as the fire marshall(s) deemed the former to have a legal capacity of only 42 in their rear stage area. Calculations were made, protractors were consulted. Legally each imbiber/listener is allotted 7 square feet... so do the math for your favored hotspots.
Ironically, I saw Robbie Fulks (a genius! a semi-country genius!) playing a joint called the Sportsmen's, in what's an area of the Middling City called Black Rock, and there were 200+ crammed into the tiny bar.
∞
Now there's no more fucking around and it's nose to the creative grindstone to complete my fab art bra for the boobie health benefit on Friday night, 3/7. Have to tell the head of the charity that I won't be there... I'll be freewheeling way east, just before the ocean.
Actually had to invest in a tiny grommet setter because I'm using red grommets about the size of the size of the inner regions of a nipple. Or so.
Onwards to breastly matters at hand.
Grommetted love, red.

Being my lovable, rebellious self I had to smoke, en route to shooting the Wellness Extravaganza at Middling City University, a big delicious American Spirit cigarette, a light.
And then I shot people getting fat content tested, bombarded with information on soy, bone densitometerized and the like.
The angry midget brat Avril Lavigne comes to the Middling City in a few months and when I shot her a few months back I was overcome with a gigantic sense of totally not digging her, her hair-in-face stance, her faux petite Canadian bad-ass ways. And lame lyrics. And pussy-whipt backband boys.
Last night ended at the joint named for the nihilist, Nietzsche's, with buddy boy Doug singing Tax Man with the band in attendance doing their best work on the oeuvre of George Harrison. They were done. The crowd clamored for Tax Man. The band didn't know it so Doug, ever helpful, hit the stage. Usually a bass player who harmonizes as second fiddle voice, he was obviously relishing his impromptu front man gig.
Hailed the Tequila Maiden and said Would you run and fetch us some of that golden goodness? Have a tab in that nihilistic joint but handed her a tip with instructions to Stuff it into your g-string.
As I was watching Doug/Tax Man I noted, as I went onto the pa riser for a better shooting angle, that the floor near stage right is very very spongey. One day Nietzsche's may be in the red hot spotlight of club disasters. And you flagrant epinw followers will say I knew all about that spongey saggy floor.
Architectural love.

A short & sweet shoe story:
Work, work, file column, return to home office hovel and discover in daily mail delivery a frequent shoe flyer award so after some social and anti-social obligs head to shoe Valhalla where *** a dream sequence is happening, accompanied by meaningful pop music by shorty-pants John Cougar M*** in the clearance area and there's suddenly also an additional 30% chance-of-a-shoe-lifetime markdown and the perfect mules for the upcoming event in NYC are discovered as well as another more leisurely pair for Middling City high times and dear fucking god the final prices are circa 1950 or so and leaving shoe joint is one person and four great shoes - after witnessing a highly-pampered suburban lady with french manicure have a meltdown when the Valhalla employee misunderstands her directives about shoe boxes in shopping bags and then another when asked for another form of picture id. The End.

It's now about 55º F in my workspace/home as the furnace hasn't been going on and there have been numerous trips up and down stairs to flick on and off various switches. Now it's time to call Mr. Heating&Cooling as my fingers must keep working and they're getting red, before blue.
Minding my own business I was meandering for food supplies following work deliveries this AM and freezing/working at home. There before me was a pink Barbie Easter Magic display. Barbie is dressed in a short pink Easter frock and comes with a chicken-sized egg. I thought perhaps the Magic in Barbie Easter Magic might be that girls can stuff the egg up into Barbie and then her reticulated ankles, knees and hips allow her to squat down and lay the pink plastic egg.
The egg is a bonus gift for the girl who receives Barbie.
And on back the lucky lucky girl can complete a small and facile bunny maze.
I was looking for pink fuzzy bunny ears to replace those sadly broken during my last soirée.
Onwards.

A bit of steaming words, hot off the fingertips and probably more than any of you epinw readers ever needed to know about one of your Fav Nancy's modes of old-school dough:

Insult a man's Mardi Gras parade and you cut him to the core.
In an email to another newspaper employee (who later forwarded the email to the aforementioned man/SuperEgo/Middling City Mardi Gras parade founder) I dubbed his parade dismal.
Six vehicles do not a parade make.
Watchers are key, as are perhaps a marching band and a plethora of paraders.
Onwards.
So the man fired off a snappy/sappy email reaching far and wide, calling me a "photo editor," questioning the way that photo/digital images are filed at the newspaper that he founded (and at which I've been dismally compensated & employed nearly-full-time since 1990), and on... and on.
I'd paste it in here but it was deleted long ago.
Mentioned he might want to invest in photo filing software that he did mention and tried to suggest be used, that I (as well as the occasional intern snap-shooters) would be happy to use it but that my filing system works fine as long as the "managing editor" manages to tell me in a timely fashion what it is that she needs.
Also, why is it that a hundred clients local and national have no problems with the way my digital files are named - but Fabio does. Color me Middling City Gray and Confused.
Usual Nancy/Managing Editor scenario: (Friday afternoon) Oh, Nancy, it's really late, I know, I'm really sorry, but could you shoot... and always it's Yes Yes Yes and pestilence upon my head if I say You know, it's really late, this really sucks,
your parade sucks.
At the newspaper I am a columnist who creates her own assignments, builds her own weekly column, shoots (last-minute) requests for food shots at restaurants the county over as well as feature photography.
Oh, and did I mention, the m.e. handed over a freelance gig to one of the paper's interns last week when the guy had called me before, I returned his call, his cell was off and he called the office looking for me.

Here's an idea, O Parade Creator:
You want a true photo editor?
Pay. Double (or nearly) the salary and you'll have a Photo Editor and great karma will wash over you for doing the right thing.
You finally broke down and acquired my digital camera but this doesn't quite balance out years of mileage, the other equipment I've purchased, the time, the time and the time.
Behind me is a room full of seething and angst-ridden employees who witness disparities of wealth and know there's not many Middling City alternatives to the alternative.
Enough laundering for now.
My undying, unbleached love.

Yesterday included a multitude of eclectic photo ops and photo situations and at one I was able to utter a key, three-word phrase that, unlike ILOVEYOU, is just not appropriate for every day usage:
Stop, DON'T SHOOT.
Men emerged holding muskets at the ol' Fort Niagara alongside the Canadian border and, knowing these were re-enactors probably a little on the zealous side, I said those three words.
And in response the first musket-holder said You don't look French so we won't.
Being a Francophile I immediately thought I'd like to throw some steaming Brie at his red, near-frostbitten face but did not.
I was there with Lead Boy Colleague to document this re-enacted winter garrison and - JOYOFJOYS - asked if they'd blow off their operational cannon in addition to the five-gun salute over the lake. They obliged, rolled out the cannon, went through the lengthly process of packing and checking and lighting perhaps six times before
KA-BLAMMMMMM
off it went. They did this twice for our enlightenment. A third hack-type shooter was on the other side of the cannon action and you knew he was Serious by the khaki vest he was wearing.
My only other previous cannon-type experience was when my pal's highly eccentric attorney father shot off his pipe bomb and miniature cannon one summer evening up in Canada at their lakeside summer residence.
Speaking of pyros and the issue of control, the bar fire in Rhode Island, I hope, will create awareness about club safety. That night I was out shooting and one stop included a joint that had quickly posted an emergency escape plan around the walls and even as a slide on their continual a-v display.
It's also made me realize that many of the places I pop in are fairly certain death pits with minimal attention paid to safety.

Hair band safety endnote:
One night, in the suburb of Lackawanna (where the Al-Qaeda cell of seven was discovered) I was at a KISS tribute gig by a band called SSIK. They had homemade pyros that at the time I found amusing - coffee cans filled with black powder and the like. Several months later, driving down Ridge Road, the club was gone. Burnt to a krispt. Know when to say Hell no to pyros. Sometimes at concerts photogs in the pit are inches from boxes that are sometimes labeled pyros. Usually a stage tech comes out to tell us to steer clear of such boxes during song 1 or whatever and tell us not to touch the boxes, like we're really dying to pry open their lids and fuck with Britney's (or whomever's) super-special bells & whistles.
Onwards to further photo matters.

Special excerpts from my artist slide talk given earlier this evening to the Middling City Museum of Science Camera Club:
Me blah blah me then image me etc. black & white blah blah me me me... and so on and so forth. I managed to fill a slide tray with 80 and the talk ran the gamut of images although I did manage to omit (oops) any images I've made of the nearby grain elevators. Though I did mention them, and my trusty/faulty Holga cameras, later during a spirited Q&A. The lady that booked me, as I wandered away from the mic, handed me a white envelope with my honorarium moments before the man (who later put on a gigantic full-length raccoon coat and black fur hat the size of a microwave oven) collected dollar bills and raffle ticket stubs for their traditional 50-50 split.
Now onwards to column deadline. Now onwards to excerpt events far and wide in my special excerpting mind.
&
Recent past excerpts from the fab Red Dinner held Chez Moi a few nights ago:
1. handing out contraband sparklers and ordering everyone out into the tundra for en masse lighting of them and chanting of HappyPresidents'Day into the smoky smoky night. (Earlier in the day spotted a near neighbor with a large open bonfire in the backyard and thought I LOVE my lawless corner of the Middling City!)
2. my mother appearing with a large tray of red Jello shots.
3. passing along my love of Varry Barry White, a man of love.
4. pal Blair coming in red vinyl jacket and red leather shoes that once belonged to late great 10,000 Maniacs guitarist Rob Buck - appropriated at a post-life, money-making auction.

Tequila Maiden visited me as I was watching an unironic band of hippies playing Dead-fueled idioms. As she was working, and bored, the offerings came on the generous side. Robert Creeley filled in for an allegedly ailing Andrei Codrescu at Hallwalls last night and Bob was his usual engaging and tangential self. He ended the reading tearfully and you could see every slightly-shifting person stop suddenly as they noted Creeley's tears. At one point last night I spotted two teenage couples walking arm and arm down a street and as I drove past them I honked for young love.
Valentine's Day, to the relief of many, has passed like a busy Forester in the night.
Next on the public agenda: St. Patrick's Day. Time to shop for the perfect shade of green silly string. Memory flings me back to last year's Middling City SPD Sunday parade when some little kid, without any drunken adult prompting, silly-stringed a passing cop. That's chutzpah. Flinging myself out to the ye olde Winter Fest in the blazing sun amongst thousands of sniffling families and the curious.

**Famed Nancy heraldic harmonica blast**

O Mighty Valentine,
of indeterminate origin and shadowy historical past, patron saint of beekeepers, the affianced and epileptic, shine your celestial wisdom on the pumping biological, chest cavity hearts of everyone teeming with various blood types, to dig life and all its amenities. O Lupercalian wise man, millions of shopkeeps of flowers, candies and small gift items bow down to your libido-enhancing, pre-Spring hopes for love and motives of a more lubricious nature transmogrified from impulse hormonal to impulse purchase. Shine on, you crazy diamond. Amen.

Tempted to hunt down Dave Harrod, last know whereabout = Philly, to inquire thusly:
JUST WHAT IN BLAZES WERE YOU THINKING PAINTING A PERFECTLY GOOD CEILING DARK BLUE AND, ON TOP OF THAT FIASCO, CREATING ONE-INCH GROOVES INTO JOINT COMPOUND TO BOOT?
Still putting on the pro-block and then it's going to be 2, count 'em 2, coats of white to eradicate.
And how does one know that one is living the rock & roll high life?
When one is moving sofa and hears a bottle clinking across the wood floor and, bending down, discovers that there's an empty and dusty bottle of designer malt beverage under there.
When this little home improvement is complete there will be a crashing of full bottle of aforementioned on the bow of this repainted party ship.
Onwards.

So I walk into the home of a client to deliver some of my photo work this evening.
Her and her husband have the t.v. on CNN/The Paranoid Channel and so begins this scenario.

Her: Did YOU hear about the duct tape thing?
Me: Yes, I did... can you believe...
Her: SEE, I TOLD you that was real. He didn't believe me (dramatic over-gesturing at Him).
Him: (sends me over a little wink and head nudge as if to say Yup, I KNEW that whole duct tape thing was real but was funnin' with her)
Her: I went to a convenience store today to buy water and they were ALL OUT.

(And on this goes for a long while, her explaining the evacuation plan of her kids school and how there are bomb shelters in her neighborhood and how the terrorists could look just like anyone walking into any building - she repeats this 3x - until I steer her to the photo matters at hand)

Next stop for me was a board meeting for Buffalo Society of Artists.
Because of aforementioned I'm running a bit late and am surprised that half the board is not there.
Me: So where is everyone?
President: I guess the weather kept them away...
Me: Or maybe they're home taping up their windows.
Treasurer: GUH-HUH, someone with a sense of humour.

Moral: Gallows humour, laughing in the face of absolute crap, is better than pale-faced tomfoolery. Under the overarching orange-red of Code Freak-Out stay close to who and what matters. Know when to step off the news media trail.

Subtly bossy love.

Surreals.
1. Rewinding a video and then chancing upon Janeane (sp?) Gareafolo in I'mSmart! glasses being all sanctimonious and labeled Peace Activist on FoxNews rather than comedian and, eschewing her usual label, she played the serious gal whilst looking stern. As I stated moments afterwards, she looked like a comedian schooled at the Stipe, Merchant & Bono School for Causes. I feel differently about her. Yes, war sucks. But her delivery was too... too... out of character.

2. Minding my own business I attended a girlie dinner soirée which ended in a Joe Millionaire debacle as we sat around a television set at the behest of a Girl Scout Leader who was so enamored that we enabled. So after 60 minutes of poofery nothing happened. I counted down, à la New Year's Eve 10 more minutes to resolution, 5 more minutes to resolution, 4 more minutes to resolution. And. Nothing. No resolution. As one of us pointed out, ohso wisely, we watched because we thought it was theee last. The apish man had two bimbos to select from, both non-prizes. All further tossing gasoline onto Osama's Anti-American fire, if you ask me. Where was Garofolo to stop this pithy nonsense? Probably busying herself spraypainting No Bush League Presidents for Oil Wars placards or the like.

My opined and obvious LOVE.

ps: in the spirit of love go here to make someone something really really lovely and nice.

Last night highlights:
1. Gig at university, documenting 'Fun Fest.' Manipulating co-eds at this boozeless soirée to do some really really Nancyesque poses exuding plethoras of fun, including a bunch of guys doing fun hand gestures while holding a woman track star aloft horizontally. Does this make sense? Absolutely not. But does it scream fun? Fuck yeah.
2. Zoomed down to mediocre Canadian pop rocker engagement at Sphere, revamped 50s nightclub. First real concert there and the promoters did not have their shit together which meant that Laura and I were kept waiting waiting and waiting at the back door. After more waiting was told that we had to walk all the way around the building to the front door, which meant then shimmying through 1K drunk psychotic 54-40 fans. No treat there. At one of their outdoor gigs I walked in front of the stage, passing a bunch of fat old lady fans who completely freaked out that I might land in the spot in front of them (band is about 20 minutes away from performing) and so they shoved me in a fit of panic. That's what I was dealing with once I was in the room, after expressing my dismay at the promoters - pals of mine. One of them handed me a ticket which I tantrumly frisbeed at his feet on my way in to shoot. What a bitch! So I'm standing finally near the stage and a fan behind me lightly punched me on the back 3x until finally I spun around and said Look, I'm going to be here for five minutes so fuck off. Five minutes later I was back in the front of the venue (perhaps a concert shooting speed record), talking to the promoters (who admitted they were having multitudes of first-timer problems and apologized for the hassle) and having a very weak cocktail.
3. While having said cocktail Laura and I were invited down into the club's expansive basement kitchen by the owner, Joey, to sample his new Brazilian chef's wares. She whipped us up a few dishes. Yumbadelic.
4. Onwards to further stops including charity 'masquerade ball' at internationally-renowned Albright-Knox Art Gallery where me and my entourage of now 2 got yet more feisty after turbo-powered drinks poured by artists doubling as 'bartenders.' Left that scene after first dropping a strand of my el cheapo Mardi Gras (note to Middling City folks: You don't understand MG... go to New Orleans one time for a real Mardi Gras to understand what it really is, fercrissakes) beads upon a surveillance camera mounted in the stairwell near Die Milchstrausse by Anselm Kiefer - about the size of a house.
One sub-highlight was seeing a lawyerly pal and his very drunken silly date who was wearing a water bra, inviting us all to feel its squishiness. Note to self: never wear a water bra.
This lawyer also thanked me profusely for not publishing the photo of him stage riding at an outdoor music festival this past summer. What's the big deal, I asked, this, if anything, will open up a whole new market to you such as personal injury cases at concerts.
5. Ended the evening with now an entourage of 3 in a bar I would normally hardly ever be caught dead or partially dead in but the judgement was slightly impaired (see above). One of those annoying bars that's a shithole yet has pretensions exhibited in the layers of memorabilia tooting their own horn all over the walls.

Up with feistiness.

Declaring this weekend (declared my Rumsfeld to be Code Orange) to be a news-free one, really maxed out on all events au courant and it's time to escape into rock and roll and mayhem.
Amen to mayhem.
Stepped off the Friday merry-shoot-round to blog out for a moment.
Popped into an opening for a small photo show and chatted politely with the artist who then wanted to touch my camera, Mind if I take a look? I nearly screamed and karate chopped her little head.
I said No, I am really in a hurry.
I mean, really. That's comparable to someone saying (sort of) Oh, I really like that bra you're wearing, mind if I try it on.
I mean, any boy colleague can hold a camera and v.v. but some kooky Middling City artist stranger? I think not.
To be added to list of pet peeves that includes being touched whilst eating, people eating with mouths gaping wide open in movies, pretend badasses and men in lousy shoes.
Onwards.
All my curmudgeonly love, seething forth from my irony-clad heart.

Just in case you were on the fence about being a Francophile consider that their president didn't (yet) cave in to US warcry bedazzlement. Chirac was not convinced by Tony Blair, nor will he probably be by Colin Powell, that we have extra-oil field reasons to do more bombing in Iraq.
And then there's guitar playing American Tom Morello.
Formerly of the awe-inducing Rage Against the Machine, now in super-group Audioslave, he's soundbitten reasons why no is a fine choice in the new RS, RS916 to be exact.
I cancelled out on RS because of their soft-porn covers (and told them/JSW that that was my reason, as if they care about the micro-voice of anti-boobular sentiment versus the millions who grab such a cover... actually this oddly echoes the peace vs. oil procurement diatribe above) and yet still receive it.
Tom Morello:
This is the first time in American history where an anti-war movement has been growing and strengthening prior to a war. In Vietnam, you know, it took five years of a blood-drenched war orgy before the first anti-war movements got off the ground.
Rock on.

Minding my own business, sinking into filthy coffee shop cushions permeated with the curious scent of men's cheap cologne, I was visited by a singer-songwriter from Boston who, I believe, sensed a like-minded shoe soul.
Rose Polenzani, of pal Blair's rock & roll management stable, was in the Middling City after several ragingly successful college gigs in other places. She was in the coffeeshop, as was Blair, other caffeine tipplers and a warbling Dylan knockoff. The warbler was really trying my patience but, believing he was another of Blair's 'artists' I stayed and suffered, helplessly breathing in the Hai Karate, Ol' Stinker or Old Spice or whatever the fuck it was.
So Rose P. tells me a happy shoe story and it went something like this.
Note: this after we mutually admired one another's shoes.
One day, out on the road, Rose Polenzani, folk artist, decided that she needed hiking boots.
She does not hike.
Note: when you love shoes you need all types of them. I have vintage black little boy cowboy boots. Have I ever roped a calf? I rest my case. Oh and - I own vintage Budweiser sneakers that leave BUD impressions in the dirt. Have I ever had a Bud without severe prompting or peer pressure? I rest my case yet again.
So she selects three pairs to try on. The shoeman returns with four boxes, three pairs of hiking boots and one pair of slammin' black leather boots, the pair she's wearing.
The shoeguy said You didn't ask for these but I thought you'd like them.
The end.
Moral: when one walks about with a rockstar energy, that of vivacious je ne sais quoi, the sky and great shoes are the limit.

How I began my day today/Groundhog Day by Your Perfect & Favored Nancy.
Wake up to alarm. Grab apple and camera gear, not in that order. Get in car. Drive out to suburban Middling City university campus. Go up to university's geology department h.q. where I met up with two boxers (dog sort), various students and a staffer. All but the dogs are wearing construction paper top hats. Fifteen minutes later we head outdoors to a berm where one of the geologists has determined the cleanest snow is still clinging to berm. Out from a conversion van a geology department staffer (not a professor) takes a taxidermied groundhog wearing a party hat, visor and a sash emblazoned with 2003. The taxidermied groundhog is then placed next to a faux groundhog-dug hole, the base upon which his back feet are bolted covered with snow. Potting soil is strewn.
Assignment. The End. I came, I saw, I shot.
The eccentric and traditional end.
As the Middling City skies are rarely sun-fueled the taxidermied beast saw no shadow whereas down south, in PA, that un-taxidermied rodent saw his lively shadow and was startled.
Who to believe?
Quick or stuffed beast? You decide.
Rodent shooting love.

More Americans vaporized today.
Great chances taken can mean great loss and, although its an obvious tragedy, anyone who boards a NASA vehicle knows there's a chance that the ship isn't going home to roost.
As I watched the LIVE footage of the shuttle collapsing in the heavens and cuts to shots of debris in the scorched Texas landscape and even-keeled reporters I had an item float upwards in my memory.
On one of my liberating and caffeine-fueled cross-country roadtrips I requested a special stop, at NASA's joint in Texas. My travel companion obliged - I had been before with family and knew it rocked.
So we went, tooled around and ate in the huge cafeteria.
I glanced down at the lunch tray (usual injected plastic number, rectangular) and studied the two-tone NASA logo. It had to be mine. So I stole it from NASA's cafeteria. I don't recall my method but it happened.
I'm wondering where, in my many moves, it landed. I think someone could be serving snacks to a small circle of friends and my fucking NASA lunch tray is the envy of that person's pals.
Well that's karma for you.
I was really going to try my luck/karma last night by offering an officer of the law a jello shot from my opened car window when my two evening travel companions shouted NANCY are you nuts? He's a cop, he'll arrest you. Perhaps I had slurped down too many to dishevel my faculties but I thought an officer of the law, obviously young and freezing cold, might welcome a Skyy vodka-laced treat.
Onwards.
Charlie Hunter and Bobby Previte abso-fucking-lutely mesmerized. They duetted and Hunter at one point played the tambourine as I've never seen before, he made it an instrument for complete cool.
I went backstage with a venue employee as I'd requested going behind the curtain, meaning I wanted to shimmy behind the club's black curtain to a point where I'd be directly behind the duo. Then stick my lens through an opening (hopefully) and shoot from behind them, them looking at each other.
Well instead I ended up backstage shooting from the side. I located a tall stool and balanced atop it, holding my breath and leaning and arching to make the moment stick. I thought I had been invisibly shooting away merrily but several said they saw me doing just that.
Took the jello shots after Hunter/Previte to a house party desperately needing jello shots. I made three types of vodka flavours and one with quallity gin - the green/lime ones.
Onwards to Doug's gig further along the downtown scenario, his last with the other playas. And, as I said later to anyone who would listen If I were managing Doug's career I'd order him to stay with this band and ditch the other he's so committed to... this band has a sparkle, a buzz.
If you all listened to me the world would be a much much much better place. Plus I'd always get my way and thusly I'd be ever more exuberant and that would help all of you feel much happier, too.
Love.

This is sooo ghetto, but we're out of soda, she, the chainsmoking young co-ed bartendress said.
I looked at her for a moment thinking not only how in hell does a bar not have soda but also that the reason I was sitting in that bar was that it IS so ghetto. A place of ramshackle charm, an occasional death metal band nite, where the t.v. is always on and regulars strut in with teeth a-missin'.
Also, of similar theme is this tale.
Went out for two Janet Reno Fan Club birthdays except one JRFC member decided instead to attend band practice. Small plate joint called Bacchus, wine is their thing. Oban is not. And how do I know this? After dinner drinks were ordered. OBAN I slobbered and, at $8 a glass, it was underpriced = ojoy.
So it comes to the table in an oversized brandy snifter.
So I grabbed it from Smedly the Waiter and tossed the glass with all my energies at the plate window.
No.
I said I hate to be a glass snob but could you please get me a rocks glass?
Nincompoops.
Just had a gig at the Middling City Museum of Science and this is one fun fact I learned: mastodons are not dinosaurs.
Informational love.

With Martha Stewart's help I found a new color for my office/living room walls - Wasabi. Being a firm believer that a paint should be selected by its name I feel this is a perfect choice for Perfect Sushi-Loving Me. And the Goodwill box blue ceiling that I inherited from Dave Harrod is going away. Decided suddenly today that for the party I'm throwing on the 16th colors need to be changed.
Began today early with a meeting followed by a follow-up shoulder exmination by Dr. Alzheimers in the suburbs. He and I chatted about all things shoulder and I'm thinking Oh WONDERFUL, no dressing up in one of those pesky disposable, robin eggshell robes. When suddenly he stood up and said Well, put on a robe and I'll be back in to look at your shoulder.
grrrrrr
So he hands me the paper rectangle and leaves. Immediately I tore off the plastic belt accidentally and then whilst trying to unfold the thing it ended in tatters until I was holding a piece about as big as one square of paper towel. Laughing fairly heartily by myself in the overly-lit room I was not only thinking gees I hope Dr. Alzheimers isn't lurking in the hallway giving me not only a C- shoulder evaluation but a D+ psych evaluation but also wondering how to cover myself. Eureka, I thought, these bastards made me drive all the way out here, fuck conservation. Then I got another and was more tender with it. Wish I could say the same about Dr. A and my poor left shoulder.
Disposable clothing love.

As I logged onto Blogger just seconds ago there was, in the welcoming window, a link to a discussion board regarding, for god's sake, The Shroud of Turin - hoax or ferreal. Immediately my thoughts shrank backwards to the horrors of Prometheus Books where I slaved as jacket copy girl/assistant to director of p.r./assistant to director of advertising among the mushrooms growing in the corners of the orange shag carpeting in the basement office (this sounds like a bad dream but, believe you me, this fucking happened and is how I bonded with my pal Jamie Johnson, who also miseried there) and ducking the blue clouds of cigarette smoke streaming from several offices. And so much more.
Anyhow, the place is owned by Mr. Killjoy/professor Paul Sharits who believes in nothing. So that meant a constant stream of tomes debunking everything. Tooth Fairy Mystery: SOLVED. Shroud of Turin Mystery: Solved. And on.
The best book I ever came across there were the memoirs of a porn star (Jerry Butler) who was married to Wednesday of The Adams Family at one time before their coked-up minds derailed and forced their marriage onto the rocks.
George W. Bush Presidential Mystery... why doesn't Mr. Sharits solve that one?
Could not bring myself to watch his state of the union address.
I would, however, like to read a transcript and after the tidal wave of deadlines I'll look for one online.
Oban Addiction Mystery: Solved. No, don't solve that Sharits.
And, for the record do not solve the following -
Shoe Assembly Mystery.
All.
ps: nearly forgot the real reason I was blogging which was that today, as I drove down the DMZ that is Middling City's Main Street I was behind a car with clever vanity plates with a religious theme: UR4GVN. I was regarding these nincompoops thinking how best to yell at them from a car length away, smirking madly, when I looked over and there, mere feet away, was a man looking at me, smiling and pointing to the heavens. I smiled back and thought Thanks be to the gods of serendipity I don't have an impressionable mind and believe this is some sort of sign.
Sign (and rock) on.

While interested and semi-interested parties watched the Super Bowl spectacle of commercialized sport I flailed away on my deadlines whilst listening to the radio. Eureka! I heard on news radio that the play stopped and it was time to rock & roll in San Diego = half time.
Thankfully I missed Celine Dion and tuned in as Gwen Stefani et al hit the Super-sized stage. Her in her usual odd assemblage of femmey fashion and boy sports paraphernalia (boxing boots, leather fingerless gloves). She sang live which I think most would have opted out of but she's the pro at jumping and singing. She ended I'm Just a Girl with a little salute - I think not in reference to her 40s-style hairdo but a poke in the eye to US overseas machismo. Perhaps I read into that but I'd like to think this.
Then, for some reason, Sting appeared. He warbled in trademark nasal twang, in equally-trademarked outdated outfit. This man needs a personal stylist, a butler.
He had the look of a man who couldn't hear himself in the monitors and thoughts of shouting MORE VOCALS IN THE MONITORS were probably flitting through his mind. Gwen duetted louder and the off-balance duet ended with pyros that looked like a Colin Powell/GWB dream - flames and smoke filling the night sky as American fighter pilots circled over Super Bowl 37 out of sight of the media and sports fans.
Rock on.

Listening, per Doug's request, to a copy of his band, The Neighbors. Actually, Doug is in the band, I think Allen would prefer that it be called Allen's band The Neighbors. I think Allen might be disappointed to know that I think it's fine pop - especially now that I hear tambourines rattling.
Last night celebrity guest bartended for a while and overcharged a biker. I breezed past him a bit after depositing his pint and bottle of beer and he inquired How did these two things equal $8.
I looked and said I'm not a bartender and I can't add numbers up on the fly... Kelly, what do these two items total? Then I said OK, I owe you $1.75 and handed them to him with my patented Thanks for shopping at Nietzsche's. Jeesh, thank the good Harley gods above, pal, that you're not tippling in NYC I should have tossed in his goateed direction... goatee with Guiness foam around the edges.
Excruciating is how I'd describe the vocals heard last last night. I escaped to the front of the bar to visit with musicians and non-musicians and suddenly heard a huge, mic'd yelp. This is not what I expect from a band incorporating my name. Nancy's Candy is no treat. They do, however, have busloads of pals so there were lots and lots of onlookers.
Marty invited me, as did a few others, to Super Bowl parties.
In lieu of a bag of chips and a beer I prefer to enter into such an escapade with an armload of the Sunday Times - looking up, of course, at appropriate intervals.
Off for Janet Reno Fan Club brunch and points beyond, like shooting the Campbell Bros. at the art joint this aft.
No football love.

Hey. I blogged earlier and posted it to epinw but it evaporated into thin air - perhaps because it was all about boobies. Photographed two more sets for my upcoming charitable delving into the world of bra designing for the upcoming charity boob-a-thon called BRAvo for Women's Stories for survivors of breast cancer and for breast cancer research.
And for this girlie pals graciously doffed tops.
I will be cutting small black & white photos into elliptical shapes, grommeting them (excellent little red grommets I found this week) together and thin red ribboning them together.
The straps will be strips of contact sheets.
Where nipples appear I'm adhering tiny faux rubies.
Onwards.
Watched a moment of CNN and saw a segment on a man traveling to become a human shield in Afghanistan. Would I do this? Although I agree with the sentiment I think of the speedfreak motherfuckers who kill Canadians, innocents and each other and think perhaps not.
Chris Gallant is doing a short doc and looking for volunteers so I said I have about of 20 seconds of opinion that I'm willing to share with him for the project.
The Jayhawks canceled for Mon. night which has Reese in a tailspin. One of the guys in the band had a heart disease. Another argument for yoga, or exercise.
Ryan Adams warbles out at me before I head out for the evening's art and music and booze destinations.
Boobs and boobs of love.

Look, defenestration's no joke.
That movie last night, The Hours (or, as I've lovingly redubbed it - The Horrors), involved some minor defenestration. Any movie that begins and ends with dreamy footage of Virginia Woolf's river suicide is going at your heartstrings with a scalpel. I realized about 20 minutes into The Hours/Horrors that I was in a chick flick and I have a strict No Chick Flick Policy. At any moment I expected Julia Roberts and her teeth to come sashaying into a well-styled scene. I did like the movie, one of our little watching throng wept uproariously at it.
At a late hour the phone rang. Anne Loomis Roberts.
Quite a surprise, pleasant present.
She divulged the call was prompted by her concurrent viewing of Vinny's Buffalo 66 so, of course, I had to re-regale her with my favorite VG stories.
And somehow we always seem to reinvestigate our private and shared horrors during our time at the private girlie school. Still wondering, after all these years, Just what in hell was that.
Evil anti-choice folks to descend upon the Middling City today.
Armed with camera for hateful doc I will be for non-violent shooting, contrary to their terroristic style.
Choice, always, love.

The weekend's rock & roll notes:
1. Slobbered all over the front of Showplace's stage during Jon Spencer's set last night. He rocked those skinny leather pants like nobody's beeswax - jumping to and from the mic in his trademarked manner, like coming up for air from under water. Only one boy colleague was there and we both tossed on our flashes as the lights at the venue completely suck. Opening act, The Black Keys, apparently only had a single song, played about twelve or so times. Jon Spencer, yum.
2. The weekend's music purchases = Barrrrrrrry White All-Time Greatest Hits (for pending Red Dinner when I cook all red food and the house is lit all red and the house is crammed with guests wearing, what else, their best crimson ensembles), Matthew Good Band Beautiful Midnight, Damon & Naomi Song to the Siren (former 2/3 of all-time fav Galaxie 500) and The Jesus and Mary Chain 21 Singles (enough span of time between me and one of the x's to be able to enjoy JMC again).
3. I apparently emasculated Simon Chardiet of Simon and the Bar Sinisters so during his gig, visited with Doug who I rescued from the terrifying Middling City train stop, and afterwards, he would not acknowledge us as I gave him $10 for gas money last time he was in town. But Doug and I tipsily helped ourselves to his rock star pizza afterwards saying Well screw Simon, eat up!
4. Saw one of the Middling City's better new bands, Alla, Saturday amid stops far and wide and that's the band that my former hairstylist, Jon, was formerly in before he prima donna'd out and alienated the girls on guitar and drums. Thinking that Jon will be furious and possibly not speak to me (again) for a few years when he sees Alla in my photo column.
5. There's hope that the music scene here is not absolutely dwindling to nothing with the announcement of a few good shows like BB King, Tori and the Goos (as openers with Bon Jovi). Think at the Goo/Bon Jovi gig everyone will see that Johnny and BJ have the same hair do.
End of rock notes, time to drink some day old coffee and attack deadlines with gusto.
Blues explosion love.

Multi-tasking.
As I blog I'm on hold with Nikon to find out how come my camera is no longer willing to autofocus after it was fixed by them (camera was ass-crunched by a pal on New Year's Eve and the hotshoe was bent).
A sad tale. Which is sadder... the tech problems or the holding to speak to tech problem shooters.

Thinking back to Disney on Ice and what I learned from it.

*wow, I have a real person on the line...*

The Long & Short = they want the camera to come back to them to fix the AF probs.

Onwards to happier Disney thoughts:
young girls are victims of fate and victims of older and uglier women - on skates or not.
When bad or dramatic things happen sparks shoot from the sky. Hello pyros!!!
And, as we all know, every story ends with a cute guy in tights giving a big smooch to the girl.
Disney-styled love.

Technology schmechnology.
Look under the post of the 14th for the post of early the 15th.
I just figured it out. I'm in EST, Blogger is in SF, CA so if I post earlier than 3AM their computer says midnight.
Color me confused. Confused and happy in my ignorance and ever-questioning status.
Tonight it's Disney on Ice with niece on nephew.
Have to budget how many dollars I'm willing to spend on program, shirts, other items and glo-stick chokers.
Glo-stick chokers are critical to having a good time, I think.
Love glo.

Sip Oban. Listen to baby rockstar's band's cd. Take break from all-day writing marathon. (repeat as needed)
Today a nincompoop mis-dialed, reaching my super-secret cell phone. A caller from Wisconsin.
Call 262-203-0318 and say Hi, Perfect Nancy in the Middling City says you're a nincompoop - true or false?
Speaking of strange communiques, RR in KY sent an email moments ago that read, in part, I am a Raelian.
Now I won't indulge those cultos with a hit on their site lest that is their name but are the Raelians the cult that believes we've all morphed from the grays? Or that we all stem from newborn-looking aliens?
RR says that now that he's Raelian smoking is non-lethal.

RR: do not contact me to donate fund to your Raelian cause.
And don't come crying to me when you realize you've been duped, all spent in your flowing cult robe.

Do Raelians wear robes?
Why not join that cult (article about them in my personal archives/fridge door) that believed the apocalypse was imminent so they ditched their clothing and a dozen or so of them jumped into a mid-sized American car and drove like hell to...
well they drove until they crashed into a tree.
A badass cult with a purpose.
Rock on, newbie Raelian.

Travel Queen Dorota is on the online prowl for el cheapo tix to Barcelona. The Land of Gaudi, Spanish rice, Spanish prisoners, probably some sort of turbo-powered booze and spices... and let us not forget Spanish fly.
D is painting (no, flailing) away for her big NYC début next month and I offered some important advice:
1. your new work sounds great (I asked her to be more specific about the 'candy' colors) but how about buying jugs of artificial flavours and creating one painting that has flavour, à la Willie Wonka?
2. and, of course, sound shoe advice to push her ensemble over the artworld edge.

Whyowhy should anyone care about the American Music Awards?
Apparently Eminem did not. Nor the Dixie Chixxx. And fat-headed S. Stapp of Creed and band stayed away.
This was the sound clip I heard this AM from the AMA:
I want to BLEEEEEP this BLEEEEEEPPP and BLEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEPP off. Thanks.

Can you imagine being the poor BLEEEEP who has to man the BLEEPING bleeper? That person must be drug tested to insure positive focus.

Back to AOL matters at hand.

DNA swirling somewhat the same, me and my sister and five girl cousins (1 missing as she's currently residing in gai Paris) simultaneously pallbore and experienced feisty and low-volumed outbursts of laughter.
My sister, the youngest niece of maiden Aunt Marion, brought up the rear and when she complained I said Listen, Sue, in the cousinly productions we did as kids you always played the Mexican visitor in the straw hat, so just deal with it.
We realized that the old North Buffalo church aisle was ill-equipped for a modern/wider coffin (according to the funeral guy) plus bodies on either side. My sister was right behind me and had both her hands planted under the coffin as if she were driving it solo down the aisle. She suddenly (and thankfully) noted that at that speed the six of us on either side were having a rough time managing the space between the old pews... and that she would also be mowing down the funeral director at the helm (and back to coffin/gurney/us) any second.
Then when it was time to bring up the gifts to the priest me + 2 cousins were like the Keystone Cops, heading off into various directions, reconvening at the steps then gathering up said gifts and then heading into three new and differing directions. More suppressed laughter.
Later a non-deceased aunt said There should have been arrows painted on the floor to direct you girls.
Better laughter than hysterical sobbing, I say. Life is for the living, and the laughing, dig?
The priest gave me my intro and called Wallace Stevens one of this country's greatest poets.
I don't usually but I really liked this Catholic priest, very hip to things cultural.
I read Stevens' words without a hitch and in my little intro added that my aunt loved LAUGHTER, and looked up at the cousins in front of me.
When the last drops of water were flung by the hipster priest onto the steely box the sun came out and shot through a rose window on the northernly side somehow and when we left the sun was blazing.
Now back to my familiar and comforting world of deadlines and wordy purpose.
Words and words and words.
Love.

Last night several told me how much they enjoyed my drawings now hanging in the Hallwalls members' show, pencil renderings of drive-thrus and mentioned previously in a blogpost when I had a run-in with the fuzz at a KFC.
This week maiden aunt Marion left this world, as did Liz's mom, Anne.
This morning I delivered my homemade floral arrangement to the funereal parlor and was greeted by a doe-eyed man running the joint who was not so sure he wanted to allow me to enter Aunt Marion's viewing chamber. Are you immediate family, was his question. Are you the florist?
I stated (thinking Listen Mr. Important, I've dealt with bigger, burlier and snarlier men than you and won backstage at concerts galore and you're a graham cracker crust compared to them) I'm her niece until he let me in... for god's sake.
Due to the shortage of men in the fam arranged that six nieces will be pallbearers and told various relatives that my aunt would have totally dug this. One cousin, Patty, of Cali, is still not too comfortable with the concept of us pallbearing. The coffin will be on a gurney, on wheels, I said, it's not like we'll be heaving and hoing.
I am going to read Wallace Stevens's Evening Without Angels as a reading tomorrow at the funeral service and think, as I reread it, it's a complicated poem - thematically obtuse though beautiful. There's also one line with a shitload of s's so sibilance will be slithering throughout the vaulted space as I read into the mic.
... Desire for rest, that that descending sea/ Of dark, which in its very darkening/ Is rest and silence spreading into sleep.
Loads of s's.
My dad said It's not a tear-jerker is it? I assured him it is not.
How can a poem that mentions a coiffeur of haloes be sniffly?
It's about how we elevate our lives to holiness, how what we have is our life and the sun and the moon.
It ends
Where the voice that is great within us rises up,/ As we stand gazing at the rounded moon.
Rock on, Aunt Marion, wherever you've floated off to.
And same to you, Anne.
Literary and lifeful love.

How many of YOU can state that you began YOUR day in a worldclass cemetery following a tractor guiding you to the gravesite of a dead president?
Millard Fillmore (or Mill Fill as I lovingly call him), to be exact, was in my sights, sort of, this AM.
This was my traditional university assignment to capture the magic of the graveside fete and laying of wreaths in honour of his b-day.
Onwards. More dark.
Sad to learn that Stereolab singer Mary Hansen is no longer - and neither is her band.
She was hit by a truck whilst she was riding her bike in London. Rolling Stone could only muster up a tiny few-inch plot of words (with small yet exuberant photo) of her. At least they gave Joe Strummer a full two pages and, in usual RS fashion, tooted their own archival horn by running the last cover of theirs that he appeared on and at quick small glance he looks like Springsteen.
Today coffee, dark and deep, is my serious pal (go to this ultra-related site this instant) as I trundle from deadline to deadline like a French piglet on a truffle-rustling run.
Listening now to airy Parker and Lily and just noticed a hilarious typo up the spine of the cd where they renamed the band Parker and Illy. She be illin'. Or not.
Beastie and indie rock love.

Successfully attended today's baby shower for Jen & Tom's pending son, mingled with their moms, aunts, young professionals and a few of my co-workers... and then plotted my bye bye/escape.
Of course following a smattering of heartfelt oohs & ahhs (earlier I led a quick how-to seminar on the finer points of convincing oohs & ahhs).
There was a delegation of ladies lobbying the holder of a purse joint to go up to the third floor clubhouse to toke. But the holder was horrified at the idea of being high at a shower so she kept sippin' on the Pepto pink punch with floating raspberries (a bevvie I steered clear of. why does no one have the good sense to serve scotch at showers?)
Began today AM by listening to music and matting and framing the drawings to be dropped at the art joint tomorrow for the members' show - Sat. night. Four in a frame and I am proud.
Last night's live music documentation, nutshell-sized: pint-sized punk rockers, CW-luvvin diva and boys, stoner rockers, baseball bat-smashing punk rockers and wimpy folkster.
Dreams of big city and attendant big there fun.

Drawing all-American drive-thrus today was fantastic until I drew the attention of the KFC staffers who then called Buffalo's Finest on me. Was parked in the lot drawing madly for a while until I saw the cops pulling into the driveway = Time to Go.
At the end of the driveway a cop came over. What are you doing, the staff would like to know.
Making drawings for an art show. They saw you taking pictures.
I then showed her my assemblage of great drawings, explaining all the while how I was moving on from there to BK and then McD's.
Well, good luck to you, the lady copy said.
My drawing career is now sealed with Finest wishes.
No other scrapes with the Law after that... yet.
Last night ended the evening by watching the band of baby rockstar's bro = Parachute Adams. And they were amazing, even better than before their sabbatical and sans ska-style thin neckties. Baby rockstar introduced me to his mother and I said And I'm...
I know who you are, she said.
Call me surprised as a calf caught in a July storm drain.
Dorota called mid-aft to ask shopping advice: should she spend an even $300 on a great new suede bag. How perfect it is to confer with a photog who has ongoing bag and portage needs. Will you use it every day? Are there details about it that you admire greatly? Then run topspeed back to that bag joint and acquire, acquire, acquire.
Big waterproof bags of Love.

Well tie me to the spit and roast me twice.
(secret NY rez is to coin new hick sayings)
Have not been able to blog as I've been locked up in jail for my NYE badass activities.
I'm lying.
But what could I have been jailed for, in a nutshell?
Transporting a cache of pyrotechnics over state lines. Spotted an advert for Mess's Fireworks and followed signage to a VERY discreet operation where what I thought was a ferocious pitbull welcomed me.
It turned out to be an American bulldog and he was armed with a bag of potato chips in his muzzle.
And I nearly pooped my pants with glee when I saw what was inside... miles of neatly-packaged pyros. The dog's name was Pyro. And he slobbered all over me.
As the sign requested, and as I was not a PA citizen, I did not ask to fondle or buy the guns on display.
So onwards to the Middling City, to evening plans of Janet Reno Fan Club variety.
Meaning.
Dinner, drinks, bad behaviour.
I decided to resurrect the Chinese Fire Drill phenom and called for one on one of the city's busiest avenues, clapping my hands and yelling GO GO GO to everyone.
Along the way we picked up a few who needed a jolt of mischief (Jen and Jamal) and I treated them to a CFD.
We met up with them at a rooftop party at which my lungs were pruned by a fire rigged with that poison lighter fluid that should be fucking outlawed.
So at that party champagned and snarfled the buffet and, oh yes, gravitated topspeed to a provided basket of pyros like an early Easter present from a way-hip Easter bunny who knows my heart.
So Doug and I were figuring out how to blow up these 2 large bundles of joy with one wick each when one of the party elders got quite concerned and stated thusly:
You CANNOT blow those off up on this roof - you'll set fire to our neighbors' rooftops.
After a quick survey and summation of the environs (and my cursory Middling City expertise of our location) I thought And what the hell harm will that do here in Crack Heights.
So down we climbed, others in tow, to the street where we made sparks the size of cottages, smoke and danced madly in the street and then sped off to more more more.
More.
All about more, not less.
More love.
Less seriousness.
More Oban.
Less art dreaming.
More art doing.

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.