September 2004 Archives

off to london tomorrow! w00t!

nice one, scaled composites! spaceshipone just rocketed up to 338,000 feet for its first successful x-prize flight. they've got two weeks to do it again to claim the $10,000,000 prize.

so now we've only got to wait three more years or so until virgingalactic gives us a chance to take that ride.

shannen doherty
in a recent comment over at kat's blog, i badly butchered the spelling of her favorite heather's first and last names. as a huge shannen doherty fan, i'm deeply embarrassed. in a related note, i was reading in elle girl that shannen was sarah michelle gellar's favorite heather as well, and when they met, she found it hard not to keep quoting heathers lines to her. awesome.

the shocker
who knew about the shocker? or rather, that it's called that? [memepool]

fan mail
i sent my first ever fan letter today to tom martinelli, a painter whose most excellent spot paintings i used to enjoy while back in grad school at thomas solomon's garage, a now-defunct gallery in los angeles. i found him again at minus space. damn. there's some beautiful work there. i don't know if i'll ever do it again; writing fan mail makes me feel like a dork.

falun gong
i was baby-sitting the art truck last night when this truck drove by. it was a flatbed with a huge cage on the back filled with clumsily-made dummies, all of whom looked to have been tortured by the chinese. i'll say it again: these people must be stopped. since the falun gong invaded new york, my daily sightings of images of torture have jumped 87%. and i don't believe their claims of how peaceful they are; they're spooky and culty.

destiny
a retired executive from sara lee, missing since september 14th, was found yesterday frozen in a rented storage unit. [captivate]

so i went out for a smoke this morning, and no sooner had i lit up and begun to enjoy the rich, mellow flavor than some guy hits me up for a cigarette. i told him: "no". he asked again. i said: "no". (the cop interrogation technique is fast becoming a major theme in my life.) he asked one more time, so i showed him my pack: two left. and then i told him "no" again. then he asked if i'd just share my cigarette with him while i smoked it. hell no.

but he wouldn't leave. for the duration of my smoke break, he stood next to me telling me how his lungs were just burnin' for some smoke, that he used to sell discount cigarettes, so he's not bummin' as the community owes him, and so on. he kept this monologue up until i finished. as i was about to pitch the butt, he asserted that it was only right i should give it to him, as i was going to throw it out anyway. at that point, i relented. he needed that butt more than the gutter did.

wtf? doesn't do it justice, and must be spelled out: what the fuck?!

on a related note (and as a bit of confession), i just (re-)read tom robbins's jitterbug perfume. he's about as horribly preachy-hippy as i remember from reading him as a hippy at bible school, but i like this bit:

Me, I love the rich. Somebody has to love them. Sure, a lot o' rich people are assholes, but believe me, a lot o' poor people are assholes, too, and an asshole with money can at least pay for his own drinks.

a-men!

ok; finally got around to adding some external links. (thanks, paul! hard coding the template worked swell!)

and let me know if there's anything inappropriate in the descriptions. i sometimes get confused about that whole issue...

first came project silver bug, the air force's answer to concentrations of aircraft at runways making easy targets for nukes. vertical takeoff means no runway. but it never really worked. the pye wacket was an air-to-air missile concept. both were supposedly continuations of nazi research picked up in project paper clip.

the air force scrapped this project (if it existed at all) due to stability problems. same deal with the avrocar.

the lenticular reentry vehicle, meant to be an orbiting delivery platform for nukes, also seemed to have its share of trouble, as the only physical evidence of its existence seems to be debris.

so helen and i were spending the day lying in bed watching the third season of six feet under (it's not out yet; helen bought a d.i.y. dvd on ebay) when suddenly there came a banging on our door. it was one of the neighbors. "have you been writing on my door?" he asked. and i lied, and said "no."

it all started about a month ago when new neighbors moved in next door. they were loud, or rather, they played their stereo loud. and late. and early. one saturday morning we were rudely awakened by some really thundering bass at six in the morning. banging on the walls resulted in lower volume, but not much lower. so coming home drunk one night, i grabbed a pen and wrote 'got coke?' on their door. i figured music that loud at six a.m. must be the winding down of a coke bender. and nothing happened for a while. then, leaving the house one morning, helen and i found that one of the pieces of drywall that have been sitting in the hallway had beeen moved to block our door. not a big thing, but a response, definitely. i didn't think about it again until coming home late, drunk again, when i noticed the next-door neighbors had painted over my question.

it seemed like a good idea to keep things rolling, so i went into the loft to grab a sharpie from my desk drawer. in the process of getting the marker, i stabbed my finger with an xacto. after checking that the hall was clear, i walked over to the neighbors' door and wrote 'c'mon...'. it seemed to be an antagonistic, yet gentle response. then i noticed that my finger was bleeding pretty freely. so i drew a smiley face on their door with the blood. on my way home, i gave my door a heart, also in blood. all very friendly! and nothing happened for a while, except more of the drywall-in-front-of-the-door trick now and again.

last night, both helen and i were drunk. this time, she wanted to to the drywall thing back at the neighbor. and so we did.

then today comes the knocking. and the lie. "i painted over what you wrote, and you did it again!" he said. i protested: "it wasn't me!" he was persistant, tho, and used the old cop technique of asking the same question over and over. i admitted nothing except the drywall game, claiming loud stereo as an excuse. best defense is to attack! he apologized for that, then asked again about the grafitti. i told him i did notice the heart on my door, and yes, was curious about it, but nothing more. this seemed to aggravate the neighbor. "that's blood! didn't that bother you? aren't you going to remove it?"

"i prefer not to think about it," i told him. "someone drawing a heart on my door in blood is pretty creepy," which, by that point in the conversation, it seemed to be. that appeared to stump him, as he turned around and walked away saying "no more... no more... no more."

i explained to helen the whole blood thing had just been a happy accident, which seemed to reassure her some about my state of mind.

so the show at death disco seemed to go well, tho i had little idea who bp fallon was. turns out he's a rock and roll icon!

Dublin-born BP FALLON is the former publicist to Led Zeppelin, Marc Bolan, Ian Dury, Bob Geldof and manager of New York Doll Johnny Thunders. "Purple browed Beep" is how Marc Bolan described him in the T-Rex hit "Telegram Sam." A DJ since 1964, he has published three books of his words and photographs, one of which - "U2 Faraway So Close" - details his time when he joined U2 on their global Zoo TV tour as DJ, Viber and Guru, spinning nightly from his mirror-covered Trabant; Vogue magazine described his role as "foreplay." At one of the LA gigs at Dodger Stadium in front of 70,000 fans, Fallon infamously fell asleep during his set before waking up and continuing as if nothing had happened. "BP's brilliant, though I'm not sure what he does" Thin Lizzy's Phil Lynott famously told Melody Maker in 1976. Among the things that Fallon has done is work at the Beatles' Apple Records - where one of his jobs was testing Paul McCartney's grass - and crop up on BBC TV with John Lennon, miming bass guitar on "Instant Karma." He has DJ'd on tours by Keith Richards and Ronnie Wood. Last year BP collaborated with American Pop Artist Peter Max using a Fallon photograph of Bono; the resulting 45 Andy Warhol-style prints were sold at a charity auction in New York (attended by Bono, Bill Clinton and Robert De Niro), helping to raise over three million dollars. "A gentle, wispy sorcerer" is how Vogue describes BP. And Bono describes BP Fallon as "A rock'n'roll creature... the only white black man I know apart from Bob Dylan." [storkcluboakland.com]

helen grew up listening to his radio show in dublin, and her mom made pancakes with him once when she worked for the irish press. small world...

i took a car home from morgan & sheri's last night after watching the season finale of six feet under, which was excellent. on the way home, i spotted a bit of graffiti i'd seen a million times before, but head-on this time, rather than speeding by on my left. i was immediately disoriented, and though the distance home was pretty small, and i should have had a fairly good idea where i was, i felt adrift in the nowhere.

today during a smoke break, i thought about the experience when seeing a woman wearing a vuitton handbag. he's so knocked off, and expertly, that i no longer trust louis vuitton, any vuitton. that sort of thing seems to happen to everything. music. fashion. trendy new authors. young pop divas. i liked some of what ms. spears did. avril, too. i can't find them amongst a crowd of their peers now. there might be a lovely talented teenage blonde making magical girl-pop, and i will miss her amongst the counterfeits.

arrgh. so tired.

i should be happy and all that. the kickstart residency went really well, and we're playing at the friggin' delancey next week, and i'm in the truck show again, plus some other gallery (part of the truck show). these are all good things. but why does anything even smelling a little like success in new york have to be so exhausting?

*sigh*

ok: here's the shining and alien (and others) as performed by bunnies in 30 seconds. [julie]

and this guide to crushing you own testicles is just amazing. he's so damned enthusiatic! [memepool]

This got me thinking. If you happen to own one of those machines that fires tennis balls at high speed, why not stand in front of it one day? Heheheheh! Every shot would go in pretty much the same place, and you could have hours of fun this way! I know they shoot out tennis balls with quite some force too, so if one did hit you in the nuts....I'd imagine it would hurt rather nicely! Try it!

must... rest now...

ok; this invasion of falun gong in the city has gone too far. i've remained neutral on the issue, but they're on every damned corner! if i see one more mock torture or have one more pamphlet thrust in my direction, i'm going to begin actively supporting the persecution.

it was especially obnoxious over the weekend during brazilian day as yellow's a favorite color of these rowdy brazilians, and the treacherous falun gong were able to blend easily with the crowd.

hmm. ok. maybe it's an adolescent response to sheri's call to shame. maybe it's in response to the shame i indeed felt as a result of that call, but today is super fashionist label-whore day!

i'm wearing my givenchy socks (century 21: three pairs for a $10), prada shirt (thanks, helen!), westwood shoes, calvin klein drawers (thanks, helen!), and helmut lang eau de cologne (i like the women's perfume better, tho).

i miss vivienne westwood's shop in soho. those late-night 50% off sales where they served champagne were so excellent. i got to see her when the shop opened, but i was too intimidated to try and say hello. ok; also too much in line for free drinks... still, to be in the same room with the woman who dressed the sex pistols...

oh yeah: my levis are just plain levis. i have a pair of versace jeans, but they have those pre-fab rips in them, and that wouldn't be appropriate workplace attire, even on casual friday. plus, i hate italian designers. except costume national.

i like to wear the versace jeans on stage with my sid t-shirt. the ironing is delicious...

happy super fashionist label-whore day!

kickstart's residency at trash is over. i find myself with strangely conflicting feelings. it was like been released from prison, but when we went on last night after live girls!!!, i didn't want it to end. i wanted to rock and roll all night...

goodbye, rock and roll summer camp!

on the plus side, mojo might buy paul's old amp from me to use in trash's house kit. either way, it saved me from lugging the beast home last night, which would have been a sore trial as it doesn't fit in a cab and i was drunk as a monkey.