Backstage: Chicago

...you heard

Employment from Zea on Vimeo.

My Own Personal Economic Crisis

I would love to share my many artsy-fartsy skills with you in exchange for some green.

Fine Art for the Walls

Illustration for your company, book, publication, website, record album, holiday cards

Animation for your music video, promo video, public service announcement

Direction for your awesome internet video for your band or whathaveyou


Check out the patchwork quilt of work below and my portfolio and try me.




Thanxoxo

News

Barack Obama has a flickr account

and so do I

because f*ck planes

<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3

Hello Chicago

fig. 1............................................................fig. 2


fig. 3..............................................................fig. 4


fig. 1 - a little halloween zealotry spotted while pounding pavement, looking for digs.

fig. 2 - hot dogs and hamburgers

fig. 3 - local freezy treat man. seen in the background is the organic bakery I go to EVERYDAY.

fig. 4 - sugar skulls. numnum.


Already bored with apartment hunting. Realtor here I come.

yes

...or no...

Tour: Canada

I am seeing great swaths of canada.
...from the inside of locker rooms and tour bus bunks.

There is much rock, much liner-ing of eyes and flatiron-ing of hair. I sew little squares of mirror back on to a pair of chaps the get rocked off each night. I eat catering with a variety of quality levels. I have seen many zambonis (zambonii?)

This too shall pass.

ta ta for now, Yoo Nork

I have been taking in quite a bit of culture this past week or so. I've seen The Birdmann, French Depressive Comedy, Pants, Fuerza Bruta, Absinthe. (I'll post links soon)
I took part in a clown parade, a pie fight and a performed at clown cabaret. (Video of performance on the way)

I do have gripes about the perpetual game of chicken with cars and people and noise and general dirtiness, but it must also be said that new york is a hell of a town. _Until we meet again. (smoooch)

The "Alone in your Bedroom" Aesthetic

Combined with discussions raised by that Adbusters article on the acultural plague of "hipsters" on the planet, I wondered more, upon seeing this video, about the depths of Irony vs. Sincerity and Appropriation and Rehash. I can't get a read on this guy. His eyes seem dead. Is he presenting something heartfelt? Has the irony become rampant on so many levels there is complete detachment? Does he want people to laugh? (I am not railing against him, I am asking honestly.) Perhaps abstraction has reached a whole new level; gathering ingredients from sources so far flung that any of their original intention or sensation is drained and combining them in a way that adds no new perspective save some vague impression of melty anachronism. The only clear impression I get is a vision of him in his bedroom by himself making-pretend-rockstar. With such democratization of the "art making" and publishing processes, the overwhelming crush of media, people alone in their rooms communicating virtually (as we do), maybe that small sliver of humanity is enough for people these days. The cat can dance. I think he is to be commended for playing the zealot even if I'm not feeling much authentic zeal. Presenting Francis and the Lights:


(It is also possible that this guy IS, in fact, an 'alone in your bedroom' sort of guy who is taking great leaps to bring those things out in front of others. [I feel that way about Eugene Hutz. The first time I saw him, he was wearing a red michael jackson zipper jacket and meaning it. {"This guy's not ironic. He's eastern european."} He ended up being one of the most incredible showmen alive today] It's possible that look in his eye is just nerves in front of the camera. It's possible this dude is incredible. I can't tell yet.)

You see, the thing about being alone in your bedroom is you've got no gauge, no collaborative chemistry, no critique. In the old days, they would call that "masturbatory". It's also similar to how historically the lead singer going solo is almost always less successful than when they were in the band (the police, talking heads, rollingstones...) I think most people's "genius" needs to be tempered. This new advent of technology makes it quite easy to get around people not showing up to rehearsal or the bother of finding other folks who have common tastes and dreams.
My! but we have novelty, though. numa numa.


the thing about this blog post is, left unchecked by outside forces, I'm libel to ramble on about this shit furevz.

September 11th, ...and 16th and also 5th

Live Performance - September 11th

Williamsburg Brooklyn

Films Screens with Live Music - September 16th

Joe's Pub Manhattan

Live Clown Parade and Pie Fight - September 5th

Union Sq to Williamsburg

details to your right

come see!

Playing the Building

wonderful. Its best aspect is that people begin to pay attention to their surroundings and become enchanted by them.

New York Chronicles: part trio

fig. 1..............................................................fig. 2

fig. 3..............................................................fig. 4

fig. 1 :gentlemanly 'huahua at dressing room, williamsburg
fig. 2 :bench buddy, soho
fig. 3 :pewter motorcycle belt bucket, m train
fig. 4 :zea (check), williamsburg

My Father

in honor of his 60th birthday and his first video on youtube:


Happy Birthday Dad!

the Dark of the Knight

Either this fella mistook my front teeth as two shiny beetles or he was rather un-gentlemanly about his desire to make out as he dove squarely into my sleeping, semi-open mouth.

no, srsly. later. you and me. talking.
promise.

New Music Video Project

we'll talk later...

New York Chronicles

thumping melons at whole foods.................................'huahua

sleepy speckles........................................child + three cigars

matching interior........................................what a swell fella

New York City's little surprises

some subtle body language on the subway between some newly acquainted people. french man. american woman. camera speaking MANY more than a thousand words.


And THIS little dude hiding away in some flowers I bought for my friend who let me stay at her house. Fairly surprising find. frog. I hope he's not some sort of invasive tropical species, 'cause he's in riverside park now. Pretty grim posturing for a little guy.

Summer Mix Series

Welcome to my very first online mix ever.
Yewkee.com puts together a summer mix series, a congregation of mixes from different folks to sweeten the whole muggy-buggy-soggy-burnt summer thing.
This one is sort of an odyssey in three parts: rockin fireworks, kitchy weirdness, and bringing it home funky. There's a pretty wide spans of decades and genres but I like to think it flows well, one to the next. check it out.

Also, I would highly recommend yewknee's mix (on the bottom of the page). It's all I've been listening to the last couple days.

{there are two mixes up now. check out all the fab stuff posted.}

toronto in summer

kensington market.................barista i fell in love w/ for 10 mins


queen st. by twilight.....................................the border fence

I just got back from my second stint of clown school in toronto. It was as awesome as expected and the city even more so. Got to see langhorne slim and some various clown shows and talks as it was the toronto clown festival this past weekend. Met some great folks, hatching clownie plans.

The truth about Truth

Truth is a myth. I was reading a chapter from Boorstein's The Creators, the one about Dostoyevsky. It was talking about when he first received public success and his homies bust in his place at 4 in the morning shouting about his triumph in capturing truth,"That is truth in art!". Truth. srsly?

In my current view, truth is arbitrary. perspective. depends on what you had for breakfast. Not just to say that it's only individual. There is also a unity in that each person's truth is exactly as valid as the next. Sure, you can find similarities but that doesn't discount any less prevalent view. It's whatever any group decides. It's culture. I have never really gotten into asking about "why we're here". purpose. ultimate explanation. Though, in the hard times, I wished for a manual to guide me through the pratfalls of human experience, I've never believed that the information existed to be documented and published.

At the same time, I demand unabashed, immediate authenticity in performance. That could be labeled truth as well. A certain forthright honesty.
Truth used to feel like catching some air in a ornate lidless gold box and hollering about it, not realizing everything around it is air too. Fireflies in a jar, in a field of fireflies. Perhaps it's just an expansion of the old definition of truth for me. Love has certainly expanded. All these concepts start to bleed together, expand, encompassing all.
The truth is, there is no truth. Aspirations to mythology.
Apparently, in Dostoyevsky's time, though, truth was about speaking freely, as that sort of thing could get you in a heap of trouble with the czar. But, there was also this romantic quality of tapping into the essence of something in a way others cannot. Certainly, presenting something in a particular way can jiggle an onlooker's perspective. I suspect these ideas are not new or novel but intensely simple. I find there may not need to be such anguished struggle and search. But then, we are just people. Who am I to say what it takes to feel like you understand something. {criminy. this post could go on forfuckingever. gotta wrap this puppy up}

I'm saying, in essence, it may not be necessary to be so precious about the idea of truth. or love or art, for that matter. They're all "is". {outta sight, man. far out. *toke*}
There is something about New Jersey that doesn't let a person get pretentious. {or does it}




young lad in a shirt rack at old navy.

hot shit

Bony Lil and Valerie Thompson were accepted into the
NY Clown Theatre Festival 2008
There will a few dates in September. The Festival goes for most of the month.
rock.

Done!

A music video for a Bugs in the Dark cover song by Jordan Woods-Robinson featuring the Blue Men of Orlando as shot, cut and directed by Zea Barker.

have at.

Whorelando: the wrap-up

THE PARK AT NIGHT






...AT DAY



miss you already
ox