Art Feeds Warped Tour – Texas

This is what my schdule looks like for the next few days.

FUUUUUUUCK.

just how socially unacceptable am I?

I was sitting at a stoplight about 5 minutes ago and I was thinking to myself… man my head hurts. I just got done with lunch and the smell of cooking makes me sick sometimes. Just then a woman stepped off the curb and into the intersection.  She stepped off the curb in slow motion and into my head. Covered in red and white polka dots, her blouse inflicted even more pain on my aching head. She looked supremely pissed, as a lot of women in their 50’s do. All I could thing as she walked was “Man she looks pissed… I bet she’s a mean mean bitch.” Then I had convinced myself that she was in fact a horrid-evil-bitch. Almost instantly upon making my decision I got the bubble guts… Bad. So I flatulated and upon doing so I wished the horrid-bitch lady had super hearing so she could have heard my flatulence and been completely offended by it. A replay rolled in my head where when in front of my car she stopped and turned to me as if to say “You sir, are disgusting and I am highly offended!” At which point I would hacve given her the finger and screamed (almost falsetto) something to the tune of “Serves you right you horrid-evil-bitch-lady!!” Then the light was green. I let out a little chuckle anddrove home eager to tell the world about my flatulence.

San Francisco – Food

Hank the Dungeness Crab

I’ll have further talks on Modern art and my experiences at the SFMoMA soon. for now I want to talk a little bit about a new friend I made. This new friend is a Dungeness Crab. This little fellow marks my first forree’ into the consumption of “Prime Rib.” There is a restaurant in the Bay Area called The Dead Fish that my family decided to venture out to for dinner. I must say hat this dinner was by far one of my favorites on the trip. Although this one was one of my favorites the absolute best thing about this trip time after time has been Bay Area cuisine of all types.

Another one of the places we dined while in California was a very small asian restaurant strangely named Cordon Bleu. This place had by far the best Thai food I have ever consumed and could seat no more than 10 people. Tops. The cooking surface is close enought that the temperature would surely become uncomfortable were this place not nestled in the most odd climate I’ve had the pleasure/pain of residing in for any amount of time. As far as Asian food goes the amount of fresh fish and sushi available in the bay area is staggering. We dined at a place called Kyoto with a sizeable saki collection and a considerably more complex and consequently satisfying menu than what any midwesterner is accustomed to when chooseing sushi rolls.

A lot of talk has been seafood and/or Asian centric so far but there was absolutely no scarcity of american, latin and italian foods in the area. We were positioned n a district strangely named “The Tenderloin” which is

Cordon Bleu

apparently pretty bad and because of its ghetto appearance and living situations has quickly become a hotspot for young hipsters needing cheap places to live. The Hipster culture has a past of taking working class symbols and trends and turning them into kitschy trends, apparently not even the Tenderloin is immune to the onslaught of hipster culture being brought to the masses. One of the eateries in out neighborhood that I wish we had found sooner was Tommy’s Joynt, a bar and eatery serving up a vast menu of drunk food, ethnic fare and delicious faux southern  dishes. The beer selection at Tommy’s is second to none and the staff is friendly, helpful and willing to chit chat about how the Lakers are c-cksuckers well into the witching hour. We had a couple of great sandwiches using meats smoket at Tommy’s. I passed on the sweet and sour ribs and corned beef and cabbage that was offered among other dishes but they both looked fantastic.

The bay area offers up a lot of locally owned restaurants with a greasy spoon hole in the wall feel (because they are in fact hole in the wall joints) with food that is without a doubt some of the best we’d had in any city. The amount of things to do in the city is endless. The bar selection in our area alone was impressive to say the least with more dives in a square block than joplin houses in an entire city. The main difference between the dives in SF and the ones at home is that the young hip rocker crowd has taken over all but ones dotting the deep reaches of the Tenderloin (where people will offer you “some rock” without flinching.).Despite the area we stayed in, Frisco is a beautiful city with genuinely nice people and I can honestly say I will be back without a doubt.

SF MoMA – Main Collection

The Sf MoMA is pretty fantastic. The architecture is great and the S0MA area in SF is pretty awesome in general. Upon entering the lobby you’re directed up stairs to the second floor where the permanent collection resides (some of it anyhow). The collection includes pieces by Matisse, Rauschenberg and even a very early Pollack piece (Guardians of the Secret, 1943). The MoMa had several small emphasis’ going on at once, one area was a showing of Matisse and the other few fauvists of the time. Another small room housed an exhibition called “Paul Klee: Social Creatures” that featured Klee’s humor in early cartoonish figures with the same bold lines seen in his other work. It was truly an experience seeing so many great works of art, some I had never seen nor heard of, but for me the crown jewel of the SF MoMa was a urinal. Marcel Duchamp’s “Fountain” (1917/1964)! This piece has sparked many a debate of the foundations of art and what is and is not art in my circle of friends alone. By circle of friends I mean Steve Wasson, I don’t really discuss art with anyone else. Seeing this piece up close and personal was a real treat and I can’t explain with words my excitement. The excitement soon faded when thoughts of Wasson’s departure flooded my head and I felt obligated to walk away. Not before I snapped a camera photo and sent it to a few friends though. One floor down – 3 more to go.

Benicia in a nutshell

I’ve been staying in BEnicia California for 4 days now. I’ll be in the area for ten more and I can’t be any happier. The surrounding areas include places like Vallejo, Martinez and various towns named after nuts. Vallejo houses the ferry that goes from Pier 39 (Fisherman’s Wharf) and is apparently a pretty seedy little city that is “hit and miss” on chances of being killed or pummelled. Panorama below.So, yeah it’s beautiful here too.

-k

Benicia, CA

I’ve been here for 2 days and drank myself happy, not sweat at all and taken some bitchin photos.
More to come.

may 22

Killing time.

Playing in Springfield tonight with some friends. Should be a good time. Nothing of any real importance to say here. The Roses and Honey Suckle are all in bloom and Summer is gonna be in full swing soon. I leave for SF in two days and am super pumped on doing so. I miss my dog already. I’ve been listening to the avett bros a lot lately. select songs mostly. Good stuff for the most part. My mom did my laundry… score. I really have nothing of any importance to say here. I’m drawing blanks pretty well across the board.

currently listening to:

Al Franken – The Truth (with jokes) – political satire with more factual information than you’ll ever want.

The Avett Bros. – the gleam II – Songs bout girls and family and home. pretty good.

Tom Waits – Alice/Small Change – legit ballads and just generally good songs (tom traubert’s blues)

Two Cow Garage – Speaking in Cursive – great songwriting. Shane’s voice is scary.

Jed Nixon

This is a song I wrote based on a letter a very good friend wrote to me about a month ago. He lives a life I could only imagine. He makes his own alcohol, has the worst/best/worst again tattoos of all time and he’s just a generally great dude… here’s to Jed Nixon.

Hello again my friend its me and I can’t sleep
this electronic life is killing me
woke up alone a sobering distance from my home
laying with a girl I barely met

Trying to find a one way to take me
straight back home feel like I been
gone for so damn long

the events the night before I can’t recall
slipped on my boots & I set off
the ground is soft underneath my aging boots
It’s storms like this I think of you

I been trying to find a middle ground tween
lonesome and insane
it’s so cliche to drink away the pain.

filling station five am and they wont sell
bought a pack of parliaments instead
8 miles back to a house that’s small and hot
guitars and ghosts are all I got

I been trying to fight the urge to
leave this goddamn town
the city’s not the same without you around

May 7

If I were Jesus (I’m either going to lose a reader or two here or they’ll go on and be curious as to why I would ever… ever begin a sentence with those four words)… ahem… If I were Jesus I’d use a fancy story to relay a message to you in easy terms so you could understand it. Generally These are called parables, but a parable is supposed to have a moral or spiritual lesson so I suppose this is more of a simile of sorts, or a comparison really… whatever.

Booking shows for a band is a lot like asking a girl out on a date… through myspace.

the girl:

You dont know much about her except what your friends tell you. You’ve talked to her a few times but never face to face.  You ask her out… she might shoot you down. She looks pretty hot on the outside (sometimes too hot) and if not hot definitely acceptable for your tastes. You’re not sure if she’ll take care of you on the first date but you’re hopeful. Since this IS a first date though chances are you can’t expect much, you know? So she’s into it and says yes? Bam you go out and you have a fifty fifty chance of her using the angles and having the face of a schnauser or being heidi klum (and possibly fleeing as quick as possible into a place with locks after this initial meeting because you look like schreck). then threres her voice… ugh. End of the night you can call it successful if you had some good convo and a general good time. If you get a handy or something in the parking lot… you my friend have hit the jackpot.

the venue:

You e-mail the booking guy/girl/promoter and let them know, “Hey, I’m gonna be in your area this day in this month, I’ve got some friends who’ve been there before and they said nice things.  Here’s some press about the band and some MP3’s buddy. Check that shit out.” Then you hope for the best. If they don’t email you back in a week, email em again see if they’re into it, if not. Keep looking, plenty of fish in the sea… maybe.  If they email you back an offer and are into you playing… hot damn. You get in the van you get to the place, you have a fifty fifty chance of the photo on myspace being from before the riots and the PA being blown up when ICP came to town. Really, at the end of the night if you played well and had a good time it was probably worth it. If the people there liked you and you made some gas money you can pretty well call it a successful show. If you get a handy out in the parking lot after the show… you my friend have hit the jackpot.

The parable thing was pretty off base but whatever. I thought it would be written differently. These several sentences really show exactly how I feel right now trying to get regional stuff going. Any input from experienced readers in either subject feel free to chime in.