Tales of the American Jet-set

Okay I was going to title this post, "Nowhere in Particular," as a way to protect the guilty, namely ME, but I think the first step in coping with loss of pride and dignity is to be as truthful as possible.

Last weekend I thought I was going to get a good rest after some serious holiday work/travel, but I received a last-minute call reminding me of an obligation to DJ for two nights at an art gallery in downtown PHX. The first night was no big whoop as I've done it before, but the second night was supposed to be an event with musicians and burlesque dancers, but lo and behold, the only entertainer who showed was a bellydancing girl in a monkey mask. Fortunately, the 20 or so people in attendance stayed a couple hours longer to drink free wine and listen to my eccentric jams. I think we had a good time anyway. Later I wound up with some folks at this club I had been wanting to check out for its famous weekly "hip-hop" night. It was, as the kids say, off the chain, and I was one of the few honkies in attendance. A friend dragged me to the dancefloor where a group of young B-Boys were breakdancing in a circle. During a moment I won't soon forget, I took it upon myself to enter the aforementioned circle alone and do a little James Brown spin followed by a jump into a split formation. I think people cheered/laughed, but I was very drunk and out of shape, thus getting stuck at the bottom. I think I recovered the best I could, even trying to split in the other direction like the Godfather of Soul himself, but at that moment I was struck with a moment of clarity of what I had just done and it took another moment to get back up on my feet. The next day I hurt like hell and still have a painful rugburn on my left knee. I don't know if the moral of this story it to act ones age, or if it's supposed to act as an allegory of inspiration for you to drop your inhibitions and live out your dreams. I can't honestly tell you what will happen next time as I am quite sure there will be a next time, but I have to learn to stop regretting the things that have passed.

Well, that's about it. If this is the first week of the new year, I shudder to think how the rest will pan out.

San Diego-

Sometimes I get stuck in hotel rooms that are designed for handicapped people. This one had everything tweaked for the disabled, the doorbell that triggered the strobe light and shreiking alarm, the lowered sink, bars around the toilet and even a chair in the shower. This time I figured, “when in Rome,” and proceeded to try and live like a quadrapeligac, at least tend to bath duties as one. I crawled into the bathroom and onto the chair in the middle of the tub, then I yelled out, trying to summon my imaginary manservant, Javier, to no avail. I elected to do it myself and nearly drowned when I tried to avoid using my arms to wash myself. All in all it was a messy and annoying experiment, and I learned one valuable thing about disabled people: don’t try and pretend to be disabled.

The Gaslamp area was hoping tonight, but I didn't feel like going out by myself. I decided to stay in and do things that will help progress the future of society.

I just finished a job at RISD and all day was left agog noticing the endless procession of girls who looked like models from an Urban Outfitters catalogue. Paintbrushes protruding from back pockets and paint-stained backpacks were nice touches as well. I should have gone to art school. On second thought, no, because then I'd be too poor to leave my house to see the hipster art girls. Since I turned 30 a couple years back I'm constantly hit with the paranoia that I look like a cop, or an ex-convict. Oh well, I guess I'll just have to wait until my dreadlocks grow out, then I'll look cool.

It had gotten a bit chill and most of the fiery foliage lay upon the ground, the victim of recent rain. So after eating a mediocre Thai meal on Wickenden St, I strolled back to my hotel. I passed a couple pubs and with the cold and me in my cabbie hat and stripey scarf it felt fitting to grab a nice pint, but I resisted. I contemplated my week of sobriety and didn't want to ruin it with such a crass disregard of some smidgen of self-discipline. I made do instead with the AA survival diet of coffee and cigarettes and went on my merry way. Don't get me wrong, I'm only imposing such restrictions during the week. The weekends are still reserved for long falls into inebriated madness. I just finished reading the book, "Please Kill Me," about the beginnings of the punk scene focusing on the Detroit and for the most part, NYC scenes. It was written as a series of interviews with various musicians, artists, and scenesters, most of whom were on heroin at some point and many who are now dead. It was sad reading about so much wasted potential. Even though I have never, nor plan to ever, partake in the the junk, I still have been feeling like I waste too much time in the pubs. I mean, it's great that I've been really "networking" and meeting people that continue to help and inspire my artistic pursuits, but there is a lot of "down time" too, where you're sitting and staring off into space. I look at the old, crazy drunks, by themselves and I don't want to wind up as them, although I'm not adverse to taking up the role once my 401k becomes available at age 62 1/2.

Due to a scheduling screw-up on my company's fault, I was happy to realize I would get to see the NY band, Heroine Shieks after all. The Detroit Cobras were also playing the same night but I had already seen them in Hoboken earlier in the year and as I live band, I was a little disappointed. Anyway, so the singer of the Shieks is Shannon Selberg who was the singer of the band, the Cows, who were from Minneapolis in the late 80s to mid-90s. The Cows played an intoxicating noise that was one of those acquired taste kinds of things of which I first hated before I grew to love. So Shannon is one of the most charismatic front-persons I've ever seen mostly due to his madness and absolute disregard for what people may think of him. He is genius and absurdity at the same time, a Dada-ist singer. I was always intrigued, yet intimidated by the guy.

Anyway, so I got to the show early and there was hardly anyone there. I wound up talking to the merch guy, Rob, who was also the bassist. It turned out he grew up in SF and so we talked about favorite bars and things of that nature. When it came time for the band to play I volunteered to watch over their merch booth. I wound up selling around $80 of gear and everyone was happy. After bar closing, we were supposed to meet up with a guy with whom they were going to stay. The girl who we supposed to follow had her car break down, so suddenly I became the lead car. I also offered my place for them to stay if the other place fell through. We went to a bar that was shut down and had a round. The guys we met there grabbed a couple cases to go and we went over to their pad and hung out and drank. It was pretty uneventful outside of that and I did get a picture with Shannon and he was just as funny/smart/weird as I had imagined he would be in person. All hail the Heroine Sheiks!

So I spent a few days in Minneapolis recently. In my home town a ways outside of the Twin Cities, I no longer have any family and perhaps only a friend or two I'd really care to see. Fine with me. I'd rather stay in Minneapolis. To be honest, I really like the town and always have. They have a good art and music scene. If only the weather...

So my friend Clarence(Lee) seems to know just about everyone wherever we go and I usually end of meet a ton of people, not to mention run into old friends and/or aquaintences. This happened again on a couple different occasions. I enjoy reminiscing on occasion, but am glad I got the hell out.

Okay, okay, so I haven't been the most ardent or ambitious in doing this thing. Anyway, in tribute and in memoriam of my recently-lost black moleskin diary/journal/etc, I hereby announce my intentions to do this thing more often as a way to avoid "losing" any info in the future.

Today I wandered into a newstand on the Lower East Side and was flipping through a photography magazine when I came across a picture of a girl wearing a blue Cub Scout shirt. It got me to thinking about what happened to mine, then I realized that my mother, who recently moved from my birth-house, probably got rid of it. For a moment I felt lost, not from nostalgic sadness, but from the feeling that some indie-rock hipster-girl probably picked it up at Goodwill and is wearing the merit badges that I earned, not to mention the Den Leader gold epaulet band. Oh well, such is life! I suppose I'll have to keep in mind that sentiment the next time I pick up a Purple Heart or Bronze Star for my leather jacket.

I just returned home from a show at the Mercury Lounge. I really wanted to see a show at CBGBs, since it will probably be closing soon. I know they had a month of benefit shows, but the long-time owner, Hilly Kristal, is not going to renew his lease. Unfortunately, tonight was International Extreme Music night and it wasn't something that really appealed to me but something that would probably make me angry and hope for the place's closing. So instead I went to the ML and saw a pretty decent show. I caught a couple songs of a band with a girl's name of whom the namesake sang real purdy but I can't remember the name now. The next band was King Of France which played an absolutely fabulous show. I can't remeber seeing a band live that played songs that were all equally good with no filler! They were obviously inspired by this XTC/Squeeze/Erasure thing, but even though I don't care for any of those bands, truely enjoyed the songs and music. They were funny without pretention, and played beautiful music. Yeah Yeah! The headliner was a band called Robbers on High Street of which I've heard a bit about in the past year or so. To be honest, I probably would have liked them more if the preceeded KOF, but their songs which reminded me of Radiohead in the way that they take a long time for the songs to develop, kind of made me zone out. I equate the bands to being as such: KOF were Beatles '65, whereas ROH were George Harrison solo in '75. Maybe that means something or nothing, it's just something that came to mind. I think people were way too much into them, if that makes sense either. I don't know, This is all just stuff I thought about as I was zoning out to the ROH. Anyway, it was a wonderful time as I don't get to see much decent live music as I'd like. I'm still depressed over Brian Jonestown Massacre cancelling their Phoenix show. At the last minute I was making mad phone calls between the club booker and their road manager of whom I'm a longtime friend. It didn't pan out in the end and now I'm a little put off about bands and their music. Anyway, before I start a rumble, I'll take this as a time to sign off for now. Rock on!

So as luck would have it, the Brian Jonestown Massacre were playing on my last night in DC. Thankfully, I arrived extremely early to get a ticket as they had sold out the tiny venue by 8. I killed some time for a couple hours then went in and right away ran into Collin. He didn't seem too surprised to see me, probably since I've casually run into him in no less than, Fargo, Portland, SF, and now DC. My old pal Travis was startled when he saw me. His double-take gave me quite the laugh. We went for a walk and I let T cry on my shoulder awhile as he complained the usual complaints about the tour. At midnight it became my birthday so T bought me a beer and gave me a BJM shirt. For his generosity, and due to the fact that the band seemed to disappear for load-out, I ended up roadie-ing about 85 percent of their gear and merch. I have a strong back and didn't want my emaciated friend or some waifish rocker to strain themselves. It was a sweltering, sticky DC summer night and by the time I was done my clothes were more wet than if I had showered with them on. As my custom, I quickly told them all to fuck off and cabbed it back to the Watergate.