I take no pleasure in Ohio State's failure, or the ridiculous Governor the citizens of that very same state punished themselves with-- but I still think it's hilarious. I don't like college football anyways. Meanwhile, in Hilliard, Tammy and the gang at Dazzle Nails (Trueman Blvd kids mostly) also had nothing to say about any of this and only wanted to discuss Dazzle Nails itself:
"This is a wonderful nail salon. We're right behind the Red Robin. We are just fantastic. Wonderful pedicures. For a real treat sit in the massage chair and get those woes off of your feet. Your nails will have never looked better. We are getting busier every day but we will always take the time to show you a smile. Our business is nail care, color and friendly conversation."
It's all about...a child smiling, naps, hot springs, summer balm, calisthenics at dawn, handshakes, ocean spray, paying it forward, beadie animals, lego, prudence, dukkha nirodha gamini patipada magga, labor, treating myself to lunch...
Today I am really going to do it, to unleash my summer plan. I am going to buy one of those small trucks, Toyota or like that-- in white, of course. I'll paint out the "to" and the "ta" and it'll say YO on the back. I'm gonna get a custom paint job on the driver's side: a wet, neon swoosh of blue that looks like a giant paint brush just now tickled it. Then I will dress white on white, painters' overalls over white shirt. But on the front of the overalls I'll have a dripping blue slash of color, identical to the design on the side of my small truck. I'll also get a white hat with it printed as a logo up front, above the bill. And blue shoes.
Christ I have been absorbed in getting ready to record and do this concert, blah, it is like being in solitary I am sick of myself. Seriously, the first thing I would say about myself is that I am an artist with absolutely no moral courage whatsoever. I mean I do this: look, absorb, transmute, render. What I look at is, or what I tend to look for to look at is, the thing I guess is something close to the center of the prevailing flow but I don't engage in a dialog with it, or have anything to say about it.
And as for heroics-- at most I am interested in impotent memes and this of course hurts my sales. I am always trying to craft a really vigorous meme that is either full of nothing or contains an anti-meme virus inside. And it is fun to do because content is where the meme resides in the structures and forms I work with, not the other way 'round. So any old thing can hitch along.
Unavoidably, however, it gets worse because each compendium of bits I render represents me-- and usually with an unintended negative image-- yet at the same time my methods leave me defenseless and unresponsive to destructive attacks. But that's my bargain, I guess, and luckily I'm not one to get ate up with envy &c.
All of the parts, the process, everything-- I try to take it from outside and it all goes towards helping me learn. What I want to end up with is something I can look at and feel like I am learning something or someone could learn from it. To me the two most dangerous words I can hear (or think) are "I believe..."-- I hear that and I am on the train exactly in the opposite direction; the express, by the way, and not "the expression."
I have been pretty busy, we've all been busy,- but I wanted to post this up since it popped into my head and I have been using its incredible memetic power to keep other nastier things out of my head:
Here's a clip from the VC audiobook art work, it's getting pretty close to being done. It comes out, we're doing a concert in New York, then we're going to do a recording just after that. That will come out 6 or more months after. It's taken so long to do VC we've had time to work on new tunes &c. After that, I'm going to be liquidating my last stash of stuff down here in New Mex. Artwork for VC, a few other pieces, Hex vinyls, tapes, some Trux stuff, stickers, shirts etc but also test pressings and lacquers.
My place now is almost empty and I'm getting ready to scram. Anyways, watch for that if you're interested, be putting stuff up in July or so. Don't forget about the Victory Chimp Ad Contest. Here is the rundown:
HOW TO ENTER:
Download the :30 second audio track here Create your submission in any style or format using the audio file as the soundtrack
Submissions must be sent in as a hard copy: USB drive, disc &c
Deadline for entry is June 1, 2011
SEND ENTRIES TO:
Victory Chimp Vid-Quest
Drag City Inc.
2000 W. Carroll Ave. #201
Chicago IL
60612
PRIZE:
50$ of Drag City merchandise (your choice)
The winning entry will be used as the ad for Victory Chimp on cable TV with creator credit
The ad will be used for online advertising with creator credit
Here are some pieces I never got around to finishing since I got "Tron: Legacy" on DVD.
Dance and Differently Abled People.
I Wish I Could But It's Too Late:
Echoes of the Tolstoyan ideal of passive resistance in the music of Black Sabbath.
Classified 80s:
The CIA's legacy of wealth creation and its influence on the pop music of The Police and REM.
Nob Turning:
A mixed method study of a mindfulness-based intervention on gender-related communication differences and awareness of gender-related communication barriers on communication effectiveness and its influence on energy consumption behavior in commercial music production and sound reinforcement 2000-2007.
Ella Guru:
The proliferation and increased acceptance of European jazz singers in the wake of Ella Fitzgerald's interpretation of popular rock music on the 1969 live album "Sunshine of Your Love".
Yes, it's hot and uncomfortable for nearly half the year but if you stopped trying to look for yourself by suffering on purpose, you'd discover air conditioned hotels and cars. ~Viswanathan
You be the judge, you will be a loser. What is best is access to the gates of power, press D for Disgust. You can send 5 Pensas to the Gates of Deoryl but the result will be the same. The punishment will be revealed during the trial.
You would like not being soft during the endurance test. Travelling in India over the country you'll be ill. You will be the tourist who complains best. Your ancestors managed to not be much better whilst you pretend it will be fun. Travelling in India you'll judge stuff. If you pretend to like the thing as it is, you're a loser. FACT: throughout this trial you will be a loser.
The Younger brothers (Cole, Jim, Bob and John) who formed the core of the postwar Jesse James gang along with Jesse and Frank, were the sons of Jackson County's richest slave owner. In the postwar the gang formed from the sons and brothers and all the bad press that was sure embarrassing everyone about losing the Civil War. Their bond was failure because they were the sons of wealth.
They were photographed many times as Jackson County's Younger-James Swastika Tattoo Gang. In the famous image with Jesse flashing a Nazi salute, Cole wears a General's wing, a Nazi hat and a flowing purple Nazo. Bob Younger sports a swastika top hat and brass Givinho while standing before the richest sons of Jackson County at a time when they had lost much of their power in all the postwar hardcore that was "Jesse Jembarrassing" everyone.
It hurt them to be stripped of the title Bombshell M. Slaveowner. Jesse, Frank, and John of the gang in the photo of the postwar James Gang have really sad sweaters on and swastika tattoos. The postwar James Gang insignia is displayed on the sons of the richest slaveowners who are all wearing similar regalia in the photograph of The Younger Brother's Postwar Jackson County Younger-James Swastika Tattoo Gang.
The best job, the best kind of job, I ever had was washing dishes, no doubt. I loved the finite nature of it, very clear goals. It was very satisfying to get that huge stack of ugly dishes and get them all clean. Didn't have to deal with people. Yeah, it was great-- I'd do it again. Also, I read about this study:
A recent medical journal study showed that people who sit for most of their day are 54% more likely to die of a heart attack.
Which makes dishwashing a very smart occupation, in my book. I sit alot, I realized after reading this, now at least I do sit a lot. I try to work standing up as much as I can and I pace a lot when I work, or whenever I have the chance.
On the same day that I see the Wizard's new uniforms, which are a bit of a throwback to The Bullets, I was also overjoyed to see this website about a movement in S. Arizona to secede from the archdiocese of which Phoenix is the shining sore. The new state would be called Baja Arizona.
The primary differences between Baja Arizona and the remainder of Arizona are of attitude and tolerance. In Baja Arizona people fight for civil rights. In Maricopa County they are jailing immigrants.
I think this will be a ballot measure in 2012. I read today they had gathered enough signatures.
New Mexico is a place where the past and the future really collide a lot, crushing every presupposition like a huge tube of Presupposition H or something. It could be a leading state in providing solar and wind power but public opinion shifts slowly because everyone is still battling medieval demons in triple triptych. Afrits, ant-lions, bird goblins, magyrs and all that.
New Mexico has reported America's first human case of bubonic plague this year, the frightening disease once known as the Black Death. Officials revealed an unidentified man is recovering after spending a week in hospital with the illness.
Eric_Haywood: GWBush has gotta be effing IRATE that he's not the one giving this interview. MsJoanne MsJoanne: Watching Pres Obama on "60 Minutes": why isn't he being rudely interrupted every 5 seconds? Oh yeah, b/c it's not on Fox
Some of these items I grabbed on W.E.E. See You, which I see every day, pretty much-- maybe you already saw it, too. We do try and connect this blog to other things that are going around the internet so it gives the impression that we are paying attention to popular trends.
Green Rondo ala Reed-- Rondo gets his dislocated elbow popped into place and then comes back like Willis Reed-- Celts win. Probably a stretch but everything like this gets compared to Reed.
Paaaaay-Jaaaaah, when all my dime dancing is through, I run to you.
J.E.T. I thought the only lonely place was on the moon--
...let's add the Lakers' postgame press conference.
"Grizzly Man" by Rockettothesky1-- 7...6...5...games?
I've caught seven foxes and placed them on the river bank, each night I give him one.
1Rockettothesky is a Norwegian band that began as a dialogue between the whale and the deceased dog Inka.
I feel like I live in a world where Al Gore DIDN'T BOTHER to invent the internet. No twitter or yelp nor angie's list or megan's law. I still see too many, so many people who don't understand the concept of living in a crowd. They don't understand people are networked in ways that can never be evident. They don't understand nor respect the rules of private space in public space.
When I am going to the park I have to plan way ahead. I need my sunglasses of course, they still work-- but I also need to bring a few props. Right now my favored accessory is about 3ft of red twine. Just keep it in my pocket. Maybe have a pencil or something. To enjoy the blackbirds in the park and the wall mural I can't just go there and sit on the bench. Too many kids around, it looks weird. I could have a book or some kind of electronic device to pretend to be looking at. But with a book I risk the wrath of anti-intellectualism (I suppose I could use a magazine like Pro Wrestling Illustrated, Maxim or Newsweek but then I run the risk of having someone feel like that's an opening for conversation.) The electronic device opens up a risk of thievery. A dog is good, I see a lot of people defending their space by intently walking dogs. But it isn't foolproof, people feel free to comment on your dog or bring their dog over to frolic with it.
Anyways, I need to look like I'm doing something but it has to be just right. Not too attractive, not too strange. What I've come up with is to use the twine as if I am measuring things like the distance between a fence and a flower bed, the width of a sidewalk. Like I am doing something official with the landscaping. When I need to I stretch out the string, examine it very seriously, mark it with a pencil. I'll move on through the park in this way and get my daily dose of sun and air.
Given recent events, it's no surprise that "Soludos"-- as in: Soludos Espadrilles, the perfect summer summer shoe-- was only the 5th highest 'most searched' term on yahoo! yesterday. Teenagers especially searched this, at a rate of about 67% of all searches under that term. And as soon as Dallas won "dirk nowitzki" went up to #2 on Teen Search.
And this is not a complaint that kids don't "know" things, if they're searching they are trying to learn. Some things are funny at first, fun to mock, but actually the glare from the apparent stupidity and oblivion hides a very encouraging statistic of curiosity. Look, I found a lot of the past few days very curious and weird and I dreamt that I had to search this joke:
San Francisco's newly renovated Chinese Theater, designed in 1862 by the Swedish architect Bergen, will reopen this week with a restaging of the musical "Hair"-- when reached for comment President Reagan could not distinguish between a photograph of a bird and his own face.
Today is one of those sport days in the year that is really great. NBA playoffs, Atlanta & LA both up 3-2 and at the same time the NFL draft starts while NHL and baseball hum lightly in the distant background like a swarm of boring cicadas. I don't really watch the draft. I'm not that far gone, don't like college football etc. But I do like to check in with it as it goes along. I don't think Carolina takes a QB at the top, since Rivera is a defensive coach. There are other reasons for this guess but the real takeaway from this year is that the #1 pick, and moreover the top 10 picks, are becoming a burden rather than an opportunity. Incentive to win, no doubt. I read that it takes an average of 8 years to recover from blowing a first pick on a bad QB (like J.Russell, who I have to admit I was all for. DUH, losing.)
I remember exactly where I was when I first realized that they were televising the NFL draft. 1995, Denver, CO, Sheraton Hotel. It blew my mind. I guess it has been televised by ESPN since 1980. Now the first round is in prime time. I also remember where I was in 1999 when Tim Couch was the overall #1. I was in a recording studio producing a band who were all sport haters so I had to sneak out and check things on the computer in the studio office. I remember last year, too: I was here.
Here are the rules for getting tickets to see the draft LIVE & in person; at Radio City, I think.
Tickets to the NFL Draft are free and made available to fans on a first-come first-served basis. The tickets are distributed at the box office the morning of the draft, one ticket per person.
I'm sure people have been in line for a while now.
I was looking at something about the Herzog documentary on the chauvet caves and that reminded me of something else and that reminded me of something else-- at any rate, I ended up stumbling onto the title sequence of a cop show from 1986 called "Ohara" starring Redd Foxx's good friend Pat Morita. Ohara was an unconventional Japanese-American LA cop who used meditation to solve crimes without a gun or a partner. Amidst the title images there I saw a character named Lt. Cricket Sideris who was portrayed by none other than Catherine Keener. Maybe you already knew all this, I didn't know she had been in TV. I think she is quite a good actress.
It's amazing to know she was on a show in 1986, that she did go through this route-- although the show was not a hit and was canceled after 1 1/2 years. I wonder if she was able to stash some money away. I'm sure most of you know about this, I just learned of it.
The series had poor ratings. Format changes were implemented to increase ratings. Ohara was changed from a lieutenant to a federal police officer. He was paired with a partner. Ohara began using a gun to assist him in his investigations. Finally, Ohara and his partner were turned into private investigators. Then the show was cancelled after 30 episodes.
It's been a great NBA season, playoffs are under way. I'll never forget once we were driving to Chicago trying to get there so we could soundcheck real fast and then watch game 2 of the finals that year. We were making pretty good time until we got to the Chicago highways and things slowed down badly. Mike was so fucking irritated, I thought he was going to have a stroke. He blamed me a little cuz I was driving but soon realized the obstacles we faced were coming from a far greater force outside of us. This is another example of why it makes good sense never to leave the city.
As I noted here for the first time I subscribed to watch NBA games online this season. You got to pick 7 teams and you could see all their games EXCEPT those which were being broadcast on ABC/ESPN/TNT. My selections were:
Miami Heat: obviously
Washington Wizards: J Wall, I still like Arenas, used to be my team when they were "The Bullets"
Utah Jazz: perhaps surprisingly, but they always play a good team style of ball very workmanlike etc
Pheonix Suns: Nash, I like the fast style
Portland Trailblazers: they got so much out of nothing last year, and I wonder if Oden can play
Chicago Bulls: Rose and the guys, want to see what Boozer adds in a month or so
OKC Thunder: Durant
I didn't fully comprehend the network blackout restrictions when I selected my teams. Let me evaluate my choices now that the regular season is over:
Miami Heat: This was a bad pick because most of their games were broadcast on the networks. I only caught a few of their games. Better to have taken a mediocre East team.
Washington Wizards: J Wall was not that interesting and Arenas got sent to the Magic plus he was terrible. I should have stuck with my memories and my old, old Bullets jersey and taken another OK East team.
Utah Jazz: This was shockingly bad since they parted ways with Sloan and Williams in the same year. Once Sloan went their appeal was lost to me. Rather take Golden State next time, their games are never on TV.
Pheonix Suns: Just not good-- actually didn't even want to watch them no matter who they were playing.
Portland Trailblazers: These guys came through although the Oden story is done.
Chicago Bulls: They were great but as the year progressed fewer and fewer of their games were available.
OKC Thunder: Also good but also a lot of their games were not available.
I'll need to use a strategy of picking teams who will stay pretty good all year but lack star power. I'll pick better next time and beyond that I hope to be somewhere where I can see some games at the arena.
