i have a friend that gets the nastiest text messages. she showed me one. the picture below represents that message in a g rated style.
the clouds broke in sf and i got to see my rad friend and her rad dog.
how come no one ever told me i have THEE gandolf nose of the century?
i woke up in dc today. we played here last night and have another show happening as i type. i had a little time today to actually do something interesting. so i went to the national archives. it's really a pretty fascinating place. i can't say that all of the exhibitions were so great, but the concept of the archives is amazing. they keep every email sent by the government. all these artifacts. photos, tape recorders from watergate, files from investigations, census reports. minutiae, history, facts, details. it's all there. and you can actually see a lot of it if you have the time and the inclination. i wondered why my family was so boring that i didn't even have anything i could attempt to look up. i felt like my family didn't have any sort of unusual dealings with the federal government. so there isn't an interesting record of us. maybe that's how it is for most people; most of us are pretty ordinary. but not. it's complicated, i suppose. i think it would be quite fun to work there. whenever something struck you, you could look it up at lunch. or stay after on a friday night reading old letters to the president. like the one above that three girls wrote to eisenhower. they are hoping that elvis will get to keep his sideburns and haircut when he joins the army.
there was an exhibit of photographs of people at work. part of it focused on uniforms. there were police officers from the early 1900's to fast food workers in the 80's. i guess that this could end up in the archives someday, a photo of me at work:
i was also, thinking about work in general and how everyone must think that everyone else's job is just the best. ya know, i know that we all say we love our jobs. and i am fortunate that everyone i know has a pretty cool job. we own our own stores, our own post production companies. we make clothes and television shows. we take photographs and design furniture. i even know people that are in bands and get paid to perform music. and i get paid to travel around the world and meet cool people and go to the national archives on a monday afternoon. anyway, while i was looking at these photos of people in uniforms i was sort of jealous. straight up grass is always greener shit. i wish that i could have been a pilot for the postal service and worn that rad super heavy jump suit and flown a biplane with mail to alaska. pretty fuckin cool. but i am sure that dude would have been psyched to sign up for a job selling t-shirts. i just think that in a lot of ways a job is a job and i am sure there are nights when stevie jackson is bummed when stuart says "hey stevie, talk to the crowd for a bit while i tune up my guitar" do you know what i mean? i guess i am saying it could be worse, or what i mean is...it could be different but really it would just be the same.
after the archives i went to the hirshorn museum. it is part of the smithsonian that deals with modern art. i was hoping to see some sir francis bacon paintings i saw a couple of years ago. they were gone. i did see a couple of things worth mentioning. a gerhard richter painting called "fenster" (window in german). that guy is pretty much just the best. and i forgot how much i loved rodin. they had one of my favorite sculptures of his there, "the burghers of calais". i forget what this one is about. i'll have to look it up. here is a photo:
it's just gnarly. there is something twisted happening to these men.
then i saw this one. i can't remember who made it and i don't feel like looking. i am mostly concerned with the size of this guys hands.
i mean they look way too big. but then i remembered these and i decided that maybe sometimes your hands just look a little too big for your body.
which brings me to the most amazing thing that has happened in the last few days. some fan of belle and sebastian is like the best pastry chef in the world. the other day in philly she brought: a box of truffles, two boxes of chocolate covered, homemade marshmallows, and a box of the, literally best brownies ever. and if you know me you know that i am pretty particular about them. but these were the BEST. it was amazing. they are socked away on the band bus though and i don't have the code to get in there. if i did they would find me covered in crumbs watching tv when they got on the bus after their show tonight. i mean they were good brownies. speaking of food that reminds me of this:
the eggs we used to make our own breakfast at the club yesterday had the name of the club stamped on them. the 9:30 club was already pretty much the best club in the world and then they went and had someone stamp their name on all the eggs they serve.
ok.
The whole world just got thick
Again with the Divine.
And everywhere I look
Makes me feel very proud
That all the objects and creatures
Can remain looking
So poised And acting so cool
While keeping the Great Secret So well,
And not blissfully shout
All day long the Reality
I Am--
I Am the Wine!
The whole universe just got stoned
Out of its mind again
On the Beauty
Of the Divine.
~ Hafiz
the universe just got stoned.
i am in nyc now. hooray. it is beautiful and not warm but by no means frigid like boston (sucks) and montreal/toronto. plus i got my winter coat i left here a few weeks ago.
here are some photos from the show in boston last night.
stuart had all the boys sit down in the crowd so the girls could see. and i imagine so he could see the girls. at least that is what i would do if i were a giant pop star. look how happy everyone appears! so many smiles. it belies the fact that boston is pretty lame. i guess that is why they are so happy, cause maybe belle and sebastian actually helped them forget how much it sucks to live in boston.
i like this one cause look how straight the front of mick (the horn player) looks. it is pretty incredible. i mean it might be the only truly straight line in the universe and i got it on film. i am pretty lucky in most things esoteric.
and i like that the lights that look like the are for shooting films are called Altman 2000 L. just cause i am recently obsessed with him. can you believe that you can't get brewster mccloud on dvd. i mean you can get armageddon with ben affleck...ok since i did cry at that one that might not be the best example. but you know what i mean. brewster mccloud and parenthood should have been released on dvd a long time ago.
last night at the end of the night i went to pay the two girls that sold the merch for me. i had sent an email to one of them at least 10 days ago that said i could afford to pay them each $60/night. a total of $120. i mean i am not saying that is great money. however it's not rocket science. so yesterday i heard from the production manager of the club that these two girls were griping about their rate. i said, "well they should say something to me about it." he agreed. so when i go to pay them (bear in mind i have already given each of them two t-shirts, a retail value of $45/per girl) i give each of them $150. right there, on top of the free shirts, that is $30 more than they should have been expecting to get. one girl, the main one i was emailing with says, "whoa, dude. that's not enough." i said, "what do you mean? we agreed on $120. and i gave you guys $90 in t-shirts" the other girl, the more retarded of the two, says "well, i'll give you your t-shirts back. we normally make 5% of anything over $5000." i said, "first, you never complained or mentioned anything about it when we emailed. second, i am not giving you 5% of $13,000. that is $650!" so it went back and forth. at one point the true "bah-ston" girl says, 'you know how long we've been here? 7 hours today and 7 hours yesterday!" and i said, "hey. you want to know how long i've been here? 12 hours today and 14 hours yesterday. so don't start talking to me about hours cause we are making about the same amount of money and you don't see me complaining." later i realized that i probably wasn't complaining because i knew that i didn't have to spend the rest of my life in boston. so i ended up giving each of them $170 and told them that they shouldn't act like such retards next time and that they were lucky i was giving them anything more than we agreed upon. my biggest point being that all of this could have been avoided and then we wouldn't all have to leave at 1:30 am in a shitty mood. and thus... these girls cemented my hatred for boston. besides it is the namesake of the world's WORST desert, the boston (lame) cream (gross) pie (yech).
so then i had to go look at this photo to restore my faith in humanity. hopefully vinka will not have to visit boston ever.
however! today i woke up in nyc and breathed a sigh of relief and walked around and ran a bunch of errands. my friend is having her birthday party here tomorrow night. i think it's a little weird but...whatever. it's her birthday. once i was standing on line to get into a fashion show at this place. and this woman, a friend of my girlfriend at the time turns and says to me. "the last time i was at this place was in 1987 and passed out in the gutter after i puked all over myself". needless to say she is pretty much sober now. glad you got it together, liz!
it's sort of fun. i don't have an apartment anywhere in the world. so when i buy stuff off ebay i have it sent to random places. today i was very excited because i knew that i would be getting a t-shirt at my friend's place in nyc. and it was a shirt i was so psyched about. she has a doorman and is nice enough to have my name on a list so i can get the key to her pad when she is at work. so i got to her place and here's what happened:
psyched.
totally psyched.
totally bummed. it's sorta too small. but it's the best shirt in the world.
then i went to matador where i got paid for another job i did for them last month and talked to the nice people there. it's a nice office on the twelfth floor. lots of good light in there with those good people.
and that's my last 24 hours.
big man holding small cup
anna, did that work?