Not exactly
any given night, but here is a recap of my First Friday excursion:
I started out over at the anti_space area, because
Doug Bale had some of our friends playing music outside the wondow of his exhibit.
How many reluctant musicians does it take to plug in an amplifier?
I asked Doug why they didn't have any juice. He said "Are you kidding me? They're all jews."
On the left is Rob, one of my oldest friends. He was one of the only people I knew, who was actually making a living as a musician. I found that inspiring, to see someone be able to support themselves through their art. He found it oppressive, because it meant that he had to accept a lot of bassist-for-hire gigs that he wasn't interested in, so he could make rent or eat.
On the right is Robbie Cohen, who is a great singer/songwriter. He also played guitar for awhile, in one of my favorite local bands, The Bodhi Tree. I used to enjoy going to see him play at Carly's but he stopped playing there, so he could dedicate more time to being reclusive.
While they were trying to figure out how to make everything work, we went next door
to see the comicon zombie makeovers.
I had one of them pose with my friend... you know, since he WASN'T busy playing music.
With all of these ghouls around, who you gonna call?
Then we went to the next space, where the
Collectively Operated Local Artists Boutique (C.O.L.A.B.). was set up and I recognized the
COLAB guy, Joey G ... from our Little League baseball team, way back when!
That was probably around 4th grade. Wow.
Fortunately, my friends were finally jamming.
That's Rob's brother Steven, in the foreground. He's also extremely talented, but he's one of those people who rarely plays in public, although he constantly creates and records all of these amazing songs in the family studio. On a side note, Rob was telling me that his other brother (a drummer, who wasn't there) just recorded some drum tracks for Peter Murphy's new solo album (which will also feature people like Flea and Trent Reznor), so I guess there was a little bit of talent in that household.
Once the zombies cleared out, to go on their march for zombie-rights or something
people began to check out Doug's art and he even sold some.
At this point, Robbie's former Bodhi Tree bass player Frank showed up, so Rob let him take over on the Thunderstick and he went with us, to go see
Dayvid LeMmon's new exhibit. He's one of my favorite photographers and it was great to see his new work, like this one:
Unfortunately, art is so subjective and open to interpretation. More specifically,
my interpretation. So I asked Dayvid, if the visual insinuation that I was getting from another one of his prints was intentional. He cringed and said that it never entered into his mind, but that it would now be difficult for him to get it out of his head. Oops. Then, I asked Rob if he got the same impression. He also said that it never occurred to him and then he called me an asshole (half-joking, I presume), so I think I will keep it to myself, now.
Damn. We sure needed some kind of amusing distraction, at this point. Luckily, we then went to look at some prints that were lying on a table under the front window. Suddenly, some guy rode up on his bicycle flipping me off and mouthing the words FUCK and YOU in an exaggerated fashion, before pulling up his T-shirt to press his nipple against the glass. Then he rode away. Both Rob and my wife were a bit perplexed and asked if that happens to me, very often. I assured them that it only happens when that random guy is Ray Reeves. One of my friends (Rocky) plays in Ray's band, so we run into each other all over the place, lately. He's a pretty good musician and I like his band.
Down the road, we saw these awesome sculptures that were probably about 8 feet tall.
As we walked further along, I experienced a rare dickhead moment of big-timing someone. A woman approached us, but at that very moment I got a call from Rocky, who was wondering when I was planning to meet up with him at the Ruby Room. So this poor woman was left to tell Rob and my wife how she had seen one of my recent poetry readings at the Paper Heart (where I opened for a poet from Nebraska, named
Matt Mason) and enjoyed my work...since I was "too busy" listening to Rocky explain that he wished he had come with us to see Dayvid's exhibit, but he was trying to get to the Ruby Room before the doorman would start charging a cover. Of course, it backfired on him... so he ended up paying a cover to hang out there long before the bands started to play, while we were out seeing Dayvid's new photographs, huge metal sculptures, and Ray Reeves nipples.
Speaking of 8 feet tall...
Eventually, I made my way over to the Ruby Room, just in time to see Mer play
in one of her 83 side-bands, Fatigo.
I was lucky enough to meet her at one of my recent readings, when she came out with her roommate
who is a great writer named Barry Graham.
I was with some friends and I tried to take a few shots of their drunken dance party.
That's Mr. Fripp in the stripes and the aforementioned Ray Reeves (who was finally
keeping his nipples under his shirt), in the background.
But Fripp wouldn't allow me to just stand off to the side and take pictures, so he pulled me in...
...which was a bad idea, because I gave Rocky a few twirls and this was the result:
Before the Minibosses started their set, there was a two-second snippet
of Phil Collins' "In The Air Tonight" drums being looped over the P.A., so everyone was dying to play along.
It seemed to go on forever, but finally the 8-bit madness began.
Floored.
