Right then. So I don't use Vox an enormous amount, and I probably should. I don't talk a lot about what's going on in my personal life on my main blog and this would be a decent place to do it without worrying about bloody Valleywag or whatever. But that's not the point. I thought I'd give people a quick update, just in case they were interested.
new post: the nicest thing
So you know you want to listen a poor quality mp3 of a Jeff Mills set from the mid 80s. Don't even try to deny it.
"Now there's a thing called a drum machine
you don't need good rhythm to sound real mean"
Of course if you don't have patience for the poor quality, you can just listen to this mp3 to the left instead. It's not Jeff Mills circa 1986. It's some British dude who looks like a Hasidic Jew (from
what I can tell with my total lack of cultural context, but it could
just be the latest trend in beardcore) and says entertaining somewhat overly British stuff.
Um. I've been busy. I think most people do get busy. I think that's why
books, songs and letters don't get written. But now I need a break from
all the work so I will recount the events of the past two and a half
months.
The best thing, of course, is that I spent the holidays in Shanghai. Here are some photos from that trip. I broke my digicam or else it crapped out on me so these are all film and uh, one roll was sorely underexposed. I must've been drunk or something, so bear with them.
The last one is my friend Brad whom I was visiting. He is not vomiting. In fact that is amazing watermelon sculpture that appeared on his fruit plate (which was really more of a platter and for something like $2, quite the bargain!).
Shanghai is great. It's as tall as NYC, cheaper than Mexico (well, sometimes) and dirtier than, well, that place is DIRTY. I can see why folks take their shoes off when they go inside. People spit everywhere. Actually, peeps spit INSIDE the shopping malls with frequency and vigor. Wacky Chinese.
I shopped, ate dumplings, took cabs everywhere because they cost about a dollar and drank. I also got sick for a couple of days and watched the entire Little Britain series which I no longer remember anything about. But it was an awesome vacation and I can't think of another (possible) way I would've wanted to spend my holiday.
After I got back home, I went to Texas for a weekend to visit family. My brother and sister-in-law had a new child about a year and a half ago and he is adorable. The other younglings are doing well too. Tiny little blond kids that yell and scream but also crawl on my lap and on my back and laugh at the tiniest things. I always whine about flying but it's nice to see the fam.
Work is crazy busy. My friend Brad is actually in town this week visiting. I rearranged the furniture in my apartment and, uh, things are awright. I was going to post another picture of something but now I can't remember what it was. Things are awright.
Winter in San Francisco is very unwinter-y. It gets colder, it rains more and my cat starts sleeping with a blanket but there is no snow, no ice and parkas are not necessary. What reminds me of winter in SF more than anything else is fog, music and being alone. So here we have Playing in Fog's Holiday Show poster.
I like it. I like it like it like it! That's unusual for me as I typically despise everything I do about 15 minutes after completing it. So, y'know, yay.
Last week I went down to Carmel (near Monterey) to spend Thanksgiving with my friend and his family. There were several highlights to this trip including getting drunk with someone else's grandmother, riding on the dirtbike, the view from the mountain and a damned good tofurkey (I'm so not kidding). It reminded me an awful lot of large holiday gatherings I used to attend when my own family wasn't so spread out. And because I am also from bumpkin stock I felt completely comfortable hanging out with Mountain Men and getting dirty with the dogs.
Coming back sucked though. Nothing is physically wrong with me, but I feel terrible. I've lost my appetite. My head is wrapped in muslin. My chest is crushed inside a corset belonging to some Victorian bitch with a 16-in waist and my hands can't reach her skinny little neck because some matronly fuck is behind me, foot on my ass, pulling the strings tighter. (That's not the exact feeling. I could've stopped with the corset, but I'm enjoying the imagery).
Also, I cried whilst watching XMen 3. XMEN 3! This is both hilarious and horrifying requiring bold AND italics. I should be locked up until Spring.
I've inherited some land. A whopping acre of dust in West Texas has my name on it in Hollywood-style letters. Well, not really, but I do own the land. The rest of the plot is owned by my brothers and some upteenmillion distant cousins. I would offer all my friends a place to hide from the law except they've started drilling for oil. Wtf? They don't need to be drilling for freaking oil on my land, YARR. There's no oil there. They must be getting desparate. I have been daydreaming (for the last 5 minutes) of quitting my job and moving to my plot of land. I could pan for gold, sleep under the stars and wrestle live rattlesnakes! Mostly, though, I just want the outfit for Halloween next year.
In other news, my cat smelled odd. I think maybe he just smelled TOO STRONGLY of cat. I'd been putting off taking him to the groomers until someone suggested I bathe him myself. So I did. I picked him up and put him in the tub and that was okay. When I started getting him wet and putting cat soap on his fur, however, the howl he issued made my windows shake. It sounded like I was beating him or pulling his claws out one by one. Howl after howl after ear-piercing howl. Damn if I thought 8 pds of creature could be so freaking loud. I would not have been surprised if someone called animal control. Luckily it was over within a few minutes. He wasn't even pissed at me afterwards, just cold and funny looking.
Aside: Battle of the Fucked Up Hotel Rooms:
Copenhagen vs. Berlin
If you ask me, although nobody did, I'd rather stay at the Berlin hotel. If you take away the colors and prints of the rooms in the Copenhagen (VW-sponsored) hotel they're all nearly the same–Ikea looking bed with flat walls. Whereas the Berlin hotel has shit attached the ceiling, sloping floors, beds that are cages, bathrooms hidden inside wardrobes, and other fucked up shit. Of course the Copenhagen hotel has some cool stuff in it, like one of the bedspreads is printed to look like a black ink stain is on it that flows to a matching stain on the floor. That's pretty cool. Either way, these rooms are much nicer than my apartment. Go Euro!
Last week I went to see Miranda July at this place in the Mission. She performed, I guess, a preview of her next movie. It involved pulling people from the audience to play parts, some limited stomping and lighters. Basically, I love, love, LOVE her and would like to shrink her down and carry her around in my pocket. Just like Japanese shrinking woman porn! Except her clothes can shrink with her, she need not be naked. Here are someone's pics from the show.
I also went to the de Young, which felt like an airport, but I enjoyed some of the exhibits.
I finally got DSL after years of holding out (not because I'm a luddite but because I spent a great portion of my early 20s on the internet and when I finally got my shit together, I wanted to avoid being an interwad zombie). I've been downloading movies and music like mad. I am developing this rather horrifying media theory.
ANYWAY! I usually travel quite a bit during the year, but I decided to (more or less) take this year off and not go anywhere. As a result, I have around 5 weeks of vacation time that I haven't used. So. I am taking a bunch of long weekends, a week for thanksgiving and 3 weeks for the winter holidays. Today is my Friday.
Some things I plan on doing with all this free time include:
- working on a new project
- getting rid of half the crap in my apartment
- going to see more movies
- going to garage sales
- fixing up old clothes I don't wear anymore
- teaching my cat not to bite (this is actually working pretty well)
- printing some holiday cards
- making more mix cds for Jay
And that's about it. The Mortified people asked me to read again this month, but I decided not to. On to new things.
