By The Dream Power of The Truth Beast

the children's children's children's...children.

 

YYYYYYYYYYEEEEEEEEEEEESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!

Skull Defekts w/Daniel Higgs. Baltimore, MD.

Thanks to Jamie Proctor for sending the links over today.

This makes me so happy.

games without frontiers....

Busy couple of weeks. Work, taxes, walks with murder dog & baby deaf dog, 3AM bike rides, darkness and light, sleeping, not sleeping, birthday BBQs, old friends, blasts from the future past, growing a sketchy beard, 4AM showers, morning paint fumes, blasts from the actual past, too many art openings, listening to Pelcinary, dead batteries, dealing with calculators, playing guitars, fixing amps, adjusting microphones, dealing with the dealing with the dealing, etc...

Eric Fisher came to town this weekend. We spent four days holed up in the rehearsal space working on Ghost Wars tracks. It was nice. Real nice. Like, the nicest! But all that recording left me little time for uploading photos or blasting brrrog posts, sorry. I'll try to blast a recap of the last few weeks soon.

In other news, today Benjamin Hoste sent over a link to his recently completed short film "The Luthier." And yes, it is quite literally about a luthier. Hand-made classical guitars and other olde tymey instruments all lovingly cut and carved by a master craftsman. Beautifully filmed & edited, easy to watch and interesting to behold. If you're a nerd in love with making things and learning stuff about people who make things, you'll probably enjoy this short film. I did. Thanks Ben.

The Luthier from Benjamin Gauvain Hoste on Vimeo.

After watching Ben's film I was inspired to plop over to the ultimate nerd site, (a/k/a craigslist vintage guitar hunt) to see if anything new or interesting had been posted. Much to my surprise, I was greeted by a video offering a contrasting look inside the Fender Custom Shop in Corona, CA.

All at once, it's fascinating and mind blowingly boring... but really, really funny. Next to buying a modern Harley or raising dog fighting pitbulls, paying $33K for a "custom made" electric guitar is truly one of the lamest things I can possibly imagine. Dumb chills for days.

 

Thank God for these people. Enjoy.

...and yet it all seems limitless....

 

  

"Death is always on the way, but the fact that you don't know when it will arrive seems to take away from the finiteness of life. It's that terrible precision that we hate so much. But because we don't know, we get to think of life as an inexhaustible well. Yet everything happens a certain number of times, and a very small number, really. How many more times will you remember a certain afternoon of your childhood, some afternoon that's so deeply a part of your being that you can't even conceive of your life without it? Perhaps four or five times more. Perhaps not even. How many more times will you watch the full moon rise? Perhaps twenty. And yet it all seems limitless." 

— Paul Bowles

 

I went on a bike ride today. It wasn't particularly long or eventful in any way. Cold and sunny. The wind whipped and cars honked as I lazily pedaled down the avenue... just taking in the sights. My beard ached, whiskers stabbing my lips. Hands like blocks of wood. Thighs burning more than I'd anticipated. Occasionally turning my head to see which well-oiled German auto might bring about my mundane demise. 

It was the first time in a long time I actually sat upright, inhaling and exhaling in great gulps... blinking... thinking... remembering my life. It was nice. Mostly because it caused me to recall the Paul Bowles quote above. Years ago, Kevin Willis gave me a book of Bowles' travel essays Their Heads Are Green and Their Hands Are Blue, with the demand that I read it in its entirety. Thanks to Kevin's prescience, without exaggeration it is a body of work which has done perhaps as much to shape my general character as any event, person, place or thing I've ever enjoyed or suffered. No lie.

Maybe it was the subject matter of the essays. Maybe it was the narrative tone and style of writing. Maybe it was the time and place in my life. Maybe it was that someone I trusted and respected had put the book in my hands. Maybe in Paul Bowles' darkly observant and deeply fated view of life I found a certain kind of kinship. Maybe I saw shades of my own resigned disposition and matter-of-fact sense of humor, (which in those days was all too often mistaken for no sense of humor at all, ha!). I really don't know.

All I know is this— it is important to cultivate new memories of things that profoundly move us. Even if only to give our subconscious mind a bit of fodder to ponder on otherwise seemingly inconsequential bike rides. Conjuring the past to make the present somehow more doable.

Moreover, it is important to be genuine about it. To say it aloud. To be ecstatic. To even occasionally be unhinged about it, whatever "it" might be. To be a fool for the things that strike a chord in us. I'm not talking about art scenes or music fads or subcultural exercises and social graces. I'm talking about those rare things we come upon that might move, shake and shape us to the core. Talk Talk's The Spirit of Eden. East Berlin circa 1999-2001. The Shure SM7 microphone. The Angeles National Forest. Ziad Doueiri's West Beirut. Mia the murder dog and Pizza Party the deaf puppy. 

 Anyway...

Tonight I came across this vimeo video by the artist Diego Agullo. I don't know anything about Agullo. Zilch. Nor do I necessarily need to know anything more. From the desert scenery to the symbology to the humor to the musical score... I completely appreciate this video piece and am moved by it.

Some day in the future, maybe 20 years from now, as I'm walking a flight of stairs, drying the dishes or maybe dying of a snake bite... whatever, my thoughts will turn to Agullo's film. And when that day comes I will remember today's ride on Leigh LeDare's wobbly old commuter bike. A biting wind in my eyes and a burn in my thighs. Hands like blocks of wood. Cars honking. Teenage girls with long black hair and denim-clad sausage legs... texting at the Walgreen's bus stop. Security guard at the House of Spirits hoisting his utility belt and instinctively touching his moustache. Bearded man with the kind face and dorky dad glasses standing on the corner of Sunset x Echo Park Ave wearing a yellow rain slicker holding a sign blasting the words "MORE MONEY FOR SCHOOLS, NOT WAR". I wave, he gives me the thumbs up. Pedaling past Echo Park lake, watching the bright light bounce off the water, scanning the grass for Maria the lovesick goose. Later, visiting with Isac and his weird fat dog. Driving around with Justin Regan staring at skate spots. Stumbling upon Diego Agullo's video. Writing this post... thinking of Paul Bowles... spending an entire Friday night writing on the importance of feeling moved and cultivating new memories. Thanks Diego.

Thanks again, Kevin. Enjoy Nigeria. 

 

thee victorian pizza parlour...

 

Very excited to finally blast about this on der trufths beasthsss brrrog!

A couple of months ago, with just $72 clams in her props budget and a bunch of crazy crap from the garage, Tammy transformed my tiny rehearsal space into a beautiful Ye Olde Victorian Parlour. We did it for a video project with our friends director Michael Reich, engineer Butchy Fuego and the electronic artist Alfred Darlington (a/k/a Daedelus).

Alfred's improvised tracks sound wonderful and the footage looks like something out of a Disney horror. Total spooksville macabre-vibes. It was tremendous fun and a helluva lot of work. 

Corny as this might sound, I'm genuinely thankful for having had the opportunity to do this. Everyone involved was really nice, talented and funny. We ate pizza while Daedelus changed in and out of marvelously tailored Victorian attire. Butchy wore a yellow plastic coat and a sideways hat emblazoned in a tropical motif. Michael Reich blasted the room with spectral projections and fake fog. DP Jeff Peters blew minds with his choice of lighting and filter techniques. Tammy stayed really, really calm... especially when lighting flowers and fluffing candles. I shot too many photos. We all sweated like barn hogs.

Basically, the work turned out great and we had a wonderful time making it. Which really is all one can ask of such an odd thing to do. Above is the first of three videos from the project. Numbers 2 and 3 to follow soon. To goggle your eyeballs at the Flickr photos, maybe go here. I sincerely hope you enjoy this weirdness. 

—Arlzzzzzzzzzzzzz

 

 

oh maria....

 

Justin Regan sent this over a couple of days ago. Further proof that love is love. It need make no sense nor offer any explanations. It just... happens. Maria lives a few blocks from my home. She's fantastic.

Thanks Justin.