Irony is the New White Belt

Collection of various pictures from the past couple of months or so.
Man, I can't believe summer's almost over. We had a good run.


Alana tries on her veil for the first time.


A still life of what's usually on the counter in the offices of Planet Ant.
Note the drug paraphenalia next to the pamplet on how not to get busted for drugs.


Christian and Mister Josh at 5 in the morning.


Jimmer serenades the patrons of Crazy Wisdom Tea Room.


Is this a band called "Metal" or will there just be some awesome general metal playing?
Either way, can I go, please?


Waste is a terrible thing to waste.

Continuing to add to my wonderful collection of hilarious and badly misspelled myspace sexual offers:

I ahve a big heels fetish. I want to go shopping with a women and buy her heels! No strings attached. We just meet at the store and you get the shoes. I was wondering if you would be interested at all? Hope to hear from you soon!

~Dan

Man. I like free stuff so much, I'm almost tempted to go for it.

Watching the Cosby Show this afternoon, and what should I see but this enjoyable scene:


(Rudy and the Grandparents Huxtable looking at old pictures)

Rudy: That's a pretty hat, grandma

Grandma: Thank you! That was high fashion back then

Grandpa: Especially if you were a hipster.

Rudy: What's that?

Grandpa: A hipster was someone who knew the latest dances and the latest sayings and wore the latest clothes.

Grandma: We could straighten up and fly *right*!

Grandpa: Are you hip to the jive?

Grandma: (laughs) Solid!

Grandpa: Slip me some skin! (does so) Byoo-tee-ful. (snap)

Rudy: Can I have some skin, grandpa?

Grandpa: Absolutely! (gives her some skin) Byoo-tee-ful! (snap)

Grandma: Wellsir, I think we got a hipster in our midst.


And there you have it. Brandon, that was totally for your benefit.

I got totally floored by a cold that ninja'd at me from out of nowhere on Sunday night. At this point the cold has mostly retreated, but now I'm left with a completely effed-up throat that's so raw from coughing I have to spend the entire day in monklike silence just so my voice is strong enough to work for the 25 minutes I need to be on stage every night. On the plus side, I have this completely false sense of being all Zen and spiritually centered. Also, I can use this as an excuse to avoid talking to people I don't feel like talking to. When approached I simply point to my throat and shrug with my palms up in front of me.

On the minus side, ow. As much as I'm currently enjoying my late-night Advil and Frosty cocktail, I rather just be able to swallow without wincing.

EDIT (8/11/05): I have tonsillitis. Oops.

This is so neat. You should all go here and paint a picture.

http://artpad.art.com/artpad/painter/

And then screen capture and post it here if you want. I wanna see.

Mr Josh reports that The Bat has made a second appearance. Apparantly as he was cooking he reached for one of the pots we have hanging on the wall and the bat came flying out from inside.

He was, needless to say, a bit surprised.

The bat then perched on the wall above the sink. Josh steeled his manly courage, armed himself with potholders, grabbed it and carried it down the stairs to be released it back into the wild.

Think it's the same bat or just a species-wide attraction to my house?

Just returned from Alana and Russ's wedding. Am so insanely wasted, in every sense of the word. Physically aching all over, primarily in the foot(uncomfortable spike heels), back(corseted dress), and scalp(teased and pinned hair) regions. But, if I do say so myself, we were the four of the hottest bridesmaids this side of the prime meridian. So it was well worth the discomfort.

And the ceremony was so beautiful. It was a very unique and honest and un-lame melding of Jewish and Christian and non-denominational matrimonial traditions. And it was so joyous and funny. People were cheering and clapping and laughing and crying all throughout the damn thing, which is, goldurnit, the way a wedding ought to be. None of that somber business. Enjoyed it immensely and wept like a good bridesmaid should. Twas perfect, even if I did have to stand in the hot sun and watch a mosquito chew on my leg during the cohoni prayer, unable to swat it away.

I will post pictures later when they are made available. And perhaps detail more of the proceedings. Mazeltov, guys.

Attention everyone: I'm drunk on a Tuesday. Bad enough I drank before coming home, but then to get home and find still more cans of PBR waiting all chilly in the fridge...it is truly a magical evening.

Looks like in addition to directing this one-act play in August I will be acting in an entirely separate one-act play running the same evenings. So double the reason for all you'uns to come out and support my Art with a capital "A". The one I'm directing is about carnies, and the one I'm acting in is about catty bitches. I'm awfully tired, though. Two rehearsals in one day can wear a girl out.

BYOC party Saturday night was loud and long and well-attended. I drank many beers, and danced, and chatted. Then eventually in the wee hours of the morning I left the house to walk to my car, but got distracted by Christian and Caleb and some neighborhood cats. We three ended up sitting on the curb and laying in driveways till around five in the a.m., watching the sky and enjoying the quiet rustles of Ashley Street. Chalk up another candidate in my little list of perfectly simple Ann Arbor moments.

Sunday's Untonation "Festival" (ha.) was also long and well-attended, though less loud. I drank many beers there too, and stayed longer than perhaps I should've. But it was worth it, as lingering in the kitchen allowed me to hear my friend Dustin read his awesome letter to the governer proffering his vaunted hipster services in the hopes of making the "Cool Cities Initiative" actually...cool. Heh!

Monday, during a storm, the power for my entire street went out round mid-afternoon. We all emerged from our de-electrified sanctums, blinking in the dim afternoon light. Boy, does our dependence on electricity make us antisocial. My downstairs neighbors and I sat out on the porch for a good three hours, just chatting and watching the power trucks drive by, and the children ride bikes and the people of the neighborhood come out of hiding like earthworms after a storm. Once it got too dark to see anything at all, I went to see the Willy Wonka movie with Chuck.

And then today was today.

You know how sometimes you're a young, struggling actor, and you'll do any lame little project that will pay, like, actual money?

And then invariably, one day two years later your roommate is registering for classes on the internet and he finds video footage of you "accessing your happiness requirement"?

And you suffer from the realization that while your beloved stage acting is an ephemeral, transitory medium with a limited shelf life, the embarrassment of digital video lives FOREVER.

1. Thursday. Finally found actors for show I'm directing, after placing unsuccessful calls to somewhere in the vicinity of thirty-five people. Later on, the "Movie Night" at Scott and Chuck's turns into a rather raucous drunken affair, culminating in a late night trip to the hospital to tend to an injured partygoer. But we did watch a whole lot of awesome R&B footage from the late 60's and also portions of Fando and Lis, which gave me nightmares.

2. Yesterday walked all over my two towns in the hot sun, Ypsi with Mister Josh, then Ann Arbor with Andrea. Then back to the Madison House to meet with the Beezer for The Dirtbombs show at the Blind Pig where we saw many many familiar faces and got to watch Lazaro dance like a happy muppet. Pleased to report I was thoroughly rocked.

3. I don't seem to be sleeping at all. At least not for a couple of days now. I lie down and close my eyes and drift around and time passes, but I'm fairly certain I'm awake the whole time. thinking's really hard today.

4. Tonight I'm going to this:



and then tomorrow, this:



Three days in row? Sheesh.

This gets funnier and funnier the more I look at it.



Doesn't it? Hee!!
c/o meaganoff

Okay, I'm just going to start keeping an archive of all the effed-up sexual invitations/bad romatic poetry I get off my MySpace profile.

Today's doozy:

From: Sherri

Date: Jul 8, 2005 3:06 PM
Subject: Hello sweetie:)
Body: hey hun, i noticed your in the same city as me, welllllllllll i wanted to ask you something, kinda of a weird request, but i wanna do this for my husband, do you think you would help me surprise him by meeting him and giving him a bj without him knowing about it, id have to figure out how it could happen, but first obviously id like to see if you would be ok with the idea.

Sherri

I...I...don't even know where to begin. I'm oddly flattered and repelled at the same time.

This one is also a recent favorite of mine, from some 40 year old Indian guy:

LOOKING IN HER EYES,
I WAS SO AMAZED
LOOKING IN HER EYES,
PUT ME IN A DAZE

THOSE LIPS, SO SOFT
WHO WOULDN`T WANT TO KISS

HER SMILE,LIKE NO OTHER
SHE IS THE PERFECT LOVER

HER BODY LIKE A GODESS
SHE MUST BE HEAVEN SENT

HER TOUCH,MAKES ME NUMB
HER LOVE MAKES ME WEAK
WHO IS SHE??????
IS SHE INTERESTED IN ME?? WILL SHE BE INTERESTED IN ME???
IF YOU ARE AND HAVE YAHOO MESSANGER LETS CHAT?

Hee. Heeheehee.

Howdy. Am back from Te-jas, sunburnt all to a crispy golden pink. After a protracted day-long battle with the airlines, I finally arrived home and was greeted by the smiling face and air-conditioned automotive interior of Miss Andrea. We tracked down Chuck and Mr. Deroche and some guy named Ben who works at Encore(who doesn't in this town?) and is nice and looks a lot like hochopepa and made them go get food and beer with us, where I regaled everyone with stories of my vacation for about nine minutes or so. And then we talked for the next three hours about other things. After relating my enthusiasm for all things weird and taxidermied, Deroche ran down to his basement and presented me with an inexplicable wall thermometer made out of a deer's leg and hoof. I have hung it proudly in my hallway.

Austin did not impress me. Chuck postulated that perhaps the only reason why everyone we know thinks Austin is so damn great is because everyone we know only ever goes down there when there's something great going on, like SXSW. The rest of the year it's just another loud drunken college town, drenched in perpetual summer. I'm willing to give the city another chance, though. Like there's these hidden nooks of coolness just waiting to be discovered by enterprising tourists. But man, you wanna talk about sprawl? Recent interactions with urban planning students may have made me overly sensitive, but this was excessive. The outskirts of the city are just nasty.

San Antonio, however, was beautiful. I took a million pictures of the architecture. They've done such an amazing job of blending in the new buildings with the old, it's like this seamless, timeless skyline of dusty-colored stone and brick, and corporate logos mixed in with charming old painted advertisements, and awnings topped by classic neon signs and nothing really looks too *new*. It's quite wonderful.

On my way to the airport today I got a call from Joe informing me that our friend Jim had a massive heart attack yesterday and was, apparantly, inches from death. He's stablized somewhat now, the extent of the damage is not known, and that, so far, is the last I heard, having been unable to reach anyone by phone all day and evening. So after fretting about it a couple hours this morning, I basically abandoned it for the rest of the night in favor of concentrating on my travel plans and hanging out with my friends. Again I find a greater conclusion in a specific event: I come to realize that once more my reaction to tragedy is wall it off and turn callous. Which can make me such the inappropriate person during difficult times. I don't mean to be hurtful, but I know I have been anyway. sorry G.

My computer is covered in dozens of tiny spiders. I started systematically smashing them until my roommate asked me, very serenely, if I'd ever read Charlotte's Web.



I'm a monster.

Hit up the Lager House last night with Mister Josh for your typical pathetically attended Tuesday night music show. Sigh. One of these days people will wise up and support the same stuff I support and then I'll be all mad about it and complain that I liked it first.

Anyway, so I had a bit of a weekend/week, what with the closing of a show I'd been working on and the wide variety of post-show celebrations and then some nice music and swimming. Today I have way too much to do and all I can think about is something really surreal that happened last night and something annoying that happened on Sunday and something momentous that happened on Thursday but none of which I can blog about because I'm the moron who clued all my stupid friends into where my livejournal was.

Sorry guys, I didn't mean that. You're not stupid. Most of you. Suffice to say I'm sick of effing Relationships, and Dating, and also Not Dating, and also Used-to-Be Dating but Aren't Anymore and also idiots who stay in relationships with people they clearly hate or who clearly hate them and I'd really just like *that* part of my life to not be so ENDlessly difficult.

Rarrrrrrggggh.

Today: audition in West Bloomfield, Tigers Game with Greg II, packing.
Tomorrow: breakfast with Chuck, ride to the airport, take a plane to Austin.

Ah, 5 days in the coolest city in the country...with my parents.

Incidentally, I still need a ride home from the airport on July 5th around 5:30, if anyone's feeling charitable.

Weird ailment: For the past month now, occasionally I'll be sitting down and all of a sudden get this sharp pinch on the left side of my ribcage that makes it hurt to breathe.

Usually if I raise my left arm over my head and stretch up or back really hard it will hurt badly for a second, kind of make a little *pop* and then stop hurting. Umm....what? Bodies are so weird.

Digging the everliving crap out of this cd - Vertigo Mixed by Andy Votel. It's a ridiculously cool record: in an effort to compile a definitive 60 minute collection of "the best" of the 70's UK underground prog-rock/psychedelic/funk label Vertigo, Votel ran into a problem: most of the tracks he wished to include ran anywhere from eight and half minutes to 22 minutes long. His solution? Take one or two minute-long cuts from his favorite 60 songs and edit them seamlessly together into 70-odd minutes of what he dubs "hairy funk". It's weird, it's jittery, it's danceable, it's utterly charming. Thanks Jules.

Cleared my foggy brain this AM with the help of Mr. Josh's insanely strong coffee. I can't quite describe how lovely it is to wake up to the sounds and smells of someone puttering in the kitchen after living in forced solitary exile, especially when you never really became used to it.

It was the weekend that was.

Thursday. Second weekend of show, decent crowd. Afterward, out to Portage Lake with some of the cast and crew (Bart, Ahmed, Dan and Brian) for late-night swimmies and boaties. Alas, the weather did not cooperate, and instead we made our own indoor fun. Sounds like a young single girl's dream, but alas, no. Married, gay, gay, girlfriend. But times were had and sleep was not and good weather on the morrow was hoped for.
( Check out that sunset )

Friday. After two or three hours of sleep we woke up to breakfast and chilly clouds. We grumped around before deciding to make the best of our day off. So, we tromped off to see Batman Begins and eat Chinese food before heading back to town to do the show. Then home for much-needed sleepies.

Saturday. Cleaning. Continuing the move-in of roommate Mr. Josh, who has more kitchen supplies than God. Again with the show and then away to Detroit for Roth's birthday and NoraJean's farewell party. She's gone to South Africa for a month, and I shall miss the wee munchkin.

Sunday. Breakfast with Dan and Ahmed. Matinee. Drove some peeps out the Magic Stick for my first Saturday Looks Good to Me show in over a year. Wow. While sitting on the patio outside The Stick I ran into somebody I really needed to see and mended a relationship that I honestly thought had been fucked up beyond the point of repair. I dig the hell out of these bittersweet interludes.

Then I enjoyed the show while concocting merchandising schemes with Andrea. We're going to take the world by storm.

Hit up the Neko Case show last night. Beautiful, kickass, man can that lady rock some reverb. Opening act Johnny Dowd could have been Blueshammer, but wasn't. Instead he regaled us with a weird and totally entertaining combination of stripped-down blues, rock, disco, surf and infinitely quotable stories. Including such gems as: "You don't have to wear a big hat to be country, you just have to have a big head. Like mine."

And, now, due to my l33t photojournaling sk1llZ, we can finally debunk the mythos swirling around Past the College Grounds:

He is NOT Brandon Wiard.

That God *that* nightmare is finally over.

So back in our high school, for awhile the big thing amongst my group of friends was to keep a quote book: a little blank journal that we'd cart around with us and write down anything funny or memorable any of us would say. My quote book has been lost to the mists of time, but recently I've gotten back in touch with my friend Massari and she still actually has hers, lo these almost ten years gone. And she's been sending me these little gems in the mail.

I pass these on to you, my readers, as I find them wonderfully entertaining snapshots of my high school peer group. Not to mention it proves what a dirty mouth I had at seventeen.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"fuck is not an onomatopoeia. When you have sex it does not sound like fuck fuck fuck fuck"
--annie, lunch conversation

random chick on the bus: "blah blah blah big fat cockroach"
annie: "DID SHE JUST SAY BIG FAT COCK?!?!?"
-all kinds of loud and on the bus to afternoon classes

foster: "any good concerts come through otterbein?"
annie: "uh...bob dole came and spoke."
-annie after her first semester at college, realizing that she may have picked the wrong school

christian: "i've got you all beat. i'm named after a fucking religion"
shelby: "uh...i'm named after my uncle".

"i'm a kentucky boy. don't tell me how to spit".
-spoelman

"As much as i want to stare down into the bounty of your womanhod..close your legs."
-annie to gail

annie: "i'm gonna blow you off tonight because i already blew liz off tonight and-"
massari: "consider me blown".
-phone conv.

"just because i have dimples doesn't mean i'm not a cold hearted jerk on the inside"
-christian after being bugged about his cute dimples

annie: "...so then i was like badah badah blah badah ass...so i did".
(pause)
"i don't know what that means."
massari: i need to write that down.
-hallway conv.

To spend a Saturday afternoon watching Can't Hardly Wait on cable with all the upstairs windows open while an amazing summer storm whips around outside? Relaxing in the extreme.

How bout some pictures? You guys like pictures? Sure you do.

A couple from the Chinese Happy show.



Mike on the floor. The kids love him.


Mike and I sing about love and junk.


And these are from my birthday, which was, as predicted, 24 Hours of Awesome.

Jason and Dan.  Am I really this short? 

Eric and I get a little excited about our free shots of Jamesons.

The purveyor of the free shots, George.  Dirty old man. 

Quit eyeballing my Strohs.

Aww.  Okay.  You can have my beer.

Sneak attack on Pete!

Nate tries to kill me.

Pat Loos!  Doesn't it totally look like all my friends are cute guys?

Tim gets his darts sass on.

Becca helps me consume one of the hilarious rubber bats Greg gave me to commemorate my recent bat attack.

The camera captures us in the midst of a deep conversation.

Chuck and Brandon are too hip for my party.

This shot is framed really interestingly.

Greg of the rubber-bat giving fame.

Ahmed exhales.

Everybody' all, "eh, I guess this party's okay" (except for Mr. McIntosh, who cannot hide his distaste)...UNTIL...

Ta-DA!

And the party truly begins.

I smile in the face of Death.

And then I eat it.

Mmmm.  Death.