The Travels and Rants Journal

1. Went to Richmond this evening to 1) pick up some matboard; 2) go to Home Depot (the Lowe’s boycott joyfully continues); and 3) go to the Apple Store! The “Short Pump Town Center” where it’s located creeps me out big time - it’s just so very faux: Faux town, faux community, faux everything - not to mention the overflowing yup-white commercialism seeping from every brick of that place. But having said that, I admit to being an utter and total sucker for the Apple Store. Gawd, that place is sweet. And turns me into a total consumer (or consumer wanna-be anyway). Of course, it’s nowhere near as swanky as Apple Stores in big cities, but even the Richmond version feels like the High Temple of all things MacCool.

I was having a conversation with The Girl last weekend about the circumstances of buying your first iPod - mine came about from the first time I had my hands on one in an Apple Store. I had seen iPods and knew a little about them, but didn’t really think I had much of a use for one. I was in the store on Michigan Avenue in Chicago (the biggest, coolest, Most Holy of the ones I’ve visited), just looking around. I picked one up and played with it. They must have known I was coming - there was a Be Good Tanyas song loaded onto it. The sound, the music, the ease of use, the design, the feel. It was perfect. I didn’t buy one then, but it made for a much appreciated birthday present a few months later. Such is the hypnotic power of the Apple Store.

So today I was in Richmond and got my hands on my first iPhone. I can’t say I have to have one in the same way I felt about the iPod, but I will say it’s an awesome cool device - I can understand why they are selling so fast.

But anyway, the only thing I bought today was a cool little accessory that allows you to connect your digital camera to your iPod and transfer all the photos on the memory card to the iPod’s hard drive, allowing you to reuse the card. I have a portable card hard drive now that serves the same purpose, but the battery (which doesn’t seem to be replaceable) is almost dead to the point of it being not reliable, plus this will let me carry one less thing around.

2. This deserves to be passed along: Doug Thompson’s American gestapo: Abuse of power by National Park Service police. I thought about going to Floyd Fest last weekend. The Patriot Act comes to our own back yard.

3. This just made me laugh.

Dear Coran,

You don’t know me - I’m just another local artist-type guy, trying to make a living in this too-cool and too-expensive town. I sometimes go to the shows you put on, I sometimes eat in your restaurants. Though I sometimes worry that you’re getting a little too much of a monopoly on the scene around town, I’m generally not among those who bash you for your efforts - I think it speaks well of you that you’ve chosen to invest a fair chunk of your money on local efforts. So I thought I’d pass along a great idea to you. I’m sure you’re not at a loss for great ideas to spend your money on, but here goes…

You know a lot about music and the arts and community relations, and all of that’s done a lot to put both Charlottesville on the map and money in your pocket - the bands you’ve brought here have added a lot to making this town a good place to live. But music is only one part of Charlottesville’s cultural scene. As someone who has been making at least part of my living from the visual arts for the past 25 years, I can tell you that there are next to no good, affordable working spaces for up-and-coming artists in this real-estate-crazy burg.

Our neighbors in Richmond have always had business and real estate people who have been willing to invest in great low rent studio complexes in converted industrial/warehouse spaces where artists can create and show their work. Charlottesville, on the other hand, has the city-supported McGuffey Art Center. Don’t get me wrong - there are some great artists making great art at McGuffey, but it’s no big secret that most of the work there looks and feels the same as it did a decade ago. And since existing McGuffey members pick new McGuffey members, if you want to make art and you don’t make the kind of work that the membership thinks fits the mold (no sour grapes here, Coran, I used to be an associate member), you’re left either working at home, or trying to rent a space that costs several times what the McGuffey spaces go for. (And it’s also no big secret that a lot of the renting membership there are successful enough to afford spaces whose rent isn’t supported by the city).

So here’s what you do: Find a building: Some old dirty warehouse or factory, close to downtown. You don’t have to spend a lot of money on it - artists dig hovels. A little HVAC work here, a little new plumbing there, some walls to divide the space up into studios, a coat of paint for common/exhibition spaces. Then hire some goofball like me to keep up with the administrative end of things, and you’re pretty much done.

Ahh, you ask: What am I getting out of this? Good point, Coran. Artists may not be picky, but we’re also poor - commercial real estate in this town and starving artists’ checkbooks don’t always get along too well. So here’s the beauty of my plan. As part of the deal for getting a deal on cheap studio space, all renting artists are required to donate artwork of a significant value to the cause. This could either be set up to benefit local charities directly, or we could put together some kind of an annual benefit auction. Either way, you come out as the hero. Local charities benefit, local artists have a place to work and show, and everyone lavishes endless praise on you! We all love endless praise, Coran.

Give it some thought. I know you have a lot on your plate lately, so there’s no rush really. I’ll be around, Coran, always ready to help you out, whenever you’re ready.

Gimme a call, we’ll talk…

Andrew

PS: In your honor, Coran, here’s a pic of Mike Doughty, taken at Starr Hill a couple of years ago. That was a good show, no?

I love being a painter.

1. Stuff On My Update: Politicians Lining Up to Have Stuff Put on Them. Hahahaha!

2. This is a very sweet story. When it’s my time, I hope I have a friend like Oscar.

3. As seen on Wonkette: We are all wearing the blue dress now.

4. Tonight’s the night. Dave’s Mosquito Farm. Softball. Playoffs. We are the #3 seed (4 teams make the playoffs). I hope we do well - I’d love to win it all - but I just love making it to the playoffs. It’s a very fun atmosphere.

5. A boy and a blind dog.

1. From Boing Boing: Man’s face infested by larvae. You’re welcome.

2. There is always a chance. A chance at becoming something better, a chance that the rules will, for no apparent reason, be changed in your favor. There’s always the chance that some bizarre force of nature will blow you a fresh wind in your face. There’s always a chance for redemption.

3. I took this picture of a teevee program when I was in Birmingham Alabama in April. I have no idea why.

1. The good news is that the 32 Left Feet kickball team won by another embarrassing margin (ummm… 31-2… ouch) on Sunday. The bad news is that, because we’re so good, we got bumped up into the higher division. I didn’t even know there was a higher division. Sigh…

2. If you haven’t already (and why the hell not?!), go look who got second place in the C-ville Weekly annual photo contest.

3. Wal Mart flip flops cause nasty chemical burn. Let’s go shopping!

4. Like the bumper sticker says “When evolution is outlawed, only outlaws will evolve”: Professors in Colorado Recieve Death Threats for Teaching Evolution.

5. You can say all the bad things you want about the Charlottesville Daily Progress (and, well, yeah… there are plenty of bad things to be said), but political reporter Bob Gibson is a gem, as always, with “Good Politics, Bad Karma”. Of course, I think these rules apply to plenty of things other than politics.

6. Confessions of a Dangerous Mind is probably in my top ten movies of this decade.

7. Who’s hungry?

“Sometimes, when you no longer see yourself as the hero of your own drama, expecting victory after victory, and you understand deeply that this is not paradise… Somehow we - especially the privileged ones that we are - we somehow embrace the notion that this veil of tears is perfectible, that you’re going to get it all straight… I found that things became a lot easier when I no longer expected to win.” -Leonard Cohen

1. “Tell me, do you really think you go to hell for having love?
Tell me, and laugh at thinking everything that you’ve done is good?
I really need to know, after soaking the body of Jesus Christ in blood
I’m so tired of America
I really need to know”

-Rufus Wainwright, “Going to a Town”

2. From washingtonpost.com, a story about a poor sad hummer owner who can’t understand why anyone would take a bat to every window, a knife to each 38-inch tire and scratch into the body: “FOR THE ENVIRON.”

“The thought of somebody vandalizing it never crossed my mind,” said Gareth Groves, 32, who lives with his mother in a three-story home in the 3400 block of Brandywine Street NW in American University Park. “I’ve kind of been in shock.”

Now, as Groves ponders what to do with the remains of his $38,000 SUV, he has been the target of a number of people who have driven by the crime scene in his upscale neighborhood and glared at him in smug satisfaction.

“I’d say one in five people who come by have that ‘you-got-what-you-deserve’ look,” said his friend Andy Sexton, 27, who is visiting from Arkansas and has been helping Groves deal with fallout from the crime.

Of course I don’t condone vandalism, but…

Groves, who grew up in the District and works in marketing for a local radio station, said he wanted the car in part because he is starting a company, Washington Sports Marketing, that is “image-based.”

Maybe he’ll remember that image.

But I doubt it.

3. Photo from this spring. Bryson City, NC:

Another Muddy Buddy picture. I love the little podium sign thing (totally unplanned). It makes us look like we’re a cute little up-with-people-esque and/or christian singing group, about to break into song. Which, of course, we are.

1. Presented as a public service follow-up. Not as funny as the cat version (much that I love dogs, I have to say that cats make for much better “stuff on my…” photos - they’re just more comical with various and random things attached to their furry little bodies), but occasionally good for a laugh: Stuff on my Mutt.

2. Kickball: The 32 Left Feet continue their (totally unexpected) march toward world kickball domination with wins of 26-3 and 9-6 on Sunday. My most awesome teammate Jon did, however, get thrown out on this play: A video clip of a great kickball play.

3. You’ve just gotta love Wonkette…

Hey, David “Diaperman” Vitter is on the teevee, saying a bunch of bullshit. Will he man up and admit anything? No. He won’t take questions, won’t talk about his diaper problems, and won’t resign. Wow. Meet the new Republicans. This is the same morality-free douchesack who demanded Clinton quit over a blowjob, which was obviously an impeachable offense.

“This would’ve been a private issue between husband and wife,” says his would-be Mrs. Bobbitt. Uh, aren’t you forgetting somebody else? You know, the hooker? Or hookers, and the madams?

“Our marriage is stronger every day,” says Wendy Vitter. Ha ha, is that all it takes to make marriage work? A bunch of prostitutes? Hooray for the New Family Values.

Oh, the tragedy: The media made your children sad. Really? So they’re not bothered by their father screwing hookers everywhere when he’s supposed to be, you know, working at the Senate? And they’re surely not at all sad because their pervert dad pays prostitutes to make him wear adult diapers.

And the reporters camped out at your church and your home? That’s a tragedy, too. Do you know why they’re out there, Mrs. Vitter? Because your husband’s a weird creep and an Elected Official who just happens to represent the “social conservatives.” There’s somebody else camped out at your church and your house, Mrs. Vitter: IT’S THE DEVIL, AND HE’S COMING TO TAKE YOUR HUSBAND HOME. The Devil has plans for David Vitter, do not doubt it! The diapers in hell are made out of chainsaws, swimming-pool acid and broken coke bottles, and the hookers are actually flesh-eating giant badgers.

“Let us continue our summer and our lives ….” Jesus motherfucking christ, how about we move on with putting Vitter in prison (it’s still illegal to hire hookers in D.C. and Louisiana) and calling a special election to fill his Senate seat with somebody who doesn’t need diapers?

4. Behind the curtain.