drawing strangers.

Today, after Andrea and I were kicked out of the subway for attempting to (me) draw people and (her) do spoken word (I think it was actually because we were sitting and had a hat out), I decided to sit in Union Square with a sign that said "Free Portraits, 5 minutes, Donations Accepted" and some sharpies and highlighters. My new job doesnt start until next week and I feel so out of practice when it comes to figure drawing, i figured I would see if I could get some practice in and make a few bucks. I drew about 12 people. They were slow coming at first but by the end i had a huge crowed of teenagers around me, and I would have drawn them all, but by then it was so cold I could hardly move my hands. I felt like I could feel myself slowly getting better as the say went on. My favorite drawing that came out was of this tough-looking deaf guy with a mustache and a NYC beanie and no neck. He read my sign and pointed to himself with his eyebrows up. When he sat down he frowned and kept his chin high. I tried to make him look powerful and put blue highlighter lines coming out from all sides of him and he seemed delighted with it. i got both a thumbs up and a high five. In the end, I made about 5 dollars, and got a free hip hop cd, and a free hair cutting/coloring coupon from some students at the fancy haircutting school, which is nice because i was just thinking that I could use a good haircut.
(these were some of the drawing of andrea (which some bum told me looked exactly like steven tyler), and unsuspecting people sitting on benches i did in the down time early on. by the end of the day, i was banging out psychadelic masterpeices in five minutes flat, honest.)





speaking of drawing, yersderday, i finally went to the Society of Illustrators jazz and figure drawing session I have been bookmarking for months that was in this classy old building on the upper east side with free coffee and a bar and these beautiful burlesque nude models doing 10-20 minute poses for three hours. And because it was through the society of illustrators so most people there were professionals and really really skilled, so it was good to watch them work. oh, did i mention the live blues singer and backing band? incredible.

also, we are trying to learn french. if anyone knows a good way to make that happen faster, let me know!

an elegy for midge.

for all of you that knew and loved the great midge, our little old pug who was blind and deaf (not to mention courageous) and had only one eye, i am very sorry to announce that she passed away today.

I loved Midge because she defied all laws of nature. We think she was born sometime circa 1994, and while her early years remain a mystery, and we have no idea what happened to her right eye, she came into our life via the guy that runs the gun shop/pug rescue center in Livermore in sometime in 2004 and she spent most of her days foraging for food in our living room with her heightened sense of smell (it really was her only sense that functioned) and sitting on the couch making fun pig noises while my mom knit and watched Law and Order. She was loved by all who met her and leaves behind a lifetime of memories that will no sooner fade from our minds then her pee stains from my parents carpet.

Im pretty upset about this, I think we all are. She was a warm and fuzzy little bitch with a heart of gold and was unlike any other dog on earth.

RIP Arrow Midgery Lucky Princess Muldoon c.1994 - 10/18/2007
Lil dog, I dont think we could forgert you if we tried.

Rooftop show, The Opera House, 9/9/07

So this here is a photo journal of the amazing show that happened on my roof on 9/9/07. its also a little bit of me showing off my digs here in brooklyn, The Opera House:
heres my flyer:


this is my living room/kitchen/hallway and Tory of Cartoon Monster.

the show begins on my roof, with The Blanket Truth. check out the skyline, the projects, and old glory in the backround:


this is the Blanket Truth, from Seattle/T.O. with Hoshwa on drums:


Rebecca and Josh as Watercolor Paintings, strait outta Thousand Oaks/Isla Vista, CA:


next was Cartoon Monster of Portland OR, playing behind a barbeque:


This is the Peach Colored Jog Smugglers, from all over CA, specifically "the Chad Shack" note that the boy on the end is not in fact playing air guitar, but rather, the spoons.


more of that fine spoon action:



this is madame flodd: two amazing girls, from Eugene, OR playing klezmer/gypsie music on a fiddle and accordian



they also brought the dance party:


this is Brooklyn's own The Lil Hospital, playing a killer set in my living room. about ten seconds after this picture was taken 'The Man' made us stop the music and break up the party. Boo Man. regaudless they were great.


afterwards everyone hung out in the courtyard of my building and had a fine time:


that night nine extra people slept in my tiny house. my four roomates are pretty amazing to put up with me, at the time of this show id only lived here a month. here we are hanging out with my new york bff, and fifth roommate, vinyl the dog


she got a little vicious... check out those beautiful teeth!


and then in the morning we went to the soul food buffet down the street (its 4.59 a POUND! for good food) and then we took this picture and said goodbye!


and that was it! hooray. it was pretty much the best night ever. hooray music, friends, and brooklyn.

no, please, tell me all about it:

one of the best things about new york (file under: perks of being nocturnal) is the way weirdos sit around and kvetch.

no, really.

as is my nature, i often find myself staying awake all night in a 24 hour cafe in manhattan (my favorite yet is the esperanto), drinking tea, working on projects of some variety and every single time, come four or five in the morning, I wander outside to get a look at the sky turning to blue, and i find the oddest assortment of people, usually all strangers, sitting around, all in a huff about some topic that somebody must have pulled out of a hat.
(says the big bass player in his thickest new york accent) "my mother always said, 'marraige is the biggest admission of a lack of self confidence a person can make'. discuss."

tonight the huff was about: motorcycles (specifically: motorcycle safey education, near death expiriences, the coolest bikes they have seen on craigslist) traps that bosses set to test their employees, marraiges of convenience (all the reasons why its a bad idea), and draft dodging (did you know: "during 'nam you didnt have to go all the way to canada! just go to Minnesota, like in Fargo, and nobody'd bother you there!") with a slight sidetrack somewhere in there about how marraige in general, was for fools.

invariably, if you are awake at this hour, and are spotted outside of a cafe, someone pulls out a chair and says "sit down, honey!!" and then you get sucked in. these people are not crackheads or bums. they are artists and actors and barflys and hotel clerks and forign nationals and the strangest array of people. they talk to you like you are an old friend. while I have also expirienced this odd sort of random stranger kvetch-sesh during the day, I feel like I am in some sort of secret club when it happens at night, for i am quite certain nocturnal new yorkers are by far some of the friendliest and strangest people alive.

goodbye my coney island baby.

Tonight I went to Coney Island (which is less of an island then I had imagined) and met up with old friends (the kind I hadn't seen in years) I rode the Cyclone, which is a rollercoaster that just had it's 80th birthday, and is, apparently, a UN national heritage site. it is as rickety and horrifying as you might imagine, and more so. I walked under carnival lights. I ate fried clams and drank beer and caught up with friends and looked at the Atlantic ocean (realizing this may have been my first time really seeing it from US shores.) It made me think of the last time I stared into the Atlantic, while flying over it more then a year ago now, coming home from Ghana, and all of the things that any ocean, Pacific or Atlantic came to symbolize for me when I was first home. I would stand on the cliffs of Isla Vista and think: Sacrifice, Dependance, Poverty, Labor, Slavery, Danger. Children still in diapers throwing nets out into the ocean for a days eats, or being offered up to the ocean as human sacrifice. I got annoyed when the people around me looked at the same thing and saw nothing but an elegant backround, or a place to play, or something calming and non-specifically poetic. In my first few months back, hearing the waves crash out my window every night would drive me mad. It exahsted me to think that they never ever stopped. It exahsted me to imagine all of the people lacing every shore on every side of the world toiling to dump things into it, or pull things out of it or move across it, and how it all came down to what side of the ocean you came out of the womb on. But as I looked out at the ocean tonight, it wasn't until relating a travel story to this friend whom I hadnt seen since before I left and came back from Ghana that I realized, at some untracable moment somewhere in Isla Vista, I had come look at the ocean and see peace again.
On Coney Island, the ocean was just a pretty black and sparkling backdrop to a fun night on the peir catching up with friends, and a subtle, and wisely ignored urge for some nightswimming. The transition must have been so slow that I hadnt been able to feel it. Its a relief, but not without the wonder if I have been trying to forget something I really ought to remember. I think now, that maybe I can feel both things simultaniously.

It is an odd feeling, to know a group of people in a way that is very attatched to one particular time and place, in this case, Isla Vista, California, circa 2005 and then suddenly several years later, after having only minimal contact, realize you are all in the same place at the same time again, only somehow, this time, it's Coney Island, New York, and then spontaniously reconveine. It's an odd way to measure what's changed and what hasn't changed. It never seems to be the things you think it would have been

A Threat to National Security

Today, as our benevolent Captain David was giving us a rapid passenger seat tour of his native city, our nations capital, we were stopped by Homeland Security boys and issued a warning for taking photographs of the Pentagon from out of the window of his rental car whilst driving down the freeway, and for “that little bit of attitude” David bravely took with the officers about being Glad to Still Have his Freedoms.

In conclusion Washington DC is crowded and ridiculous. We are leaving tomorrow.

Learning what 'Life' is all about... Pheonix - Denver.

Hey everyone,

So I am in Denver, Colorado right now. We got in yesterday evening after a very long, very silly rideshare with a man named Life, a slight misunderstanding about where we were going, and then a nice busride from Colorado Springs. We decided to go to Colorado rather then Texas as planned at the last minute for a multitude of reasons including but not limited to our inability to find a suitable ride east, and the fact that the heat seemed to be making us expand. As in, our calfs and ankles had joined into cankles. Maybe it was just our imagination, but regaurdless, the heat was getting to us.

So we found a ride for three up to Denver with a man who's real name was Bryan, but had somehow been deemed "Life" at Burning Man, and from then on had referred to himself as such. "Hello Life, so nice to meet you." He told us that he would be leaving Tuscon around 8 pm, so we should expect him to pick us up in Pheonix about an hour or two after that, but, he warned, he wasnt the best at estimating these sorts of things. Five and a half hours later, 2 hours after the coffee shop we were waiting at closed, he arrived, wearing a 'Life is Good' t-shirt, rearrainging all his drums in the trunk to make room for our backpacks. He had just gotten his PHD in sociology from ASU, and taught African American studies. He had dreadlocks and a fake sunflower dangling from his rear view mirror. He listened to electro-Hindu chants when he drove and talked about collective consciousness, oneness, energy, and how he was the spiritual avatar of the hindu concept of creation. He would respond to questions by saying "no, thats the CAPITALISTS way of thinking... " but then had us pay for ALL of the gas on the raod. He meditated at gas stations. Like, full on "Saluting the Sun" yoga move meditation. He was going to colorado to meet with his spiritual brother, who was an avatar of the hindu concept of destruction whom he had met at burning man for his 42nd birthday. He was excited about it because "42 is the meaning of life!" Get it? like hitchhikers guide to the galaxy! We talked about religion, science and philosophy. When he talked about Plato and his theory of forms, I imagined 'Life' being Plato's perfect form of the North-American-Eco-Hippy-Stereotypeous who had just decided to decend from heaven to give us a ride to Denver. "Denver? actually my spiritual brother just called and said he was in Colorado springs instead... so I'll get you guys to a bus station or something? Maybe you could get someone you know in Denver to drive down to Colorado Springs instead? Its only like 45 minutes! (AAA guide: Colorado Springs-Denver: 80 Miles, 1.2 hours) It took us about three hours by bus.

In the end, I would say we enjoyed our 15 hours of Life-time. Despite his gross underestimation of how long anything took, his sudden changes of plans, and the whole us paying for all the gas thing. He was smart, fun to talk to and a good enough driver. He danced in the drivers seat and and sang along to the Dave Mathews Band and Spearhead and everything you might expect a guy named Life to dance and sing along to. And despite the fact that we made him buy us the bus tickets to denver since we had just filled up his tank, he gave us all goodbye hugs and good wishes.

When we arrived in Denver we all jumped with delight at how NOT scortching hot the night air was compared to Pheonix, and contimplated putting on sweaters, just for kicks.

Instead, we decided, in celebration of our last few hours together before Leslie left us to see her brother in Central City and then head back west, to get dressed to the nines and have a nice, quiet dinner together. Now, you have to understand that since high school, the three of us have practiced the sacred ritual of getting ready to go out together before any special occasion, which was especially fun in the cramped underground bathrooms of Denver's central bus station. We used the reflective surfaces on the hand-dryers to put on mascarra and eye shadow, and dug our classiest outfits out of our giant backpacks in tiny bathroom stalls. Despite having driven all night and all day, not having slept in the Arizona/New Mexico heat, I dont think a fancier-looking group of people have ever been seen wearing backpacking gear before in history. You should have seen us trying to find a place to stash our massive packs, sleeping bags and all, in the fancy little italian place where we decided to eat.

So we said goodbye to Leslie at the casino-shuttle stop and went off to find my first cousin once removed, who seems a lot more like an unkle, so we've taken to calling him my cunkle. He is everything a cunkle should be: kind, generous, and funny funny funny. we talked for a bit, checked out his amazing new house, and then he showed us to what he called the "freeloaders room" and we were sound asleep about five minutes.

Tomorrow we are off to the Twin Cities, Minneapolis and St. Paul Minnesota. It's a 15 hour drive. Till then!