Monday I went out for drinks all over town. Checked out the new Beauty Bar in Bushwick. I think the interior is hokey, but it was definitely full for a Monday. Might have something to do with the free beer they were giving out. Tuesday I went out to dinner and realized when I was getting off the train I had left my keys at work. It was too late to go back, so I crashed at at A&W’s. Picked up my farm share on Wednesday (asparagus, garlic scapes, sugar snap peas, mesclun, pea shoots, sweet salad turnips, kale, cilantro, basil). I’m excited to be forced to cook this stuff. Generally I eat the same thing 4 days a week. Friday I saw some boxes in front of the door at work, then I noticed they were from Wayne White. He sent me and Kelly a little painting each! I’m pretty stoked. That night went out for a a responsible amount of beers with the gang at Tandem bar in Bushwick.

Saturday I worked. Then went to Red Hook for Martin’s party. There were lots of design types and foreign people there. After we went to Sunny’s. I love the bar, but some of the folk jammers are a bit too serious. I just won’t go to the back room next time.
Sunday I ate dinner with Jeff and kept going out for “one more beer.”

My back was hurting like crazy, but I think it’s nearly better. I need to stretch and do some kind of exercising. I think it’s finally healed and I rode into work for the first time in ages.

Film
Drowning Mona. Good movie. Great characters. There were so many stars in it that it was kind of distracting.

Helvetica. I might be trying to be too cool for school. But I found this movie incredibly boring.

These pigeons were eating a chicken nugget.

Took it easy for most of the week. Had a very strange form of back pain. Hard to describe. Saturday was a Hit Factorie Band Practice. Then went and saw a tiny house. Then ate some tacos. Then went to a birthday party. Then Glasslands. Drank too much. More photos on my tumblr.

Film
A History of Violence. This was a dramatic movie. Kind of reminded me of that one movie where this guy kills a bunch of people.

By Brakhage: An Anthology. Some kind of art shit. I turned it off.

The Good Night. Matt Blume recommended this to me. It has the guy from the British office.

The Hangover. Leaving the theater this dude claimed that this was the “best movie of the summer.” I suppose he meant the upcoming summer. There were funny moments. Zach Galifanikas might end up being some kind of star now.

Trash. Another Paul Morrisey film produced by Warhol. A couple of junkies. The dude can never get it up cause he’s always on the dope.

Graffiti from the Montauk gazebo. There was some other stuff about “locals only” and “fuck over-privileged out of towner summer visitors.” Why you people got so many damn hotels then?!

Last weekend was the Montauk Ride. I rode pretty well. There were 17 of us. Only one flat tire near the end which is fairly miraculous. The highlights include: The map. You should see this sucker. What was I planning on doing without the map? The first 80 miles were pleasant. Nice, sunny, perfect temperature. Then it started getting cold and misty. My knees were killing me. I kicked it into high gear. Then I got to those damn hills at the end. Are we supposed to take Old Montauk Highway or regular Montauk Highway? We’ll never know. Anyhow I got to the hotel and had gone approx 90 miles, and couldn’t bear the thought of going to the lighthouse when it was too cold and trying to get up that super steep hill on the way back. So I started in on the Coors and did well with that. I’m feeling good now, my knees feel a little shot still (I wonder if I should raise my seat more), and my ass area is tender.

Before that (last Wednesday) was my birthday. I sent out one sparse email and way more people than I’d expected showed up. It was nice and I was happy. My drinks were bought for me and I was given lots of cookies and a kazoo trumpet and a yo yo.

Film
The Bedford Incident. I really liked this movie. If your into military movies check it out.
Chop Shop. About these orphan kids in Queens. I wonder if it has any truth to it? If so, sad.

View from the J train

Emily’s BBQ

View from the ferry

Work parties Tue, Wed and Thur last week. Art patrons, wine, cocktails, small foods.

Saturday rode around downtown, did a little work. Then, Emily’s bbq and kegger. Raged.

Sunday went to Governor’s Island and rode around. Amazing. Then, Desmond’s 1st birthday party. Babies, drinks, snacks, more drinks, fireworks, borrowed sweater.

Following KR‘s embrace of all things iPhone I’ve started to post pictures directly from my phone to the internet. It’s something to do. http://mattcassity.tumblr.com/

Film
The Trials of Henry Kissinger. Super boring. I spaced out several times and started fumbling with my phone instead.

Family That Walks on All Fours. Too much science talk. Genes, DNA… blah. I just want to see these folks crawling around and shit.

The Host. Korean horror film. It was dubbed, but sounded too goofy so I switched it to Korean with subtitles.

Sketchbook

Saw two men litter. There’s trash cans on every corner down here. The Free Store location is a cell phone store again.

Film
Dirty Duck. Was ok as far as lofi, trippy sex cartoons go.

Went to New Orleans last weekend for Sam, Dave and Mark’s bachelor celebration. Also in attendance — Greg, Matt B, Darren, Mike K, Aug, Carmen and Mac Dog.

Food
Muffaletta at Cochon Butcher.
Choucroûte Maison (housemade sausages and slow cooked Berkshire
pork belly, cochon de lait, and knuckles) at Lüke Restaurant.
Rabbit & Sausage Jambalaya at Coops Place.
Crayfish (and other assorted things) boil at The Maple Leaf (also a great bar).
I strayed from my usual vegetarian diet a little!

Bars
Went to a lot on Bourbon Street, each one obnoxious and loud and full of idiots. Jean Lafitte’s Blacksmith Shop (the oldest bar in the US) towards the end of Bourbon had this old lady playing virtually anything on the piano and we sang our bachelor hearts out there, ending the night with a very loud medley of America the Beautiful, Proud to be an American and The Star Spangled Banner. This other low-key local’s joint called Buffa’s was a nice dark place to drink on a sunny afternoon. Snake & Jake’s Christmas Club Lounge was found pretty late on Sunday night.

Pretty swamp.

Gators on the prowl. They fed them marshmallows and chicken parts.

At the Maple Leaf.

Mark and Aug eating a mess of crayfish. They boil up a big batch with lots of cayenne pepper and then dump it all on these tables they violently set up.

Aug posted more better pictures too.

Film
Freaks. This old movie from 1932 using real circus freaks.

A State of Mind. This movie about gymnasts in North Korea. But really about North Korea in general and how brainwashed and fucked this place is.

Script for Soduku book commercial
MAN: Hey, what’s the worst thing about being alive?
WOMAN: When there’s no more soduku puzzle. holds up newspaper with completed puzzle
MAN: Things are looking up for you then. presents woman with an entire book full of soduku puzzles
SODUKU LOGO.

Left with an online video induced grin. Man laughing and slapping orange caution lights, carving destruction to the voice in his cell phone. Joggers holding hands. Big fat purple shirt blob of a man. Idiot’s bottle cap rolling the along subway car, stopping between mine and neighbor’s sneakers.

At least four fire trucks this morning. Also on the small street, a ginger ale truck and a Doritos truck. No sign of smoke, but if a fire were to happen — all bases covered!

She seemed to have it together until she lit up. This bank teller had wild hair, bucking the system with gel. I was given a thorough inspection at the airport in my dream last night “use anything at home?” “You mean, like, product?” “yea.” “no.” The machine that took my ID didn’t spit it out where I’d expected, so I scrambled and Steven the security guard was no help. I probably missed my flight.

People walk into traffic without looking.

Film
In Debt We Trust. The sub title of this movie was “America before the bubble bursts” indicating that this goofball filmmaker knew everything was going to crash, and he explains why it did on the consumer level. I can’t cite specific instances, but I seem to remember a lot of pundits and bank people saying they didn’t see it coming. BS right? Anyhow, it was an ok movie, but I thought Maxed Out was better made.

Got off the train. A woman dropped a Trident gum wrapper. It smelled like Arbys above ground. A man was sweeping up litter, I wondered if he ever swept up paper money. The FedEx man had an iPhone. A tall, stoic, white haired man waiting in line for coffee was wearing a leather blazer and a Mickey Mouse tie. A woman stopped walking to write something on a dentist’s appointment card. The guy at the candy store wears a thin gold chain. The latex gloves are still on the stairs.

Monday I had some beers at Mother’s and discussed the upcoming Montauk bike ride.

Wednesday I went for beers with Mike. Over the course of that evening I had pizza at 3 different pizzerias in the East Village / LES.

Thursday I met Aug and Bill at the Guggenheim for this Frank Lloyd Wright show. There was red beers. Ran in to Kristina, and then Melissa. It was sort of raining that night.

Friday I went to the Dan Deacon show in Bushwick. The opening band Future Islands was really good and Dan Deacon was more amazing than ever with a full 12+ piece band backing him. After Aug and I went to GBM to have a beer. People were getting stoned in the garden.

Saturday I rode around the city, did some stuff at the office, went to the Taco Bell Drawing Club, went to an opening at Kiosk, then Mike K’s, then the Richardson for Sarah G’s birthday drinks. I drank too many beers and had too much fun.

Film
Tree’s Lounge. A movie written and directed by Steve Buschemi with a bunch of other celebs. I liked it a lot. Good characters.

Hard Boiled. More like hard to watch.

They Shoot Horses Don’t They? Jane Fonda is tough as nails in a pretty intense dance marathon.

Near the end of the West side bike trail.

FEAST

Goodbye Blue Monday

Tuesday I held poker night. Jeff won.

Thursday I was all set ride my bike home and not go out. But I forgot my keys, so I met Mike K for a few beers.

Friday I got off work early and rode up and down the West side bike path, then stopped at the Whitney on the way back. I liked the drawings in the Claes Oldenburg the best. That’s been true for a lot of the shows I’ve seen recently I have a bigger interest in the drawings used for plans and mark making in general. All said and done after riding to work in the morning, the path in the afternoon, then back home again I rode 34 miles on Friday

Saturday I got up early and went to Prospect park for a few laps around the path there, each loop is 3.3 miles, so I did 3 and went for lunch. Probably rode about 20ish miles. Then to Greenpoint for the 3rd FEAST. It was a lot of fun and we seem to be getting the hang of it.

Sunday was a really nice day, but I’d been outside all weekend, and didn’t really feel like running around, so I stayed home all day. Later that night I rode down BAM to see a french movie. On the way back I stopped at Goodbye Blue Monday for a beer. This guy Enid Ellen was performing kind of a goth gay bowie thing. Anyhow, it was fine and all. He was up there performing. There were these 2 British jokers sitting in front of me though. They were sneakily taking video of the guy performing, then panning to themselves making a “wtf” look and generally seemed very put out by the whole affair. Head in hands, hastily flipping through boring old books from the shelves, snide remarks, etc. My question is — why stay? Go outside to the patio where it’s quiet, or just leave. This dude was the final show of the night, there was nothing else to stick around for. Some people just get off on hating (especially british people with track jackets) when they probably don’t do anything other than consume or have the guts. On my way home I’d just gone around the corner and was messing with my pedals or something as I’d just began to get going and rode right into this massive pot hole. I must have landed solely on my pinky finger. It’s fairly swollen, but I can still manage to function. I bet I could get my fine if it was removed completely.

Film
Omagh. About this 1998 bombing in Ireland. I’d been putting this one off for a week cause I thought it’d be depressing. It was, but it was also really good.

Billy the Kid. Recommend and borrowed from Jen. Good doc that was at times pretty uncomfortable.

WALL-E. This is a cartoon movie about the world getting overrun by tin cans and people going into space and becoming fat blobs. Now, when they’re out in space, they’re still using all kinds of tin cans. I didn’t buy that part. I enjoyed it.

Commune. Documentary about this commune Black Bear Ranch in California. I enjoyed watching it. It seemed like our group vacations, but with more chores and year around. I also rented this movie called La Commune, but then I realized it was in French and 6 hours long. So I sent that one back.

L’argent (Money). This French movie that was so dry and straight forward. Not recommended.