My eyeballs are drying out. I normally LIKE being blasted by cool dry air, but tonight (lack of sleep? Getting sick? Demons? Little dry-fingered ocular demons?) my eyeballs feel dry and gritty. Sandy even. Ugh. I’m closing my little eyeball lids and swooshing a little bit. If I could, I’d lick’em. Ever licked an eyeball? Once you get over the intimacy issues it’s not as weird as you’d think – but it’s not NEARLY as hot as that girlfriend thought… but there was a LOT in that relationship that wasn’t as hot as she thought it was going to be….
Enough about that. Let’s talk about wardrobe some more. Today’s t-shirt was chosen because I knew I was going to a tattoo convention. It sort of makes me look a little more buff and it’s got all this tribal decoration on it and looks kind of appropriate for tattoo conventions – but because it’s ME, if you look closer it’s got an octopus on it and is a shirt for the Aquarium. No-one looked that close though – a fair amount of available scantily-clad and well-inked eye candy assured that my visage went unmolested by others’ eyes – but other than the eye candy there wasn’t THAT much going on. The death-defying feats on stage were delayed because the guy in charge of defying death couldn’t get his chainsaw up and running. The bands were prolonging their sound check because there wasn’t an audience. The next act on the death stage was a football playing who would be signing autographs – and once you’ve encountered the work of David Newman-Stump (the artist behind Heather’s tattoos) of Skeleton Crew Tattoos, most other artists look like cartoonists.
There WAS some cool work there, some beautiful things, but the whole convention suffered from Firstimeritis and there were many things that needed to be better organized that weren’t. Heather and I each paid our ten dollars into the “Do Better Next Time Fund”, hung out for an hour and then ran over to Indianapolis to rock the Irving Theatre.
I didn’t even get any interesting photographs.
The Irving Theatre show was poorly attended, but good despite that. Sound was Lovely, the venue very cool. I met an interesting artist who builds art-guitars and Ember Swift and Kelly Zullo together as an uber-tight double threat was just incredible. Watching Kelly play drums rather than guitar was worth it alone. I’ve always Loved watching her play – incredibly intense and fantastically polished, Kelly is an immaculate guitarist, and she brings all of that panther-prowess to her hybrid kit. Her voice is a great combination with Ember’s and I admire anyone who can dazzle to a five count.
Yeah. Five. I’ll write in 7. I can play in 11. I have PLAYED in 5. I will never WRITE in five. Fuck that noise. Five is just weird.
Ember Swift has grown beautifully. It’s cool to see what she does now, see how China has influenced her, and see little reflections of the player she was with Lyndell years ago… I Love watching artists evolve. Ember has grown beautifully physically as well, and is expecting a child come this December. This is her last hurrah of playing till the spring, when she plans to tour with child in tow.
I can’t imagine it.
But I CAN imagine my eyeballs drying out. Cause it’s happening. I think I’ll blame Kelly Zullo. I hope she didn’t give me her cold. Sigh.
Leitch! Ken Gutberlet (President of the Baltimore Songwriters Association) and Kristen Jones performing at my Baltimore Songwriters Association open mic. I think it was the first time I’d heard more than one or two songs out of Ken and I was really pleased with his scifi repetoire. Great tunes, creative use of language – his writing is just a LOT of fun. Teporah Bilezekian performing on piano at the Te Amo open mic in Baltimore, MD. Definitely a selling point: there simply aren’t a lot of open mics in the area that have a piano in the house. And they’ve tuned it in the past week! Score!
