A Night to Remember

A few days ago, Lucy and I put the bedroom window AC in.

It's the sure sign of summer; Neither of us particulary likes AC in general, but we share a love of a frozen, heavily-blanketed, white-noised-out bedroom. Ah, sleep.

The AC has led to some deep slumber of late (despite my chronic sleeplessness).

Last night was a weird one, though, even by my standards. After an action-packed dinner (Dudley's with the Points, and a great variety of Prom attendees, one of whom found a spider in her salad and produced the most amazing wide-eyed expression of panic/lunacy on her face that I've nearly ever seen), a couple of drinks with folks at Atomic Café (the restaurant who's 'you-guys-can't-do-a-damned-thing-for-me' reputation continued to soar when I ordered a Blue Hawaiian, and was asked by our server if I could tell the bartender how to make one; C'mon! This place claims to be a Caribbean restaurant!?! I just don't get it)

After that, Lu and I returned home to turn in, and just as I settled down with The Best American Non-required Reading 2006, it became quite apparent that there is a bat in the room—apparent, due to—you know—the swooping and flying and circling.
Which led to a probably 45-minute ordeal where I did the "Git baat! Out the door, bat! Giiit!" thing, waving assorted things in the air as—you know—a message of "git and good will." Meanwhile, Lucy alternately cowered and slept beneath previously-mentioned massive covers. Finally, summoning nearly every ounce of courage in my possesssion, I smacked a shoe box over Ms. Bat (I had the feeling it was a girl) and stood on a chair with a squealing bat under a shoe box, against the wall of our bedroom, while Lucy went to get me a LP record to slide underneath of it. I was exhausted and defiant at this point, too, leading to exchanges like the following:

Lucy: "I wonder if piece of cardboard would work?"
Mick: (defiant, sulky) "I WANT AN ALBUM."

Finally, she brought me Lily Tomlin.

A few squealing minutes later, the bat, the box and Lily Tomlin all made a hasty exit out the upstairs window, followed by the frantic and immediate slamming of the window. If that bat had flown back in, I might have started crying. I assume the box and Lily are in the driveway.

After The Batcave, I returned to my book, Lucy to sleep… done right? Oh, so-not-done. As I said earlier, we had eaten magnanimously and had a reasonable number of cocktails… hours before. And I was, admittedly, not feeling too good. Some kind of mixture of copious amounts of food, some alcohol, and I suppose 47 shotglasses of adrenaline. And lying there, I started to hear that little voice that you hear sometimes that says: "You will feel much better if you throw up, don't you think? Oh, by the way, this isn't a suggestion; it's more of a casual order." Which did come to pass, and I'll leave it at that.

Food poisoning? Too much to drink? What? I don't know. I can't remember the last time I threw up. Dinner was totally delicious (though I did eat too much) and cocktails were a couple. I remain baffled by the barfing. After all that, I went to bed, totally exhausted and dreamt a very weird dream. Which I will tell you about next time.

Happy Birthday, Helvetica!

Today's moment in type ubiquity brought to you by the most famous font in the world: Happy Birthday, Helvetica! Now, you're 50!

Raquy & the Cavemen at Natasha's

Raquy & the Cavemen at Natasha's, originally uploaded by mrtoastey.

Took what turned out to be some neat pictures on Sunday of middle-eastern percussion wunderkind Raquy & The Cavemen, who did a workshop and also a performance with Rakadu Gypsy Dance at Natasha's Cafe, here in Lexington.

Some pictures are here.

Pix are up!

I'm so Poi. Much Poi-er than you (TT version), originally uploaded by mrtoastey.

If you're curious about the hoo-hah that was the Rakadu Spirit of the Tribes 7 trip in Hollywood, Florida, I got some pictures for you!

Cedar Post Restaurant, ideal at dawn

Kountry Kraft alert!

Stumbled across the Cedar Post Restaurant on Hwy 25 this morning in the gloaming.. The gloaming has long been my favorite time of day. Driving Lucy to the Cinci airport (which is in Kentucky, btw), it occurred to me that about 4:30 am in the morning is kind of "the staging hour." It's the minutes before the Big Show. "You mean the Every Day?" Lucy asked. Yep. The Every Day. The Big Show. Same thing. It's easy to think of it as "just another day;" but if you're up before the sun comes up (no small feat), it's somehow much more epic.

Plus, if you've just driven yr. sweetie to the airport, you might then stumble across some total Kountry restaurant and be the only customer, listening to the locals talk about health and home repair. Headed to my table: the house special, the "Sunrise Surprise," which is appropo since that is exactly what's happening outside. There's a lot to be said for a well-timed, well-named meal, methinks. This place is a cabin-like structure, what with the logs and the chinking; it's actually three buildings it seems, the oldest of which is currently a beauty shack. Hand-written on the sign it says "We use Matrix." Which kind of reminds me of the funny thing that less-than-fluent (and often perfectly smart, I must add) people say concerning computer software: "Do you have Microsoft?" or "Can you show me how to use Adobe?" These are all brands, not products, not that anybody's keeping track. Okay, okay, I'm keeping track.

I asked my waitress about the age of the building. "This building must be pretty old, right?" I inquired, looking around at the Daniel Booneness of it all. She smiled proudly and concurred: "Oh yeah—I would say this place is at least 20 years old."

.............Right. Well, I guess there's something said about imitation being the sincerest form of flattery—I'm sure Daniel Boone would have slept here…Had he been born a lot later..

Al's Bar! In Effect!

Curse the Fern bar. Thumbs down to the Sports Bar. Way down. At what point in the history of public drinking establishments did it become necessary for there to be a multitude of blaring televisions? I do not care for it, friends. TV is the opiate of the masses, not liquor, not even opium. TV, friends—TV.

And I have to admit: Al's Bar—deep in the hood in downtown Lexington—does have one TV. Annie, the barkeep gets rather absorbed in Days of Our Lives. And that'll do. Beats the hell out of CNN or ESPN, okay?

The point of this post (in case you thought there wasn't one) is salutation in fact. Particularly, to the new owners of Al's Bar. I had heard recently that a handful of intrepid young dudes had bought Al's, and I was intrigued and simultaneously concerned for their safety. Al's Bar is no TGI Fridays. In fact, at 6th and Limestone, I've tended to drive by and comment to whomever was with me "That is a good place to get your ass kicked." Suffice it to say: Al's Bar is no TGI Fridays.

I'm happy to report that my assessment may have been out of order. That's because this sunny afternoon, I rode my bike over for a cheeseburger on the advice of intrepid radio pal Prof. Griff. What I found was something that I thought had nearly completely dried up—an honest-to-goodness dive bar. A Bar Bar. If you can picture Moe's Tavern in The Simpsons, then you're on the right track. I knew I was.

Tilty pooltable, C&W/Ranchero jukebox. Dismal bathrooms. Plenty of tables and chairs (to qualify for Sunday liquor sales). Josh, the kind and cool new owner is a hip younger dude. He's into healthy stuff, is embarrassed about the bathrooms and promises that the burgers-and-fries menu is going to get an upgrade, all of which is fine; I can suffer some organic produce dishes for the right to sit on a dingy bar stool and rock CCR on the jukebox in near-darkness whilest watching for assorted characters to come in and cool their heels. (Sample conversation snippet: [guy walks in] Bartender: "Leroy! Good afternoon! You want a shot of J&B?" Leroy [laughing]: "Naw, naw…it's too early…just give me…[concentrated pause]…um…well, Hell, why don't I just have a shot of J&B?" He drinks up and hits the door.) Done and done.

I didn't actually have a drink today, but the cheeseburger and tater tots were vintage and made with love. I'll be back for the cocktail, no doubt. If you're in Lexington or nearby, check it out.

Alyssum's place burned to a crisp. Please help!

I've got a super-special friend named Alyssum. She may be your friend, too, and if she's not, it's probably only because you've just not met. She's friendly like that, and funny and smart and double-plus talented; for instance, she's an astounding and multi-faceted dancer and also a veterinary student who has stuck her arm up cow's butts.

Here's the thing though—her apartment burned. She lost her sweet kitties (so sad) and many many things. Fortunately, she and her roommate were not at home and are fine.

Fire, jeez—it's just one of those things that you hope hope hope stays out of your life. If you want to help Alyssum out, there's a number of things you can do:

• You can send her well-wishes at her highly entertaining blog, You know, stuff.
• Also, you can find out more about the fire at her Tribe.com blog.
• But the thing you can really do is check out her wish list, where you can sign up for all sorts of Alyssum-helping tasks and things. (Even if you got no extra change, you might still have an opportunity to polish her smoked-up silver—we are talking about a belly dancer here, after all).

Here's a few pictures I've taken of Alyssum. One of my favorite Alyssum moments was an overheard comment by her moments before a contortion performance in Lexington: "Okay, you guys will carry me out and unfold me…"

Help her out if you can. And check those smoke alarms.

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.