Ending The Weekend

Although not as eventful as last Memorial Day when my brother Clay was in town, this holiday weekend was delightful. The only phrase to describe it is "care free". Sometimes my care-freeness can slip into the denial of reality. But the past couple of days were a beautiful blend of activity, duty and restfulness.

As usual, another upside is that it will only be four days until the next weekend. Although with Mercury being retrograde, those four days will likely seem like five.

Living My Life Nightclubbing

The visionaries at Clam magazine AND Metal magazine both realize that the future is focused on Miss Grace Jones

Icon For Now People

At the moment this album should be the inspiration for everything in your life.

The merits of "Glam Slam" and "Alphabet St." need no further justification...Miss Thang serves it album wide.

The cover image must guide your every sartorial decision. Combine flora and nakedity and you have aesthetic dynamite.

Fronthanded Compliment

As a way of relieving the pressure within the work environment, myself and a couple of select co-workers have developed a game we play late in the afternoon. Basically, we pretended to be pissed off at each other and we come up with completely comically miniscule flaws in the other person.

For example the other day I was ranting about how some of the younger employees knew nothing about popular music...and why was I burdened with the responsibility of educating them about the significance of The Jets or even DeBarge.

Of course I take my rants and turn them into performance pieces that eventually force those within earshot to assume I have lost my mind, am retarded or both.

After this pop culture diatribe, a co-worker said to me "I tell my friends stories about you and they don't believe me...some of them don't believe you exist, that I am making you up"

This is the calibre of compliment that absolutely warms my heart...or maybe they are right and I don't exist.

Let's Go Crazy

My block.
Around the corner.
Back in the day this is what my neighborhood was like.

The Results Of Pressure

It is human nature to avoid stress. Who wants to endure it needlessly? Yet if one reflects on their life they may see that those stress-inducing experiences produce, for lack of a better term, growth.

In an attempt to put a positive spin on the scars (physical, psychological or spiritual) that painful situations can manifest, I am now going to use the quote below to re-perspectivize my view. The quote is from the Orson Welles character Harry Lime in the film noir classic "The Third Man"

In Italy for thirty years under the Borgias they had warfare, terror, murder and bloodshed but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and the Renaissance. In Switzerland, they had brotherly love; they had five hundred years of democracy and peace and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock.

Get Modern

Mummenschanz is the real deal people... Respect is due!

By Myself At The Disco

Little did I know that when I strut my fun-kay stuff down the streets with the iPod cranked to 11, that I am actually personalizing a cultural phenomenon.

Resignation At The Ultra Vivid Scene

Last night I had Part II of a nightmare that I first had several months ago... All the usual dream-reciting caveats apply (which basically sum as "you had to be there")

The gist of the nightmare was that I had to navigate these lush green suburban neighborhoods in order to escape packs of rabid pitbulls. The dogs all had disfigured faces as if they had been in countless scuffles (and won). The dogs were absolutely vicious and the assumption was that if caught, you would be ruthlessly ripped to shreds.

After what seemed like perpetual escapes from the dogs, I came to a point where I concluded that if their attack on me was inevitable, I might as well just get it over with. From that point on I would come in contact with the dogs and they would growl and generally frighten the Hellz out of me, but they did not really seem interested in destroying me...basically we came to a place of peaceful coexistence.

I was relieved that the stress I had manifested did not go away, but was kept at bay.

New York Is Back

The other day I was in the vicinity of the Empire State Building when I saw a genuine game of Three Card Monte be run on the street. The people who were being parted from their money were not some rubes from Peoria, but rather legitimate New Yorkers...who were not wise enough to realize the were being conned.

It has been at least a decade since I have seen this scam in action. Maybe it is a sign of the economic times that such a con can be run successfully...

People Care

While in Queens, saw this ad from a group called the Bureau of General Inquiry. I don't know anything about them except for the fact that this flier is awesome.

Contemporize Your Memories

Luckily caught the Ryan Mcginness display at PS1 on the last day it was shown. For some reason he has fallen off of my radar in the past couple of years, which is either because he hasn't shown as much or because my attention has been drawn elsewhere...either way it is a damn shame because his work is brilliant.

In college art classes it was beaten into our heads that one was either an "artist" or a "designer" and never the twain shall meet. Mcginness effortlessly proves this theory wrong. His flawlessly executed work bridges the gap between art and design.

One of the jumping off points for the work displayed at PS1 were skateboard graphics from the eighties. Anyone who read Thrasher magazine back in the day would be witness to the inspiration for the work...the iconic board designs of Powell-Peralta were smoothed out graphic-ified and made even more iconic in there simplicity by Mcginness.

Images that may have been in your skull for decades are given a freshness, allowing the viewer to relive the past and look at the present.

This Is ART..Up In He-uh! Up In He-uh!

A lot of the kids bite on the Paper Rad aesthetique...but no one can do it like the masters.

This is the closest audio-visual representation you can come to what happens in my head when I fall asleep at night.

Thirteenth Anniversary

Almost thirteen years to the day after Frankie Knuckles changed my life, went to hear him play last night.

The party was the FurBall which meant the crowd was a bit "bearish" for my taste, but whatever. Frankie's set was not as underground as I would have liked, but it was still happening.

Lots of friendly faces including Flo, who could not keep her hands off my boyparts...All in all a nice evening.

A Truth I Can Handle

Have been e-mailling back and forth with my Sister-In-Law Julie regarding her and my niece's upcoming trip to the New York. Julie's last e-mail contained the following excerpt:

You're so weird. But I love you.

When you have a crackpot personality like mine that is the best you can hope for...

Fierceness Is Always Welcome 1983

Grace shows us how it is d-u-n DONE!

Source Material

There are tons of fashion magazines in the world. But I have to admit that the only one I truly look forward to is Arena Homme Plus. Every season they present the featured material in just the right way.

Editorially it is high-minded and light-hearted at the same time. Now, if they would publish more than four times a year then I could have a more fulfilling life.

Start Your Morning Off Right

Get grounded with some wisdom from David Cross. It is the only way to put some perspective on the world we live in.