So Dylan and I are still not working. gaaaaahhhhhh
It's starting to get to me but there is a light at the end of the tunnel. Supposedly tuesday I'll be back at work. Dylan has a few leads on new employment but they have yet to turn anything.
In the meanwhile we've been playing a lot of music and taking miniature trips here and there. Here's some photos of our recent activities.
LINK!
Stay classy everyone!
Wednesday, April 24, 2013
Sunday, April 7, 2013
Springtime!
Spring has sprung! We made it through the winter unscathed and have been enjoying the beautiful weather in shorts and tshirts everyday for the past week. A recap of the past few months that I've neglected.
We worked through the very wet yet mild winter. Dylan continuing his construction job in west seattle everyday that started giving him lizard hands. He was laid off recently due to the near completion of the building. He enjoyed being a crane rigger though he's looking for something better paying with less time soaking in the rain.
I'm working for Brian as a home remodeler. Done a fair amount of assorted jobs but painting still makes me the happiest. Haven't been doing a ton of that lately but I know I'm good at it. Just finished up a house not far from us where we knocked out a wall and raised the ceiling to match the roof. I've got before pictures of that and I'll upload em as soon as I've got the finished after pictures.
Dylan and I signed up with a band that I quit after three practices and the band feel apart about a week after that. However out of that rubble emerged a friendship with Ben. Ben was a violinist in the first group and after jamming with him for a moment when everyone else was out of the room he whispers "regardless of what happens with this group do you guys want to throw something together with the three of us?" we agree and after the group fell apart we started meeting him. He's also a tech nerd programmer and is a very hard worker. Making progress with that but starting from scratch so it's very slow going.
Dylan's also playing with his group Take Powell. I got to meet Razz and Kevin, violinist and guitarist respectively. Both very cool people and I love talking shop with them about music. Razz and I sat and brainstormed for half an hour on potential for a new form of violin bow for electric violins that wouldn't create such grinding sounds when played.
I rented out a practice space that Take Powell practices in so Kevin (Different Kevin from the Take Powell Kevin) and I can get back to playing. Kevin was the guitarist in the 3 piece I was playing with in Tacoma last year. I'm SUPER excited for that.
Exciting events that happened!
Went on an okcupid date with a girl named Jessi and her roommate Alix to learn that Jessi is from Jersey city and the two of them live right across the street from us! They're both artists and have been pushing me to get my art online and start applying to grants and residencies. They also feed me SUPER delicious well made food on a regular basis now.
We went up to Snoqualmie with Larry (The MAN of Seattle) and Ben for a day of very wet snowboarding. It was great and well worth it. Dylan and I spent the night before driving around to grocery store parking lots to buy snow gear out of people's cars off craigslist. That was fun too.
I went to Emerald City Comic Con and bought a hundred and fifty dollars worth of comics. Totally worth it. Met a lot of my heroes there and made some new heroes.
We saw Darwin Deez (seen him four times, have gotten four hugs!) and Electric Six play back to back! Met some really cool people at those shows that I hope make awesome friendships.
We also canceled the internet in our apartment and have to go to the library to check our emails every other day. This has already proven to get us better sleep hours and kept us more focused on our individual projects. Dylan doing music, me throwing an art portfolio together. So far it's going great.
We worked through the very wet yet mild winter. Dylan continuing his construction job in west seattle everyday that started giving him lizard hands. He was laid off recently due to the near completion of the building. He enjoyed being a crane rigger though he's looking for something better paying with less time soaking in the rain.
I'm working for Brian as a home remodeler. Done a fair amount of assorted jobs but painting still makes me the happiest. Haven't been doing a ton of that lately but I know I'm good at it. Just finished up a house not far from us where we knocked out a wall and raised the ceiling to match the roof. I've got before pictures of that and I'll upload em as soon as I've got the finished after pictures.
Dylan and I signed up with a band that I quit after three practices and the band feel apart about a week after that. However out of that rubble emerged a friendship with Ben. Ben was a violinist in the first group and after jamming with him for a moment when everyone else was out of the room he whispers "regardless of what happens with this group do you guys want to throw something together with the three of us?" we agree and after the group fell apart we started meeting him. He's also a tech nerd programmer and is a very hard worker. Making progress with that but starting from scratch so it's very slow going.
Dylan's also playing with his group Take Powell. I got to meet Razz and Kevin, violinist and guitarist respectively. Both very cool people and I love talking shop with them about music. Razz and I sat and brainstormed for half an hour on potential for a new form of violin bow for electric violins that wouldn't create such grinding sounds when played.
I rented out a practice space that Take Powell practices in so Kevin (Different Kevin from the Take Powell Kevin) and I can get back to playing. Kevin was the guitarist in the 3 piece I was playing with in Tacoma last year. I'm SUPER excited for that.
Exciting events that happened!
Went on an okcupid date with a girl named Jessi and her roommate Alix to learn that Jessi is from Jersey city and the two of them live right across the street from us! They're both artists and have been pushing me to get my art online and start applying to grants and residencies. They also feed me SUPER delicious well made food on a regular basis now.
We went up to Snoqualmie with Larry (The MAN of Seattle) and Ben for a day of very wet snowboarding. It was great and well worth it. Dylan and I spent the night before driving around to grocery store parking lots to buy snow gear out of people's cars off craigslist. That was fun too.
I went to Emerald City Comic Con and bought a hundred and fifty dollars worth of comics. Totally worth it. Met a lot of my heroes there and made some new heroes.
We saw Darwin Deez (seen him four times, have gotten four hugs!) and Electric Six play back to back! Met some really cool people at those shows that I hope make awesome friendships.
We also canceled the internet in our apartment and have to go to the library to check our emails every other day. This has already proven to get us better sleep hours and kept us more focused on our individual projects. Dylan doing music, me throwing an art portfolio together. So far it's going great.
Saturday, January 5, 2013
New Year Same Cast
sooo...neglect.
Been about a month since I last posted. Since then things have happened
The most notable weekend we had we drove to Vancouver, Canada to play a show. I was filling in for the drummer in Dylan's band who refused to go to Canada. The weekend went like this:
We stayed home the next day and missed the first day of a new job. Dylan's band leader Brian offered me a job as an interior housepainter for a 50% raise from what I was earning at Metrodog. Larry, my boss at Metrodog was super accommodating and gave me a week off to try it out and I agreed to come back and work the Xmas-New Years Rush. I didn't want to leave them short staffed during the holidays because they've been nothing but wonderful to me. The painting job is longer hours but the pay is better and I get weekends off which I haven't in forever. The hours fly by as opposed to crawl by at Metrodog so I don't mind working 830-630 or later.
Dylan kind of got a new job. He's doing the same construction job but he's not working through the hiring agency anymore so instead of $12 he earns $15 an hour.
Xmas was uneventful because I had to work though I cooked a duck with my coworker on Boxing Day and that was delicious. New Years we went out dancing and had fun doing that. I walked home at 430 in the morning to find the door locked with the bath running. I called dylan's phone a number of times and banged on the door to no answer so I assumed Dylan was in the shower. After half an hour with no change I started to worry he had fallen asleep in the bath and that the tub was going to overflow. An hour later I got scared thinking he was dead in the tub. two hours later I got angry and went on a hunt for how to break into the apartment. I found a 24' ladder in a neighbor's yard, hauled it over the fence and propped it up against our kitchen window. I had to defrost the locking mechanism because they were frozen shut then climbed up and into our apartment to find Dylan asleep in bed with the tub running and draining. He woke up with a "What's up buddy?" I cursed him then went and took the ladder back over the neighbor's fence. Went to bed and woke up to go to work again.
Since then I've left Metrodog completely though I was told I would be still be expected to show up to work functions and parties.
Dylan's running in two bands now. Feel Good Band of the Year (the cover band with Brian) and Take Powell. He seems happy in both. We're searching for a practice space so I can use the drums I bought and we can play music together again.
January is supposed to be the most depressing month in Seattle where everyone holes up and disappears. Hibernation so to speak. We're taking our Vitamin D supplements to combat that and invested in a HUGE craigslist free TV so we can watch movies and play video games again. We've just signed up for a Bouldering class tomorrow morning and we're planning on being regulars there so we can get some kind of regular exercise.
Things are going okay here. Having good jobs with good money and free time helps. Hopefully we'll start doing things again now that we've got some.
Been about a month since I last posted. Since then things have happened
Went to go see Death Grips! Zach Hill and Stephan Burnett put on an incredible hour-long-non-stop performance. I mean they did not stop for more than 3 seconds between songs for the whole hour. Absolutely mind bending. Went in exhausted and came out with enough energy that I walked three miles and went dancing at a Soul/Funk night at a bar called The Unicorn.
Went to go See Jherick Bischoff play with a whole orchestra at the Moore Theater. It was beautiful and incredible and I wish I had dressed up for the show.
The most notable weekend we had we drove to Vancouver, Canada to play a show. I was filling in for the drummer in Dylan's band who refused to go to Canada. The weekend went like this:
Friday
Leave Seattle after work.
Get stopped for not knowing enough info about where we were going in Canada.
Get grilled by border patrol.
Get released.
Reach Tracy's house in Vancouver where we are greeted with beer and Shepard's Pie.
Open the show.
Watch Nukem Nice and Fighter Jet play.
Play a closing set for 2nd round of people just showing up.
Load out and leave the venue.
Have Kevin drop us at Lucy's 24 hour Diner.
Eat a Mac & Cheese Meatloaf Sandwich and an Uncle Momo burger.
Walk back to Tracy's and pass out on the living room floor at 530 am.
Saturday
Wake up at 10am to a huge breakfast in Tracy's kitchen.
Leave Vancouver.
Cross the border suspiciously quick.
Stop in Bellingham to have lunch with Glynis and her boyfriend Jason.
Drive back to Seattle.
Go to a dinner party on the floor of Mariana's house.
Sunday
Work
Dylan says he doesn't feel well.
Made dinner with our couchsurfer, Alyssa, in town from San Jose for the night.
I start feeling sick.
Dylan and I swap out camping on the bathroom floor with a stomach virus.
We stayed home the next day and missed the first day of a new job. Dylan's band leader Brian offered me a job as an interior housepainter for a 50% raise from what I was earning at Metrodog. Larry, my boss at Metrodog was super accommodating and gave me a week off to try it out and I agreed to come back and work the Xmas-New Years Rush. I didn't want to leave them short staffed during the holidays because they've been nothing but wonderful to me. The painting job is longer hours but the pay is better and I get weekends off which I haven't in forever. The hours fly by as opposed to crawl by at Metrodog so I don't mind working 830-630 or later.
Dylan kind of got a new job. He's doing the same construction job but he's not working through the hiring agency anymore so instead of $12 he earns $15 an hour.
Xmas was uneventful because I had to work though I cooked a duck with my coworker on Boxing Day and that was delicious. New Years we went out dancing and had fun doing that. I walked home at 430 in the morning to find the door locked with the bath running. I called dylan's phone a number of times and banged on the door to no answer so I assumed Dylan was in the shower. After half an hour with no change I started to worry he had fallen asleep in the bath and that the tub was going to overflow. An hour later I got scared thinking he was dead in the tub. two hours later I got angry and went on a hunt for how to break into the apartment. I found a 24' ladder in a neighbor's yard, hauled it over the fence and propped it up against our kitchen window. I had to defrost the locking mechanism because they were frozen shut then climbed up and into our apartment to find Dylan asleep in bed with the tub running and draining. He woke up with a "What's up buddy?" I cursed him then went and took the ladder back over the neighbor's fence. Went to bed and woke up to go to work again.
Since then I've left Metrodog completely though I was told I would be still be expected to show up to work functions and parties.
Dylan's running in two bands now. Feel Good Band of the Year (the cover band with Brian) and Take Powell. He seems happy in both. We're searching for a practice space so I can use the drums I bought and we can play music together again.
January is supposed to be the most depressing month in Seattle where everyone holes up and disappears. Hibernation so to speak. We're taking our Vitamin D supplements to combat that and invested in a HUGE craigslist free TV so we can watch movies and play video games again. We've just signed up for a Bouldering class tomorrow morning and we're planning on being regulars there so we can get some kind of regular exercise.
Things are going okay here. Having good jobs with good money and free time helps. Hopefully we'll start doing things again now that we've got some.
Tuesday, December 4, 2012
Something I meant to comment on...
This past Tuesday was the day Jimi Hendrix would have turned 70. Living in Seattle this is now a substantially bigger deal than back in Jersey because he lived here. In fact! He went to garfield high school, which is 4 blocks from our house. SUPER COINCIDENCE! Bruce Lee, (funny note about this video the fifth person to attack Bruce is none other than Jackie Chan. Yep, the guy who gets Bruce's fist of mite in his hair is *the* Jackie Chan born the same day as Hendrix, also went to this high school at the same time! Bruce LEe graduated, Hendrix was expelled his Junior year.
Recently, the EMP museum opened an exhibit on Hendrix in London, the Hendrix foundation is working on a park devoted to him, he was all over the radio all last week which was funny to me because I hadn't heard him on the radio since getting here (Musta been saving up all the airtime for this week. Seriously, weaving to work in the rain to "Crosstown Traffic" was an amazing experience.)
Last year I lived with a fantastic character named Nick. Nick is one of the few people I would trust (and have trusted) to take good care of my life when I am unable to do so. He is respectable, loves to have a good time, will push limits because he feels they're mocking him, and loyal to his teeth. One of the things that Nick did for me was be an anchor in the music world. While I'm never content always searching for more and new and weird, Nick stays tethered to what he knows. He is totally accepting of new music and I have introduced him to a fair amount of interesting things but you check his itunes most played and in the top ten will ALWAYS be Hendrix, Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Sublime, and a handful of others that are and always will be classic music.
And I have to thank him for that because my education on a lot of those bands was always second hand. Most of my friends played them so much that I never felt the urge to go get the music and listen to it myself. I had never even listened to a whole Sublime album by the time I met Nick in my junior year and that just wouldn't fly. He just left his music playing all day (and often all night) at a soothing billion and a half decibels, and would just say "I think it's a Zeppelin day today" and run down his entire Zeppelin library. It exposed me and made me listen to 'the great masters of rock' in their entirety and really "get" them. Nick "got" it from his brother. I "got" it from Nick.
Except Hendrix.
Hendrix, I "got". And I remember the day it happened.
It was a rainy sunday in July 2002. And my father and I went to the movies. We were seeing the underrated epic "Reign of Fire" (terribly advertised I know) and we were the only ones in the theater.
I remember the trailer for XXX starring Vin Diesel playing before the movie and as Diesel drives a brand new corvette off a bridge the scene slows and Jimi's voice echos "Scuse me as I kiss the sky". My dad launched into a brief explanation of Jimi Hendrix at my "what song is that from?" in between trailers but it didn't really stick. Later in Reign of Fire at a celebratory scene they're blasting "FIRE" by hendrix and my dad leans over and excitedly taps me "That's hendrix! That's hendrix!" I think in the next week either by my father's suggestion or just coincidence I also saw Wayne's World. That was it. 3 in one week. I went to my dad's record collection and grabbed "are you experienced". and then I learned how that guy on our refrigerator magnet was. I went to Hot Topic (yes yes this was middle school simmer down) and got myself a bright orange t-shirt with Hendrix on the front and wore it to the first day of school. There's a photo of that somewhere...A bunch of the younger teachers (especially the student teachers) commented on it and those were the ones I got to know better and make friends with.
One or two of them turned out to be comic nerds too.
Over the years my relationship with Hendrix has been one of Excess/Abstinence. Every time I rediscover him I play him until I'm burnt out on him. Then I'll go a few months with the cd in the case, deleted from my itunes, wiped off my ipod. But no matter how much I've been listening to him or how 'ready for something straight forward' I am, I will never change the channel when I hear Hendrix on the radio. And that's what usually sparks the crave for psychedelic feedback.
Hendrix died at 27 in 1970 the day Black Sabbath's Paranoid was released, September 18th.
Recently, the EMP museum opened an exhibit on Hendrix in London, the Hendrix foundation is working on a park devoted to him, he was all over the radio all last week which was funny to me because I hadn't heard him on the radio since getting here (Musta been saving up all the airtime for this week. Seriously, weaving to work in the rain to "Crosstown Traffic" was an amazing experience.)
Last year I lived with a fantastic character named Nick. Nick is one of the few people I would trust (and have trusted) to take good care of my life when I am unable to do so. He is respectable, loves to have a good time, will push limits because he feels they're mocking him, and loyal to his teeth. One of the things that Nick did for me was be an anchor in the music world. While I'm never content always searching for more and new and weird, Nick stays tethered to what he knows. He is totally accepting of new music and I have introduced him to a fair amount of interesting things but you check his itunes most played and in the top ten will ALWAYS be Hendrix, Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Sublime, and a handful of others that are and always will be classic music.
And I have to thank him for that because my education on a lot of those bands was always second hand. Most of my friends played them so much that I never felt the urge to go get the music and listen to it myself. I had never even listened to a whole Sublime album by the time I met Nick in my junior year and that just wouldn't fly. He just left his music playing all day (and often all night) at a soothing billion and a half decibels, and would just say "I think it's a Zeppelin day today" and run down his entire Zeppelin library. It exposed me and made me listen to 'the great masters of rock' in their entirety and really "get" them. Nick "got" it from his brother. I "got" it from Nick.
Except Hendrix.
Hendrix, I "got". And I remember the day it happened.
It was a rainy sunday in July 2002. And my father and I went to the movies. We were seeing the underrated epic "Reign of Fire" (terribly advertised I know) and we were the only ones in the theater.
I remember the trailer for XXX starring Vin Diesel playing before the movie and as Diesel drives a brand new corvette off a bridge the scene slows and Jimi's voice echos "Scuse me as I kiss the sky". My dad launched into a brief explanation of Jimi Hendrix at my "what song is that from?" in between trailers but it didn't really stick. Later in Reign of Fire at a celebratory scene they're blasting "FIRE" by hendrix and my dad leans over and excitedly taps me "That's hendrix! That's hendrix!" I think in the next week either by my father's suggestion or just coincidence I also saw Wayne's World. That was it. 3 in one week. I went to my dad's record collection and grabbed "are you experienced". and then I learned how that guy on our refrigerator magnet was. I went to Hot Topic (yes yes this was middle school simmer down) and got myself a bright orange t-shirt with Hendrix on the front and wore it to the first day of school. There's a photo of that somewhere...A bunch of the younger teachers (especially the student teachers) commented on it and those were the ones I got to know better and make friends with.
One or two of them turned out to be comic nerds too.
Over the years my relationship with Hendrix has been one of Excess/Abstinence. Every time I rediscover him I play him until I'm burnt out on him. Then I'll go a few months with the cd in the case, deleted from my itunes, wiped off my ipod. But no matter how much I've been listening to him or how 'ready for something straight forward' I am, I will never change the channel when I hear Hendrix on the radio. And that's what usually sparks the crave for psychedelic feedback.
Hendrix died at 27 in 1970 the day Black Sabbath's Paranoid was released, September 18th.
Friday, November 23, 2012
"I feel the birth of civilization would have been difficult without spoons."
So apparently I've used up my entire space allotment of photos on this blog so I can't post any more directly into this page. So there'll just be more links instead.
And after a spell of inactive life, things began to happen.
Like rain. Heavy rain. And Wind. So much so that most of the trees are now lacking leaves. All said leaves are now clogging the gutters creating massive puddles everywhere. You know for a city that's always wet you'd expect them to have a really superb drainage system. Every drain on every corner was clogged. I refused to walk on major roads because there wasn't a safe no-splash zone in the whole city.
On some of my dog walks I get to climb hills peppered with suburban houses. Long windy roads that snake and coil up the landscape. I found a lookout spot on one of them and took a reference of the storm vs. the hour of sun every day. That shows you the difference fifteen minutes can make in Seattle. It's amazing.
We met Annie. Annie is Dylan's new violin teacher. We are in the process of teaching her how to read music. Any questions? Listening to these two talk politics over vietnamese food and beer is a smack-in-the-face approach to social studies. She called out Dylan on claiming to be a Libertarian but admitting it wouldn't work. He called many of her viewpoints romantic. I drank tea and played ukelele for lack of any input.
The next night I went to The Crocodile and saw The Internet play.
**A note about The Crocodile. It only recently became an all ages club. As of now the floor is open but the balcony is 21+ with the bar. Apparently it used to be the other way around with all the littlins upstairs away from the booze and the 21+ crowd against the stage. The upstairs has a great view off the balcony and almost no one stays up there the whole time so I didn't mind a bit. Microbrew taps are about $4 for a decent sized cup and the bands help set up and tear down their own gear. My only issue with The Crocodile is the tickets said doors at 7 show at 8. I got there at 930 and the opener hadn't even played yet. Apparently the outside didn't open til 8 and they wouldn't let anyone out of the bar and into the venue til 830. Show didn't really start til quarter after ten. Made getting up for work at 530 the next day a tad difficult.**
The Internet, which is composed of Syd the Kid, Odd Future's DJ, and Matt the Martian, an Odd Future Producer. The music for the album is almost entirely created on electronic keyboards but has a lot of elements of funk, soul, R&B, lounge, psychedelia, and hip-hop. Both odd future concert's i've been to were 6 or 7 guys rompin around rapping over their song's playing through the P.A. So you can imagine my surprise when I see a drum set, and electric rhodes, a bass and a midi keyboard set up after the opener. and MAN could those guys PLAY!
The opener was a ridiculous group called KingdomCrumbs. They were an old school dance rap kind group. Brooklyn house party kind stuff. Harmonies, fun beats, synchronized zz top-esque two steps and loads of pointing in unison. They did a great job of warming up the crowd for the show.
After the show I walked around back half expecting (with out past luck in Seattle) to run into one or both of the bands. Instead I found an idol built into the alley wall.
I walked back to the car in the cold, empty, streets and drove home.
Then work started to pick up with the holiday season.
This is what I walk into on a normal day care day. A normal busy day tops out at about 60 dogs on the floor.
This is what I walked into yesterday. We had 78 dogs on the floor at any given time.
So many dogs we had to divide the floor with the back half becoming a favela of dog crates for the extra dogs to live in. Apparently xmas is gonna be even worse looking upwards of 90-100 dogs. Gonna be crazy for a few days.
Our bosses were cool and gave us all time and a half for working thanksgiving day AND brought us in a t-day spread. A whole turkey, taters, veggies, stuffing, pies, and beer for when we clocked out. Dylan went to Clara's and had a wild nighttime adventure jumping into Lake Washington (which i'm thinking about doing for new years/xmas as a polar bear club challenge). I went to my co-worker's place and she had a SUUUUUUPER delicious spread she had been working on all day. It was amazing and I'm jealous I didn't get to cook all day cause that was my favorite part of thanksgiving. I'm thinking for xmas I'll get all the orphans and transplants together and have xmas here and i'll make a ham or something.
**Something I've come to realize in the past few days with all this holiday talk**
Seattle, as with most major cities, has a draw of people from all over. Folks not happy in their small towns will flock to the big city to live. So much so that I have only met two people who are originally from Seattle or nearby areas. Just about everyone is an immigrant here and I think that is where the Seattle 'friendly-ness' comes from. Everyone understands what it's like to be the new kid in town and sympathizes. This leads me to think the holidays will be pretty cool and we won't be the only orphans. Even if I have to work on xmas.
Black Friday is looking up. Woke up and having a mug of irish coffee. Got the day off with dylan and we went to look for clara's wallet which she lost some where on their late night adventure. We found a yellow jacket climbing up our couch (he's been been living in our couch?! and he WASN'T PAYING US RENT?!), and set him free.
We got bottles full of rain and whiskey and it's only 1:19...
And after a spell of inactive life, things began to happen.
Like rain. Heavy rain. And Wind. So much so that most of the trees are now lacking leaves. All said leaves are now clogging the gutters creating massive puddles everywhere. You know for a city that's always wet you'd expect them to have a really superb drainage system. Every drain on every corner was clogged. I refused to walk on major roads because there wasn't a safe no-splash zone in the whole city.
On some of my dog walks I get to climb hills peppered with suburban houses. Long windy roads that snake and coil up the landscape. I found a lookout spot on one of them and took a reference of the storm vs. the hour of sun every day. That shows you the difference fifteen minutes can make in Seattle. It's amazing.
We met Annie. Annie is Dylan's new violin teacher. We are in the process of teaching her how to read music. Any questions? Listening to these two talk politics over vietnamese food and beer is a smack-in-the-face approach to social studies. She called out Dylan on claiming to be a Libertarian but admitting it wouldn't work. He called many of her viewpoints romantic. I drank tea and played ukelele for lack of any input.
The next night I went to The Crocodile and saw The Internet play.
**A note about The Crocodile. It only recently became an all ages club. As of now the floor is open but the balcony is 21+ with the bar. Apparently it used to be the other way around with all the littlins upstairs away from the booze and the 21+ crowd against the stage. The upstairs has a great view off the balcony and almost no one stays up there the whole time so I didn't mind a bit. Microbrew taps are about $4 for a decent sized cup and the bands help set up and tear down their own gear. My only issue with The Crocodile is the tickets said doors at 7 show at 8. I got there at 930 and the opener hadn't even played yet. Apparently the outside didn't open til 8 and they wouldn't let anyone out of the bar and into the venue til 830. Show didn't really start til quarter after ten. Made getting up for work at 530 the next day a tad difficult.**
The Internet, which is composed of Syd the Kid, Odd Future's DJ, and Matt the Martian, an Odd Future Producer. The music for the album is almost entirely created on electronic keyboards but has a lot of elements of funk, soul, R&B, lounge, psychedelia, and hip-hop. Both odd future concert's i've been to were 6 or 7 guys rompin around rapping over their song's playing through the P.A. So you can imagine my surprise when I see a drum set, and electric rhodes, a bass and a midi keyboard set up after the opener. and MAN could those guys PLAY!
The opener was a ridiculous group called KingdomCrumbs. They were an old school dance rap kind group. Brooklyn house party kind stuff. Harmonies, fun beats, synchronized zz top-esque two steps and loads of pointing in unison. They did a great job of warming up the crowd for the show.
After the show I walked around back half expecting (with out past luck in Seattle) to run into one or both of the bands. Instead I found an idol built into the alley wall.
I walked back to the car in the cold, empty, streets and drove home.
Then work started to pick up with the holiday season.
This is what I walk into on a normal day care day. A normal busy day tops out at about 60 dogs on the floor.
This is what I walked into yesterday. We had 78 dogs on the floor at any given time.
So many dogs we had to divide the floor with the back half becoming a favela of dog crates for the extra dogs to live in. Apparently xmas is gonna be even worse looking upwards of 90-100 dogs. Gonna be crazy for a few days.
Our bosses were cool and gave us all time and a half for working thanksgiving day AND brought us in a t-day spread. A whole turkey, taters, veggies, stuffing, pies, and beer for when we clocked out. Dylan went to Clara's and had a wild nighttime adventure jumping into Lake Washington (which i'm thinking about doing for new years/xmas as a polar bear club challenge). I went to my co-worker's place and she had a SUUUUUUPER delicious spread she had been working on all day. It was amazing and I'm jealous I didn't get to cook all day cause that was my favorite part of thanksgiving. I'm thinking for xmas I'll get all the orphans and transplants together and have xmas here and i'll make a ham or something.
**Something I've come to realize in the past few days with all this holiday talk**
Seattle, as with most major cities, has a draw of people from all over. Folks not happy in their small towns will flock to the big city to live. So much so that I have only met two people who are originally from Seattle or nearby areas. Just about everyone is an immigrant here and I think that is where the Seattle 'friendly-ness' comes from. Everyone understands what it's like to be the new kid in town and sympathizes. This leads me to think the holidays will be pretty cool and we won't be the only orphans. Even if I have to work on xmas.
Black Friday is looking up. Woke up and having a mug of irish coffee. Got the day off with dylan and we went to look for clara's wallet which she lost some where on their late night adventure. We found a yellow jacket climbing up our couch (he's been been living in our couch?! and he WASN'T PAYING US RENT?!), and set him free.
We got bottles full of rain and whiskey and it's only 1:19...
Friday, November 16, 2012
Elections and Turkeys
Lack of updates for a few weeks due to lack of anything but work happening here. Work has been exhausting and the odd scheduling has made alternative activities difficult to manage.
Worth noting I suppose is the election. While I did not vote the voting went on without me and brought much jubilation from my peers.
The two major points that our citizens were voting for, aside from voting in favor of obama (not as strongly as NY or New Jersey I might add) were of course state wide legalization of pot and gay marriage.
I am quite proud of the members of state government for finally knocking these out because honestly I feel as though too much attention is brought to each of these on a political scale. Entire platforms are formed on these issues and they should not be issues politicians are focused on in the first place. Each of these matters are personal preferences that really should be left up to individuals to decide for themselves and not have a higher authority interfering. If you don't want to marry someone who has the same genitalia as yourself, then don't do it. If you don't want to get high while everyone around you is passing a joint, politely excuse yourself and go smoke your cigarette on the stoop. No one had any problems managing either of these in college, so it shouldn't be too hard in the real world.
I know neither of these matters will be left alone now that they have been adopted but for a minute it's nice to not hear arguing about it. If both of these movements get into the swing of things and start operating like well oiled machines by the next election perhaps politicians might actually have to debate issues that matter in peoples' lives. Won't that be interesting!
There has been a lot of talk on the radio about the possibility of these new doorways being shut if the people running them don't get them operating as they should. Now I really don't think there's anything to flub up with gay marriages. That seems pretty straight forward, everyone who wants to get married can get married. Done. If the highly religious folk wanted a maniacal revenge they could make gay divorce illegal. That'd be funny in a cruel and unusual kind of way.
But the pot is a huge market that is trying to be government run and there's a lot of room for that to fail. I got my hands on a copy of Initiative 502 and read through it then got some cliff notes to help understand the legal-ese.
Seems the Washington State Liquor Control Board will be in charge of regulating marijuana but will not be changing their name to include marijuana in there. Still just liquor.
**For those of you that don't know (because I didn't until very recently) until last year you could only buy alcohol from State Liquor Stores. There was a monopoly on liquor sales that had been in effect since prohibition but now you can get beer in grocery stores and Walgreens and corner stores. However they're taxed up like hell except in major chains so we've been buying cheap tall boys of beer by the rack (PBR, Rainier, and Olympia which is WA version of PBR are still relatively good buys for the buck) since we got here and occasionally getting a bottle or two of something else. The bars however all stock microbrews that are rarely below 7% and can be as cheap as $3 at happy hour so it balances out a lil.**
They've been given a year to get this operation off the ground and running smoothly which seems like not a lot of time to me. We're talking about a massive multifaceted market. Cultivating, selling, marketing, production of dry goods, transportation, and the now legally separated hemp industry all of which must be regulated by the state.
(A very brief and quick breakdown of Hemp. Marijuana like all plants come in male and female. Females are plants that create flowers as their sexual organs. In the case of marijuana, the flowers are what is smoked. The male plants are just plants. There's a little bit of thc (part of what gets you high) in them but not enough to balance out the massive headache you're going to get if you try to smoke them. So why have them? Well the plant itself is still very useful and can be made into paper, clothing, foods (that don't get you high but are exceptionally good for you), biodiesel, building materials, plastics, soil/water/air purification (hemp is being used to clear contaminants in the soil at the Chernoybyl disaster site), and really anything else you can use wheat-like plants for. It's also one of the fastest growing biomasses able to grow 25 metric tons of plant mass per 2.5 acres a year which means more awesome more faster.)
And to add to all this that the state has to deal with, there's still the fact that no matter how well they manage to do their jobs, the common place black market will still have more knowledge and experience than the state. The fact alone that I-502 puts into place a $25 percent tax on growers and a 25% tax on sellers means that prices are going to be extraordinarily high while black market prices are going to stay the same price they've been for years. The only thing the legitimate market is going to have going for them is the regulation and offered choices. I'm all for checking to make sure there's no pesticides or mold or anything growing on anything you're putting in your body but the fact is the majority of people are not willing to pay extra for that service. There may be a novelty aspect to being able to buy pot in a store like beer or cookies but the inflated market can't compete with a customer base that's generally flat broke.
So there's a lot of room to fail on that part. And if the liquor control board doesn't have their act together in a year it will be an embarrassment and all the naysayers will jump down their throats and yell "I told you it wouldn't work". Making it a major issue debated once again when elections come up again.
So there's that.
The seattle police department did post a fantastic FAQ on their blotter which I'd recommend checking out.
Politics aside work has been driving both Dylan and I to drink. We're always exhausted, not getting paid enough, and we're both getting tired of it. We're both looking for more work though I probably won't be able to leave my job til january simply because the coming weeks will be the busiest of the year and they won't have time to train anyone to replace me. I did get in contact with a guy I met at an animal collective show who makes pop up restaurants. Opens a restaurant for a weekend, makes money, shuts it down. He liked how easily I could talk to strangers and said he was gonna start up again in early December. He also asked if I knew any reliable servers. I told him Dylan could do that job real well once he got his Washington food handler's permit. So that could be fun.
The only other thing on our minds has been Thanksgiving. Clara said she's probably going home so that leaves us with almost no friends here. I managed to work my schedule so subtly that no one at work noticed that I had thursday and friday off. So I don't have to work thanksgiving or the day after. YAY!
We were invited by my co-worker Jordan (flying lotus show girl) to her house for turkey day and our original couchsurfing host Larry said he's having a party at his house. Both of those could be great. With larry we will surely be drinking LOOOOOOOTS of white russians. Either way, I'm cooking/baking all day long.
Miss you all!
Worth noting I suppose is the election. While I did not vote the voting went on without me and brought much jubilation from my peers.
The two major points that our citizens were voting for, aside from voting in favor of obama (not as strongly as NY or New Jersey I might add) were of course state wide legalization of pot and gay marriage.
I am quite proud of the members of state government for finally knocking these out because honestly I feel as though too much attention is brought to each of these on a political scale. Entire platforms are formed on these issues and they should not be issues politicians are focused on in the first place. Each of these matters are personal preferences that really should be left up to individuals to decide for themselves and not have a higher authority interfering. If you don't want to marry someone who has the same genitalia as yourself, then don't do it. If you don't want to get high while everyone around you is passing a joint, politely excuse yourself and go smoke your cigarette on the stoop. No one had any problems managing either of these in college, so it shouldn't be too hard in the real world.
I know neither of these matters will be left alone now that they have been adopted but for a minute it's nice to not hear arguing about it. If both of these movements get into the swing of things and start operating like well oiled machines by the next election perhaps politicians might actually have to debate issues that matter in peoples' lives. Won't that be interesting!
There has been a lot of talk on the radio about the possibility of these new doorways being shut if the people running them don't get them operating as they should. Now I really don't think there's anything to flub up with gay marriages. That seems pretty straight forward, everyone who wants to get married can get married. Done. If the highly religious folk wanted a maniacal revenge they could make gay divorce illegal. That'd be funny in a cruel and unusual kind of way.
But the pot is a huge market that is trying to be government run and there's a lot of room for that to fail. I got my hands on a copy of Initiative 502 and read through it then got some cliff notes to help understand the legal-ese.
Seems the Washington State Liquor Control Board will be in charge of regulating marijuana but will not be changing their name to include marijuana in there. Still just liquor.
**For those of you that don't know (because I didn't until very recently) until last year you could only buy alcohol from State Liquor Stores. There was a monopoly on liquor sales that had been in effect since prohibition but now you can get beer in grocery stores and Walgreens and corner stores. However they're taxed up like hell except in major chains so we've been buying cheap tall boys of beer by the rack (PBR, Rainier, and Olympia which is WA version of PBR are still relatively good buys for the buck) since we got here and occasionally getting a bottle or two of something else. The bars however all stock microbrews that are rarely below 7% and can be as cheap as $3 at happy hour so it balances out a lil.**
They've been given a year to get this operation off the ground and running smoothly which seems like not a lot of time to me. We're talking about a massive multifaceted market. Cultivating, selling, marketing, production of dry goods, transportation, and the now legally separated hemp industry all of which must be regulated by the state.
(A very brief and quick breakdown of Hemp. Marijuana like all plants come in male and female. Females are plants that create flowers as their sexual organs. In the case of marijuana, the flowers are what is smoked. The male plants are just plants. There's a little bit of thc (part of what gets you high) in them but not enough to balance out the massive headache you're going to get if you try to smoke them. So why have them? Well the plant itself is still very useful and can be made into paper, clothing, foods (that don't get you high but are exceptionally good for you), biodiesel, building materials, plastics, soil/water/air purification (hemp is being used to clear contaminants in the soil at the Chernoybyl disaster site), and really anything else you can use wheat-like plants for. It's also one of the fastest growing biomasses able to grow 25 metric tons of plant mass per 2.5 acres a year which means more awesome more faster.)
And to add to all this that the state has to deal with, there's still the fact that no matter how well they manage to do their jobs, the common place black market will still have more knowledge and experience than the state. The fact alone that I-502 puts into place a $25 percent tax on growers and a 25% tax on sellers means that prices are going to be extraordinarily high while black market prices are going to stay the same price they've been for years. The only thing the legitimate market is going to have going for them is the regulation and offered choices. I'm all for checking to make sure there's no pesticides or mold or anything growing on anything you're putting in your body but the fact is the majority of people are not willing to pay extra for that service. There may be a novelty aspect to being able to buy pot in a store like beer or cookies but the inflated market can't compete with a customer base that's generally flat broke.
So there's a lot of room to fail on that part. And if the liquor control board doesn't have their act together in a year it will be an embarrassment and all the naysayers will jump down their throats and yell "I told you it wouldn't work". Making it a major issue debated once again when elections come up again.
So there's that.
The seattle police department did post a fantastic FAQ on their blotter which I'd recommend checking out.
Politics aside work has been driving both Dylan and I to drink. We're always exhausted, not getting paid enough, and we're both getting tired of it. We're both looking for more work though I probably won't be able to leave my job til january simply because the coming weeks will be the busiest of the year and they won't have time to train anyone to replace me. I did get in contact with a guy I met at an animal collective show who makes pop up restaurants. Opens a restaurant for a weekend, makes money, shuts it down. He liked how easily I could talk to strangers and said he was gonna start up again in early December. He also asked if I knew any reliable servers. I told him Dylan could do that job real well once he got his Washington food handler's permit. So that could be fun.
The only other thing on our minds has been Thanksgiving. Clara said she's probably going home so that leaves us with almost no friends here. I managed to work my schedule so subtly that no one at work noticed that I had thursday and friday off. So I don't have to work thanksgiving or the day after. YAY!
We were invited by my co-worker Jordan (flying lotus show girl) to her house for turkey day and our original couchsurfing host Larry said he's having a party at his house. Both of those could be great. With larry we will surely be drinking LOOOOOOOTS of white russians. Either way, I'm cooking/baking all day long.
Miss you all!
Monday, October 29, 2012
Ups and Downs
Started the week at the top of Seattle. The 50th anniversary of the unveiling of the Space Needle at the World's Fair meant a trip up was only
One. Dollar.
Usually it's about $20 for two hours of time up there so we snagged Clara and took a ride up after almost no waiting. It's no Empire State Building but it's a nice for a look around. Well worth a dollar.
We snagged some brunch at Bang Bang Cafe
and I had to go to work to hang out with these guys.
This guy was absolutely ridiculous. When i gave him a bath he shrunk down to about half his size.
On the way home I saw this in the paper.
Charles Burns, is amazing. I first found out about him from the Iggy Pop cover art for Brick by Brick. Then I read Black Hole and fell in love with his line style and used it as a research point in my thesis project.
Chris Ware I didn't learn about until my comic's class senior year of college. Then i found out I had seen countless covers of the New Yorker with his illustrations (he brought this image up at the discussion and mentioned he's in the bottom left corner with the tandem bike and his daughter is the girl in line looking back.)
The very next night was an amazing night at the neptune starring
Dr Strangeloop (who did not play sadly did not perform this night) did provide and excellent visual set up wherein Flying Lotus's dj set up was positioned between two screens each projecting a different flowing set of images. It was beautiful.
Shortly after starting the set he dropped the beat a few times singing the words "Whiskey Time!" in each drop. I couldn't figure out why until I noticed the handle of Jameson sitting on a turntable on his left (visible in the photo below).
He managed to kill 3/4's of the bottle during his performance and still stay amazingly precise with his music. At the end of the set he came out to the front of the stage jumped into the crowd and handed what remained of the bottle to some kid and said "Here! Take this and RUN!" Then disappeared backstage.
As I was exiting the lobby I looked up and saw him walking through the crowd up the stairs I was walking down. I grabbed my camera and tried to take a picture but decided to go full contact with a hug mid photo.
This is one of my coworkers, Jordan, who is awesome and came to the show with her boyfriend. She reached out and said "Thankyouthanksyouthankyou soooooo much for coming here" and he casually looked her in the eye and said "oh thank you so much. that's so cool."
He was a really chill/ and despite the amount of alcohol he consumed he was really well composed albeit more than a little exhausted.
This is Jordan telling me a story about her and her sister getting attacked while walking home in this very spot by some crazy guy who thought they spat at him.
This is the bloodstain from him punching her sister two weeks after the attack (also visible in the photo above on the right)
This is where her sister lives.
And there's always room for more silly dog pictures.
Dylan went to a costume party of architecture grad students. I loaned him some stuff to make a costume with.
My phone started exploding with calls and texts telling me the power had gone out in the east and the hurricane was knocking stuff out left and right and killing eleven people in new jersey.
We're chillin in Seattle, hangin out lookin like this.
Be safe y'all!
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