Don't Move Here

4/29/10

Film: The tangible memory.

I forgot I did most of these things or went to any of these places. Luckily I had some still shots to jog my memory, and these are much better stills than the ones that occur when blacking out.

Along the Charles River. Two people necking.

Nobska Light. Woods Hole, MA.

Bought this "grow a plant" kit for $1.99.

My best friend Tom and I at the Apple Orchard we grew up near. Perfect afternoon.

Tom. He's technologically sophisticated. I think his phone can launch space ships.

These were the only solid ones in the role. Here are the rest

4/16/10

"Excuse me, excuuse me. I'm on the guest list. My son is playing tonight, John, John McCauley." Mrs. McCauley announced that as she walked up the stairs on April 2 at Jerky's in Providence. Doors creaked open at 8:00p.m. Narragansetts were only $2.50, which was a killer score. Unfortunately nothing happened until 10:00p.m. Fortunately for me, I linked up with my buddy Al, of El Scarehouse, and went over to his place just a few blocks away to have a few more Gansetts with some of his good friends.

Jerky's is a bar. Period end of sentence. No, but truly, what that means is shows do not start until after 10:00p.m., and end just before 2:00a.m. Considering Jerky's dive-esque resemblance, the show was a rowdy and the crowd a bunch of stiffs. Just like the obnoxious and fat, 30+ year old, sweaty bald guy at hardcore and Dinosaur Jr. shows. There was the physically different, equally intolerable Rivers Cuomo look alike with long, perfectly manicured long hair and five o'clock shadow, blocking any attempts at successful dancing/dosey doeing.

With the exception of Rivers shutting down the fun factor, Those Darlins opened up the night. Take three parts chick, one part dude on drums, one part hairy pits, add a pinch of Tennessee and it equates to a solid, female fronted rock 'n' roll band. With a side of twang. Just for good measure.

Deer Tick played an incredible set. I tried to capture them on video. My camera is horrible. The audio and video isn't very stimulating, but it gets the point across.

4/1/10

Catching Up: With Zina Renze

There are many shapes and sizes of Spam. My favorite comes in a 12 oz square. It isn't as funny as the kind below.

"You never responded, so you must be queer."

3/30/10

March Radness.

Not really. Although, there have been some great things happening in the month of March. Like when a girl I work with forces out this guttural cough on Monday mornings between 9:15 a.m. and 11:30 a.m.. In all honesty it only occurs between that 2 hour and 15 minute stretch on Mondays. Yuck. Working in an office cracks me up. There are a lot of things funnier than two people that share offices side-by-side and call each other on their lines to chat about the weekend, but that one is pretty damn funny. My favorite office related quote thus far has been, "I think I'm going to stay later this week. I stayed late last week and got, like, SO much work done." Which came immediately after three hours. Yes, three hours, chatting about various weekend goings on. Incredible. Needless to say, and rather obvious, office work, is not like The Office, what-so-ever. Yet, I do enjoy each aspect of office life. Especially wearing them fancy clothes.

Back, oh I don't know, three weeks ago now? Yeah, that sounds about right. I mailed in my Peace Corps Medical Package. That was a weight carried away. Like Xzibit carries the weight, hard.

Ready Freddy.

Mailing this out, rocked.

Boston continues to occupy the better half of my weeks. In all sense of the term. Friday, March 19th was a killer night in particular. We biked across town towards South Station to hit up a gallery opening for my buddy Sherman. Wedged between a serious dive bar and across the street its polar opposite, the Lot F Gallery on 145 Pearl St. Apt 4 winds itself up a wide, yet narrow and steep staircase to an apartment gallery. Run by Felipe Ortiz? I think. Maybe. Or not, a dude that lives there. There might be a bedroom there somewhere. Either way. Showing from 7:00p.m. to 11:00p.m. the 4D show featured Glass pieces, paintings, robotic action figures, and poorly painted skateboards. Free beer was provided for anyone with I.D., which was killer, and an ill turn out. Anyway. Here are the pictures of Sherman's work I snipped from my buddy Austin M. Steele's spacebook.

Cast Train, Graffitti.

SOLD. Booyaa.

Sherm. Yo.

Reefer.

A guy lives here. Confirmed.

His name is Daniel Sherman. A nice dude. Even if he rides an Alumninum Garneau.

3/13/10

The Institute of Life: Friday Night in Picture/Essay Form

Sleep comes at the strangest times of day. At twenty-three it should come late at night or in the middle of the day, somewhere between 2:00p.m. and 4:00 p.m., certainly not 6:00p.m. The sun had not even set for the day and I was coereced to a nap from heavy eyelids. Rain had washed out the latter half of the afternoon, but that could not be a jusitifable excuse. An early dinner consisted of a sausage, peppers, and meat sauce soup concoction with an MM Brownie for dessert. Neither of which would cause a food induced coma. At loss for what brought my head to the pillow so early. I resigned to its soft comfort with ease and music. One half hour appeared to be all I needed in my mind. My body, on the other pillow, determined an hour and seventeen minutes would be an adequate amount of rest. "Shit," I shouted. "Not going to make that film now." I sat down to call my brother back after I missed a call and had a moment of brilliance. I grabbed the newspaper, checked the movie listings for the Nickelodean Theatre down the road and readjusted my plans. An Education was playing at 9:15p.m. It was now 8:45p.m. I had a half hour to get a beer, devise a plan to sneak it in and enjoy the film. Success. Here is the rest in picture/photo.

Scored this in XXL or 24 Oh Zs. $2.25.

Watched this, An Education. For $9.00.

A review will follow suit later this evening.

3/11/10

"That girl we just passed by, yeah, I saw her add on Craigslist once"

As far as I'm concerned Craigslist.com is to be considered a media and/or entertainment outlet. Admittedly, I once, or several times, attempted the use of Craigslist.com for finding romance backslash friendship. Both of which situations I can easily rationalize as to not sound like a complete zero.

My first Craigslist.com experience began when I was moving to San Clemente, CA for the summer for an internship. My friends that I would be living with were 24 or older. I was 21 and continued - continue - to look like I'm going into my senior year of high school. The easiest solution to hanging with some people my age was to use my Craig's List, I figured he had all the match.com stuff dialed without the technical details and red tape. Boy was I wrong. A simple "ad" explained what I was doing there and that I wanted to hang out with some people that skated and maybe even a girl. Not too much to ask for. I first received a response asking me to masturbate in front of a camera at random, probably death trap, studio somewhere on the Pacific Coast. Or even worse, along the Inland Empire, no one would ever find me in that desert of Hellish Earth. Here I encountered my first road block to friendship known as Spam. I wished it was that kind. Several Spam attacks later, I had an e-mail from a man offering to perform falacio on me. Non-reciprocal falacio, disgusting any way you spin in it. If only I was this naive. Well, I called it quits upon that request and gave up hope.

Boston, MA 2009. Friends are great company, but not cuddlers. Instead, I strived for success on the net. Fail. I conversed with two women via e-mail that both appeared normal. One had an excellent palate for music with ample book interests as well. She was kind, but forceful. Wanted to meet immediately and also get tickets to a Regina Spektor show that was not for another three months, and was quite larger than me in size. Delete! Victim two, she was the opposite in visuals and in musical comprehension. Tool, Shovelhead, Soggy Slipper, or whatever those wretched bands are were her "Favs." American Eagle also employed her. Denied! I gave up, whole-heartedly.

Instead I began resorting to Craigslist.com as an avenue of atrocities. Some hilarious, other quite depressing. Refining my comic criteria to; age 18-25, 30+ if need be, and pic for sure. These became tools for success. Each week for an entire month I found a girl that was the hostess where I worked there with a post. It made me feel bad, not for her, but for the fact that I knew what she wanted and saw her confession for love. Maybe I felt guilty. I'm not sure, but I knew it was strange. I also found a young man I went to high school with, because as is to be seen in the pictures below, I outsourced from Boston to the United States of America. It had been quite rainy for the majority of the summer, which made me dormant during the evenings. In turn, a great time for mindless self indulgence. Tracking down Spam across state lines became habitual. The same girl showed up in NYC, DC, and San Diego all within a few days of each posting. She was not the only one. While the obsession of entertainment has come to a slow, it's not stagnant. Here are a few good ones I found between yesterday and today. Enjoy

Likes: The sound of babies crying, bad boys, and eating cat food.

Dislikes: Daylight, wimps, and LOWERCASE LETTERS.

Likes: Her self, "integrity, honest, and loyalty above all else," and being somewhat intellectual.

Dislikes: Multiple baby mamma drama, single baby mamma drama is cool though, correct grammar, and Warlocks.

Likes: Unintentional irony, lying, and bead-board paneling.

Dislikes: Games, cognitive husbands, and good posture.

3/9/10

The Reverse-Glacial-Pace of Staying Busy

If a Glacial Pace is measured by the rise of sea level (SLR) with the consequence of glaciers melting, then measuring time in the form of SLR increments would feel as though one hundred years passed since an event had taken place. That is, of course, if a person was using the glaciers of Greenland as their Atomic Clock for the countdown to boredom induced insanity, then yes, some days and weeks would feel much longer than others. However, there is a reverse button on the sedateometer. It isn't quite tangible, though it can be and will be discussed later, rather the swiftometer comes in the form of occupying time with work and wonder.

November through January were enjoyable. There is no doubt about that. Only they were slower months, days, that consisted of work, cold weather, and not having a firm direction. With a long and pleasant interview on January 13th, I received a nod and wink as a Peace Corps Nominee for a potential departure of June 2010 to Sub-Saharan Africa. Subsequent to this exciting opportunity, I was to complete an extensive Medical and Dental Review along with gaining more volunteer experience. Eager to gain a step ahead in the list of candidates, I contacted Big Brothers Big Sisters of Massachusetts Bay and set a schedule to help work within the offices. Working in their office would be a great way to understand how an organization of this caliber works, but I knew it would not be sufficient. Through some research and recommendations, I discovered the Volunteers In Public Schools program in Falmouth. Several background checks later and I have been working at both organizations. The VIPS program has been killer. I work in several classrooms helping 4th - 7th graders with their English skills to gain a step ahead and an appreciation for our language. Aside from both of these I've been working as tutor for English as a Second Language with a young Jamaican man, roughly 19 years old. He has not received a firm grasp on English. We have been working with the ABCs and trying to do phonics styled exercises. A Barnum and Bailey's Tiger Trainer would have a better chance at teaching him than I would, considering my lack of teaching experience, but we are gaining some speed. It is glacial one could say, although the equation of each of these experiences makes for life to be rather expedited.

While these "professional" tasks have occupied the majority of my time, the weekends are savored at a pace the proverbial tortoise would ridicule. When Loverboy sang, Everybody's Working for the Weekend, I'm confident that his lyrics were, and still remain, true that everybody is, in fact, working strictly for the those two measly days off. Quick as they may come, each hour should be the best hour of the day. Three weekends are now locked into my history and with them I stole the chance, this is where the tangible aspect is delivered, to savor the suns balmy winter gaze, dodge potholes across Boston, wake up a little earlier, breath easier, and laugh with the company of my friends. The following role of film captures each of these weeks that went by too quick, when all I wanted was to add a just a fraction of a second to each of these moments and enjoy them for a several more fleeting minutes.