Oh my lord.
I am so bored.
Held the hand of Satan.
Oh Laura,
what has happened to you?
Held the hand of the devil.
I was on MTV.
Everybody was lookin' at me.
Held the hand of the devil.
Continuing Journeys
12 years ago
Saturday, December 13, 2008
Thursday, December 11, 2008
a smile
I was scrolling down the page on Andrew Sullivan's blog when I came across this picture - the result of my eyebrows bouncing and smile cracking was so sudden it almost hurt a little bit. In a good way.
Wednesday, December 3, 2008
Morning Observations
As I climbed into my car this morning, I was waiting to see when my mood would turn dark. Not if, but when, as sometime between locking my apartment door and arriving at my office, it never seems to fail that I get grumpy. I blame this on the fact that I hate going to my office. In my line of work, I can usually work from just about anywhere, but some days I just have to go in. And it is NEVER for something I want to do. Hence the bad mood.
The last couple of morning drives I found myself feeling really anxious, a new development that I blamed on the cd in my stereo, JJ Magazine's Be Happy Love. This is obviously a spurious correlation, as I really like that album and there is nothing anxiety-inducing about it at all; it just happened to be the same thing I listened to both uncomfortable mornings. (To further expand on how much I like this album, it might be my single favorite album I've purchased by any of the several talented indie bands from Cleveland, and that's really saying something. Even as good as it is, though, I think it makes a better complement to the drive home from work rather than the drive to work. The Hot Rails cd is the best to-work local cd. The Unsparing Sea album, which is Be Happy Love's chief rival for my favorite local album, is beautiful but should never be listened to during any car ride related in any way to work, going or coming. But I digress).
So, as I settled into my car, turned the key, and the last half-dozen seconds of Track 6 played, I thought about changing the disc. But then I got distracted and started backing out of the driveway, and next thing you know I'm driving down Cedar, heading toward Hell, I mean, work.
As I'm sitting at a stoplight, I accidentally lock eyes with a woman in the car on the other side of the light, waiting for it to change so she can continue on in the opposite direction as me. The contrast betweeen her youthfulness and complete seriousness was striking and a little weird, so I look away to my right, where I notice the occupants of the hatchback in the lane adjacent to me. There is a hipster looking bearded dude in the front, and he's turned around and talking to a young woman in the back. There is no one in the passenger seat. This puzzles me, so I go into super-creepy mode and peer harder, and notice there is a baby seat in the back, next to the woman, the kind of seat for newborns. I start watching the couple, realize they are doing a cute but likely joint-numbing over-the-seat hand-holding thing and how nervous and happy they both appear. This makes me smile and feel a little choked up.
All the way down Cedar, from Lee Road to the crazy turny area just past the Cedar-Fairmount hoopla district, these folks are next to me, and I can't stop wondering about what is going on in there. I also find myself driving very carefully, like I'm sure the new dad driver is also doing. Of all the cars I don't want to get in an accident with, it is this one. (Plus I have a headlight out and my tags might have just expired, so I'd totally be the bad guy if anything accident-oriented went down.) Even when we come up to the aforementioned crazy turny part, by the rapid station, when faced with the terrible decision of whether to speed up and cut the happy family car off so I can get in the turn lane I want to be in OR fuck myself traffic-wise, I go for the self-sacrificing option. Eventually we turn in different directions and I make it to my parking lot a few minutes later. I'm actually in a good mood at this point, doing a little driver seat dancing and gloved drumming on my steering wheel. Clearly the JJ Magazine/anxiety hypothesis was flawed. I'll have to find something else to blame.
I park, walk to my office building, and notice a dude that is seriously a spitting image of V.I. Lenin just sorta hanging out. To be specific, secretly crossing the Gulf of Finland pre-revolution Lenin, with the sailor's cap and the disguise. Though with the traditional goatee. OK, that technically is a contradiction, but work with me. (It was something like this picture plus this beard from this one.) I want to ask him if this look is on purpose (I'd bet a lot of money that it is), but figure that'd be rude, so keep it to myself. By doing so, I decide I have earned a few more karma points, added on to the several I picked up by being a self-conscious driver around happy couple with the infant, and catch the elevator to the floor where my office is. (Note: I give myself karma points for just about anything.) I don't take the first elevator that comes available, as there is a guy who is probably my creepy rival and seems certain to talk to me in the elevator, which makes me infinitely uncomfortable, but another one comes almost immediately and I take it. Probably my reward for not making a comment to Lenin Wannabe Guy. I'm still waiting for the morning drive good karma payback, but that'll probably take a while, as it is certain to be big.
I get off the elevator feeling pretty good about myself and realize that I want a cup of coffee but there is no time for me to buy a cup and get to my morning appointment. So I do what any narcissistic jerk would do, particularly someone who spent his elevator ride wondering about the form in which his morning drive good karma payback would come, and decide I'll just steal a cup of coffee from the break room where a handful of colleagues have established a community coffee station. You are supposed to donate cash or coffee, but I never donate either one, yet occasionally pilfer a cup of coffee. Yes, yes, I am a bad person, a free rider, the very personification of the age-old collective action problem. Whatever. The coffee is never very good, always lukewarm yet reheatedly gross, so I don't feel bad. And for the record, this does not affect my karma point tally. It just doesn't.
At least not the karma point tally I was thinking about. Apparently there are several, as I think I have a specifically coffee-themed karma account. That would explain the three separate times I spilled my pilfered coffee, including once on my hand when it was still hot and once on my sweater in front of onlookers. I probably deserved that.
I sneak the coffee and ride the elevator back down, en route to my appointment, silently wishing very bad luck to the maintenance dude that still hasn't changed the lightbulbs in my office and the young guy with metal blasting out of his ipod earphones. (Sidenote: Why is it that 98% of the folks I ride elevators with that are listening to headphones at a volume where I can not only hear it but can make out most lyrics, even with my poor hearing, are listening to speed metal? Why can't it be something good?)
I get to where I'm going, and notice that an attractive woman I see from time to time is present and that she has recently dyed her hair a nice shade of brown. It was previously a streaky blond and the new shade is a serious improvement, given my aesthetic preferences. I think this and smile at her, a half-second after I sip my now lukewarm coffee. I only realize this might not be the best timing when the first drip of coffee droplets hung in my moustache falls and hits my lower lip and relodges in the hair on my chin.
That's right - creepy guy with a beard full of creamer and coffee leering at a woman who is now certainly regretting the coloring that is drawing her unwelcome attention. That's how I started my business day.
Not half bad, if you ask me.
The last couple of morning drives I found myself feeling really anxious, a new development that I blamed on the cd in my stereo, JJ Magazine's Be Happy Love. This is obviously a spurious correlation, as I really like that album and there is nothing anxiety-inducing about it at all; it just happened to be the same thing I listened to both uncomfortable mornings. (To further expand on how much I like this album, it might be my single favorite album I've purchased by any of the several talented indie bands from Cleveland, and that's really saying something. Even as good as it is, though, I think it makes a better complement to the drive home from work rather than the drive to work. The Hot Rails cd is the best to-work local cd. The Unsparing Sea album, which is Be Happy Love's chief rival for my favorite local album, is beautiful but should never be listened to during any car ride related in any way to work, going or coming. But I digress).
So, as I settled into my car, turned the key, and the last half-dozen seconds of Track 6 played, I thought about changing the disc. But then I got distracted and started backing out of the driveway, and next thing you know I'm driving down Cedar, heading toward Hell, I mean, work.
As I'm sitting at a stoplight, I accidentally lock eyes with a woman in the car on the other side of the light, waiting for it to change so she can continue on in the opposite direction as me. The contrast betweeen her youthfulness and complete seriousness was striking and a little weird, so I look away to my right, where I notice the occupants of the hatchback in the lane adjacent to me. There is a hipster looking bearded dude in the front, and he's turned around and talking to a young woman in the back. There is no one in the passenger seat. This puzzles me, so I go into super-creepy mode and peer harder, and notice there is a baby seat in the back, next to the woman, the kind of seat for newborns. I start watching the couple, realize they are doing a cute but likely joint-numbing over-the-seat hand-holding thing and how nervous and happy they both appear. This makes me smile and feel a little choked up.
All the way down Cedar, from Lee Road to the crazy turny area just past the Cedar-Fairmount hoopla district, these folks are next to me, and I can't stop wondering about what is going on in there. I also find myself driving very carefully, like I'm sure the new dad driver is also doing. Of all the cars I don't want to get in an accident with, it is this one. (Plus I have a headlight out and my tags might have just expired, so I'd totally be the bad guy if anything accident-oriented went down.) Even when we come up to the aforementioned crazy turny part, by the rapid station, when faced with the terrible decision of whether to speed up and cut the happy family car off so I can get in the turn lane I want to be in OR fuck myself traffic-wise, I go for the self-sacrificing option. Eventually we turn in different directions and I make it to my parking lot a few minutes later. I'm actually in a good mood at this point, doing a little driver seat dancing and gloved drumming on my steering wheel. Clearly the JJ Magazine/anxiety hypothesis was flawed. I'll have to find something else to blame.
I park, walk to my office building, and notice a dude that is seriously a spitting image of V.I. Lenin just sorta hanging out. To be specific, secretly crossing the Gulf of Finland pre-revolution Lenin, with the sailor's cap and the disguise. Though with the traditional goatee. OK, that technically is a contradiction, but work with me. (It was something like this picture plus this beard from this one.) I want to ask him if this look is on purpose (I'd bet a lot of money that it is), but figure that'd be rude, so keep it to myself. By doing so, I decide I have earned a few more karma points, added on to the several I picked up by being a self-conscious driver around happy couple with the infant, and catch the elevator to the floor where my office is. (Note: I give myself karma points for just about anything.) I don't take the first elevator that comes available, as there is a guy who is probably my creepy rival and seems certain to talk to me in the elevator, which makes me infinitely uncomfortable, but another one comes almost immediately and I take it. Probably my reward for not making a comment to Lenin Wannabe Guy. I'm still waiting for the morning drive good karma payback, but that'll probably take a while, as it is certain to be big.
I get off the elevator feeling pretty good about myself and realize that I want a cup of coffee but there is no time for me to buy a cup and get to my morning appointment. So I do what any narcissistic jerk would do, particularly someone who spent his elevator ride wondering about the form in which his morning drive good karma payback would come, and decide I'll just steal a cup of coffee from the break room where a handful of colleagues have established a community coffee station. You are supposed to donate cash or coffee, but I never donate either one, yet occasionally pilfer a cup of coffee. Yes, yes, I am a bad person, a free rider, the very personification of the age-old collective action problem. Whatever. The coffee is never very good, always lukewarm yet reheatedly gross, so I don't feel bad. And for the record, this does not affect my karma point tally. It just doesn't.
At least not the karma point tally I was thinking about. Apparently there are several, as I think I have a specifically coffee-themed karma account. That would explain the three separate times I spilled my pilfered coffee, including once on my hand when it was still hot and once on my sweater in front of onlookers. I probably deserved that.
I sneak the coffee and ride the elevator back down, en route to my appointment, silently wishing very bad luck to the maintenance dude that still hasn't changed the lightbulbs in my office and the young guy with metal blasting out of his ipod earphones. (Sidenote: Why is it that 98% of the folks I ride elevators with that are listening to headphones at a volume where I can not only hear it but can make out most lyrics, even with my poor hearing, are listening to speed metal? Why can't it be something good?)
I get to where I'm going, and notice that an attractive woman I see from time to time is present and that she has recently dyed her hair a nice shade of brown. It was previously a streaky blond and the new shade is a serious improvement, given my aesthetic preferences. I think this and smile at her, a half-second after I sip my now lukewarm coffee. I only realize this might not be the best timing when the first drip of coffee droplets hung in my moustache falls and hits my lower lip and relodges in the hair on my chin.
That's right - creepy guy with a beard full of creamer and coffee leering at a woman who is now certainly regretting the coloring that is drawing her unwelcome attention. That's how I started my business day.
Not half bad, if you ask me.
Tuesday, December 2, 2008
Go See This Now!
I just got back from my Monday ritual (flick at the Cedar-Lee and reduced price beer at Parnell's), only on a Tuesday. The film I saw was "Let the Right One In," this tremendous Swedish vampire movie. It might be the best movie I've seen all year. You should really go check it out. I might go and see it again before it leaves the theater, which will probably be at the end of next week.
The film is sub-titled and has all sorts of interesting little sub-themes, from pre-teen lovers communicating in morse code to Cold War politics to bullying (with a kid that blends the worst of Flick from "A Christmas Story" and Tim in "River's Edge") to 70s Euro-rock to, of course, vampirism. The cinematography is beautiful and the script leaves dozens of small yet compelling questions unanswered in the most wonderful way. The film's fashion is compelling, too, as it resembles almost perfectly what you'll see among the audience members at any random winter Beachland Ballroom weekday show. This makes sense, of course, as the film is set in a suburb of Stockholm in the early 80s.
After the film and the drink, I hit up Richie Chan's for some house lo mein. Is it just me, or does the name of that restaurant remind anyone else of Los Angeles? The food was a lot like LA, too, in the sense that it was generally superficially attractive and mostly tasteless. They did, however, make the dish for me sans onion, so I guess I shouldn't hate.
The film is sub-titled and has all sorts of interesting little sub-themes, from pre-teen lovers communicating in morse code to Cold War politics to bullying (with a kid that blends the worst of Flick from "A Christmas Story" and Tim in "River's Edge") to 70s Euro-rock to, of course, vampirism. The cinematography is beautiful and the script leaves dozens of small yet compelling questions unanswered in the most wonderful way. The film's fashion is compelling, too, as it resembles almost perfectly what you'll see among the audience members at any random winter Beachland Ballroom weekday show. This makes sense, of course, as the film is set in a suburb of Stockholm in the early 80s.
After the film and the drink, I hit up Richie Chan's for some house lo mein. Is it just me, or does the name of that restaurant remind anyone else of Los Angeles? The food was a lot like LA, too, in the sense that it was generally superficially attractive and mostly tasteless. They did, however, make the dish for me sans onion, so I guess I shouldn't hate.
Mega-serious endorsement
I need to tell you: I love Gateway Animal Clinic. And especially Dr. Abby. The difference between Ellie's care at Gateway the last two times versus the nightmare at Mandel is not just night and day, it is like the sun and the moon.
If you have pets and are wondering where to go, you can't beat Abby. You might be able to tie Abby - there are certainly plenty of good vets in Ohio - but you can't out-and-out beat her.
Thanks Gateway!
If you have pets and are wondering where to go, you can't beat Abby. You might be able to tie Abby - there are certainly plenty of good vets in Ohio - but you can't out-and-out beat her.
Thanks Gateway!
Monday, December 1, 2008
CLE-: Asterisk Gallery's Visual Roast of Clevo
This past Saturday I finally had the pleasure of checking out Dana Depew's latest showcase at his gallery, Asterisk, in Tremont. I've been impressed with Dana's art and, perhaps even more so, his curatorial ability since I moved here. A few months ago, though, I started to realize that his eye and organizational skill seems to be getting better each new show. I raved about his "Counting Days" group show (about the pending departure of our current not-so-dear leader Dubya) in October and thought a show of its type couldn't be topped.
And then he goes and does it again with the CLE- show. I can't remember the exact name of the show, as the postcard is in my car and it is way too fucking cold and crappy rainy to go out and get it now, but we'll just refer to it as the show where a whole host of local art talent each took their shot at visually expressing the blighted suffering it is to be an artist in Clevo.
A number of uptight folks got their panties in a bunch over this show - most notably the douchey lames at the Greater Cleveland Partnership who actually threatened legal action against the gallery. That's right, folks. The development organization in charge of revitalizing the cesspool that is the NEO economy is spending its time hassling artists rather than, you know, helping deal with the problems of our community. If I was a supporter of that group you can better believe I'm rethinking my 2009 commitment. Kinda smacks of RNC donors and how they felt after hearing about Sarah Palin's $150k shopping spree. Then again, though, if you are only now getting irritated with the boneheaded moves of the GCP, you probably haven't been paying attention to the last couple years of disastrous PR activities they've been floating, with the ridiculous Cleveland+ campaign Exhibit #1. (Prediction: If Dana and company bring this show back in a few years, there will be plenty of critical energy spent on roasting that loser of an ad campaign just as there was on duck eggs like "Cleveland's a Plum" and "Cleveland: Love it or Leave it" and "Cleveland: You gotta be tough." Welcome to the club, fellas.)
But I digress. My point is not to burn the GCP folks, as much fun and as necessary as that might be, but rather is to praise the cultural vitality of the CLE- show. It really is quite wonderful and worthy of serious public praise. (Or will saying so get me a cease-and-desist letter, too?) Moreover, I think it was, despite superficial appearances, an empowering artistic exercise. After all, the folks showing their work here are Cleveland artists, folks that haven't left for greener cultural pastures but rather have been slamming their work out, day after day, dreary ass winter after dreary ass winter, determined to bring their aesthetic message to the orange and brown huddled masses, like it or not.
So, without further ado, please cast your gaze on the photos below. My apologies in advance - to you and the artist - as the photos don't do anything justice. Let me know if you have questions about any of the work - most of the artists there aren't identified. And if you fall in love with anything, let Dana know, as many of the pieces pictured here are likely still available for purchase.
And then he goes and does it again with the CLE- show. I can't remember the exact name of the show, as the postcard is in my car and it is way too fucking cold and crappy rainy to go out and get it now, but we'll just refer to it as the show where a whole host of local art talent each took their shot at visually expressing the blighted suffering it is to be an artist in Clevo.
A number of uptight folks got their panties in a bunch over this show - most notably the douchey lames at the Greater Cleveland Partnership who actually threatened legal action against the gallery. That's right, folks. The development organization in charge of revitalizing the cesspool that is the NEO economy is spending its time hassling artists rather than, you know, helping deal with the problems of our community. If I was a supporter of that group you can better believe I'm rethinking my 2009 commitment. Kinda smacks of RNC donors and how they felt after hearing about Sarah Palin's $150k shopping spree. Then again, though, if you are only now getting irritated with the boneheaded moves of the GCP, you probably haven't been paying attention to the last couple years of disastrous PR activities they've been floating, with the ridiculous Cleveland+ campaign Exhibit #1. (Prediction: If Dana and company bring this show back in a few years, there will be plenty of critical energy spent on roasting that loser of an ad campaign just as there was on duck eggs like "Cleveland's a Plum" and "Cleveland: Love it or Leave it" and "Cleveland: You gotta be tough." Welcome to the club, fellas.)
But I digress. My point is not to burn the GCP folks, as much fun and as necessary as that might be, but rather is to praise the cultural vitality of the CLE- show. It really is quite wonderful and worthy of serious public praise. (Or will saying so get me a cease-and-desist letter, too?) Moreover, I think it was, despite superficial appearances, an empowering artistic exercise. After all, the folks showing their work here are Cleveland artists, folks that haven't left for greener cultural pastures but rather have been slamming their work out, day after day, dreary ass winter after dreary ass winter, determined to bring their aesthetic message to the orange and brown huddled masses, like it or not.
So, without further ado, please cast your gaze on the photos below. My apologies in advance - to you and the artist - as the photos don't do anything justice. Let me know if you have questions about any of the work - most of the artists there aren't identified. And if you fall in love with anything, let Dana know, as many of the pieces pictured here are likely still available for purchase.
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