VaKay2N.O.

In keeping with the best of 2009 category, here are two of my favorite pictures of friends who came to visit me this last year (NOTE: anyone reading this is welcome to come test my hospitality with a visit to New Orleans in 2010. All I ask is that you let me snap your picture when the moment is right)The best part of having peeps come thru is their desire to go out and see as much as possible. Sometimes that makes me a tour guide and sometimes that means I just tag along and try to keep up. The Other Tempest herself blew thru from Chi Town for mardi gras this year and showed me around Mid City long before I ever thought to settle down there. Here she is going under an end-to-end by GAMBLE and the bridges that divide the two parts of City Park. Beyond this lies the feral overgrown side of the park, much more wild than the side where the guests of VooDooFest revel. Next we have Sam, a man of most prodigious talents. By good fortune alone I ran into my friend again this year when he saw called me out along a busy street corner in Chelsea (he had recognized the YeeHaw label on the back of my shirt, giving me away as a 10ACN amongst NewYorkers.) Before my trip was over I was able to drop in on Sam at his apartment in the County of Kings where he revealed to me three rare zines of utmost mystery and choice typography (published in New Orleans in fact). Sam recently came down to Louisiana (right before I myself left) and made a quick and prolific investigation of some of the best spots around town. (The locale here is Gentilly) That's a camera bag slung over his shoulder because he likes photographing walls as well. (Although Sam seems to prefer when the paint is peeling off of them) That's not to say he doesn't have an eye for good works and the Good Word that is graff. I like his opinion so I asked him what he thought of this guy right before we left. He surprised me with a shrug and said: "Eh..I like it just so-so." Oh? The camera went SNAP, the guy's name is TASK.

Leer Los Libros!

Here are the 2 most memorable books I read in 2009. A TREE GROWS IN BROOKLYN in keeping with my city-crush with King's County, NY. This copy I spray painted and embellished with some sharpie to give as a gift to my first girlfriend. The main character reminded me of her (and every other cool girl I know). The OldGirl also turned me onto Love in the Time of Cholera back in the day which is reminiscent of ATGNBrooklyn in terms of the plot's epic span across the course of the main characters lives and the touching, dreamy portrayal of those events as they unfold. I really like this book. I told some of my friends after I finished it that its the best book I've read. Superlatives like that don't usually last long but I was being truthful when I said it.DISHWASHER: one man's quest to wash dishes in all 50 states. As recommended to me by the cool staff of Quimby's bookstore in Chicago, the byline pretty much tells you all you need to know about this one. A self-professed slacker, Pete Jordan left the school system looking for work with the least amount of responsibility. He found cleaning plates as the lowlest man in the restaurant totem pole to be straightforward enough for him and fulfilling, for just as long as he needed it be. The moment a manager or an uppity coworker or customer tried to give him any kind of shit, he would say 'fuck you' and split leaving with money in his pockets to hit the road and a sink full of dishes behind him for somebody else to fuss with. Such is the freedom of working a job that is available most everywhere. 'Don't piss off the little man because he's making it run' is one of the messages that comes across in this book. Another is the freedom in not being tied down to a career. With no qualms for getting his hands wet he manages to travel from Alaska to New Orleans to New York and a hundred places in between. This book actually started as a little zine when Pete began writing down his different experiences busting suds across the country. It grew more and more popular over time to the point that he was printing several thousand copies, getting invited to come work by his readers, and even appear on the David Letterman Show (he had his friend take his place secretly). Pretty cool for a guy with no ambition working a seemingly shitty job. Just goes to show you its all about attitude. I highly recommend this for all people graduating school, filled with fear about how to get by in the "real work world". Pete Jordan blazes a bright path for slackers everywhere.

Let 'em Roll

Natural Instincts

Where I live

Its interesting to note that if we were to turn around and walk the dog in the other direction we could follow this creek all the way back to New Orleans. No Joke - Real talk - How cool.

Also noteworthy is the stone trestle in the background which used to support the old tracks. On this day 5 months & 91 years ago the no. 1 train from Memphis and the no. 4 train from Nashville collided along that bridge killing 101 people. It remains the deadliest train wreck in American history. (Don't tell me you didn't know! It was the subject of my very first book!)

Yanners Batman! More twisted scrawl!

From the previously pictured Morton Salt Man comes another piece for deciphering. Here we have the same four letters again but still no helpful tag-on-the-side to give any clues. 42 is obviously the meaning of life but I can't tell you about the signifigance of that other word. Its a secret and (even after googling!) I have no idea. This one really should only be harder to figure out than the last one so bravo if you can actually read it this time. If not that's ok too because in this piece the writer has curled his letter with so many extra wisps and serifs that they've begun to grow into each other and reconnect in the most confusing ways. The S looks more like a double headed snowman to me the way it's been allowed to fuse together. I hate when an S closes back in on itself like that. It looks sloppy and scrunched to me if its a tag like below or here on the cover of Bomb the Suburbs but it was obviously deliberate in this piece. Despite it being totally tangled, the painting is still remarkably clean cut and precise at the same time. I admire it for that especially.
Here's another example of a different writer blurring the boundaries and letting his letters incestuously mutate into themselves. As fate would have it, this piece contains the exact same four letters as the one above it plus an E, which looks like a backward 3 closed in on itself to create a flipped B. That should be a little helpful. Plus they both also make use of the ever popular spade-shaped heart-curl to form their O. Enjoy!

1996-OYeah!

Found this packaging in the groceries today. Pop lore has it that this was the word that Beck originally intended to title his third album. But it was misheard by an engineer and turned into 'Odelay' instead.
Fortunatley for me, back in 96 my bigger, hipper, CD-purchasing sister bought this one and kept it in steady rotation in Mom's minivan. I haven't been the same since.

Thank you Beck, thank you KT.

SWANK /swæŋk/ [swangk] noun, adjective, -er, -est, verb
–noun
1. dashing smartness, as in dress or appearance; style.
2. a swagger.
–adjective
3. stylish or elegant.
4. pretentiously stylish.
Usage in a video, See: New Pollution