Robbie Guertin of Clap Your Hands Say Yeah

Originally uploaded by Staciaann Photography

It sounded like a bunch of centaurs were following an exercise video upstairs, right above my bed this morning. Interesting visual, but at 7 AM there ain’t a damn thing more fascinating and beautiful than the backs of my eyelids underneath the blankets.

The sound clarified, resolving itself in my ears the way blurry, doubled vision clears up. There was maybe only one centaur upstairs. It clarified a little further to where it sounded pretty much like what it was: a large woman — or slender man — doing a bunch of jumping jacks.

The apartment immediately above my bed belongs to a guy named Robbie (or Robert) Guertin. Those of you who are into your bigger indie bands will recognize that name as the guy who plays guitars and keyboards for the band Clap Your Hands Say Yeah.

He’s a nice enough guy, as near as I can tell. We go about our business and say “hi” politely when we see one another. A couple years ago I interviewed him and photographed the band at the Virgin Fest and he was real nice then, too.

A few months ago, Robbie and/or a female friend were practicing some music in their apartment above me at about 1 AM on a school night. And the song wasn’t bad, either, as near as I could tell through the ceiling. It did go on, as songs do when you’re practicing them at home and you want to get them just right.

And after a while I had just had enough, but I felt awful about it. I like music, miss playing music, and I know what it’s like to have to work some music out in the apartment, where you feel so comfortable but sounds travel so far.

I never thought I’d be that dude, but here I was, banging on somebody’s door to stop the rock ‘n roll because I had a big meeting in the morning. Robbie was real nice and understanding about it, and everything was cool.

Then came the jumping jacks this morning. And even though it has been maybe six months since the band practice, I was like “oh for FUCK’s SAKE. NOW WHAT.” I am an ugly, short-tempered thing before noon, barely rational after eight hours’ sleep and 3 cups of coffee.

But getting woke up by your upstairs neighbor’s jumping jacks workout … that’s just the worst thing about New York right there.
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Cool Guy

Originally uploaded by chinese_fashion

I get randomly placed body acne. Like, just one zit on my elbow. Or two on the right calf, something like that.

I think it’s because of this: when I was a teenager, I had horrible acne, pustular galactic constellations all over my face. I used to pray to God at night and say “Look, I’ll cut you a deal. If I am destined to have this acne, so be it. But could you at least spread it around a little, maybe hide it under my clothing? Because I am trying to score my first kiss right now and this isn’t helping.”

Eventually my face cleared up. And I thought my prayers had been answered. The prayers from before I started bargaining with God.

But as it turns out, I got a loan from the almighty and now I’m paying down on the principal.

As I type this, I am developing a truly impressive corker on the back side of that little tab of flesh that guards my left ear canal. Nobody can see it, it’s hidden from sunlight.

But it’s huge and very painful. It makes the left side of my head feel heavy, like a fishing sinker’s been jammed down in there.

And when I try to pop it, the left side of my body convulses. The only thing that keeps me trying is dreaming of that amplified popping sound and a hot gush of creamy relief trickling down towards my brain.

You may be asking yourself: “Why are you even telling me this?”

Because I’m telling EVERYBODY, that’s why …

This photo above is fricking priceless, I’m aware of that. More on the photo itself here.

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Luna Moth

Originally uploaded by thahawk

On Saturday night I lovingly sauteed a pile of mushrooms with garlic and half of an onion. Then I chopped up some carrots, rubbed about 5 pounds of beef with sea salt (after browning it in a hot iron skillet) and put the whole thing in the oven to roast.

After that, I made a huge pile of chard — again with garlic and onions — and washed up all the dishes and swept the floor. I took a long shower during which I performed my weekly head-shaving ritual.

Then I yawned and started freaking out for real.Those yawns were the voice of God intoning through my body, using my skeleton like a tuning fork to say “YOU HAVE DICKED AROUND LONG ENOUGH.”

All that cooking and showering and shaving was just the elaborate and stylized Kabuki ritual that I perform whenever I’m supposed to be working on a story. They’re all a big deal for me, but this particular show is a bigger deal than most. I’ve worked for about a year to be in it.

I’m performing in The Moth’s Grand Slam this Wednesday at the Highline Ballroom along with Adam Wade, Peter Aguero, Laura Leu, Cyndi Freeman, Andy Christie, Courtney Fenner, Matt Mercier, Boris Timanovsky and Steve Zimmer. Dan Kennedy, author of the book Rock On will be hosting.

I wrote the story a month ago, tested it out with the BTK band, then let it marinate.

Marinating is important. You’ve got to let the details settle, let the over-explanation filter out. I tested the thing on Jim and Juliet (my two close friends and storytelling superheroes) and they helped me sandblast it a little more.

But Saturday was when the real polishing had to happen, and it almost happened too late. Which is the way these things always happen. I can’t do a damn thing unless the deadline is dangling right between my eyes.

So I had a couple belts of Scotch-laced espresso (wakes you up but calms the nerves) and stayed up until 5 AM writing, editing, fretting, obsessing. I copied the whole thing out on a legal pad with a magic marker just to learn it a little better, lips moving like a slow-witted sixth grader just to burn it into the synapses more.

And I’m still worried it’s not enough.

Last time I told a story onstage I forgot the critical part, the two sentences that made the whole thing hang together and make sense. It got some laughs, got a few compliments, but you can tell immediately if something hits or not. If it doesn’t, that walk back to the chair is a fricking DEATH MARCH.

So now I’m antsy. If I can think of something to do to prepare, I have to do it. Immediately.

I jumped out of bed at 3 AM to make some edits that came to me in a dream last night. I’m rubbing my script on the subway with my fingertips. I fingered its yellow pages gently this afternoon while I walked on the stage at the Highline Ballroom this afternoon, just getting the feel for the place. I’m testing the thing out at Stories at the Creek tomorrow night — Tuesday, March 23rd.

If I seem nervous, it’s because I am. I’m tense and a little gassy and I can’t think about anything else.

But my God, I wouldn’t have it any other way. Living at the edge of your own ability, half-sick and terrified because something beautiful’s about to happen … that’s how to do it. Screw all that Buddhist bullshit about eliminating desire. I want to make art and bash myself against the bulb until I’m burning up and then start all over again. Feeling nervous is a sign that I’m on the right track.

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Spotted in SoHo:



Consider this an open call for people to illustrate that showdown. I’m talking anything from drawings on napkins to multi-million dollar blockbuster films. Make this happen, internet.

For additional inspiration, allow me to direct you to some awesome character illustrations by friend-of-a-friend Chris Bishop:



(more on Mr. Bishop’s Flickr page.)

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Oh, I just live to learn about music like this. I’d never heard of Death until this afternoon, but the whole thing has me unstuck in time. Half of me is lying on the floor in high school, in someone’s dark room smoking pot and watching punk posters peel off the wall and getting my mind blown by something caustic and brand-new. The other half of me is in my friend Patrick’s mildewy garage trying to put together our own garage-punk band. I can smell the grass from the lawn mower, the mildew from the wet carpet in the corner and hear the ringing in my ears. Then a third half of me dreams of remixing my last band’s unreleased music into a similar find …

But enough about that. From the New York Times:

Forgotten except by the most fervent punk rock record collectors — the band’s self-released 1976 single recently traded hands for the equivalent of $800 — Death would likely have remained lost in obscurity if not for the discovery last year of a 1974 demo tape in Bobby Sr.’s attic. Released last month by Drag City Records as “… For the Whole World to See,” Death’s newly unearthed recordings reveal a remarkable missing link between the high-energy hard rock of Detroit bands like the Stooges and MC5 from the late 1960s and early ’70s and the high-velocity assault of punk from its breakthrough years of 1976 and ’77. Death’s songs “Politicians in My Eyes,” “Keep On Knocking” and “Freakin Out” are scorching blasts of feral ur-punk, making the brothers unwitting artistic kin to their punk-pioneer contemporaries the Ramones, in New York; Rocket From the Tombs, in Cleveland; and the Saints, in Brisbane, Australia. They also preceded Bad Brains, the most celebrated African-American punk band, by almost five years.

Jack White of the White Stripes, who was raised in Detroit, said in an e-mail message: “The first time the stereo played ‘Politicians in My Eyes,’ I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. When I was told the history of the band and what year they recorded this music, it just didn’t make sense. Ahead of punk, and ahead of their time.”

Here’s a song, via Youtube — it’s just a tune with the image of the record laid over it:

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I was walking through the Times Square subway station last night, on my way to see Watchmen with Jeff and a few of our fellow thirtysomething nerdboys, when I spotted three identical payphones, side-by-side on a clean tile wall, just begging for something to be tacked on.  So I pulled out a Sharpie and some manila tags that I’ve been carrying for just such an occasion, and designated one phone each for calls to the Past, Present, and Future.

More photos — including a couple with a test subject — after the jump.

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I saw this sign near the intersection of Doyers and Bowery over the weekend – a great bit of Engrish. Someone needs to tell Kool Keith he can get a Digital Perm in Chinatown …

Turns out, a digital perm is a real thing. From Wikipedia:

A digital perm is a perm which uses hot rods with the temperature regulated by a machine, which has a digital display, hence the name. However, the process of the perm is quite analogue. The name “Digital Perm” is also copyrighted by a Japanese company, PAIMORE Co., Ltd.[1] Hair stylists usually call it a “hot perm”, but it is commonly known as a “digital perm”.

So I tried to joke based on ignorance — and my joke was, essentially, “silly Asians.” And it turns out it was me that didn’t know what I was talking about. Not the worst mistake in the world, but when you make this mistake based on a cultural/ethnic assumption, it REALLY makes you look like a dipshit …

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Whether or not you cared for the Watchmen film, you’ve got to respect this: for the most part, people aren’t defacing Watchmen posters on the subway. It’s amazing. Every other poster, there’s teeth blacked out, toilet-stool poetry scrawled in Sharpie, or, most notably, 3-D genitalia sculpted out of chewing gum. But for some reason, the Watchmen posters get left alone.

Except for this one — which has been dramatically improved by replacing Billy-Crudup-as-Dr.-Manhattan’s CG head with Barack Obama’s wise and otherworldy dome-piece. Complete with hydrogen atom symbol on the forehead, too! You can see this for yourself at the A/C/E/B/D/F/V stop at West 4th street, NYC.

Here’s the total poster:

Here’s a closeup:

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In 2003, back before online dating was remotely acceptable, I met a woman from Perth, Western Australia over the Internet. As many of you know, I ended up selling all my stuff and flying across the planet to meet her in person. It was pretty much the adventure of a lifetime, and even though parts of it were really hard, I don’t regret a moment of it.

This is me, telling that story recently at The Moth:

If you’re just here from BoingBoing, you can see other stories I’ve done at The Moth here:

Royal Quiet Deluxe, Chicken Band: Now the Story is Told on Video
Reverend Al Sharpton Hates Royal Quiet Deluxe, Chicken Band

I do a lot of talking about The Moth on here, and very little explaining. Here’s how it works.
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I’m thrilled that my good friend and co-blogger D.Billy has artwork in a very cool new book! He hates promoting himself, so I’m going to have to do this for him, like it or not. The book itself looks really cool, and I’m proud of him for getting into the thing.

“Proud,” though, it connotes a certain condescension. Frankly, I’m happy and just a little jealous, minus the destructive aspect of jealousy. I’m hapealous. But whatever. Here’s the book and a blurb:

In such a digitally dominant world, Gestalten’s new book, Tangible: High Touch Visuals, is a reminder of the pleasure of the physical. Tangible is the third in a series of books starting with Hidden Track: How Visual Culture Is Going Places (2005) and Tactile: High Touch Visuals (2007) and explores the trend towards designers creating dioramas, sculptures and other physical environments.

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