also, this.

Screamin' Jay Hawkins - I Put A Spell On You

Happy Halloween!

Celeb Sighting(s)!

Stanley Tucci in the lobby of the Viacom building, accompanied by a couple PYTs.


The timing on this one is a little funny. The very next day (a Saturday) I had a class from 10:00-4:00. Before leaving home I checked my email and read one from my cousin's wife, who I was writing to arrange a family dinner during my trip back home. At the end of her email she mentioned that she had a loose showbiz connection -- her friend's daughter is Mary Louise Parker's personal assistant. During my lunch break that day I was in a falafel joint waiting for my food when Mary Louise Parker walked by!

gourd season

IT'S DECORATIVE GOURD SEASON, MOTHERFUCKERS.
BY COLIN NISSAN



- - - -

I don't know about you, but I can't wait to get my hands on some fucking gourds and arrange them in a horn-shaped basket on my dining room table. That shit is going to look so seasonal. I'm about to head up to the attic right now to find that wicker fucker, dust it off, and jam it with an insanely ornate assortment of shellacked vegetables. When my guests come over it's gonna be like, BLAMMO! Check out my shellacked decorative vegetables, assholes. Guess what season it is—fucking fall. There's a nip in the air and my house is full of mutant fucking squash.

I may even throw some multi-colored leaves into the mix, all haphazard like a crisp October breeze just blew through and fucked that shit up. Then I'm going to get to work on making a beautiful fucking gourd necklace for myself. People are going to be like, "Aren't those gourds straining your neck?" And I'm just going to thread another gourd onto my necklace without breaking their gaze and quietly reply, "It's fall, fuckfaces. You're either ready to reap this freaky-assed harvest or you're not."

Carving orange pumpkins sounds like a pretty fitting way to ring in the season. You know what else does? Performing an all-gourd reenactment of an episode of Diff'rent Strokes—specifically the one when Arnold and Dudley experience a disturbing brush with sexual molestation. Well, this shit just got real, didn't it? Felonies and gourds have one very important commonality: they're both extremely fucking real. Sorry if that's upsetting, but I'm not doing you any favors by shielding you from this anymore.

The next thing I'm going to do is carve one of the longer gourds into a perfect replica of the Mayflower as a shout-out to our Pilgrim forefathers. Then I'm going to do lines of blow off its hull with a hooker. Why? Because it's not summer, it's not winter, and it's not spring. Grab a calendar and pull your fucking heads out of your asses; it's fall, fuckers.

Have you ever been in an Italian deli with salamis hanging from their ceiling? Well then you're going to fucking love my house. Just look where you're walking or you'll get KO'd by the gauntlet of misshapen, zucchini-descendant bastards swinging from above. And when you do, you're going to hear a very loud, very stereotypical Italian laugh coming from me. Consider yourself warned.

For now, all I plan to do is to throw on a flannel shirt, some tattered overalls, and a floppy fucking hat and stand in the middle of a cornfield for a few days. The first crow that tries to land on me is going to get his avian ass bitch-slapped all the way back to summer.

Welcome to autumn, fuckheads!

TV Ghost: WFMU 10/13/09

That band I mentioned in Chris' request for Halloween music played a set on WFMU; download it here. Listen to "Atomic Rain" and "Degredation of Film".

Chris w/ Bolt in Head and Hula Girl

Priest, Woody Allen, Fidel Castro

Halloween Costumes-Wizards

Wizards!

Michigan Party

Attention to all those on the Eastern Seaboard: SCSF NYC Chapter will hold a Michigan Party in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, the evening of the Ohio State game (Saturday 11/21). If you are interested in attending, please note it in the comments and I will send you further information when it becomes public. Include your email address if we are not in regular contact.

North Korea

This guy has the best NK photos I've seen. He even has Pyongyang photos grouped by neighborhood and time period: http://www.flickr.com/photos/kernbeisser/sets/. Amazing stuff. I would post videos, but no one would get any work done. Maybe over Thanksgiving when we have time to watch with our families.

Also, I have a Flickr account: http://www.flickr.com/photos/neumedlyn/sets/. I made it to insert into my Linked in account, mostly to show that I wasn't in a madrasah or at full moon parties for the past two years.

halloween 05

the youngster faction of SCSF is really dominating this halloween thing so far, guys.

Lazy Halloween Costume

This is also the person I'm marrying, by the way. I'm getting married in Michigan next July. His name is Peter.

North Korean Arcade

North Korean Arcarde

Great photos though the poster seems fairly down on North Korean arcades. I'd take it over Pinball Pete's any day!

Halloween

Badass!

Halloween costumes

This is from last year at Joel & Sarah's place in Lansing. I shaved my beard for this costume. I was Joey Ramone and Mary Jane was Nico (you can't see the mod sixties dress or her Warhol banana bag in the pic).

Halloween

please post costume ideas and pictures from past SCSF Halloweens! to start, here's Lebowski and I from 2002:

Auto Bailout

I thought this was interesting. An inside look at how the auto restructuring worked and how bad it was at those 2 companies. It's also interesting to see how normal and reasoned most of it was vs. what the media presented us with.

A good quote that seems to reflect peoples "entitlement" philosophy in this day and age.

"we began meeting with all the interested parties: labor, lenders, legislators, and suppliers. We naively assumed that stakeholders eager to see a rescue of the two companies would come with a set of "gives"; I was startled that each stakeholder meeting invariably included a set of "asks" from the government.

Case in point: parts supplier Delphi, which hoped for government assistance even though nearly 90% of its workforce was outside the U.S. An important part of our job was going to be to convince the stakeholders that the government wasn't going to be everyone's piggy bank."


LINK

Feedjit

I'm noticing some unusual places in the feed -- a few international ones, and not just Sweden or France. Anyone know how or why some of these visitors arrived on the blog?

I made this

http://avejudgment.blogspot.com/

I hope it is not pretentious. I am not good at prose except for when I would write papers at school. I'm not very good at "fun" writing. But lala.com and the Free Music Archive make it very easy now to post freely-listenable entire albums in a blog post, and I thought, how can I not take advantage of that? I can now listen to and comment on music in just a few minutes w/o having to spend hours finding a place to download it, import it to iTunes, sync it with my iPod, etc.

This realization comes in the nick of time, just when I thought I felt old enough to give up on finding new music, to come to terms with being set in my ways. I can now defer that for a little while longer.

Michigan Connection

Dax and I met Wes Anderson, who plays sax w/ Wynton Marsalis, and now teaches jazz at MSU and runs a New Orleans-style restaurant in East Lansing.

Hey guys-

I want to second what Graham mentioned a few posts back, that this isn't the appropriate place to issue attacks, counter-attacks, or anything else that might spill out of it. I suggest, for the preservation of civility, that people talk directly to each other (face to face preferred, but phone works too) to avoid any of this craziness that results from the social buffering powers of the internet.

Thanks.

Joel

Hey guys. I know I rarely post on here but I felt I had something to say after everything that happened on here today.

I come to this blog once or twice a week hoping to see how old friends and acquantances are doing and maybe see something funny or entertaining. Despite my not posting, I really enjoy the blog and don't want to see it come to personal attacks. I know that Graham has said he would shut the blog down if personal attacks continue. I don't want to see that happen and I hope you don't either.

Perhaps we need to come up with some sort of solution if people can't remain civil, like banning them (though I hope this doesn't happen). This blog was created so we could all stay in touch and have some fun, let's keep it that way.

I don't know if you guys heard about this yet, but you can get the first seven tracks of Tom Waits' upcoming live album, which sounds awesome, right here.

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Everyone still thinks I'm creepy!?!?!

I like how John's the only one with the balls to tell me that.

Hey guys

So there's some provocative posting below. I'd like to discourage public attacks and counterattacks so I turned off the comments on that post. I considered deleting the post, but it doesn't feel right to censor stuff.

If you want to take issue or reach out, please do so directly and discretely.

Glitter and Doom

You can get the first seven tracks of Tom Waits' upcoming live album, which sounds awesome, right here.

Ypsilanti

The Count was silent. And that is how I learned the end of a story whose beginning had once impressed me so deeply. I never met its hero again. Rumour has it that Silvio commanded a detachment of Hetairists in Alexander Ypsilanti's uprising and was killed at the battle of Skulyani.

Where are your personal web cam videos?!?!

Don't puss out on me, guys. Get your videos up here. Do anything you want.

Story published

I like the format of this one.

Link.

SCSF New Year's Blowout

It seems that there are enough people interested in doing Michigan that that's what it's gonna be. Josh Barton, Graham and I will put our noggins together and get back to you all with options in a few weeks. If anyone else would like to be part of the planning committee, let me (us) know.

Marlowe and Chris -- would either of you be able to host?

50 Great Voices

NPR is accepting submissions for a feature called 50 Great Voices. They're accepting submissions through Friday, and you can nominate up to five singers. Here's the info. Who would your nominations be? Here are some off the top of my head:

1. Jad Fair (Half Japanese)
2. David Thomas (Pere Ubu)
3. Bo Diddley
4. Jimmie Dale Gilmore (The Flatlanders)
5. Arto Lindsay (DNA)

Interesting-sounding event in Boston

Sunday, October 18, 1-2 pm a gallery talk with artist/collector Steven Daiber: Collaboration with Cuban Print Studios

There will be Cuban artists catalogs & historical and contemporary prints to augment a slide show and discussion on working in six different print shops in Havana.

redtrilliumpress.com


Making Connections: Contemporary Cuban Printmakers
October 2 - November 22, 2009

Laconia Gallery
433 Harrison Avenue, Boston, MA 02118

Hoping for a Favor

I was hoping that someone amongst you bloggers might be able to suggest a good musical playlist for an upcoming Halloween party. All of you seem to know how to craft these pretty well, and I'd appreciate your expertise.

If you'd like to give any suggestions, just write them in the comments section.

-and thanks

Crazy Blind Date

If you're in a major metropolitan area you should give this a try. I can't do it this semester because I'm just too busy with classes, but in the winter it would be ideal -- keep it local on a cold, snowy night.

Notes

One of my favorite new (well, you've probably heard of it) websites is www.passiveaggressivenotes.com. I think I like it so much because they remind me so much of co-op days. I also used to write such notes before maturing, growing up, becoming more considerate, etc. Before this happened though, my stint as work manager finally harnessed my talents and gave flight to my imagination. Here's a Christmas classic by yours truly (I know Brian likes this one):

from p****n@umich.edu
to vail04f@umich.edu
subject fines came down at xmas

If I were work manager during the nativity, I would fine the Holy Family for
making a mess and not milking anything. So, here are fines for the end
of the semester. If you did make up work during interim, then you had them
reduced. I have no idea what you all are doing for interim now, because I'm
not in Ann Arbor.

If you want them completely gone, please make up the work by January 15. Mr
Swonger will be waiting.

landisj 2
pneuman 1
tdika 2
vladb 2
wattj 4
flasheffect 6

Anyone been to Portland, OR before?

I'm looking for a new place to live. Suddenly, Austin is too much for me, too busy. It's more entertaining than Oklahoma City, but I don't want to hang out in bars and clubs anymore. I am done with that.

I want to live somewhere in the Pacific Northwest. I like the cloudy weather of Ann Arbor, but it gets too cold there in the winter. Plus, living in AA would be kind of weird since I wouldn't be going to school there.

From what I have heard, Portland, Oregon would be a great place. Wikipedia says there's light rail all over the city, which would be nice because I hate driving in city traffic.

I have also heard that Honolulu is a great place to live because you don't have to drive.

Originally I was going to move to San Diego, but my reasons for going there became obsolete.

Wherever I move to next, I'd like to stay there for several years. I'm tired of moving around.

Josh please cover this please

Sunrise over Luleå

Here's an update from Sweden after 24 hrs.




I'm living in a town called Luleå. It's on the bottenviken (Northern most part of the gulf of Bothnia on the Baltic Sea).





I couldn't have my usual vodka-red bull this morning since, like their health-care, alcohol distribution in Sweden is nationalized and doesn't open until 10. The Systembolaget is the only place to buy booze except for near-beer but that makes it the largest single purchaser of french wines in the world!

Another wierd thing about Sweden - Al Jazeera is considered a legitimate news source - there are ads for it up in the airports and stuff. I mentioned to a Swede that it's "un- American" but that failed to convince her it was wrong.

Don't call/text my cell phone - unless you want to talk to my dad about something. I'll try to get a refillable cell/skype account today. I'm all for the webcam movement - Johnny found me a really good one.

Blog Advertisement

Hey- my friend Reagan started up a blog: pictures, interviews, stories. Very nicely organized.

http://themovablefulcrum.blogspot.com/

If anyone is interested in posting a story or some art I'm sure he'd be into it.

Moms in the News

My mom's in the Marquette newspaper, taking on the Catholic Church. http://miningjournal.net/page/content.detail/id/534429.html?nav=5006

MI CONNECTION : Detroit Farming

Here's the story.

SCSF New Year's Blowout

Not to harp, but could we please get a show of hands as to whether you definitely/maybe/won't be able to attend a New Year's Eve party in Michigan, wherever it might be? If enough people CAN'T make it, then we'll discuss doing it in NYC. Seems like more of us are working stiffs now and need to calculate vacation days, so having a quick gauge would be helpful. For myself it makes the difference of trying to get family to come to NYC or getting a ticket home. Leave your status in the comments by EOD Sunday, please. Here's a tally from Josh's earlier post:

Definitely
Josh & Mary-Jane
Graham & Nicole
Dax
Johnny
Brian
Adam

Maybe
Tricia

Won't
Joel

A recent development which may sway your decision -- Mittenfest, the annual indie gathering, will be December 31st through January 3rd. FoI tentatively plan to appear.

Band Name

The Squirrels. Possibly add a color, either realistic (The Red Squirrels, The Black Squirrels) or fantastic (The Green Squirrels, The Purple Squirrels).

Damien

Hey you guys remember Damien from Grosse Pointe? When I was in Prague in 2007, I saw him just walking down the street and we both did a double take and then went back and talked. He gave me his number but we could never get in touch because Natalya and I didn't have a cellphone.

He's on Facebook and got in touch with me.

Built for Two

Yesterday I got a call from my friend Marcus asking if I was free for a couple hours. He motorized a tandem bike and wanted to show it off. Take a look-see.

UPDATE
Now on YouTube!

A Lasting Contribution

A Scottish-Irish banker, William Ralston, opened the Bank of California on Sansome Street in 1864. Partnered by Prussian engineer Adolph Sutro, later famous for building the first Cliff House and the Sutro Baths, Ralston was determined to extract every last ounce of silver from the Comstock's Sun Mountain. Unfortunately, he did so too quickly: the ore ran out before he could recoup his investment, and his bank collapsed. Ralston drowned himself, leaving behind the luxurious Palace Hotel and a lasting contribution towards San Francisco's new civic pride: Golden Gate Park. Ralston's company provided the water for William Hammond Hall's audacious project, which transformed a barren area of sand dunes into a magnificent expanse of trees, flowers and lakes.

The Soft Pack - Parasites

Certificate in Screenwriting

There's a tuition reimbursement program at Viacom and I've been taking various continuing ed classes through the School of Visual Arts, but I'm starting this screenwriting certificate at NYU. I wanted to go great guns this semester but may have bit off more than I can chew -- I'm taking Rewriting a Screenplay in 10 Weeks, The Screenwriter's Craft, and Marketing Your Screenplay.

How I Could Just Kill A Man

Ian, Tarek, Dax, and Paul in Paul's car driving through rain in the UP at night.

D e t r o i t

Time magazine is all over Detroit. apparently this is to be a recurring feature/"special project".