Been out of it for a while

I haven’t been around an internet connection in a while, I spent about 10 days working a job down near Savannah GA with Needless, making in back in time for Thanksgiving which was spent (2 weeks) at my Dad’s house… the whole time I either didn’t have the time, drive, or connection to get online and post a blog. So even though I don’t have much to talk about I figured I’d post something tonight to catch you up to where I am right now.

For the next week I am back in Athens GA (my home) spending some time at a friends house painting a mural on his wall. I’m about half way thru with the mural which was started months ago, and which will finally be finished this week. While I’m here I will be discussing some business plans for a possible future endeavor that I might undertake over the next year to support my travels. Then… well I don’t know what I’ll do next, we’ll see what happens. Also while I’m back here in Athens I plan on connecting back with the other half of my band the Rat Babies to practice and write some new songs… I have been working on a couple new pieces that we’ll have the flesh out and see what we can do with it. I’m pretty hard up right now, I just went up to the grocery store for this weeks groceries (can foods, bread, peanut butter, crackers, ramen, and some pasta sauce) and now I’m back to having about $2 to my name. I checked my p.o.box today when I got into town, expecting to see that I had food stamps waiting for me (applied online a few weeks ago) but there was nothing. So I had to spend my last few dollars on hopefully enough food to carry me through the week or until I get my last check from Needless for the work we did a few weeks ago, I should still be getting about $120 coming my way. My bus insurance is paid up for the next 6 months, which was the whole reason for taking that job, and now I’m at a dead end.

At this point I have no idea what I’m doing next. I have no shows booked, no touring planned, no idea what to do next, no prospects even… but I’m feeling ok (except for not having any weed to get me through the depression, stress, etc) for now. I’m even thinking of taking the rest of the year off, or maybe working another job with Needless for a little bit just to get something to live off of for a short while.

My plans of staying on the road have been sidetracked slightly due to a few things, mainly the holidays, cold weather, and lack of money… plus I think I just need to take some time to think about a few things, like what I want to do next. I have a few options, so we’ll see what happens, I’ll go into more about it all soon, but here’s a list of things I’m thinking about:

- Rat Babies tour in Feb’12
- Getting back on the road even if there’s no plan
- Starting a business to fund my travels
- Writing/practicing new songs
- Planning for my America’s Got Talent audition in March
- Worrying about some family/friends who aren’t doing so good
- Living in the bus through the winter without freezing to death/starving
- Working a little
- Where my life is going

I’ll write more later… I’m going to watch some more tv and get caught up on my stories…

Stress levels rising

Ugh, I’m sick to my stomach over the stress of living this, my life. Before I started living the life I live now I use to stress over that past life, now that I’m living a different life the stress is still there, but over different things. I don’t seem to ever win. Not in life, not in love, not in anything it seems these days.

So the last couple weeks have been full of me not really doing much at all. But at the same time I feel a bit overwhelmed at times with everything that I got going on. I’ve been parked at the Chase Warehouse parking lot, where I know just about everyone here, I practice with my band here, I hang out with my friends, in fact I’ve been keeping a friend company while they’ve been stressing over their own issues. I’ve been promoting the fest I have happening tonight downtown, which I mentioned last post, I’ve been getting stuff together to sell at the fest, I’ve been helping my friend here and there with stuff that she needed moved, I cleaned up the practice space so that we could actually move around in here, I met with a few people for interviews, photoshots, planning meeting, and so much more it seems but when I sit here and worry about worry I start feeling like everything I am doing could have been done in a lot shorter period of time then it has taken me… I procrastinate sometimes, I get depressed other times, and so a lot of times I end up sitting here doing nothing because that’s all I’m able to get the energy up to do… and it all just piles up on me, weighing me down, stressing me out… I have no money and nothing I do seems to help, ever. So, I’m just talking out of frustration right now.

I went to bed last night thinking today was going to be an awesome day, but I got woke up by cops beating on my door because some nosey neighbor couldn’t mind his own business and he called the landlord of the place I was parked in front of (where I’ve been parked to help out my friend who lives there, and so I have permission) to tell him I was “stealing power” out of his building!! I had a drop cord plugged in last night running to my Bus’s engine block because it was supposed to be freezing temperatures. All anyone would of had to do is come talk to me and I could have explained it all to them, why I was here and what I was doing, even though it wasn’t their business in the first place. These guys are real haters towards people like me, people like me who are the lifeline of their business, if it wasn’t for people like me they would have never had a chance here, but now these rich douches are buying up all this “cool, hip” property and moving in to drive away the people who made this place great! In fact we just got notes on the doors of our practice spaces about our noise levels, a place that’s been here longer then any of the other businesses here and now that these assholes are moving in we have to change the way we do business to suit their needs… what about our needs? This is our BUSINESS, we work here, we strive for the same thing as everyone else: to build a successful business that will support us, but these “new guys” are moving in knowing full and well what we do here, but they think they have the right to curtail our business practices because it is hindering their business somehow. You would think that they would have thought about this before moving in. This is a warehouse full of artists and studios and artistic businesses and the such, but these guys are only thinking money, they think that I’m a nuisance, that I’m a criminal, that I’m low life that they have to sweep away by calling the cops to get them to escort me off the property!

And so, this is my stress… I have no where to go, no where to be me, no money. I wish it would be possible to live on my own deserted island far away from these assholes, but they probably come and take that from me too, lol.

The Moonlight Gypsy Market has me painting again.

So for the last few weeks or so I have been working hard on organizing a festival I call the “Moonlight Gypsy Market”. It’s a festival that I’m putting together each year, this is the second year, here in Athens that brings together Artists, Crafters, Unique Junk Collectors, Musicians, and Performers of all kinds. Originally this started when a friend of mine mentioned that she had problems with the average craft fair because her stuff involved drawn erotic images of nude women. She always got funny looks and was made to feel like she didn’t fit in with the normal craft fair even though she really loved that sort of event. I was already doing the Carnivale of Black Hearts shows and she mentioned that it might be nice to put an event together that brought the two ideas together. But that’s not actually where the idea first came from though, that’s just when I put the gears into motion cause I saw a niche that wasn’t being filled. Years ago, I couldn’t remember how many now so I looked it up… this was back in 1997, I bought a comic book called “Stardust” written by Neil Gaiman (he also wrote: Sandman, Neverwhere… two others of my favorites by him), and in that story there was mention of a festival called “The Open Air Faerie Market”, which if you saw the movie you know was an amazing fair of gypsy types from every corner of the world, some real, some imagined, selling strange and unusual items, crafts, and art… As I read about the market I couldn’t help but wish I could put something like that together myself… fast forward to last year, and with the idea being pushed and reignited in me by my friend, I finally made it happen.

And now we’re into the second year of the event… and I’m hoping it is going to be as good as the first, also maybe this year I will actually get some stuff ready to sell myself, lol. But first I have to promote it!! I sent out the info to a couple different newspapers here in town (Flagpole, Red n Black, etc) and I’ve got at least one interview to do, which actually I should have done today but I was busy working on the other part of the promotions: The Poster!

Lately over the last year or so I’ve been thinking about how when I was younger I used to paint more often (we didn’t have Photoshop back then kids, lol), but lately I’ve been creating only digital art, so I wanted to start doing more painting and I thought that I would start doing most of my posters as paintings first, scan them in and add the info with Photoshop, so that way I’d still be painting and still be doing digital art as well… and so far I’ve done some really cool posters (see below). The latest poster/painting was for this years Moonlight Gypsy Market and it has become my most favorite yet! I worked thru a couple of sketches over a day or so and finally decided on the design I ended up painting. I wanted there to be a moon, which would be one of the “O”s in the word “Moonlight”, but the moon would also look like it was the head of a skeleton that was holding up two scrolls with all the info for the fest on them. When I first thought of the idea in my head it didn’t look this good, but I am very very very happy with the outcome… this is what I ended up doing:

Moonlight Gypsy Market 2011 Poster

The painting was hand done by me on canvas 11″x17″, sketched in pen, then painted by brush with acrylic paints… once the picture was done, I scanned it into the computer (which had to be done in three different scans and pieced together in the computer cause my scanner doesn’t scan 11×17), then I added the information/text using Photoshop CS5, the fancy lettering work was done by using an already pretty cool font, but then using the “Edit>Transform>Warp” function to stretch out the letters the way I wanted them to go, in fact if you look at the different fonts on the poster carefully enough you will actually notice that everything on the poster is really the same font… I just played around with sizes and placement plus a little Warp, Then finally I saved it as a PDF. Now all I have to do is get it printed up and put up all around town. lol.

Some other ideas I was originally working on was a skeleton leaning against the side holding the moon up, there was another idea that had bats holding up a banner, and then before I decided just to do a torso I was thinking of a full sized skeleton, but in the end I’m happy I did what I did. Here’s some sketches I did while working out ideas:

Sketches

Here’s some other posters that I have painted over the last year or so:

Moonlight Gypsy Market 2010 Poster

Rat Babies 2009 Tour Poster

Carnivale of Black Hearts 10-2009 Poster

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LINKS:

Moonlight Gypsy Market

Stardust

I’m pennyless… hopefully that’s going to get me motivated now.

So I’m back in Athens. I have no idea whats going to happen now but I’ve been back for a few days and have been spending time catching up with everyone I can… I have a bunch of stuff coming up over the next month here in town that I have to take care of (Moonlight Gypsy Market, a couple of performances for Dirty Harriette at the GO Bar, and even a Rat Babies show for Holly’s birthday party…) but I want to take some time off and enjoy just hanging out getting stoned with some friends. Problem is that, just like when I was on the road, I’m pennyless!!! But being home and pennyless seems harder to deal with then if I was out on the road. I guess cause this place holds no wonderment with me anymore since I know this place so well… but I need some way of making some money while I’m here, without having to go back to work because work just seems like a huge waste of time for some reason. A couple of ways I made money on the road so far:

Shows. Shows were always my mainstay while out there cause if I have a show I pretty much could guarantee that I would have a little bit of money coming in, even if it was $20. But I can’t really do shows here in Athens and expect enough people to come out, I do have a few shows booked as I mentioned above, but the MGM is a free event cause vendors pay a table fee to pay for flyers and stuff like that, and I’ve already borrowed money from that fund to pay for part of the sideshow tour. I have a show at a friends b-day party so of course there’s no money with that show either, then there’s two Dirty Harriette the Bearded Lady shows coming up both of which will be at the GO Bar, still no money. So right now I don’t have any shows pulling money in.

Open Mics. While on the road this was one of the main ways I promoted my show. I would show up for an open mic night at a venue where no one knew me or what I was going to do. I would perform my Dirty Harriette act (bearded lady themed jokes, then a song, some times a trick or two) at the open mic nights because it is a stand alone act, it’s funny, and people could get a sense of how crazy I could be on stage because my act was something they had never seen before… and I liked that. I’ve done the open mic nights here in Athens, but I think I could stand to do them here in town again, but there are only some on Monday and Wednesday.

Merch. I didn’t make much money off of merch because I only had random crap I bought at the dollar store and re-packaged into merch, like the eyeball pops, the skeleton necklaces, bags of popcorn, buttons, etc. I do have some other merch that I have to go pick up from a friend, who made some stuffed animals for me to sell, I still need to make t-shirts for the Carnivale of Black Hearts and shirts for the Weird & Wandering Sideshow, hell I could even make another Rat Babies t-shirt design… but still I don’t think I will sell too many, not really enough to live off of that’s for sure…. but it’s something I do need to get done. Honestly here in town the best way I have found to make money selling merch is selling Game Day Buttons on the home games!! I need to look up and see how long till the next home game cause I could stand to make a good $50+ selling those!

Busking. I didn’t really do much busking this tour because I didn’t have anyone to go out there with, and I just didn’t have enough drive to make me do it by myself. But then again, if your busking with someone you have to share the take, and if it’s not very much then it’s even more disappointing to have to split it! So I don’t know… I should probably do it anyways alone or with someone else… Madame Surayyah said she wants to go out there with me, she needs money too.

Donations. I did have a few friends who pitched in money to help me make it Needless sent me $100 at one point even though he could never make it back to catch up with me while I was on the road, CG gave me $200, three other people (CW, LT, DB) sent me money via paypal to the total of about $50, Glenda handed me a $20 twice, and then I borrowed about $70 from the MGM fund which I have to pay back by making some kickass home made flyers and get the put up everywhere… thing is that there isn’t anywhere else I can see getting any donations from anyone, I don’t feel comfortable taking money from people to start with, but then when people who are already struggling themselves are sending me money it really makes it hard to accept it… but at the same time I wouldn’t be back here in Athens had it not been for those people. So that’s about $350 I got from donations so far… I have thought about starting a Kickstarter page to fund these adventures, but I don’t think I have enough people/fans to make it worth the while yet so I’m still holding off from asking anyone for more money. I pretty much planned to start up a Kickstarter page once I can put into words what I’m trying to do, and why I’m doing it, and then I planned on bugging everyone I know or have ever met for as much as I can because at that point I will have something to give back… although I have also already planned on making all the people who donated to me something special like a painting or something crafty, something just to show them how much I appreciated the help, the same as if the donated to the Kickstarter fund or something. Then again I have been thinking of doing my own version of the Kickstarter thing, but on my own site, and you would be sending in money to me and I would send you something cool in return, without using the Kickstarter system, just using Paypal’s donation button and an explanation on the site as to what sort of benefit/care package you get back from me for the donation. This way I could use the money as I get it and now have to wait for a lump sum.

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So anyways, I did ok while out on the road for these past three months, I managed to make/get enough money to actually make it back into town, Athens, in my bus, with my health and sanity somewhat still in place. I didn’t get arrested, I didn’t have to get the bus towed, I never even really had to beg for much help. I did good, got home, and now I kinda feel stuck again, with no way (but going to work a “real” job) to make money. I’ve been thinking about going up and spending a few months couch surfing at a friends apt in Canton (about 2 hrs away) to have a chance to “think” and work on a few small projects, but right now I have to stay here in Athens for a few weeks cause I’ve got stuff to do (although none of it is making me any money). So right now I have to figure out how to make a few extra bucks to spend on food over the next few weeks while I take care of everything else that needs to be done here… I might just have to start waking up in time to go to the soup kitchens here in town or something.

Oh and I just looked, good news, there’s going to be three home games in the next month!!! Funny how “home games” are good news to me now, lol! So I guess I’ll be able to get by this next month off selling buttons for that, if I can get by until then.

You know, I really thought I would have done better on the road though when I started. Of course those original plans involved having a support team with me, everyone working together to make the promotions/shows happen, and people to bounce ideas off of while we tried out different ways of making money on the road… but in the end there wasn’t anyone who could take the chance by coming with me to give it a “try” and to see if we could make it work… I ended up starting over with the planning while I was on the road solo and I figured out a little bit, but I think I still need more time out there… cause this 3 months felt almost like a “vacation”, not quite a “lifestyle change” yet. I’ve been living like that now for 2 years, homeless and scraping by… but to live a life truly by your wits only I think you have to get to the point where you have no choice but to figure out a way to make things work out without having any sort of safety net…

Now that I’m home though I have been finding that some of the safety nets I thought I had in place aren’t too structurally sound, they’re not nets to rely on, in fact some of the nets are gone… for example, when I am in town I am usually parked around the Chase Warehouse area because Chodd’s practice space, the one we share for Rat Babies, is here and that is where I spend most of my time… but I’m getting r-u-n-n-o-f-t from here now. The owner of Pigpen told me not to park over here (cause those kids I had with me left such a mess last time), so when I got back into town I parked on the other side of the building and got run off from there for no other reason then the guy didn’t like the bus parked by his business cause he felt it hurt his business’ image somehow… so now I have to watch where I park, and the places I can go here in town are disappearing. So that safety net is almost gone. Of course having a “real” job waiting for me is another safety net, one that I’m trying to ignore, but the reality is that that net might not be there either, who knows. I’m trying to NOT go back to work because I feel that it’s more a waste of time, taking time and effort away from what could be spent on my own projects/business… I figure if I spend as much time on my own stuff that I spent working for someone else, I’d probably have a bigger chance of making it a success, problem is I get lazy and I’m a homebody unless I am forced to go out, so now I’m forced to force myself to go get things done, and sometimes that doesn’t work out cause the laziness and depression wins out, lol.

I’ve been talking to Needless about another plan. We’ve been talking about how great it would be to find a warehouse/house that we could all go together on and rent out as a place to live/studio/practice/house-show space… so we’re looking now! The thought is that if we could find something like that, and we can afford it, then that would give us all a place to base our projects out of, a safety net for all of us to depend on. Needless could have his clown kids come over to visit with their dad, I would have a place to park my bus, and we’d have somewhere to store/use all our art supplies and equipment to practice. So that’s what I’ve been thinking of making my main concern right now because if I had a place to call my home it would give me a lot less to worry about… and I could still hit the road when ever I wanted.

A place like that would allow us to do more things that we would like to do like: band practice and recording space, enough area to create in, place to store junk, a place to have a studio where we can screen print, do crafts, or build props… and of course a place to sleep. I know one guys who wants to start a screen printing business, another who wants to start a button making business, I’ve always had an idea of creating a DIY studio/shop where we would do a lot of art type projects that would make us money to pay the bills but also be a space for friends to come to if they needed a space to work/practice in temporarily, I think Chodd wants another place to have his studio in other then here at Pigpen, a place for out of town bands to crash for the night, we want to organize house shows like I used to when I ran “Your Mom’s House”, and then we even have friends who we want to move into town with us too!!! It makes since to have a place, whether its a warehouse space (which I think would be best) or a house with enough rooms… cause we have so many projects and things we could do if only we had the room to do them.

So like I said at the beginning of this post, I have no idea where things are headed… but I think we have a plan coming together as long as everyone sticks with it (unlike has ever happened with the groups of people I knew before)… So we’ll see.

Rat Babies t-shirt seen in Music Hates You video… woohoo!

I’ve been mentioning some good friends of mine over the last few months that I have been performing on stage with or people I think you should check out because I like them… well the video above is from a band named “Music Hates You”. If you watch you’ll see that the lead singer (Noah Ray) is wearing a t-shirt from a band called “Rat Babies” which is my band!! I just saw this video the other day and it was a surprise to see him wearing my shirt, and it made me very happy cause for a long time now I haven’t had much contact with Noah (or the band) like I use to. In fact a long time ago when Noah was putting this band together he once asked me if I would play bass for him… Up til then I had been a huge supporter of Noah and any project he was involved with, but I didn’t feel anywhere near good enough of a bass player to be able to keep up with his stuff and offer any real help. I kind of regret not giving it a try at least, but I did introduce Noah to a friend of mine, and roommate at the time, Forest Hetland who was in a band with me at the time called “Static Porn” that was failing to get started because we had to kick our singer out of the band and we never really had a full time drummer. Thru me all the original guys in the band met each other… I mean I’m not the one that made them what they became, but I do pride myself as the person that introduced them to each other. Forest, Zack, and Noah all met each other and became friends with each other thru me. And Like I said I was a huge supporter of the band, and anything “Noah” even before that! At one point I was even booking shows for Noah and helped with creating flyers! But then I had to move away and I lost touch for a couple of years while I opened my own venue (which they played at a couple times), got married, got divorced, and then finally made it back to Athens where MHY had become a common topic of discussion among the townies and fans alike.

For a long time after that while I worked on my own projects, namely my band Rat Babies, me and Noah remained at a distance due to never really having much chance to hang out, a few times I even booked our bands together so we could hang out and support each other in our endeavours… but the rift between me and Noah kept us from really sharing our lives together like we use to when we were closer friends. But I have never stopped supporting him or the band, in fact I still can’t quit talking about them!

Along the way I started feeling that Noah (and the rest of the band for that matter) stopped supporting what I was doing. Maybe it was just my own low self confidence but I felt as if he didn’t really care to support me in any of my endeavors like I had so dedicately supported his. I understood that he was a busy person, with a full time job, full time band, and a wife and kid at home… so I didn’t let it bother me that I never got to be friends with him, play shows together, ride the wave of “fame and fortune” (lol) together, mutually supporting each other as so many bands through out rock and roll history have tried to do… but I always had that little wish in my heart that as he gained popularity with his project, that maybe some of that would spill over onto me because of all my support that I gave him for so long, maybe my project would get the much needed attention we were looking for because he would talk us up, or send people our way, or include us in things his band had going on… but none of that ever happened. His band is well known around these parts while my band remains obscure. Sometimes I would get upset about it all, while other times I realized that it was unreasonable for me to expect him to go out of his way to support me.

Then I saw this video the other day and it warmed my heart!! I saw Noah wearing MY t-shirt in his video… even if it was an accident, maybe that just happened to be the t-shirt he was wearing at the time… but sill, he’s wearing my t-shirt, and it just so happened to make it into the video which happened to be recorded at that time… seeing it made me happy, it made me feel like Noah does support me and what I do, he still loves me and hasn’t forgotten about me completely. And that’s a good feeling, whether or not it was intentional.

Since it’s beginning Music Hates You has undergone a few changes, some people came, some people went… but more recently things have been going seemingly well for him and the band (just signed to a record label out of CA, new release… they even a CD release party tonight at one of the biggest venues here in Athens but I won’t be able to make it because I can’t afford to go out and pay the entrance fee) and I’ve been very happy for him! I still support him and anything he does because he’s a truly creative and amazing person. But now I see he does care, he does support me and my dreams, even if he can’t make it out to see me. (I Love you Noah!)

Stress, pinkeye, dog bite, and now I’m finally coming home!

Well this weeks been fun and rough at the same time… I’ve been stressing over whether or not I will make it home, I had a few shows this week that were last minute things, Frank bit someone, and to top it off I’ve been suffering with Pinkeye because I don’t have enough money to get new contacts so I’m still using the same old ones, and because I’m out of money (which is why I haven’t been able to get home yet) I can’t buy anything from contact solution to food so I’ve been having to deal with what ever I have on hand.

So yeah I’ve been stressed too much. Which usually happens when I start running out of money. I really wish I could get over that, but because I have to keep some kind of schedule if I expect to keep money coming in to keep me going… I wish there was another way, maybe I’ll think of something.

But the shows all went pretty good… last place we left off was the performance at Mickee Faust’s Clubhouse, and the wounds are healing. So I continued to hang out at the clubhouse, they have been kind enough to let me plug in to keep my computer charged and run some small lights. I was hoping for a show in Valdosta GA that would get me closer to getting home, plus I might make some more money, but the guy who booked it never got back with me in time to let me know it was confirmed, so I had to stay put until I was sure I could make enough to get home. Come to find out the guy’s brother fell from a 4 story building in Athens and is in the hospital so he dropped the ball on booking the show (understandablly) and I never got word that it was confirmed so I missed out. But while I was waiting for word from him I stayed busy by going back out to the AF Haus and doing a full show for them, where I think I made about $20, and someone told me about an open mic night at a place called The Warehouse. So, I did the open mic night last night. Dirty Harriette showed up to tell some jokes, sing a song, and then do a few of her sideshow tricks!? The whole time I could barely see anyone or anything because of the pinkeye, and trying to wear glasses! While I was there I bumped into a girl named Rebecka who told me that Frank bit some girl at the AF Haus!!! I had Frank with me the whole time and I never saw him bite any girl at anytime, but he did try to eat a cat who some girl was bring in from the outside, so maybe he got her at that point, but no one told me anything at that time cause the girl didn’t go to the hospital until the next morning… and even though they told me what happen I still never saw the bite mark cause she left before I got off stage and so I never had a chance to see how bad it was. I think she will be ok, and I’m going to call her and check up on her once I get my phone back up and running again. I’m so sorry that she has to deal with this, because really in the long run even if she tried to hold me accountable for anything, I don’t have anything to give her, except maybe the bus which is only worth it’s weight as scrap to anyone but me. I might be able to sell it for something more then what I paid, but still that would put me on the streets with only a thousand dollars to give her, and if it came to that I would have to point out that she was the one that came walking by a huge ass dog with a cat in her hand… I mean seriously, that was pretty stupid to not announce something like that as she came through so I could have held Frank back from attacking the cat. And my dog wasn’t the only dog there that night, there were two or three others, so how am I to be sure it was even Frank that bit her??? No one seemed to have witnessed it, I was right there pulling Frank off the cat and didn’t even see it happen. She didn’t show me the wound. So, I’m not saying that I don’t care, cause I do, in fact it hurts my heart to know she got hurt, but unfortunately there’s nothing I can do more then, care if she’s ok or not, I don’t have anything else to offer…

So now I’m back parked at Mickee Faust waiting to see their opening performance tonight! I think it’s friends and family night or something, so I figured I owed it to them and myself to stay and see them in their full glory! After the show I will be heading home with nothing to do from Tallahassee to Athens. None of the other shows worked out, and so I have to make the whole 6+ hr trip all at once. Hopefully I have enough money for the gas. I had to borrow from the MGM fund plus the money I have on hand which is about $70, and I should have enough… but I never know really. Still if I do make it all the way back to Athens, I will still be completely broke once I get there! And I got a phone bill to pay for so I can get it turned back on ($55), I have insurance on the bus to pay ($200), I need some food, and I will need more gas to get around in town, I will need to tune up the bus and I’m sure there’s a few other things I need to take care of as well… So the stress isn’t over yet, but I’m trying to take it easy so I don’t stress out too much, I don’t have any weed to help mellow me out!

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LINKS:

The Warehouse

Moonlight Gypsy Market

Oouch! That was fun…

Oouch

Last nights show was good, but I’m disappointed I didn’t have a better turn out. But I knew it’d be like this from the first night of being here cause I realized that people aren’t going to come out for anything unless it’s on First Friday. There are a few town that I’ve been to that do the First Friday thing and they think it’s a good idea… but from my experience I think it pretty much gets people in the mind set that there’s only stuff going on on First Friday and the rest of the month, nothing… cause there will literally be hundreds of people walking around (as I saw here in Tallahassee), but any other weekend it’s dead! Well at least in the area I was booked, there were other parts of town that had stuff going on nightly, so next time I think if I can’t make it on a First Friday I’ll just book at a normal bar/venue, otherwise Mickee Faust Club would be perfect for a First Friday.

So I started with a Mr Blank 5 hour set of experimental music, at some point I was joined by James from the other bands, then I took a break and They set up for Pico Dorado, then the sideshow, the show was good, I had fun, did a complete show, with only one minor set back, and, or should I say… BUT as you can see from the picture above, I did walk away with battle scars!

I also want to mention that Pig Chicken Suicide and Pico Dorado was awesome!!! Unfortunately PCS had to push their performance back and ended up loosing their whole audience, save me and a few friends they brought with them. But their show was awesome, brought images of some of my other favorites to mind like for example: Anus Full Of Wasabi!!! I even taught them a few tricks they can add to their show, which was fun as we sat around in an empty theater smoking and drinking until about 2 in the morning when they had to head out and go home.

Pico Dorado went on before the sideshow, and they asked me to join in so I did. It was a performance that reminded me of this performance I saw once at AUX Fest in Athens called “The Flashcard Orchestra”… but the way it worked was that they had a video being projected on the back wall, the video had colors placed seemingly randomly through out the video/animation, each musician was given a color to follow, when you saw your color you would make sound, when you didn’t see your color you were silent. It was awesome, and funny, and a lot of fun for the musicians too, myself included. I played the “bells” I had a scrap piece of metal, and a kids toy glockenspiel which I banged against each other or hit with a mallet every time I saw the color Green flash onto the projected video… It has a math rock feel, yet there was more to it because we were all improvising as we went along. Great idea, and I’m really glad those guys were a part of the show!

The only bad part of the show was that I found out today that someone stole $20 out of my tip jar (there were two twenties, now there are only one) during or after the show! Seriously who would do that? I worked hard for that money, and needed it for the gas to get to the next town. Now I have to forgo eating to afford the next town… I hope you needed that $20 more then I do, fucking asshole, and honestly if you needed it more then me I would have given it to you had you asked! Instead you took from someone who is in desperate need! That $20 is a lot of money to me when I only make $56 a week… I could have made $76 this week, but now I have to live off of 56. I hope you feel good about yourself!

anyways, I’m going to go dress my wounds now and take some pain killers to ease the pain… and hang out around a fire for dinner! Wow these guys are treating me to well! (Thanks “Nance”)

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LINKS:

Mickee Faust Academy for the Really Dramatic Arts

Anus Full Of Wasabi