All my tubes and wires... and careful notes--!

Military Tragedy

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 14:21:13 GMT

The shooting at Fort Hood is really fucked up and tragic.

And I'm bracing for how the event is going to be twisted and politicized by members at both ends of the spectrum.

Soapboxin'

Mon, 02 Nov 2009 19:23:31 GMT

...I dunno why this is such a pet cause of mine, perhaps because it seems to embrace the laws of New Darwinism so thoroughly.

Brits crack down on people who kill while drivin' and textin'. Rightly so!

Don't fuck around with your phones when you're driving, people! Or be a drunk, for that matter. (while driving OR texting, kthx.)

Srsly. Christ.

More better fun Halloween redux to come... !

Thu, 29 Oct 2009 01:01:15 GMT

Big birthday love goin' out to my lady down south, miss satinwhispers.

May all of your wishes come true!!

<3

pie in the sky

Tue, 27 Oct 2009 15:42:41 GMT

R.I.P., Soupy Sales.

...I can only assume that St. Peter is wiping pie off his face right now.

dammit!

Fri, 23 Oct 2009 20:09:21 GMT

Was hoping to go to see the roller derby double-header this Saturday, and DUH--of COURSE it was going to sell out, and I didn't get tix quick enough.

Apparently it's going to be webcasted, but it's not the same as bein' there.

ANYway, anyone have/hear of any extra vacant tickets floating around, do let me know... thx!

watch your drinks

Mon, 19 Oct 2009 13:12:56 GMT

Was out at a club with a friend, and her drink got drugged. Why, I have no idea--who drugs random drinks?--but this had happened to an old roommate of mine too, and I should have recognized the symptoms. (My friend does not get fall-down drunk after two jack and cokes, in fact she can drink me under the table.) Liquor should not induce sudden and complete loss of motor contol. Hadn't left her drink unattended for very long, either.

ANYway, I got her home and up into her apartment--she could barely walk--and at the time we both thought, for some reason, it was some sudden onset of drunkenness, but had I realized it I wouldn't have left her alone. She kept waking up in random parts of the apartment with no memory of getting there. And had no memory whatsoever of the night, but was fucked up residually all day.

So BE CAREFUL, kids! People do fucked-up stuff. Keep your drinks close, and if a stranger buys you one, get it straight from the bartender.

I swear. People fuckin' suck. ...keep an eye out for razors in your candy corn.

lunchtime braindump, sans edit.

Tue, 29 Sep 2009 02:11:20 GMT

Odd habits.

I've always been a daydreamer. Sort of. My mind is always moving, going, searching, building. Not often focused on what's at hand. This sort of began manifesting itself right around senior year of high school; I think I just thought I'd had a case of senioritis. But it turns out that it was a more permanent condition. I made a sign for myself that looked a little like a movie frame from the 50's that said "focus".

So I've got a little bit of a problem with attention span. If only I could keep my mind from *moving* all of the time, I could accomplish more. I've learned a trick. Meditation. Stopping the flow of thought; or, maybe more accurately, letting go of it. Letting thoughts slip by and past without notice. Not grabbing, wresting control. Listen to the breath. This inhalation. This exhalation. Let the body and mind work together without direction.

The weird thing is when I do this, it pulls all of that nervous energy out of my core and dumps it into the task at hand. Once I get into the zone like that... it's almost manic. I fly. It's not easy to maintain--my brain likes to collect and create and spawn and vibrate. If I can dampen it long enough though, my gearshift shifts and snaps in. And I'm off. I need to remember this.

I have troubles with follow through on creative projects. Always have. I am riddled with self-doubt, along with a weird flavor of Catholic guilt that's strongly tinged with a middle-class modesty that spells out under the skin, "keep to yourself. Don't make waves. Don't be a spectacle. Who do you think you are?"

So I've railed against this over and over again in my life, but it's hard since I'm the one holding the leash.

It usually manifests itelf as a sudden and sharp drop in interest on my part in a project that just up until that second, I was fervently and passionately applying myself to. It's odd. It can best be described as a sudden mood swing. Tinged with that odd self-conscious self-censoring shame, and then all of the sudden I just don't want to do it anymore. Like the six year old kid who dances around and sings in his room but shies away in shock when his mother asks him to perform for the neighbors who've popped over for coffee. I nose down and slink away from myself.

It's partly why I've self-rebelled for years, dressing myself in ridiculous clubkid getups and glitter makeup. ...and then feel ridiculous about it the next day. But that's an entirely different set of stories for another time.

I'm often saddled with the thought--in any creative endeavor--that there's a Right Way to go about doing something, and that I'm probably not really quite doing it that way. Now, that hadn't really held me up in a lot of my creative costuming work (though my inherent perfectionism did, again another issue entirely--sort of) since I was using materials that weren't traditional costuming materials and I was putting them together in ways that they weren't designed to go. So I had to forge my own paradigms. All good. HowEVer, when it comes to more traditional or time-tested creative endeavors--music, illustrating, "art", what have you--I always get hung up on 'proper' technique. And my lack thereof.

Until I saw a movie. Called "It Might Get Loud". ...which is basically U2's The Edge, Zep's Jimi Page and Jack White of the White Stripes (etc.) getting together in a room to talk about playin' the geetar. It's an inspiring sort of film that focuses on the music and the histories of the creative drive behind each of these generational guitar icons.

And it drove me INSANE. Like, out of my mind uncomfortable. Becuase here these three were, weilding with great force this creative passion that I know I have--have always known, have always had--but that I can seldom if ever access in a way that matches up with potential. Due to my own bad habits, presumably. It's the itch that I can't seem to scratch. And those three little fuckers just stoked it.

So I bolted from the theater to cool the boil with whiskey shots while I verbally excoriated the gal who recommended the film to me.

And then after some time, the fever broke.

I'd bought a guitar earlier in the year. I play guitar sometimes. I'd had a nylon string for years that I'd recently lent to a friend, who may have sold it for heroin for all I know. (Likely not. Suffice to say I don't know its current status.) I just wanted to have an instrument around, just to pick up every so often. I found one at Ludlow Guitars, calling out not-so-softly to me from the rack on the wall--alive in it's blue-glitter, half-hollow shell, burgundy neck and silver scrolls. A Hagstrom, with Hogwarts-esque crest on the chrome anchorage for the strings. (I am not a Harry Potter fan. But the crest gives the thing an air of royalty.) Cheaper than they used to be, told me my surfer-rock salesman, since they're made in China. But it's a "really good guitar, man". I picked the leopard print strap off the ten dollar rack. "Dude, I'm likin' your style...".

Picked up a sweet, tiny amp that mimics all the best distortion tones from various ages, with some nice reverb effects to boot.

I've never had an electric guitar. Now I do.

ANYway.

I could barely look at it after I saw that film. Wanted to splinter it. Then, suddenly, I couldn't put it down. Jack White showed me the way. ...I'd never really appreciated the White Stripes before, never really realized how DIY they were. That you could wrangle the blues from a guitar that refuses to stay in tune. That technique was a far second to expression, and that really, frankly, if you got the job done, how you got from point A to point X really doesn't mean fuck.

So now I play blues guitar.

Among other things.

The ancient cathedral builders used to put deliberate (non-life-threatening) defects into their designs, because they believed perfection belonged to God alone. I like that thought. It's a good one to remember. ...especially the times when it's not so hard to give God his just desserts.

Fri, 11 Sep 2009 17:25:32 GMT

--hm? Oh, hello again, September 11th. Right on time.

Hey, terrorists. WE'RE STILL HERE. Fuck you.

Love, New York.

Respect to those who suffered losses on that day.

really?

Wed, 09 Sep 2009 10:29:06 GMT

...texting while driving? Do people really DO that?

It keeps coming up in the Times as a topic. I assume it must be a reasonably large facet of reality for that to happen. Sounds bizarrely asinine to me, though. Like, a good idea in the way that playing Tetris while driving is a good idea. (Granted, I haven't driven in a long time, nor played Tetris in a LONGer time, so what the hell do *I* know, but still.)

Just 'cos of that whole, I dunno, car being a fast-moving large chunk of steel thing. And also that there are asshole urban pedestrians like myself in the world.

Thoughts?

It's getting light out. I need some fucking sleep.

PSA

Fri, 04 Sep 2009 21:30:01 GMT

Some ask me, they say, "Russ--where do you get your AWESOME fly dance moves?"

Well, the answer is: here.

(Yeah I know half of you prolly already seen this. Just sayin'. The secret is out.)

And then to bolster my mad skillz, I review this.

And that pretty much sums it up.

damn straight, Brooklyn-style

Mon, 31 Aug 2009 17:40:06 GMT

This guy is my new hero:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/31/nyregion/31judge.html

“If you are going to take away someone’s house, everything should be legal and correct,” he said. “I’m a strange guy — I don’t want to put a family on the street unless it’s legitimate.”

also,

“To the extent that judges examine these papers, they find exactly the same errors that Judge Schack does,” said Katherine M. Porter, a visiting professor at the School of Law at the University of California, Berkeley, and a national expert in consumer credit law. “His rulings are hardly revolutionary; it’s unusual only because we so rarely hold large corporations to the rules.”

Yep. Fuck 'em.

Counterpoint:

Mon, 17 Aug 2009 03:50:45 GMT

random poetry from the back of a coaster at Lucky13 Saloon, Saturday night
(author unknown)

You Are
The only Resident
Of the Township of
Supersuckassville

Pop. 1 --> You

Sanskrit song, from a yellowed page out of the college journals:

Mon, 17 Aug 2009 03:28:10 GMT

'Ordi Ordi'
Words by Siva Vakkiyar
(E.E. White, translation)

Untold millions of people
Run and run,
Constantly seeking,
Grow desperate and die,
Looking for the light
That is within them.

Mon, 10 Aug 2009 13:24:35 GMT

Happy Birfday IZZY!!!!

...you so old. ;)

<3 !

freezer fail

Tue, 04 Aug 2009 14:14:15 GMT

Our fridge is dying. Sadly, the poor bastard can't even make ice anymore. The temperature in the freezer isn't reaching below 40 degrees, and I've had to toss a mess of stuff that wasn't frozen anymore. (Much of which needed to be tossed anyway. Like the veggie dumplings of '04. Et cetera.)

So's I was reading online about refrigerators, in case there was anything that could be done before calling the landlords. I thought maybe I'd suffocated the condenser coils, but there aren't any on the back of my fridge--it's just a piece of cardboard back there. Then I read online that on fridges like mine the coils are on the bottom of the fridge. Under the fridge. In that 'under the fridge' realm that has not been cleaned out since, I dunno... '97? It's an easy spot to neglect.

So I gave it a look this morning.

Holy shit. There's like, fur and dust under there to make twelve revolting cats. No wonder shit's not be workin'; the condenser coils are for all intents and purposes completely insulated from the outside world. Hopefully the mechanism hasn't burned itself out trying to overwork itself. I cleared as much out as I could, but I think I need to get a little more ingenious to get up on top of the coils with something. I think they make a special brush for this sort of thing.

This is my fascinating life. Kids, clean out under your refrigerators. This has been a public service announcement. Don't do drugs, either. ...much.

Mon, 03 Aug 2009 14:19:50 GMT

This rings more true than anything I've read in a long time.

http://happydays.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/08/02/averted-vision/

...that feeling of 'absorption' seems to be the most elusive feeling, lately. Or perhaps consistently. Not sure what to take from that, though. Hm.

the lingering aroma of romance.

Mon, 27 Jul 2009 04:23:04 GMT

...you know the honeymoon's REALLY over when your ex-girlfriend comes over for a visit and the very FIRST thing she does after walking in your door is POOP IN YOUR BATHROOM.

I am not necessarily saying that this actually happened or not. I am just SAYing.

kickass MAKEUP ARTIST, fo' hire. fo' rillz.

Thu, 23 Jul 2009 18:47:12 GMT

I'm pimpin' out a new friend-slash-contact of mine, 'cos um a mutha-fuckin' pee eye em pee.

Also because she's mad talented.

ALSO, 'cos I know lots of talented performer and producer types on this site, and figured I'd spread the word about a new resource. I haven't been in the showbiz for some time, so I figure I may as well pass the talent on to y'all who are. (I also know that a number of YOU are talented with the makeup; maybe there's a way you band together or spread the word about work or whatever, but hell if I know.)

Her name is Sarah Graalman, and she gotz skills. Background includes work for theater, film, dance, bands, photoshoots, weddings and special events... prolly do your nephew's bar mitzvah if you ask nice. Face, full-body, special effects, and I think she does hairstyling too.

Check da shit out:

www.sarahgraalman.com

And she's delightful to work with.

Okay, that's all I got. (I'll probably annoyingly re-post this over the weekend sometime in case some o' y'all missed it.)

Hit her up if you want, don't if you don't, ain't no skin offa MY butt. But she's got a killer resume and reasonable rates. Just sayin'. Now back to work with you scabs.

Fanboy

Thu, 23 Jul 2009 05:49:02 GMT

Went to Reverend Jen's Anti-Slam tonight (also Rev Jen's bday), for the first time in, oh, I dunno... a decade? I forgot how much I enjoy it. I swear to god, it was the same band of freaks onstage as it was ten years ago.

I heart the Rev Jen... she's one of my personal downtown-freak heros, someone I could have gotten to know in various circles, but I somewhat consciously didn't so that I could maintain her LES-celebrity status in my head from the wayback when, my earliest days in NYC. I'm sure she's perfectly normal, if a little weird. But in my brainstem, she's magical. ...she ranks up there with the likes of Quentin Crisp and Jonathan Ames.

Whom, incidentally, I ran into in the bathroom tonight. (Ames. Quentin is dead.) And resisted the urge to tell him, drunken in the dirty loo of the Bowery Poetry Club, that he was one of my literary and moral heroes.

...another time, perhaps.

Shit, I have to work tomorrow...

GLORIOUS RAIN

Tue, 30 Jun 2009 22:07:41 GMT

...sigh, thank god. I'm still spoiled to this summer's rainy/gloomy/cloudy/cool weather. Yesterday's (and this morning's) hot-and-sunny bullshit was starting to depress me.

I should have been born in London.

Almost, but not quite (or, a pointless rant about hair.)

Tue, 30 Jun 2009 04:08:08 GMT

Got very nearly a great haircut at Freemans Sporting Club, the place on the LES (and also in the Village, I hear) that's known for ridiculously overpriced flannel clothes (?) and relatively inexpensive, good, old-worlde barbershop haircuts. 42 bux for a guy's cut, walk-ins only. Can't complain.

Except I can and I shall. Good job overall, and the guy I had (John?) wasn't super-chatty, which I kinda like. (I kind of hate making barber conversation, sometimes.) Though looking back he really didn't even make an effort. Which was the problem, really--he was sloppy kind of rushed (the place was virtually empty), and kinda phoned in the haircut, which is something I would not have thought possible. I liked it until I got home, realized that he never did that hold-up-the-mirror-hey-how-do-you-like-the-back? trick that EVERY BARBER ALWAYS DOES, duh. Back's too long, motherfucker. I'mma get my annoying ducktail flip in two days, moron. You gotta FADE that shit up. Plus he fucked up a sideburn (MAJOR foul) and burned the hell out of the back of my neck with the straightrazor.

Whatever, I'm easygoing and whatnot... except last time I went I got SUPER spoiled by this Russian guy called Rubin, who was over-the-top fantastic, congenial, funny, super-precise and a total pro. Never had sideburns looking so good. Didn't realize it was possible. (Rubin seems to be the guy who gets all the good reviews in the place, so I wouldn't be the slightest surprised if he got snagged by one of them 400-a-pop hairdresser joints.)

So hey, live and learn. Go to Rubin, if possible. Don't go to John. Ask to see the back of your fuckin' head. (...dumbass.)

I can fix the back, I've been cutting my own hair for the last fifteen years with a buzzer--this is really only the second grownup haircut I've had in a decade. Looks pretty good overall, honestly. I'm just annoyed cuz if I'm gonna pay for a service, it better kick fucking ass. Just sayin'. (I am Manhattanite; cater to my goddamned needs.)

I'd still recommend the joint. Just don't get the slacker John dude.

Whine whine rant. No mood a little death metal won't fix. Frankly, other stuff kinda sucks too, but I don't feel the need to expound here. (That and I think I'm getting my period. Whatevvuz.)

At least my hair looks good. Mostly.

Fri, 26 Jun 2009 18:52:24 GMT

All Hail...

Fri, 26 Jun 2009 14:44:28 GMT

...the King is dead.

Rent: measure your life in... dollars.

Wed, 17 Jun 2009 02:22:25 GMT

So's my apartment was made rent-stabilized as part of what's called a "J-51" thingamajig, which involves something called Article XVIII in the NY finance code or somesuchshit. (I knew all this in greater detail 15 minutes ago and copied it all down. Bear with me.) Which basically means that when a landlord gut-renovates a building he/she gets a fat tax abatement for 15 years if he makes the units rent-stabilized. Once the period is up, the spaces are no longer subject to rent stabilization.

EXCEPT, that it only applies to new tenants--existing tenants keep their stabilized status. UNLESS each lease (including the original) says on a rider, in 12 point type, that the apartment is a J-51 thingamajig and tells you that it will eventually go non-stabilized and says exactly when the expiration date is. As in, if you go into it knowingly, when the time's up, your rent goes from the cozy DHCR guideline controls right on up to market value. If they never told you, you keep on keepin' on, same as it ever was.

So basically, to recap--from what I'm reading, if they didn't tell you on the original lease that the apartment rent stabilization was gonna end, then it doesn't. My landlord did not. What he has been doing is attaching big fat riders (starting last year or the year before, I believe) with a spot for him to sign and a spot for me to sign, that's basically a simple notice--not an agreement, per se--saying that rent stabilization is going to end and that in 2011 the apartment will go to market rates. And references the appropriate clauses and laws and whatnot. Except I looked up all of these clauses and laws, and learned that it doesn't technically count unless ALL the leases from the beginning had that rider.

...I did sign and return this notice on the last lease or two, but I don't think it would be binding as it was worded as exactly that--a notice, of information that was technically, legally incorrect. (Dumbass me didn't really investigate the nitty-gritties of this until, well, tonight.)

Not that I'm really sweating over this much--my landlord already is offering to lower our rent by a few hundred bucks 'cos they don't want to lose more tenants in this market, and I'm ALL for that. Plus I checked and our tinytinytiny two-bedroom is still (with the new rent) about $400 cheaper than identical units being freshly rented in our building currently. PLUS, my landlords are pretty awesome, the opposite of slumlords by nearly all measures, and we like each other. So there's no reason to rock the boat yet. AND, seriously--do I want to have lived in the SAME damn apartment for fifteen years? ...well, maybe, if there's no reason to move. Particularly if I could get indefinite rent stabilization. But I'd love to actually own a place someday, I think, so I may not want to stay holed up here forever. Though I've never really wanted to buy one alone, frankly. But that's a different issue entirely. And I have a groovy roommate (*waves*) so it's not like I'm making all these decisions solo. Just tryin' to feel out the future.

Though interestingly, the landlord also included a 'confidentiality clause' rider for reasons unclear, and there is no way in hell I'm going to sign that. As if. Never sign anything you don't have to, say I.

I dunno. I s'pose I'll pull that clause and this latest 'notice' off this lease and sign and return the rest of it. By law they have to renew my lease at equal or better terms than the original, so I don't need to pay me no nevermind 'bout ignoring their extraneous riders. I figure if it becomes relevant, I can always pay briefly for the advice of a real estate lawyer and see if challenging the end of my stabilization is a realistic position to take given the circumstances. Though honestly I'm not in any hurry. Things ain't so bad, really, and I'm not complaining.

...this is the most boring post I have ever written.

Anyone know any nice friendly tenant lawyers?

wisdom in a pink scarf

Tue, 16 Jun 2009 18:17:05 GMT

"Never try to keep up with the Joneses. DRAG THEM DOWN to your level. ...it's cheaper!"

--Quentin Crisp

Mr. Crisp is my new hero. If you've never heard anything from An Evening With Quentin Crisp , perhaps you should. Especially if you feel or have ever felt like a misfit. He was arguably the original modern misfit, and speaks witful wisdoms with the crystalline hardness and clarity of someone who's lived a mainstream life as the consummate outsider. I wish I'd seen him perform when I was younger and had the chance.