Was picked up by Aug and Willow on Tuesday for the annual Shaker Meadows NYE party. Had a lovely time. Relaxing, drawing, games, discussion, singing, dancing, feasting. 26 full grown people, 1 small person, 1 dog. Overall damage was minimal. I managed to punish myself only through lack of sleep. Made our way over to North Adams to stay a night at Porches complete with Village Pizza delivery. Checked in at MASS MoCA. Nice new Sol LeWitt exhibit (hurry! it comes down in 2033). Took the scenic route to Boston to meek CK’s family and friends. Had a nice day looking at clothes and books and art. The book store had all these old (some from the 1600s) illustrated manuscripts and type specimen books from someone’s collection and the dude let me rummage through them. Then we saw the Tara Donovan show which was crowded and fun. Went to a birthday party for a 2 year old then headed back to Brooklyn.

Film
Snow Angels. Good characters but sad.
Cashback. “Artsy”

Brooklyn

Wamego

Was planning on going to work a bit before I left on Friday but the snow and sleet and rain was a coming down. Spent most the day checking to see how long my flight was delayed. The airline’s site wasn’t accurate and I only heard a busy signal when I called them. So I had to go the the airport to hear the inevitable. I bought a book and settled in at the airport bar. Had a couple of beers then went to the gate. When I found out the flight was delayed even further I headed to the bar to find another beer. Something happened in the 30 minutes I was absent and everyone in there seemed to be completely hammered. I sympathized with the bartender there as the a-holes there were pretty nasty. So finally my flight that was supposed to leave at 8pm finally took off at 1am.

Arrived in Kansas City and took a cab to Matt B’s and settled in on the couch around 5am and the next day we all went to Lawrence. Dropped Darren off for the basketball game. Matt, Vick and I took some food to a blind man then drank beers at Free State for the entire afternoon. Ted and Todd picked me up and we drank beers at the Wamego bar all night for Grant’s bday.
Spent the week in Wamego drinking beers with the gang and met Baby Luke. Ole Josh Lake popped in on the 24th. Stopped in Lawrence on the way to the airport and came in Fri night with no troubles.

Last night C and I picked up Dan for some mexican food. I think the shrimp taco I had has irritated me. Not feeling so hot now.

Film
Sunset Boulevard. From 1950. Very good.

Slumdog Millionaire. Sometimes cheesy, but fun and set in India.

Still very busy with work. Tomorrow is the start of my christmas vacay. Flying home. Last week Mike and I went to see Zach Galifanakis do live comedy. The venue was oversold so we sat in this wierd section in the back, and even though it was hilarous, I realized on the way home there was really only about 15 minutes of material stretched over the entire hour. But still funny like I said. A lot of racism jokes.

Last weekend I went to a party and ate a lot of food. Sunday night was Willow’s birthday, at the Indian restaurant for the 2nd year in a row. That place is funny and crazy. Why are they in such a hurry?

On Monday Carolyn and I went to see Ted Leo the rock musician play. Not totally my thing, but a really great show nonetheless.

Film
Looking at my Rental History there’s a bunch of DVDs I forgot to review:
Umbrellas of Chambourg. A musical. In French.

Boy A. Depressing English movie.

Tomorrow. Kind of a slow quiet movie that would survive todays slow quiet indie movie standards, but this one was made in 1972. Stars Robert Duvall. I recommend if you like slow quiet indie movies.

The Third Man. Old whodunit movie. With a lot of non subtitled German.

The Tin Drum. Amazing creepy German movie.

Lovers of the Artic Circle. One of those “life is a serious of coincidences” movies.

Tarnation. I kept thinking this looks like it was made in iMovie, then at the end — “made with iMovie”

Reprise. I remember thinking it was ok, but can’t remember why at this point.

First stop — Greenpoint. Church basement Thanksgiving went off without a hitch. There was ping pong, sneaking around, loads of great food, a big bird. Tons of emails. Singing.

Then on to Miami for the art fairs. We had to work a little. But managed to party too much. The art was ok, but mostly inspired me to create more on account of the mediocre stuff. Met lots of nice people too. I’m totally wiped out still which is what accounts for this short post.

Hallway to hell. Last February I posted about some stuff I wanted for my apartment — Just 10 short months later, the shaker style hooks arrived thanks to Jake. Just in time for winter coats. I think I’ll paint it so it looks like wood grain, but cartoonish.

On Friday I met a bunch of folks to see Liz and Co. play at the Folk Art Museum. My favorite museum. $2 PBRs. Great art and jams. Popped into MoMA after to see this trippy installation thing.

Saturday I did some shopping but didn’t buy anything. Then ate some pizza. Then went to Brock’s birthday gathering.

I took this last Monday after the concert waiting about 30 minutes for the J to arrive around 1 am.

Film
Manny & Lo. 2 orphans on the run. Why did I rent this?

Jeepers I have been swamped with work. Too busy to blog at least. We been running around taking pictures of paintings, making phone calls, doing emails. It’s probably what a lot of people’s normal work lives are like.

Last weekend’s big event was the Hit Cook dinner party at DMP and Molly’s. So much food. I am not sure if I can remember a fav dish. Everything was really good and there were just too many flavors. There were desserts too. All good ones. I was so busy eating I hardly talked to anyone. We went to a bar to meet some people afterward, I couldn’t drink more than one beer.

Mike and I went and saw Brightblack Morning Light. It was super chill. There was this kaleidoscope thing there that I was all psyched up to goof on, but it turned out to be pretty sweet.

Last night I went out to dinner. We drank wine and went for dessert afterward. Seems like I been working and eating. La dolce vita!

Dream
I was at Pizza Hut, it was a bit more square and smaller than in real life. Sitting on higher tables too. Me and some guys on the table in front. These geisha women kept coming in, but they weren’t all that dolled up. Sloppy geishas. I was like, what is it “geisha day at Pizza Hut or something?” Then later we were 4 stories above Pizza Hut on this lookout watchtower thing and looking down at these teens lined up for prom or something. I think they were all from St. George. Anyhow Grant was all, “hey I went on a date with that blond one.” And she was the only one not dressed up. Then somehow her clothes peeled off of her her an made this kind of circle and she sort of tuliped out in this party dress the had a photo print of giant saltine crackers on it. She was dancing around and I was thinking “oh brother, what’s this girl up to?” and then her dance got kind of raunchy and I thought “she’s gonna regret that for the rest of her life now.”

Then there was this other dream where I was watching this group of 5 ten year old boys who were some kind of band, anyhow I was like “these kids suck” at first, then they put these papier-mache animal heads on and somehow sounded a lot better. Then they showed a segment from Oprah on a big screen. It was about how cool it was to be an organ donor. There was a scene where it showed an example of the forms, and the one they showed just happened to be mine and my signature was real big. I announced “hey! That’s my organ donor deal!” I then told my neighbor that I had a hunch that I’d end up on Oprah for signing up for this organ donor business. Then I got out my driver’s license so I could admire the little icon on it that tells the cops I’m an organ donor when they find my dead body.

More Dreams

1. Something to do with a cartoonish but live tweety bird, much like the thing in the Bansky show, but smaller. Anyhow, I was in a body of water with some people. The bird had never flown before and crawled up my arm like a ramp. I remember thinking the bird was depressed. It opened it’s wings and dove out to fly, but fell head first into the water. We stalled and I pulled it out of the water but it had already swallowed several smooth rocks. We shook the rocks out and waited for it to die. Then it turned into some other animal, but I can’t remember what.

2. A portion of an episode of the Cosby show. Vanessa was upset because she had to do too many chores. Theo was excused from chores because he was in college and had to study. He and another guy ate a bunch of her fries. Theo had dreads and was only wearing gym shorts and was really ripped and thought he was hot stuff.

3. I was driving to and from Topeka many times, but nothing that is really there was in the scenery. Went through this area that was narrow and walled by tall wooden planks. It was a pathway with an over sized train running next to it. There was a part where there was a near 90 degree turn and it was very scary as the train went through it pretty fast and leaned over and you thought it would tip onto you. I remember thinking it was a very interesting place to be.

Ended up watching the election results at the office, I worked a bit late and didn’t want to miss nothing so I stuck around. Kelly had invited some folks over so we did our star poses and chanted and danced and before we knew it Obama had been elected. I voted that morning in Bushwick and people seemed to be excited with a lot of young people talking about how it was their first time voting and hoping to create history. Is it history already? Had another quiet week, we’re really in the weeds here at work, so I’m focusing on that. Plus, I seem to be broke lately for some reason.

Friday I met Mike for beers, then Carolyn joined and we got some ramen then went to Wburg to meet Rebecca, but ended up meeting Molly and her parents and DMP. Went to a party for about 20 minutes.

Saturday was gray and rainy. Tried to see art, but ended up watching a movie and eating a lot of popcorn, then meeting Jeff and Nick J for a romantic dinner that included going to a second location for dessert.

Film
Head On — German or Turkish. Not so bad, but not so great.

The Girl in the Cafe — English. Sort of this movie about a May December relationship and an accidental activist. Made me feel kind of guilty.

Dream
I woke up pretty early at my mom’s home in Wamego. Went to the backyard to check on the big neon cross that was now laid in the ground in this sunken area that was lined with white 2x4s the way that a form for pouring concrete looks. I looked over the warm and sunny Steinbeck looking valley and WWII era bombers were flying in from the distance and bombing the fields. I figured this was some sort of practice, but then later realized Bloomburg was leveling the hills to make more golf courses. I thought I would see if I could get the cross back up and working. I hung it in the tree. It was about 10 feet tall and made up of words, the only one I can remember is Trinity. I am sure Holy was in there somewhere as well. I hung the cross up and it lit up no problem. I remember thinking what joy it would be to the townsfolk that the cross was up and functioning again. I wanted to call Mark the editor of the newspaper, but it was only like 6 am still. I marveled at my engineering of wiggling the part of the neon that previously wasn’t working in order to make it light up.

For some reason I decided that the cross should be brought inside and hung on the wall near the front door. Oh! Why did I do that? It was hung, everything was functioning again after just the right amount of wiggling. I sat on the couch and fell asleep. I’d woken up again around 8, my mom was still asleep and I looked at the cross. Part of it was missing! Someone had snuck in and stole part of the cross while I was right there sleeping. Curses. It had snowed by this time and I thought that was handy as far as evidence and tracks and such. I was careful not to mess up any of the markings. I went outside and checked inside my white 2 door 1991 Pontiac Sunbird, the first clue — a newspaper. It was scrawled all over the inside front page, which was left blank for some reason, anyhow the writing was very juvenile looking. The front page was cover in snow, but I could see the mailing address was to Cory Archangel. I wasn’t sure as it had been about 10 years, but I was pretty sure he hung around with Brian Havens. That’s who I suspect took the part of the cross. I called 911. They asked where I lived and if I was currently being robbed. I said I wasn’t and we were the house with the famous neon cross, and the dispatcher wasn’t too impressed and mentioned that Deanne would have to file a special report. I thought about how this would probably be a big story in the paper and how disappointed the people would be and how my mom would be totally confused by the whole situation that went down in just that short morning. I regret that I don’t remember exactly what the cross said. I remember the look of it, but not the exact language on it. I also don’t remember what the note said, but I thought it was particularly funny when I read it.

Jake
i had crazy dreams last night

Matt C
me too

Jake
fucking nicotine patch really livens shit up
i came and visited you. you had moved your mother out to nyc.
you guys lived in a high rise
i made you a deck off your back door
we partied
your mom woke up and yelled at us and then started partying with us
and smoking cigarettes

Matt C
yikes

Jake
we brought home some floozies from a halloween party
alison did not want

Matt C
i had a dream this morning that i came home to my mom’s house in wamego, and there was a big burlap sack about 8 feet tall that had “Maybe Baby” painted in real nice script on the side
it was a gift you had gotten me in Italy,

Jake
maybe baby
me or your mother

Matt C
inside the big bag was a mini motorcycle that was half-dog half-motorcycle

Jake
oh shit
did you have a fever

Matt C
i was like, well i like the motorcycle bit, but i’m not so sure what to do about the dog part..

Jake
ha

Matt C
seems kind of cruel

Jake
you are getting some serious lol’s here

Matt C
it was strange.

Jake
whiskey dreams

Matt C
this was post alarm even

Jake
jesus

Matt C
there was a big discussion on how to convert it to motorcycle only

Jake
you should draw a picture of this dog-motorcycle

Matt C
yea

Jake
that seems logical
we were listening to music, drinking mixed drinks and smoking weed
oh, and i was smoking cigs. which is crazy because that is a total addiction dream.

Matt C
it was like a triumph military bike, all tarnished and such,
but was only 3 ft tall
and a live dog’s head where the headlight is and dog arms on the front holding the wheel arm

Jake
jesus

Matt C
i felt bad that it had pins through it’s arm to hold the wheel on
and that it would be so rattled when we went down the road
and that it wouldn’t be so bad to ride it a few times before i released the dog into non motorcycle freedom
the dog didn’t seem to mind
why would you buy me such a small half animal motorcycle?

Jake
what kind of dog was it

Matt C
i’m not sure
orangish brown

Jake
just a dog
it would have to be a bit larger

Matt C
kind pit bullish i’d guess

Took it real easy last week. Friday was Halloween and for at least the 3rd year in a row I went to DJ’s birthday party. I wore some sort of floppy medieval knight costume for $6 at the dollar store. There were lots of good costumes out there and not as many political themed costumes as I’d anticipated. Anyhow, the party was a great deal of fun, but I drank too much. Most of Saturday was ruined. Sunday I went to the flea market and bought some junk. Everyone’s updating their facebook status as if someone might potentially be unaware of the upcoming election. Way to do your part people!

Film
This is England — about skinheads. Fairly boring.

Antonio Gaudi — about the architect. Painfully boring.

Fail Safe — about nuclear war. The one from the 50s, I guess there was re-make recently. Pretty good.