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

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

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

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

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

Crisp fragment of Love.

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

Back East Love.

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

Desert, not always Dessert, Love.

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

Neil Love, Love.

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

Rock on Canadian rockers Love.

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

Obliterated Love.

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

Rolling, Love.

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

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

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

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

Scouting, hailing Love.

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

Long Live Love.

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

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

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

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

So like MillFill, stuck in his mud.

Muddy Hummingbird Muse Love.

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

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

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

Patronizing, Dancing Love.

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

More Love.

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

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

Beyond garlic Love.

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

Small-dreamed Love.

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

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

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

Happy Global Neil and Lips and Art Day, Love.

This just in.

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

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

Confident, nude Love.

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

Splendid Aura Love.

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


Starry Love.

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

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

Love of Telling Tales.

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