Creative Growth

After a workout at the gym I stopped by Gavin Brown's Enterprise to check out some art. I pretty much approve of everything Mr. Brown presents so I usually don't have to check the art listings to verify what is on view.

The Creative Growth exhibition was absolutely ridiculous. The artists definitely had their finger on what is au courant in the artworld right now. It was only after checking out the works that I learned the artists being presented were with the Creative Growth Art Center.

There were a couple of works that referenced obscure-ass Disco stars from the seventies. This shit was for real.

The Crush

We have been training a ton of new people at work this week. While I don't normally mind a few new fresh faces, there were a couple of days when you literally could not move without bumping into someone. After saying "Excuse me" for the thirty-first time I just gave up and noted that these interlopers were going to have to get used to being elbowed as long as they were in my space.

Other factors were causing me frustration, but the claustrophobia created by having so many people around threw me for a loop. I was reminded of the lack of privacy I endured as a youth. Ten humans living in a house that had, if one stretched their imagination, three bedrooms. My parents, needless to say, had a private bedroom. My sole sister was bestowed a seperate room due to her gender which left the seven sons to divide up one bedroom and whatever common space was left.

For many years my "bedroom" was a couch in a tiny nook off of our dining room.

As an adult I absolutely savor the privacy I have in my apartment. It is a dreamlike environment that I could not have imagined as a child.

Green Club

Friday night's party in the garden of Cooper-Hewitt was, in a word, refreshing.

It is so nice to listen to really soulful music surrounded by flowers, trees and green grass instead of a club. Tony Humphries was truly amazing. He brought tons of fresh songs...I did not recognize a single one of them until I was about ready to leave... when he served up Chic's gem "My Feet Keep Dancing". It was so perfect to bring a 30 year old jam that sounded as vital as the new stuff he had just played.

Two Guilty Pleasures

Although on the surface I appear to be a cosmopolitan sophisticate, that is not completely true. For instance I love Mo'nique. She is the type of sassy black woman who seems to have all but disappear from our pop cultural landscape (only to be replaced by cardboard fake-assed "divas")

Mo'nique is saucy and world-wise, but never bitter in her humor...

While on the topic of guilty pleasures I feel I owe it to the public to admit my heartfelt love for Nacho Cheese flavored Combos pretzels. Yes, I am fully aware that these were conceived and produced in a chemistry lab somewhere, but that does not mean that they are necessarily un-awesome does it? No it does not. If the level of carcinogens involved in their manufacture is what I believe it to be, then I shall book passage to chemo-ward and enjoy their deliciousness henceforth.

All The Help I Can Get

I have not been eating very well lately. It definitely shows in my skintone. My usually luminous face has become muddied. Vows have been made to eat more fruits and vegetables as well as drinking more fluids...we will see how it goes.

In the meanwhile I will be employing some facial corsets to get me to the other side.

Still recovering from Sunday nights party. Other than getting started later than advertised it was pretty much flawless.

On their own Joe, Francois, and Danny are phenomenal DJs...on the rare occaision that they play together it can only be described as magic. The drop tracks from all eras and styles creating a set that is greater than the sum of it's awesome parts.

I still get blown away by the positive vibe that erupts from crowd when they play a gem like Don Ray's "Got To Have Loving". It is probably a cliche to say anymore but the dancers do truly become a unified tribe...something that is increasingly rare in the clubs of New York.

Mercury is going out with a bang...currently cannot title posts through Blogger.

For at least a decade I have been saying that the problem with American society is that we are teaching our children that they are special. When I read and article like this I get pissed. When will people stop bitin' my ideas.

Gimme my monies Wall Street Journal.

Mental Grafitti

Lately we have been listening to a lot of Led Zeppelin at work. Whenever the song "Houses of The Holy" comes on I am mentally transported back to a summer during my teenage years...

Somehow my friends Bryan and Jim convinced me that we should go to a Baptist church and hear a mid-week sermon on the evils of Rock-n-Roll. Although he claimed that our attendance would be for ironic purposes only, Bryan also had a lot of residual guilt from being brought up in the Assemblies of God church which lead him to suggest the idea.

Due to Bryan being older than Jim and me, having a driver's license and an old Chevy Vega at his disposal meant that his wishes were usually given priority.

We entered the un-airconditioned church and were met maybe fourteen other teenagers that had been cajoled into attending the event. I secretly questioned whether the A.C. had purposefully been turned off to mirror the Hellish fate that awaited us if we continued down the path of being Rock fans.

Many examples of the devils influence in pop music were presented in the lecture. A recording of Queen's "Another One Bites The Dust", was played backwards. If one really stretched their imagination, perhaps with the aid of a natural low-grade hallucinogen, they could hear the phrase "Smoke Marijuana" repeated over and over again.

Another example was the aforementioned "Houses of The Holy" which has the lyric...

Let the music be your master.
Will you heed the master's call
Oh... Satan and man.

Thankfully the songwriters did not force the minister to play the song backwards to get the "hidden" meaning. It is quite up front in it's Satan-icity.

It was never fully explained how hearing these words would make a teenager sell their soul to the Devil, but if you continued to listen to this music (outside of a Baptist church) then you would be on a path to damnation.

Twenty-some-odd years later I get the hugest kick over the fact that such an evil song is now acceptable in the modern workplace. Funny... unless it is part of Satan's master plan.

Water Kills Earth

By no stretch of the imagination do I consider myself an environmentalist, but after reading
this article I have to seriously question buying another bottle of water again...especially one from Fiji.

Wise Options

The other day Andrew sent me a text saying that his response to Mercury being retrograde is to either hide from the world or have a drink.

Since I am trying to minimize my alcohol intake, I guess I will have to choose the former option. Oh, wait that is the option I choose even when Mercury is not retrograde.

Human Giant, Heated Interview

...Human Giant sketches are hit or miss. Either they are super dumb or ridiculously brilliant like this one.