A funny thing happened on the way to the Casbah

Man, do things get weird and weirder.

I'm in Florida, in case that hasn't been established. And the trail of hilarity, unexpectedness, good times, gratitude, sun, beach, and so forth just continues to pour forth. And some of it, is rather wacky. I cannot seem to relate fully the bizarre things that have happened here, so I'm going to focus on one for this post. Read on, gentle reader!

I swung by the Spirit workshops to make an official introduction to grease the wheels of one facet of my trip: taking pictures of belly dancers—only to be severly rebuffed. No pictures. No! None! Do not! Take! Pictures! Not now, not tonight, not tomorrow, not at all. Kinda hurt my feelings and I'm not totally over it; Trying to accept that it's got nothing to do with me, but I know how much smiles some of my belly dance pictures have brought dancers and I was lookng forward to that again, with an audience of several hundred avid dancers. Not to be it would seem.

I came back to the condo, and said, "At the beach, no problem here, right?" I got a gyro from the same place around the corner that I last night got some hummus and baba for the trip to boca raton the night before.

And then a funny thing happened.

Deciding to enjoy the privacy for a moment (no disrespect to last night's Venician mansion and its ultra-kind owners with 87 rooms, wi-fi, a mechanical butler, etc. More on that later.), and lay down on the couch. Bang, the phone rings; it's my trusty other-continent customer support dude calling on behalf of my bank to confirm that I'm in fact swiping my plastic all over southeastern florida. Which I am. And, honestly, I have to remember to be thankful for this no-charge service that my bank provides, even though it can be purturbing if I'm in the middle of something else, like an attempted nap. The funny thing is, when they call, they'll run down a list of charges: "Did you spent $6.73 at foodway? (yes) Did you spend $14.83 at cocktailsRus? (uh-huh) $2.46 at Nuttier Than All Other Nuts? (yup)

And so on.

But the weird thing was this: two transactions to the mediterranean restaurant right around the corner. One being for the gyro I bought just 20 minutes ago. The other for the hummus from last night. And both amounts totally wrong. North of wrong. Double plus north of wrong. And that, my friends, is how I am currently involved in a credit card fraud case whilest simultaneously movin and groovin on the beach.

It's been rather fun I must say. The owner claims total innocence but in a kind of belligerent way that makes me thing either a) he is one guilty motherfucker or b) his people skills are seriously compromised. We've had at least a couple of smiling yet confrontational encounters since this happened. yes, some chest-puffing, yes, some finger wagging. I'm grateful that I've been able to do this without raising a fever, you know? And in a weird way, I'm taking my cues from the owner. but I think the sum-bitch is guilty. Last night, Mr. Mikey T was here and we were walking and I just couldn't help—couldn't help!—marching into old dude's restaurant and having about a ten minute chest-puffing session with the guy. It was quite exhillarating, I think, because the sums aren't really anything to lose sleep over (you're dying to know, aren't you? read on) But it's kind of cathartic to walk in, have this preposterous little debating session (him: "look here! see this number [pointing at my charge slip]? This is how much we charged you! If you were charged more, it's your bank's fault!" Me: "Well, that's very convenient for you, don't you think?" [ensuring laughter and head-shaking] And again, there's not really any blood boiling, but there's some finger-wagging (mostly me) and so forth.

And you know what else?
I probably wouldn't even be bothering with this if the guy hadn't said the first time I went down, "You call your bank, and when they figure it out, you will come back down here and apologize to me."

Oh. My. God. Did this guy really say that? He backed off of it real quick actually. I was completely slack-jawed over it. "Wow," I said. "You have an amazing amount of nerve! Me? Apologize to you!?" And this all said with a certain amount of incredulous laughter. I mean— even if the guy is completely vindicated, there is no excuse for his swagger, at least, not as a businessman who, you know, wants to sell food to people on a daily basis.

So the saga continues, but today, I look forward to a swim, some sitting around, maybe an argument or two with my neighborhood credit card swindler, you know—the normal stuff.

Stay tuned!

Headed Out! Spirit of the Tribes in FLA!

Wow, all of a sudden, I'm going to Florida!

"Excellent…" as Mr. Burns would say.

I'm delighted to report that I am honored to accompany my world-class bellydance pals Rakadu Gypsy Dance to Spirit of the Tribes 2007 in Ft. Lauderdale, thanks to the ceaseless proddings of sRi TaraSita. "Over 100 performers! Featuring Tribal belly dance groups and instructors from all over the country!" the press page sez! Including pals and Lex visitors Dalia Carella and Rachel Brice. Which is cool enough in and of itself. And let's not forget that Rakadu is basically the closing act for the entire event. Not too shabby, dahlinks!

As for me, I'll be acting as some sort of laptop adjunct musician slash entertainment consort slash cocktail consultant slash errand guy.

But the real junk is that I get to have my kick-axe photog shit blowin' up amongst the world's best bellydancers. Oh, yes, there will be photos to come. Oh, yes, there will!

(Editor's note: Extra thanks goes out to Mick's ever-patient wife and love, Lucy, for putting up with such dalliances. [in other words: she said I could go])

No one belongs here more than you. Stories by Miranda July

If you are looking for an innovative and delightful design for your web site, it just doesn't get any better than this one by Miranda July, an author promoting her new book.

How incredibly cool.

Pezhead meets Rachel Brice

Pezhead meets Rachel Brice, originally uploaded by mrtoastey.

Oh friends, there's been much doings! While short on words, I've been thousanding them together in pictures, you know. I've been super happy with my new camera setup and have been putting it to some good use.

For instance, maybe you want to check out pix from Mecca's Dancing Lotus Lounge event, featuring the amazing Rachel Brice!

Some good news on the Environment!

I know I've been a little un-bloggy lately, but I'm coming back, I swear. In the meantime, this is the best news I've heard in many a moon, concerning the worrisome state of the environment and the fuck-headed attitude taken by many "in charge" in our country. Check it out, read the story, it's a big deal.

High Court rebukes Bush on car pollution

Now, if somebody can only explain to me why this story was in Yahoo News' top RSS feeds for less than a day, before being replaced by important news about Justin Timberlake.

Mushrooms grown by me!

Mushrooms grown by me, originally uploaded by mrtoastey.

I was worried that the crazy mushroom growing kit that sister-in-law Dana gave me for xmas might have sat around my office too long to produce. Luckily, it's still got some pizzazz. Here the results of two weeks of weird loamy soil sitting in a box in the basement, with me misting it every day.

We've lost alot in the air

5, originally uploaded by Avi_Abrams.

I'm just old enough to be able to remember when people tended to dress up for plane travel and when people actually smoked on planes and when in-flight meals were actually meals. To say nothing of the wonderful color and style of the stewardesses—excuse me—Flight Attendents.

I found a beautiful and delightful blog collection of images from the golden age of commercial air travel. Take a look.

Special Agent Lucy on Trivial Thursdays!

lucy is evil, but i'm nice, originally uploaded by mrtoastey.

Tomorrow on Trivial Thursdays, my long-running college-mutant version of a morning drive-time show, my guest will be the only woman with the moxie to shout me down. So much so that I married her!

Tune in to Trivial Thursdays—The Lucy Show on WRFL 88.1fm, tomorrow at 7am!

Thinking about Photography

I've been much more concerned with my photography lately.

Not "concerned," in the sense of "what will become of it?" (although there is that), but just rather with Photography (capital "P") and how it is a part of me and what I can do to develop (sorry) that part of me. The weird thing is this: I've recently made the foray into the not-inexpensive digital SLR world, by purchasing a Canon Digital SLR. Let there be no mistaking: I'm wild about this camera. It's a great camera. I feel like I've come home, in terms of having back the responsiveness of an SLR that I grew up with, a responsiveness that was lost for a number of years as I played with a variety of point-and-shoot pocket digital cameras. Those cameras all had their own merits, too, but also their foibles. Mostly, I guess these have to do with my preconceived notions of resolutions and lens quality, etc. I guess, equipment issues. Speed of focusing, ease of use, resolution, that sort of thing.

Recently, I've had some photographic experiences not directly tied to my own work. I've been reading essays by Janet Malcolm on some of history's great photographers—Steiglitz, Weston, etc. And it's been interesting—more so than I might have guessed, honestly—to read some things about the lives of these characters. In many ways, they had plenty of their own foibles. Weston, for instance, was a quite the heartbreaker, apparently. Steiglitz was rather an asshole.

These things are sort of beside the point, but I learned some interesting things not too long ago when I went out on a "photo day" with my friend Boyd. I wanted to play with this lens that I'd rented; Boyd, however, showed up to our location with a 4 x 5 large-format camera—a looming beast in a box, on a hulking tripod. Boyd came prepared to shoot about a dozen pictures. That is the nature of his contraption. It's not about volume, but rather about quality. Which is more indicative of the history of "art" photography, I guess. I suppose it would be overly broad to claim this about photography in general, since photojournalism has long required "mass shooting," as my friend Jenna recently referred to the common practice of shooting many many pictures.

And it's not that I think it crazy to approach photography from this labor-intensive handful-of-images approach, it just hadn't really occurred to me. It's a whole other aspect of photography that I had never considered. The nature of my historic relationship (mostly self-taught) with photography has been the convenience of the SLR, which has, ironically and from time to time, seemed rather inconvenient to me, compared to the myriad of pocket cameras that have emerged over the years. In fact, a fascination in one camera in particular, the Lomo, is sort of what got me back into photography after some years of waning interest. That was followed somewhat by a brief foray into the delightful lo-tech medium-format wonder of the Holga. And I've seen people on Flickr who can do spectacular things with seemingly modest cameras.

Now, with my Canon, I have probably the nicest (and certainly by far the most expensive) camera that I've ever owned. And, let's not be coy: My investment is modest compared to the potential of future investment in lenses and so forth. But here's the rub: As I upgrade my equipment, I've found a growing concern in me: the concern that whatever idiosyncratic style that I may have might be lost as I "join the troops" who shoot with the standard arsenal of equipment. A little voice inside says: Maybe you'd be better off to stick with, say, toy cameras, to keep some sort of oddness that some people seem to love about your photos. But, conversely, maybe I would be hiding in that idiosyncrasy— limited by a limited technology.

So, while I'm mildly skeptical of my equipment, it's for surprising reasons: I just bought a new lens, and looked forward to getting it. But after shooting with it, I was happy with the clarity of the resulting photos, but maybe a little uncomfortable about how … normal they looked. I mean compared to some of my weird, old blurryvision® pix, of which I'm mighty proud.

And to dovetail this in with my mentions of essays about the giants of photography and my experience with my friends who have forayed into medium-format film photography—It's easy to forget—or never even know—how hard, how complicated, how demanding photography used to be. Now, everybody has a camera. There's phone cameras, there's little bitty cameras, there's an army of soccer moms with XTi's just like mine. Which causes me to gulp a little bit. I would like to be a (more) remarkable photographer. I would like (and there's some embarrassment here) to be known as a remarkable photographer. And let's not forget this: ideally, I might also like to be paid as a remarkable photographer.

But reading these essays and watching my medium-format dabbling friends, I'm seeing that—historically—being a remarkable photographer was much much much more arduous. And why should that matter? There's is a romance about that which is undeniable to me. To understand the science, to gather together (and care for!) the equipment, to master the darkroom, and to shoot in such a way that might —might!— lead to a handful of exposures in the course of a day— And all this without the least bit of a guarantee that the photographer would even have the camera pointed at the right thing in the first place.

It's kind of mind-blowing, really. I guess that's all I'm wanting to say. But if you want to get together and talk about it over a drink or coffee or (heaven forbid) over a photo shoot, I'm game.

I'm going to stick with this digital business for now; but I reserve the right to change my mind and start shooting with Brownies, if so moved.

I can see (more) clearly now.

new lens lucy!, originally uploaded by mrtoastey.

I had been intently contemplating the purchase of a new lens (50mm f1.4) for my camera, and finally pulled the trigger. After Amazon took over a week to deliver it (Amazon is starting to slack, btw) and I finally got it in my greedy little hands, I took some pictures at Gallery Hop. Here's a set of shots with the new lens. It's a challenging beast; well-endowed with its own glories and foibles. But I think there are some great pictures to be taken in the coming days.

The Apples in Stereo!

robert, originally uploaded by mrtoastey.

There's much excitement around town as our (kind-of) home-town pop wonders The Apples in Stereo get ready to wow the world with the long-awaited New Magnetic Wonder. To get things going was a gig at CD Central to be followed later tonight with a full-scale bliss-fest at The Dame.

Check out some pics from the CD Central gig here.

Could it Be?

In the wake of the seemingly-settled 15-year lawsuit between Apple Computer and the Beatles' label Apple Records, some people are saying there's gonna be a whole new revolution in digital music delivery. Like Wired News, for instance.

Will the iPod be the new CD?

leaf geometry

leaf geometry, originally uploaded by mrtoastey.

I rented a Macro lens this weekend and took some cool pix with photo pal Boyd. If you want to see more, click here.

bennett

bennett, originally uploaded by mrtoastey.

I rented a Macro lens this weekend and took some cool pix here and there. If you want to see more, click here.

marionette

marionette, originally uploaded by mrtoastey.

I rented a Macro lens this weekend and took some cool pix here and there. If you want to see more, click here.

betty and olive

betty and olive, originally uploaded by mrtoastey.

I rented a Macro lens this weekend and took some cool pix here and there. If you want to see more, click here.

Required Stormtrooper reading

required Stormtrooper reading, originally uploaded by mrtoastey.

Check out some pics from this weekend's rather bizarre Joseph-Beth event, featuring droves of Star Wars fans and costumed maniacs from not one, but two, Star Wars fan groups. These are the pictures that you are looking for…

Laptop Lounge in effect!

Wow, Mr. DJ! Had quite the time doing the Laptop Lounge gig at a couple of events in the last two weeks. At this year's Heard it Through the Grapevine benefit, worked up this cuh-razy mobile rig that allowed me to pump latin jazz in a variety of venues. Hence the tag line on promo materials: "You never know where he'll turn up!"

The other gig was this year's Casino Night at the Headley-Whitney Museum, themed "The Gambler." I surprised myself by being able to come up with over three hours of western (not country) music. But the mood music prize must go to Calexico, for their amazingly appropriate dust-blown mariachi jams.

BTW: As I was driving home, I realized with great satisfaction that I had absent-mindedly managed to not play Kenny Rogers all night.

lolli's teaching me

Blogpal lolli yesterday blew my mind with her new-found curiosity about Technorati. Apparently, it's high time that I set up my Technorati Profile. So release the spiders!

It's Titus Time!

Today, I got to stop by Brian and Sara's to pick up the much-anticipated and fresh off the press posters for UK Theatre's production of Titus Andronicus, described as "Shakespeare's slasher play."

I'm excited about this for many reasons.

Reason #1: I'm the art director for UK Theatre's advertising for this season, which has been enormously gratifying. Gratifying mostly because of my decision (reason #2) to engage Cricket Press to develop the imagery for the season, a task at which they have excelled. I'm a huge fan and working with Brian Cricket has been a delight of many facets, from his cheery demeanor to his amazing screen artistry, to his using me as a possible biting target for his doggie.* (more on that at the end)

Here's what the poster looks like— but it hardly does justice to the actual printed thing. We've collectively hashed out some of the details through email, and thus, a number of strangers have seen it along the way (like on airplanes) and I delight in their responses. It's a little shocking, right? (Reason #3) Oh, the joy… UK Theater loves it. I love it. Brian loves it. As I'm prompted to say to Brian when praising his work: "People are gonna be dyin' in the streets over this!"

That's an ultimate compliment, by the way.

---

*Now, let's talk about, the Cricket Dog, Otter: He's a fine pup, what you might call a bit rambunctious. Every time I'm over at The Cricket Abode and Complex, I'm aware of savage barking coming from … somewhere in back. Apparently, the Crickets have some trepidation about their doggies and visitors, so Brian tends to sequester them when I come over.

This time was different, though. I was getting out of my car and Brian popped out to the driveway and sez: "Hey, Mick, would you mind to help me with a little experiment with my dog?" I sez: "Sure!" I'm like that.

Brian gives me a handful of doggie treats, and the following instructions: "When we go in the front door, DON'T MAKE EYE CONTACT and DON'T TALK TO OTTER. After a minute or two, give him these treats."

hoo-kay…

Maybe I've got a bit of trepidation. Maybe I didn't tell Brian the story about the dog who nearly bit my fingers off. (another tale, another tail!) But still, I'm nothing if not game, and that's just in my blood, even if some of said blood sometimes leave my body.

So we hit the front door, and as we walk in, Otter comes charging at me, full bark and growl on, a blur around me of snapping and air-nips, millimeters from my jacket and treat-clenched fist.. nnnnnnnnice doggy! niiiiice!

there's barking! there's staunchness! there's guardianship! It's the things some of us most admire in the canine species.

Returning to the here and now, I ain't got nipped yet, but I ain't rulin' it out, yo. I know how it is, though: Some call it a gift… I'm like some kind of combination of Dr. Doolittle and Mr. Rogers: animals and kids love me. Can't explain it. Except Otter, maybe. Maybe? He's barkin' up a storm and I'm doing my job, not looking at him, holding my winning hand of pup treats, like a champion poker hand. Don't let 'em see ya sweat…

Otter isn't easing up the pressure, but Brian sez: "Okay, give him the treats!" Which has me a little worried. Still, I open up my palm, thinking, "I've got ten fingers for a reason; These five may not be totally necessary."

The thing is, Otter doesn't really notice my treats and keeps barking—y'know–"GET THE HELL OUT INTERLOPER!"

Brian's, like, "Look, Otter!—treats! Mick's got treats!"

Otter's, like: "OUT I SAID!!"

Mick's, like: "Please leave at least my thumb and forefinger…"

But then—after the darkness, the dawn! The smell of treats wins the day, and Otter gobbles them out of my hand...

Minutes later, I'm drowning in dog spit. I'm getting licked to death. And after a few very tense minutes, Otter and I are BFF.

What kind of day did you have, anyway?