stage right...stage left

bye bye stageright...stageleft

2007-05-27T16:03:00.001-05:00

life is change. get used to it.

sr...sl is gone (tho' the below link still works) -

all current ramblings can be found at www.atomicpop.wordpress.com

peace,
kyle

bye bye blogger.

2007-02-06T21:44:00.000-06:00

yup, it's true. i've flown this coop. blogger, it's not you, it's m..., well actually it is you.

to quote prince:

"i dig u better dead!"

to quote siouxsie"

"i hate you i hate you i hate you i hate you...drop dead-you stinking little creep"

ok, so maybe i'm being dramatic, but i gotta say - beta sucks. i've had more formatting challenges since beta went live; not to mention the a plethora of password/sign in issues and lack of a response to my emails. it's annoying as fuck i tell ya!

so, i've moved on over to wordpress. come visit me there won't you?

http://stagerightstageleft.wordpress.com/

(please update your blogrolls/favorites)

i'm not totally in love with wordpress yet, but i like their system so far; it's clean, well organized and seems like just the ticket. it's kinda like a new relationship, i have ton's of hopes and dreams, but we'll just go slow and take it day-by-day. (wordpress is a hot piece of ass tho' - so i'm totally in lust).

plus i kinda like underdogs, and wordpress is an underdog to the behemoth that is blogger.

in the meantime, i'll leave this "beta" version of sr...sl up so that folk's can find me

observation:

2007-02-04T16:27:00.000-06:00

mannequin heads can be creepy.

a big part of my job involves being around mannequin heads. now, these are not the type of heads you would see in macy's or sears - these heads are are used for training hairdressers. they come in all forms and types - heads that have full thick hair, thinning hair, kinky curly hair, boy hair (some even have facial hair and kinda look like jesus; just ask cb). they even have names - seriously; the first one below for example is named "erika" (that's how we order them; "give me 10 viola's, 15 amber's, 4 samuel's and 20 erika's).

these heads as a general rule do not freak me out (unlike my boss who seriously hates them). however, when your the only person in the bu idling on a sunday, and your co-workers are fond of using heads as office decoration - it can get a bit freaky when you see a head out of the corner of your eye.

this last picture is one of my favorites. last march, we did a huge hair show in london. at about 5am on the day of the show the various guest artists were arriving for final prep on their models. a friend of mine from germany who was in the show showed up with this 'bag o' heads" - in an ikea bag no less. i just thought it was dead-funny:

the night watchman however, he was seriously creeped out.

-32 - for fuck sake, -32

2007-02-04T11:34:00.000-06:00

yup. everyone knows minneapolis is cold. no surprise there. the thing is - are you ready for this? - it's not what it used to be. time was (way back when i was a young guy in a snowsuit) winter would start in earnest sometime in late october and stick around until early april. that's not the way it is anymore... we really don't get winter until early january (4 or 5 cold days maybe in december) and it's gone by the end of february (oh, ya, and i walked 3 miles in the snow up hill both ways without shoes when i was a kid too).

that said, i'm just not fucking prepared for -32. it's just not right. on top of that... take a look at the dew point: -21. do you have any idea how dry -21 is? by way of comparison phoenix is currently +26

i'm ready for spring. way way way ready for spring.

thank buddha it will be +24 by next sunday. but wait, i'll be in sunny des monet on sunday (yay, it's supposed to be +31 in iowa next sunday). oh, and i have +32 to look forward to on the 27th (my birthday, feel free to send prezzies, i love prezzies). +32 is the average for the day (the record high was +64, of course the record low was -21 too, that could suck huge).

i love minneapolis 9-10 months a year - the best weather ever. it's just jan and feb i hate.

god i need to get to some tropical island.

smokin' aces

2007-02-03T22:33:00.000-06:00

just home from seeing the uber-violent new film smokin' aces. now, i had absolutely zero expectations from this film, but i gotta say - i enjoyed the ride immensely.

for my more squeamish fans (or those who have trouble with graphic violence - hehehehe) this film is not for the faint of heart. it has about a billion gun shots and more spurting blood than your average friday the 13th film - but at the same time, it actually has a pretty good plot/story and characters you actually grow to believe (well, at least ryan reynolds).

oh, and there is more man-candy/testosterone than you can throw some wood at. i mean seriously - the guys in this movie are smokin' hot. every one of 'em, i've had a thing for for a damn long time.

starting with the adorable ryan reynolds. this boy is gonna make a damn fine daddy someday:

and then there's the title character buddy "aces" isreal; the humpy jeremy piven. even at his most coked-out scussiness, this man is fuckin' hot + he has one of my new all-time favorite lines in a movie (said to one of his not-so-smart thugs): you're looking at me like, like... i just asked you the fucking square root of something.

and then there's ben affleck. ben, ben, ben. i don't care how many bad movies in the past you made - i forgive you. just keep starin' at me with those baby blues:

and while he's certainly no cock-of-the-walk any longer; we have the smolderingly sexy andy garcia. this man could melt me with "hi":

rounding out the lead's - the impeccable ray liotta. does this man have a steely stare or what? it's as if he's got x-ray vision. dead sexy.

with just the smallest of cameo's (and a mullet to match) the ever woofy matthew fox made an appearance:

again with just a bit o' a cameo, the hotness that is peter berg:

i'm tellin' ya folks, this movie was one fun ride. great action scenes, fun plot twists and a fuckin' hot as hell cast.

my dreams are gonna be fun tonight! hehehe

junk mail of the day

2007-02-03T10:31:00.000-06:00

got this in my work inbox:

-----Original Message-----From: Jill Deforge [mailto:dud@ramada.it] Sent: Wednesday, January 31, 2007 11:39 AMTo: Aveda EmployeesSubject: Re: VIAoupGRA

Good day,

Viav_gra $1, 80
Ciav_lis $3, 00
Leviv_tra $3, 35

http://www.progenyid!.com ( Important Remove "!" )

--
just know there are a lot of odd things going on, and I dont like it...
Moodys right Sirius is right youve got to get in training for the
third task, straight away. And you make sure you write back to Sirius

what i wanna know, why the random harry potter bit? how exactly does that work?

ms transworld pageant

2007-02-02T14:28:00.000-06:00

sorry for the lack of posts in the last few days - work is kickin' my ass with a huge show i'm producing next week in lovely des moines, ia (or as we refer to it des monet, the milan of the upper mid-west) with 7 other shows quickly on the heals of des monet (including the real milan - yea, sucks to be me)....anyway, had to share a quick conversation i had a bit ago with the booking agent for a theater in san francisco i wanted...:

booking agent (b.a.): i would love to help you out but i just booked out that date for the miss trans-world pageant

me: but we would be so much more fun than the miss trans-world pageant!

b.a.: no, i don't think anyone is as much fun as the miss trans-world pageant. in fact, we have a lock on that little market; we also have the pan-asian transsexual pageant coming up.

damn - we got shafted by a bunch of trannies. sucks to be us.

public service message

2007-01-31T11:17:00.000-06:00

if you had knee surgery 3 weeks ago, do not, under any circumstance, forget that you just had knee surgery and then proceed to kneel on your knee (therefore placing your full weight on it) while assembling equipment for a show.

HOLY-FUCKING-MOTHER-OF-GOD-SHIT-FUCKER-DAMN-GEORGE BUSH-SON OF A BITCH-SHITSTORM that hurt.

no comment monday

2007-01-29T07:31:00.000-06:00

pan's labyrinth

2007-01-28T17:57:00.000-06:00

yes, another blogger blogging about pan's labyrinth. deal with it.

i just got home from seeing this movie and all i can say is wow - guillermo del toro is a god. i mean, he has such complete and total vision for the world('s) he's created in this film, from post-civil war spain to the aformentioned labyrinth; it's impossible to not be sucked in and taking on an amazingly haunting, beautiful and delicate journey.

i really do believe this film will be sticking with me for a bit. much more i want to write about it; but i've got to process what i've just watched. however, in a word or two, this movie is why i love movies. i was so completely transported - it blew me away.

there were three movies that came out this past year that really transported me in a way that so rarely happens anymore - the prestique, the fountain and this one.

in anticipation for the oscars, i've been writing up my own thoughts on the best films of the year (i'll be posting those thoughts sometime in the next couple of days). i can add this to that ++++ column.

random bits

2007-01-27T11:15:00.000-06:00

ok, this is now the 3rd time i've started this post today; blogger has been pissing me off - it's crashed 3 times. fuckin' blogger.
---
knee update: off crutches (thank god). still got a bit of a limp, but it's getting better everyday. the weird thing about my knee is it feels completely removed from my body. almost like i'm experiencing the knee remotely. it still doesn't do what i want it to do (sitting cross legged for example) but it's getting there. the doc says these feelings will continue on and off for about 6 months or so and i should have reasonably full mobility back within a month.

i'll be happy when that happens.
---
finally, the truth.

from the current issue of gq's interview with sarah silverman:

gq: so hillary clinton for president, then?
ss: i'm more of the barack obama camp.

gq: why obama?
ss: oh, not for any real, intellectual reason. just for the same reason real people make their decisions - i saw him on letterman and i thought he was awesome.

i've often thought that people really tend to just make their political decisions on something as influential as a gut response. there are exceptions of course, (i'm sure alexander over at voenix rising and mike at lolife/ are in the other camp, the one where you weigh all the options and make a truly intellectual decision), but i think most poor slobs like me make it on a base response to something.

nice to see someone admit it in the press though.
---
just a a reminder.

before there was the whole pope shredding thing on snl and the marriage to god and the divorce from god and the other kooky happenings there was:

<>a fucking brilliant debut album that still resonates today.

my fine is...

2007-01-26T13:14:00.000-06:00

....$655.60.

see what your fine is here.

ebay whore

2007-01-25T23:05:00.000-06:00

ok, i admit it - i have a slight addiction to ebay. it comes and goes of course, but on the whole, i'm a big fan of ebay - i find the ability to rediscover one's childhood (or in this case early late teen-aged years) to be a wonderful diversion to the every day mundaness of life.

just today i won this little treasure, dale bozzio's riot in english:

formerlly the lead singer of missing persons, dale bozzio signed to prince's paisley park label in the late 80's and put out this pure pop fluff of an album in 1988. while i had it on casette and remember liking the album just fine, i can't imagine it's aged well at all.

however, it has a prince song on it (so strong), so ultimatly it was necessary for me to eventually own this again. so ebay to the rescue.

as mentioned, i remember liking it on the whole; it's a very "pop" album, not nearly as experimental as her work with frank zappa or missing persons - but if memory services it was pretty left field for pop music at the time. i've poked around the 'net since i started bidding on this and am kinda surprised how well the album seems to have been reviewed (i dismissed it almost immediatly back in the day - it was just fun fluff, nothing great)... from all music: "the tight-as-a-drum production sounds are right out of trevor horn's notebook" and "bozzio has grown up here, as 'simon simon' rocks with authority, a good album leadoff, as is the song which launches side two, the title track, 'riot in english.'"

all in all i'm pretty jazzed to have won this; and am anxious to give it another listen.

p.s., i'd post the video to 'simon simon' on here, but it's a pretty bad video, very 1988; but if your so inclined, do a search on you tube; it's out there.

willfully stolen....

2007-01-23T06:55:00.000-06:00

...from eyeteeth:

by bansky.

brilliant in'it? seriously, check out his other art - the guy's got a great eye.

superfluous prince

2007-01-21T18:51:00.000-06:00

no big secret, i loves me some skinny mother fucker with the high voice. yes, it's a bittersweet love - i mean the man's a fuckin' genius, but sometimes he's a lame-ass fuck that is mearly resting on his laurels.

well shit if this didn't remind me how much i love it when the man just simply plays - for the love of the guitar! the above video is from prince's 2004 induction into the rock and roll hall of fame. if you don't know, at the end of the induction ceremony, the recently inducted members do a "jam session" - the video is princes solo during the george harrison tune "while my guitar gently weeps".

i love this.

s.t.c.n.c.b. drag queens

2007-01-18T21:54:00.000-06:00

perfect if only for the line: "supertrashycheapandnastycuntybitchy drag queens"

agitation / peace

2007-01-17T21:58:00.000-06:00

i'm not always the smartest duck in the pond.... but it's good to have people around (albeit 1,253 miles away) that can push me in a different direction every now and then.

i've been super agitated tonight. i'm not sure why. as the hours passed tonight, i was getting more and more agitated, jumpy, crabby. i have no idea.

certainly, i don't think my knee is helping things. i'm still very mobility-limited. while i've gone into the office the last two days, i haven't really been out and about much. my knee is hurting more, the vicodin is just masking the pain. i'm not sleeping well and i can't get physically comfortable.

earlier, i was on the phone with cb and he pretty much had to talk me off the ledge so to speak. when i get agitated, the nervous energy just multiplies like bunnies and it feeds the demon which only serves to get me more jumpy. cb was fairly adamant that i needed to take some pain pills and lie down, or read, or - here's an idea, listen to music, to calm my center.

music is the my favorite thing in the world, virtually my one constant, but do you think i thought of that? nope. i just sat pacing (as best as a gimp can pace). cb reminded me about a piece of music i own (thanks to him) he knows how i love it, and how it has a calming effect on me.

so i took an hour out of my night, turned off the lights, lit a candle and listened to jonathan elias' the prayer cycle. i'm almost a differen man!

combining such divergent voices as nusrat fateh ali kahn, alanis morissette, ofra haza, linda ronstadt and perry farrell (to name just a few) with the american boy choir (featuring the staggeringly amazing devin provenzano) and the english chamber orchestra and chorus - the work evokes (for me) the combined one-ness of the greater global community.

elias wrote the piece (a choral symphony in 9 movements) just before the turn of the century, and in his words: "...the world we live in is both joyous and cruel. the divide between love and hate has never been as wide as it is on our world today. i pray that we can move forward and that the next generations rise where we have fallen."

i find it interesting that he chose to take music from all over the globe, in combination with voices that are at equally divergent (i count voices singing in 15 different languages) - and yet, what came out was one cohesive sound. it also seems relevant (or at the very least interesting) that 7 years on from the millennial change, the world is even more at odds - and yet, when one listens to music that was created with a true sense of purpose, and are taken on a journey to the far points of the globe, your left feeling more connected to the world around you than when you started.

so here i sit, listening to the piece for the third time tonight, and i'm calmer, more at peace (at least for the moment). yes, landry, i do need to figure out the source of my agitation, but sometimes just getting lost in another world for a bit of time can make all the difference in both the long and short run.

there you have it, prodded a bit by a good friend to just sit down and be in the moment - it's a nice little reminder now and then. especially for the densest duck in the pond.

globe recap.

2007-01-16T19:34:00.000-06:00

(when bad dresses happen to mediocre actresses)

ok, so i never said i was going to predict the winners of the golden globes - my picks were just who i wanted to win - it's not my fault if the hollywood forign press got it so wrong so often.

best picture – drama-the departed. damn if i didn't get this one wrong; i've heard it's good, i just can't get into brad pitt lately.
best picture – musical or comedy-little miss sunshine. dreamgrils won. i hate dreamgirls. well, more coorectly, i hate beyonce. i refuse to support any film with beyonce in it (even if i do love jennifer hudson)
animated film-cars. yes! i got it. there was really no chance that this wasn't going to win.
lead actor – drama-leonardo dicaprio in the departed. i'm really not a fan of leo's either, but was duly impressed with his performance in the departed - shame he didn't win, but i've heard forest was great in the last king of scotland.
lead actor – musical or comdey-chiwetel ejiofor in kinky boots (should win; sacha baron cohen in borat will win). yup, sacha won! no surprise. i still like chiwetel better, but i'm claiming this in my win column.
lead actress – drama-helen mirren – the queen. helen mirren is the fuckin' shit - so deserved.
lead actress – comedy or musical-meryl streep – the devil wears prada. again, brilliant and no question really. and meryl's speech was awesome.
actor in a supporting role- ben affleck in hollywoodland. ugg eddie murphy. ugg dreamgirls. blech.
actress in a supporting role- emily blunt in the devil wears prada. jennifer hudson. jennifer rocks. dreamgirls sucks.
director- martin scorsese for the departed. yes! it's fuckin' about time marty got props. the departed was most excellent.
tv series – musical or comedy- ugly betty (would be happy with entourage as well). yes yes yes yes!!!! so fuckin' deserved.... ugly betty is the best show on tv right now.
actor in a leading role – drama- patrick dempsey in grey’s anatomy (he’s dreamy you know). that dude from house got it - fuckin' great speech. never seen the show.
actor in a leading role – musical or comedy- jason lee in my name is earl. alec baldwin eh? he ain't horrid.
actress in a leading role – drama- ellen pompeo – grey’s anatomy. no comment really, never seen the closer... kyra's always solid.
actress in a leading role – comedy or musical- america ferrera – ugly betty. again - this is fuckin' perfect. america is sublime. way to go

------

unreleated; so i went back to work today... only made it about half the day... i was so fuckin' tired, had to come home and take a nap. i'm still on crutches (i totally figured i'd be off them by now, it's been 8 days).

tomorrow is another half day work wise - i have the follow up post-op dr appointment.

wish me well.

song of the heart

2007-01-15T20:14:00.000-06:00

so the skinny mother fucker with the high voice won a golden globe award (best original song for the song of the heart) and was running late so he wasn't even there to accept it. sometimes i wonder where the fuck his mind is - the boy seriously lives in his own little purple world. who shows up late for an award ceremony? as a huge fan of the man, i gotta say - it's nice to see him back on the scene, but the song wasn't that strong was it?

oh, and seriously - what the fuck was cameron diaz wearing? i'll try and find a pic...

plum tuckered out

2007-01-15T14:47:00.000-06:00

ventured out of the house for the first time today and boy did it tire me out... had lunch with my friend christopher today (tasty burger and fries at the longfellow grill).

still ambling about on crutches (especially for more than just walking from the bed to the couch) but it felt great to finally get out. things i've learned:

it's difficult (but not impossible) to shave while supporting oneself on crutches.
putting a sock and a shoe on when you can't fully bend (or extend for that matter) your leg can fuckin' hurt.
walking through four inches of snow on crutches is fun.
daytime tv sucks ass (and not in that good ass to mouth sort of way way).
judi dench is a god.
brian from cheapblueguitarspan> does not spend enough time entertaining me.

i think it's nap time. i'm a tired boy. but before that - tonight is the golden globes - the second greatest night of tv, so without further adu; my pics (truth be told i've not seen many of the flicks nominated - but i really do love the below performances...):

best picture – drama
-the departed

best picture – musical or comedy
-little miss sunshine

animated film
-cars

lead actor – drama
-leonardo dicaprio in the departed

lead actor – musical or comded
-chiwetel ejiofor in kinky boots (should win; sacha baron cohen in borat will win)

lead actress – drama
-helen mirren – the queen

lead actress – comedy or musical
-meryl streep – the devil wears prada

actor in a supporting role
- ben affleck in hollywoodland

actress in a supporting role
- emily blunt in the devil wears prada

director
- martin scorsese for the departed

tv series – drama
- heroes

tv series – musical or comedy
- ugly betty (would be happy with entourage as well)

actor in a leading role – drama
- patrick dempsey in grey’s anatomy (he’s dreamy you know)

actor in a leading role – musical or comedy
- jason lee in my name is earl

actress in a leading role – drama
- ellen pompeo – grey’s anatomy

actress in a leading role – comedy or musical
- america ferrera – ugly betty

i life less ordinary

2007-01-13T18:07:00.000-06:00

sshhhh..., don't tell anyone, but i'm kinda a romantic - a sappy, romantic.

today, after the 867th film (serenity, for those keeping score) i've seen in the last few days, i was flipping through channels and i came across the last 20 minutes of a life less ordinary, one of the greatest flicks in the known universe if you ask me.

this 1997 flick, from the director of trainspotting and shallow grave was nothing short of revolutionary to me. i love danny boyle's (the aforementioned director) eye, sense of rhythm and frenetic directing style; a style that was perfect in the gritty trainspotting - but i would have never thought he could do a romantic comedy (albeit with a fair bit of tragedy thrown in) as well as he pulled off this flick.

i love everything about this movie - cameron diaz and ewan mcgregor are awesome, while delroy lindo and holly hunter (playing a brilliant pair of murdersome, meddling angels) are a pure delight.

from imdb: "ewan mcgregor stars as a cleaning man in l.a. who takes his boss's daughter hostage after being fired and replaced by a robot. two "angels" who are in charge of human relationships on earth, offer some unsolicited help to bring this unlikely couple together. the "angels" are so successful that the daughter soon turns on her father in order to save her captor."

i forgot about how much i love this movie and how much i love feeling happy about the possibility of love. i've already ordered a copy for my library.

can't wait to watch it from the start!!

celine: so your telling me that successful relationships are made in heaven? Not founded on the daily practicality of two people being prepared to tolerate the imperfections of one another?
robert: it’s not successful relationships celine, it’s love. and it comes from a strange and wonderful place that we don’t know about.
celine: so then, you also reject the idea that love is merely an emotional adaptation of a physical necessity?
robert: completely.
celeine: are you serious?
robert: fate intervenes in people’s lives.
celine: in ours for instance?
robert: fate brought us together, it kept us together. we were destined for one another.
celine: fate had a pretty strange way of making it’s point
robert: but that’s part of the beauty of it, it’s inexplicable, unpredictable and absolutely beyond control or understanding.
celine: but you nearly got killed…
robert: but i didn’t. and here we are.
celine: do you have any substantial evidence to back up all of this?
robert: none at all.
celine: and you realize that it’s absurd and irrational?
robert: i know that.
celine: then why do you believe it?
robert: because celine, i’m a dreamer
celine: i guess that makes two of us.
robert: are you ready?
celine: as i’ll ever be.
robert: then lets go….

brilliant! simply brilliant :-)

and for those up for a knee update (don't worry, no more pictures) - i'm doin' more or less ok. woke up this morning and could actually walk on the full pad of my foot - 'course that went away as the day progressed and i'm back to crutches. it's an evolution right? the swelling is down by about 50%, but i am still going fuckin' stir crazy. hopefully tomorrow i'll be without the crutches.

picture of the day

2007-01-12T12:08:00.000-06:00

snapped this pic a couple of weeks ago (dec 31 actually) with cb in the car..... this is the world famous club "first avenue"; featured in the movie purple rain and home to about the best damn rock-n-roll experience in all of minneapolis.

i have always wished that as a young music afficiando, i would have kept all the ticket stubs to the various concerts i've been too - i think it would have been cool to be able to sit and reflect on what was once done... alas, i never kept ticket stubs for more than a couple of weeks so my recollection of who i've seen in this humble building is less than complete. but suffice to say, some of the greatest moments of music i've ever seen live, have been in first ave.

from the top of my head:

concrete blonde / siouxsie and the banshees / the creatures / lloyd cole / johnette napolitano / paul weller / soul asylum / the rembrandts / the jayhawks / ben folds five / pil / new order / youssou n'dour / ana voog / sounds of blackness / spiritulized / brother sun sister moon / me'shell n'degeo'cello / the afghan whigs / morphine / trip shakespeare / violent femmes / interpol / tori amos

ahh the memories :-)

christmas recap

2007-01-11T20:28:00.000-06:00

christmas is always a mixed bag for me.... i mean, who doesn't love prezzies, right? i mean, hell ya, i love gettin' prezzies (i also particularly love to give them - search for eons for that perfect gift), but at the end of the day it's rare that i am ever given something truly personal - something that says as much about the person gifting me as it does me. i don't mean to sound ungrateful, but sometimes i feel like people just don't get me. and that saddens me a little. i will say this, it's fairly easy to buy for me on the surface (itunes gift cards, dvd's etc - that all works just fine), but the surface stuff isn't really me right?

this year, i got a very surprising prezzies

eon's ago i told a good friend about two treasured items from my childhood. two stuffed animals in fact. one stuffed animal i still own (a bear that's pushing 100 years old - he belonged to my grandmother, then my mom and now i have him), and a stuffed bunny that disappeared sometime in childhood. by the way their names were 'bear bear' and 'bungy rabbit' respectively - what can i say, i was never the most original child.

i told him this story well over a year ago (if not longer) and when i opened my christmas prezzies this guy was staring up at me out of the mylared bag:

there was a card under his butt: "kyle - my name is marty. i know i'm not like bearbear or bungy rabbit, and i know parker usually sleeps with you. but i hope that when you are alone or just need someone to hug, you'll think of me... because i'll be there waiting. (see? some bears are nice.) - marty"

and boys and girls, i gotta tell you, curling up with this big furry lug the last couple of nights with my knee propped up on 3 pillows has been mighty comforting.

picture of the day

2007-01-11T18:32:00.000-06:00

cool ass pic from a church in boston - i have no idea what church, just saw it when i was walkin' around boston last november.

another view:

doesn't even look like a knee....

2007-01-11T15:04:00.000-06:00

does it?

day 2.... i'm so over being cooped up in the house.... i'm sick of watching tv, movies and naps.... in the past two day's i've seen 'date movie', 'an evening with kevin smith 2; evening harder', 'clerks 2', 'failure to launch' and '24 hours on craigslist'!

other than that, today i've been on a ton of conference calls for work in between cleaning up after my cat. i switched her food on tuesday morning and she's done nothing but puke for the last two days.... emergency trip to the pet food store (ooh driving and vicodin a fun combo) to get her old food. this better work - i'm honestly more freaked out about her belly than my knee.

ugg, i need to be able to walk and to get out of the house - i'm going completely stir crazy.

....

knee surgery...

2007-01-10T08:49:00.000-06:00

....went well.... was at the hospital at about noon, in my "gown" by 1.... sat around in the pre-op room watching tv till about 2:45. wheeled into the operating room then - on a side note, why do operating rooms in real life look nothing like they do in hollywood? i mean in hollywood movies & tv shows - o.r.'s are all sexy and dark and intimate. in real life, they are bright and cluttered and not sexy at all.

don't remember a thing after wheeling into the o.r.

woke up around 4:15 in post-op - very very very out of it.... i hate coming out of anesthesia. it sucks. all the fun of sleeping without the cool dreams or the restful waking. and then home by 6:30.

I personally haven’t talked to the surgeon, but my mom did, apparently there was a lot of "junk" that they carved out of from under my knee cap - including something that actually attached itself to my knee cap. can't imagine that was a good thing. i'll have pictures next week to share with all of you (and if your really curious, i have pics of my spleen i can show you - but that's another story).

knee feels "ok" today - just a numb feeling - it's pretty dramatically swollen and wrapped from mid thigh to ankle.

i've got crutches, vicodin & a big ol' stack of movies to watch. life is pretty good. doing a bit of work here and there too (mainly conference calls).

i've been horrible at updating sr.sl over the past month - the knee thing + a good dose of insane work has been keeping me distracted, but i've got a couple of fun posts in the pipeline and more than enough time to get off my ass and post something.

thank you for all the well wishes - they mean a lot to me. really :-)

medial meniscus and "other bodies"

2007-01-04T20:16:00.000-06:00

wow - so much to update you all on - the holidays, my complete and utter total addiction to sports night, and my new years weekend with cb (by the way, ignore whatever he says about my "gameplay" - it's not my fault he can't draw worth a shit and his family is cruel and makes people "act out" shit) - and i will update you all, i promise... but

i got me some big fuckin' news for ya'll.

that there picture, that's a knee cap (well specifically it's showing you a medial meniscus). that there picture, that's my future. specifically my very near future.

next tuesday i will be going under the knife...

18 years ago i took a fairly dramatic fall that resulted in 3 tiny bone chips floating around under my knee cap roughing up my medial meniscus. the doctor then (and the 2 subsequent doctor's that have had the pleasure of poking and prodding my knee) essentially said "yup, you got some bone chips in there; you'll want to have those removed someday - in the mean time, here's a knee brace; off you go".

to which i generally responded with "why don't you fucking cut me open and remove the "other bodies" so i don't live with pain for the next 18 years". (they call bone chips "other bodies" - sounds vaugly alien doesn't it?)

interestingly enough, they ignored that question.

so there i was living off and on with sometimes marginal pain to sometimes blazingly intense pain - until this past november.

november was the beginning of the end.... my knee has progressively gotten worse and worse (tears may have been involved a time or two, i'm not ashamed to admit it). so i've finally found a lovely doctor who agreed to remove said "other bodies" in order to improve the quality of my life.

so this coming tuesday at 2:00pm my knee will be filleted and fixed.

i'm very happy about this.

in other non-meniscus news i just want to give a shout out to the original "nasty girl" who turned 48 today.

happy birthday vanity!

r.i.p. james brown

2006-12-25T10:48:00.000-06:00

james 'the godfather of soul' brown, 1933 - 2006

a wish for wings that work

2006-12-25T09:35:00.000-06:00

admittedly, you loose something of the context when you have not seen the previous 28 minutes, but this is a small snippet of the greatest animated holiday special ever. opus n' bill's 'a wish for wings that work'.

Opus the Penguin has one aspiration in life: to be able to fly. Unfortunately, destiny--or evolution--has cruelly left his species flightless... until his friend Bill the Cat coughs up a wild idea. Can a Christmas miracle get Opus off the ground? This heartwarming and hilarious holiday romp--based on Berkeley Breathed's comic strip BLOOM COUNTY--features a fine cast of comedic actors, including an uncredited cameo by Dustin Hoffman, as a cross-dressing cockroach.

woefully, it only played once, back in 1991 - but with the power of vhs it lives to this day (if i can find a vcr)... oh, and the power of you tube.... to see it all (of course, you'll want to see it all), go here.

'tis the season

2006-12-24T23:18:00.000-06:00

(double click image for larger view)

here's wishing you all a wonderful holiday season. may the season bring you peace, joy and happiness.

-kyle

has it really come to this?

2006-12-23T22:46:00.000-06:00

i'm a firm believer that:

is just like:

you can only take so many precautions before the pesky bug is under your skin. as such, at approx. 9:30pm today, i jumped in the toxic lake that is myspace.com and created my own page.

what the fuck you may be asking yourself (i'm still in shock my self) - would you do something like that for?

well boys and girls in blogger-ville, it's pretty simple. every band, ever singer, ever musician around has a myspace page - and those pages are frequently updated a helluva lot more often than their own proper websites. as such, if i want to stay abreast (hehehe, i said breast) [sorry, just trying to get in the typical myspacer headspace] of their goings-on and prevent missing one of my favorite singers (see: bad-fan for an example of what i'm talking about), i needed to dive into the cesspool (you see many of these pages are "locked" to outside viewers; meaning you gotta join to see the goods).

check me out: sr_sl

if you happen to be on myspace; hit me up, send me a note - it looks kinda lame that i only have one "friend" there. [my how low i've gotten, begging for friends... i need a beer now]

"satanic everly brothers"

2006-12-21T18:19:00.000-06:00

as referenced here: sr...sl/twilight2 and here: sr...sl/twilight1 i love me some greg dulli and the twilight singers.

(photo by me taken 5.18.06 of greg dulli live in minneapolis)

on wednesday, december 20th's episode of national public radio's world cafe, greg & his latest co-conspiritor mark lanegan (formerlly of screaming trees). it's a very lovely interview with some musical bits throwin in - i highly recommend you check it out.

infused with pearl essence

2006-12-21T09:15:00.000-06:00

what's:
3.1 oz and black and silver and shiny all over ??

my brand new, stunningly pretty and easy to use blackberry pearl:

all the technical brilliance of blackberry with non of that pesky "clunkly ugly".

click here to bask in the pearl essence yourself.

fyi

2006-12-18T18:57:00.000-06:00

i hate topiary's.

especially christmas topiary's.

dilemma

2006-12-18T18:44:00.000-06:00

this is truly a hypothetical question as i've not be asked to do anything special (nor is there a great chance of ever being asked), but as i was watching hgtv's "the white house christmas 2006" a thought popped into my head....

lets say you were asked to supply the christmas tree for the white house, or paint the annual white house family christmas card and you were diametrically opposed to the administration in control. would you still give them the tree or paint the card?

what if the president wanted to honor you for something terribly important - would you go, or send your regrets?

lets say you were a composer and the president wanted you to perform your excellent new composition in the blue room. would you do it?

does the office of the presidency transcend any political partisanship?

please stand by

2006-12-17T18:16:00.000-06:00

i'm in a bit of a bah humbug/scrooge mindset....

your regularily scheduled sr...sl goodness will be back after a complete and total immersion in my holiday favorites to try and get perky about the whole fucking thing.

on deck:

some bill murrey/carol ane goodness in "scrooged"

snoopy should be able to crack my mood. he always rocks my world.

and if that doesn't work, there's always my all-time-favorite christmas story:

opus is the shit. seriously - the shit.

sick bastards

2006-12-07T12:05:00.000-06:00

actual conversation from this morning - names have been changed to protect the gulity.

her: how you doing baby?
me: i'm good - you?
her: better
me: did you kill <name removed to protect the guilty; lesbian lover>
her: ha, no
its fine
me: are you better cause your soon to have a new prison girlfriend because you killed her??
oh good
her: she was pms
and annoying the hell out of me
me: bitch
her: hahahahahaahah
i told her all the reasons that she was acting crazy
and she listened
me: maybe she just needs a big man penis?
her: HAHAHAHA
that would make her LESS crazy?!?!?
please.
me: you know all you lesbo’s - it's just a phase
her: hahahahaha
ts true
:p
yuck
you know you have Britneys vag as your wallpaper on you computer
me: her meat curtains are everywhere these days
her: ugh
me: that's courtesy of my friend lobo.
lol
her: i could have lived my entire existence in blissful ignorance
now i am soiled
me: you know you'd tap that ass if given a choice.
her: and have nightmares
me: you & brit - true love
its' a new reality series on fox
her: EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW
omg
it WOULD be hysterical
me and britany
me: you petition the court for parental rights for SPF & JJ (the missing one you never see in pics)
you and brit on holiday on fire island
her: hmmm
me: you and brit shopping at whole foods for your organic body-butter
me: brit complaining about brunch (for the uninitiated; brunch is the name of a great dane) drool all over the baby
her: ha
PLEASE
the baby would DROWN in drool and she wouldn't notice
me: <lesbian ex-gf> killing brit in a desperate jealous ploy to win you back
her: me complaining about paris leaving her shit all over the house
me: but you would be too distraught in taking care of "your kids" to notice
at least you know Paris would never leave her underwear around
or Brit for that matter
her: hahahahahahah
me: Meat curtains all over the joint
her: eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeewwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww
me: you know you'd want Paris to join for your annual 3 way
just on your anniversary
her: i wouldn't be able to FIND her
me: why not?
her: she needs a few sandwiches
me: you'd think she'd have more bounce in the trunk being from cali... how's that song go...? "we've got more bounce in california...?
her: hahahah
yeah not so much
me: you and nicky could go in business together in a nice sub-plot
her: hahahahahahahhahahaahahahah
me: Parker/Hilton Design Group, LLC
her: ah nicky
me: at least she tries
her: the 'good' one

world aids day 2006

2006-12-01T07:22:00.000-06:00

there are 39.5 million people living with hiv/aids in the world today

2.9 million adults died from aids in 2006

more than 25 million people have died from aids since 1981

there are 12 million aids orphans in africa

click here for more information and to find out what you can do to stop aids:

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source: unaids & who / avert website

bad fan

2006-11-30T16:02:00.000-06:00

i am a horrible fan. ugg.... (should be punished).... one of my top 10 favorite musicans (arguably top 6 if i were so inclined to rate such things; oh wait, i am - 1) kate bush 2) prince 3) peter gabriel 4) siouxsie 5) concrete blonde/johnette napolitano 6) lloyd cole ) not only has a new album out since mid-october, but he was just in fucking minneapolis playing at my favorite venue to see him in and i didn't even know about it!

lloyd cole / antidepressant

fuckity mcfuckerton fuck fuck. i've seen lloyd ever damn time he's been in minneapolis for the last 10 years.

i'm gonna have to leave work early today, trek down to the electric fetus pick up the new disk and wrap myself in the moody wonderfulness that is mr cole.

love is blindness

2006-11-30T13:52:00.000-06:00

the other day i caught a new rock-n-roll interview show on hbo called off the record - while i won't comment much regarding the show (other than to say it's excellent), i will say it caused me to pull out a record i haven't listened to in some time - u2's achtung baby.

the impetus for pulling out what could arguably be called u2's strongest album was the tune acrobat. there is a moment in the hbo show where the audience is allowed to ask questions and someone wanted to know about the story behind 'acrobat'. as much as 'acrobat' is probably my favorite u2 song, when i pulled out the album today, i was struck by another track - the dark, sensual and mysterious love is blindness.

love is clockworks / and cold steel / fingers too numb to feel / squeeze the handle / blow out the candle / love is blindness

this track is truly unlike anything that comes before it on the album (and that's saying something considering the "kitchen sink" production style on the album). from the opening organ swell (who the hell is playing the organ), to what can best be described as lush bass line and rolling percussion you know this somber track is going in a different direction than what came before.

there has been much debate on what this song is about... is it simply a love song (in the most obvious fashion)? is it about the edge's marriage failing? is it about terrorism? i wouldn't be surprised if it were a fragile mix of all three.

love is drowning / in a deep well / all the secrets / and no one to tell / take the money / honey / blindness

out of that opening of organ, bass & percussion, comes a voice that honest-to-god sounds broken and bruised. buried just beneath the tortured, disturbing lament of the lyric, the haunting guitar begins a tentative wail. now, the edge is one of those rock-n-roll guitarists i've never thought much about – yeah sure he’s great, a solid-go-to-guy – but he’s never been (i thought) what drew me to u2. until the interview on hbo the other night - a great amount of time was spent discussing the edge's "sound". fuck, what an idiot i've been. listening with fresh ears i've come to a conclusion.... the sound of u2 has very little to do with bono as i had always (foolishly) thought - indeed, it's all wrapped up in how the edge plays his guitar.... with 'blindness' in particular he makes his guitar cry. it's really quite the perfect mix between adam clayton's tight as a piano string bass line, larry mullen's perfect drumming and the edge's sublime (yes, cb, i said sublime) guitar (in my estimation, the best guitar solo the edge has ever done). bono's vox weaves in and out, never pulling focus - rather adding to the story.

love is blindness / in a parked car / in a crowded street / you see your love / made complete / thread is ripping / the knot is slipping / love is blindness

the song is the brilliant cap to a phenomenal album. it's sobering clarity (and simple instrumentation) puts the rest of the album's heavily produced and programmed sound into perfect perception. the cacophony of sounds that is the opening track, zoo station, slowly evolves over the course of album and fades into the organ that slowly, tightly and oh so powerfully powers love is blindness.

(addendum; for those not familer with the track, the above "live" version of the tune is different slightly than the one i describe above. namely, after the organ, the edge does a new guitar line.... it's nice, but it ain't as nice as the album version. that said - the real guitar solo in this live version is bloddy brilliant).

conversation

2006-11-28T21:18:00.000-06:00

bc (name changed to protect the ridiculously guilty): what'cha doin'?

me: watching a cute new show on tbs called "my boys", what are you doin'?

bc: watching the cute christopher meloni on csi.

me: oh he's tired, been there, done that, bought the t-shirt

bc: he's not tired, he's daddy-licious. d-to-the-a-to-the-double-d-y-licious.

seriously we're that lame. i will grant bc that meloni is hot, but he's mine, not his... i saw him first. bitch stay away from my meloni!

tired as fuck

2006-11-28T08:58:00.000-06:00

parker on radiator 11.27.06

lemme tell ya, i share the above emotion. in fact just seconds before i shot the pic, her eyes were closed and she was honest-to-god snoring (little adorable kitten snores, but snores just the same). and just minutes after; i was ready for a nap.

not sure if it's the change in seasons, but i've been ready for bed at 6pm lately - exceedingly tired... i've never put a lot of stock in that whole seasonal tired disorder thing, but i'm beginning to understand it.

my body better fuckin' adapt and soon.... i'm used to living with very little sleep - i don't like bein' tired all the time.

on the plus side to weather; minneapolis is experiencing a late fall thunderstorm. i love me some thunder and lightening... drove into work this morning cranking new order (shocked?) watching the sky light up with explosions. on the bad side, tomorrow all this will turn to snow. i'm so not ready for winter yet.

new order may 1980 - november 2006; r.i.p.

2006-11-27T14:37:00.000-06:00

“this might be our last concert ever.” bassist peter hook talks and the show he mentions is the one new order did last saturday night in buenos aires closing personal fest’s main stage. The interview in which hook confirmed their split -at least temporary- to Página/12

a short history (with notes provided by wikipedia, new order online and q magazine):

inspired by a sex pistol's gig in 1976 (interesting how many bands were begun after seeing the pistol's drunkenly swagger through a rock-n-roll show), three friends from manchester england (bernard sumner, peter hook & terry mason) formed what would become joy division (originally titled stiff kittens and then warsaw; either one a great name if you ask me - picture it "ladies & gentlemen, please put your hands together for stiff kittens"). an advert in a manchester record store brought ian curtis into the mix and the band was solidified (sort of). fast forward 9 months and 3 drummers later - a young stephen morris was installed as drummer and the stage was set.

joy division offered a darker, more complex version of what was happening in the london punk scene. whereas punk was enthusiastically blunt, loud and aggressive; joy division offered a more solitary and bleaker version of the future. indeed; modern ambient giants such as aphex twin, massive attack and the orb owe as much to 1979's unknown pleasures and 1980's closer as they do to the works of erik satie, pink floyd & phillip glass.

in 1980 ian curtis' health (read: depression) was reaching dangerous proportions. on may 18, on the eve of joy division's inaugural u.s. tour, curtis reportedly watched werner herzog's stroszek — with the final scene suggesting the main character's suicide— and hanged himself – therefore sealing himself in the rock-n-roll pantheon of tortured artiste.

while agreements were made between members of the band prior to curtis' suicide to disband should any member leave – the band would dissolve, the three remaining members of joy division continued to tour the summer after curtis' death and even went back into the studio and recorded a number of tracks. with the album closer released posthumously (to excellent reviews), and the track “love will tear us apart” lodged solidly in the top 20, sumner, hook & morris, emerged re-born as new order.

taking their new name from an entry in the guardian entitled "the people's new order of kampuchea" and adding gillian gilbert (morris' girlfriend at the time) on keyboards and synthesizers, the band released the songs “ceremony” and “in a lonely place”; the last tracks recorded as joy division and then immediately went into the studio to work on what would become 1981's movement album.

movement, released november 1981 featured what would become one of new order's signature tracks; “temptation”. while similar in style to joy divisions dark tones, “temptation” and the rest of movement hinted at a more spirited, more electronic, more dance oriented future sound. one could even say “temptation” was almost whimsical – a great departure from the dark path of “atmosphere” from the joy division days.

the final nail in the coffin of joy division however came in 1983 with the arrival of power, corruption and lies. the electronic tip of the iceberg found on movement came to the forefront here. with their more guitar based sound now embracing and mixing fully with electronic/techno music, along with abstract / nonsense lyrics, new order was fully formed.

the cornerstone to power, corruption and lies was “blue monday” (the 12" single becoming the biggest selling 12" in the history of music). “blue monday's” ominous kick drum opening, throbbing synth-bass line (produced on a moog, then overlaid with hook's physical bass guitar lead) and sumner’s dead-pan lyrical styling’s is often seen as one of the most critical crossover hit's of the 80's new wave scene. indeed in 2003, q magazine voted “blue Monday” the 9th most influential song ever (and the only dance track in the top ten).

20 years on from power, corruption & lies (and another 7 albums later; low-life, brotherhood, substance, technique, republic, get ready and waiting for the sirens call), new order have become 'god-like geniuses' (nme 2005)... a band that was radical for it's time and continues to inspire people to pick up a guitar or turn on a keyboard, has, for now, gone quietly into the night.
the nice thing about new order tho’ is you never know if the end is really the end. with these blokes the end is usually just the beginning.

i used to think that the day would never come / i'd see delight in the shade of the morning sunmy morning sun is the drug that brings me near / to the childhood I lost, replaced by fear
new order - true faith

short & curlies

2006-11-26T18:25:00.001-06:00

so wrong, yet, sorta hot.

hbo sneek peak; h. potter & the order of the phoenix

2006-11-25T21:58:00.000-06:00

for cb - cause he never get's to see anything cool considering he lives like a caveman without cable:

birth announcment

2006-11-25T11:14:00.000-06:00

i'm pleased as punch to welcome a new blog into the world - scurry on over to pozzo delle cornacchie. pozzo is the humble online abode of my good friend ray. now if i know ray, we'll get a lot of highly intelligent (if not boarderline crass, self indulgent, tacky and overtly sexual :-)) banter.

in all seriousness, ray pretty much rocks my world - he's one of the smartest guys i know and will no doubt have something interesting to say on most any given topic.

check him out.

digital vomit

2006-11-24T11:31:00.000-06:00

while surfing the blog-o-sphere today i came across robocub. never been to his site before, but i'll be back for sure.

that beautiful beautiful man summed up something i've been struggling with for a long time. how to properly communicate my distaste for myspace - check it out: digital vomit

i'm not gay enough

2006-11-24T10:22:00.000-06:00

it's true - i'm not gay enough to be gay...

i used to think that i was a pretty average gay man, i like the hotties, i like dance music, i like sex - but the realization that i'm not your typical gay man has been creeping into my consciousness quite a bit lately.

i'll give you a few examples:

joe.my.god has a clip of a music video by brian kent (former mr nyc eagle)... now on all surface levels, i should dig the clip; i do enjoy a well produced dance tune, i do enjoy a woofy man such as mr kent and i'm all for jumping on the band wagon for man on man action in a video (seriously underrepresented in the music video milieu if you ask me) - but the song is just terrible. seriously. reminds me of bad marky mark dance music from the early 90's. i have a phrase for music such as this: "euro-fag dance music". the music is all beat with no interesting phrasing or structure to it. there's just nothing here except the over-the-top beat and diva-esque vocal stylings of mr kent. why is it that every gay man on the planet seems to love this shit except me? must not be gay enough. i pride myself on having a pretty eclectic and well-rounded musical interests - but these super gay tunes are (for the most part) just fuckin' terrible. thankfully, joe redeemed his blog with the glorious remembrance of ruth brown he has also posted.
there are a couple of blogs out here from gentlemen in southern area of the u.s who seem woefully attuned to just their penises with nary a thought or concern for anything other than getting laid. i'll not name names for a couple of reasons: a) karma kicks ass and i'm sure it would come round and lay a boot upside my ass in a hurry and b) i realize that what we put out in the blog-o-sphere is just one aspect of our personalities (hopefully) and that what these two bloggers represent is probably (hopefully) not the full dimension of their lives. however - with that said, surly being gay doesn't mean that we think about is sex and we're throwing ourselves at other bloggers via their comment boxes in a continual trashy manner. or does it? maybe being gay is just about getting as much tail as possible. and sure, there is nothing wrong with flirting - god knows i do my fair share of flirting - but hopefully i'm also putting out into the universe the vibe that there is more to me than just my dick. these bloggers i'm talking about seem to be overly predicated on the concept that sex is all there is.
while on the subject of sex; lets talk about casual sex. firstly, let it be stated that i've done it (and chances are i'll do it again), but here's the deal - i don't get much out of casual sex. yes, tab a goes into slot b and that takes care of a base animal instinct/human need. i get that (and fully support the concept of tabs and slots), but for me just simply taking care of the base instinct leaves me a bit hollow. my lack of taste for casual sex does not (as some will indicate) mean that i'm a prude or that i have puritanical views of sex. nor does it mean, if you like casual sex, that you are a slut. it just means we have different views on sex (and one might say intimacy). for me, the casual sex situations that have been the most rewarding are those where you meet someone and the pure magnetism of the situation compels you to ditch your clothes and go at it like wildebeests in heat. i like that. i like that a lot actually. what i don't like is finding someone in a bar (or online) and kinda going "eh, it'll work" or "i'm so fuckin' horny, he'll do". yes, i've done it. no it doesn't do much for me. sex (for me) should be wild and intimate and intense and rewarding. not hollow and empty. if the feeling after sex is worse than before, then what's the point?
drugs. ok, on this point, i'm completely comfortable being separate from the pack. i don't get meth or coke or crystal. these substances, if you ask me, are bringing about the downfall of modern gay life. these drugs do not make life better, in-fact they destroy it. i find it to be a dichotomy that circuit parties are raising funds for hiv/aids organizations all around, yet, the meth and crystal scene is so prevalent at circuit parties. it's been pretty well established that meth and crystal use is linked with syphilis and hiv infection rates raising. i just don't get the whole drugs and party atmosphere concept.
bars. another thing i'm just not big on is gay bars. i go out a few times every couple of months to remind myself what it was like. a big reason i don't do the bar thing is that i'm pretty shy. i get that it's half me. i really do. but lets say i wanna hang out with my friends on a saturday night, go to a bar and have a few beers - that's all good right? what usually seems to happen is that someone in the group (or some people) end up ditching the friend group and go hook up with a hottie across the dance floor. is it just me or is that just kinda bullshit? if i'm in a bar with my buddies - i wanna hang out with my buddies. it annoys the shit out of me when someone ditches the group to go get laid. nothing wrong with flirting or dancing or what not, but i hate being ditched. it's a fundamental part of who i am (and for the record, i totally get the psychological aspect of the issue) - it's still not cool.

i should stipulate, the above challenges i have with being gay in no way are meant to show a "i'm better than all of you" mindset.... in truth, it's just my challenge with not-quite-fitting in with the gay world. i have many friends who seem to do it better than i - and huge parts of me are are jealous that they do - but then, i'm reminded that it's the differences that make us stronger. i just wish our community would honor the differences a bit more, instead of just wanting all of us to be cookie-cutter chelsea boys. and no, i don't have a huge chip on my shoulder (tho' certainly from reading the above, i can understand how someone would get that impression... lol), it's just my view.

so there you go, i'm don't quite fit in. most day's, i'm ok with that. just some days, i wish it were all just a little easier.

music heard:

clint mansell's amazing score for the sublimely beautiful film 'the fountain'

back to the well

2006-11-23T12:44:00.000-06:00

i am also grateful for:

kevin smith
ass to mouth
the donkey show
dante (mmmmm dante)
rosario dawson

you think you know, but you don't - just watch:

ahh thanksgiving

2006-11-23T10:46:00.000-06:00

a time of year to reflect on what makes us grateful; not to mention a time of year to gorge on food....

this year, i'm forgoing the family feast; it's just too much considering it's just me and my mom - i was gonna go over to amy's for a bite, but i think all my recent travel is catching up with me and i'm a bit out of it...

but regardless of if i eat turkey and pie or not (mmmmm pie), there are a few things i am thankful for:

my health - my itp appears to be in total remission & the hemophilia hasn't affected me in any major way in quite a long time.
parker - yea, i know it's super gay to love a cat, but seriously - she rocks my world.
my friends: stacey, scott, cb, amy, bill, ax & jerry, wendy, jen, ray & jeremy, greg, stephanie & shelly and hammer - words really can't express what your friendship means to me and while we may not talk as much as we'd like, your always in my heart.
my job; it's so rare these days to have a job that you love, combined with working for a company you truly respect.
my mom.
the fact we finally have a democratic run house and senate
being american
being gay
the blog-o-sphere.... (amazing men and woman who pour there hearts out for all to read/share)
music & the people who write it.... prince, kate bush, peter gabriel, siouxsie, lloyd cole, madonna, johnette napolitano - the soundtrack to my life and the thing that makes me happiest
daniel craig as the new bond - woof.
trevor at steady tattoo for giving me a kick ass tattoo
buddha for showing me the path and for guiding me back to the path when i loose my way

music heard:

never say never / romeo void

gapu / yothu yindi

coming out of the shadows

2006-11-17T22:37:00.000-06:00

holy shit, has it really been more than 10 days since i last posted... ugg. to my faithful 4 readers, my apologies. i'm slowly extracting myself from the last few months of insane work. i'm off to boston for a little mini-show this weekend and then i'm home for a few months. i'm anxious to chill a bit.

i've kinda been in a self imposed hermit mode lately - i'm not sure why, but the onset of winter tends to do this to me a bit. even tho' i've been super busy at work, i've been horrible at returning calls/emails (especially to ray).... i'll be better soon - totally promise!

couple of random updates - phase 2 of the sleeve is complete - check it out:

phase 3 will begin sometime in december - linking the sleeve together with phase 1 & adding the tibetan prayer flags above the current bit. trevor @ steady tattoo is a god. a god i tell you.

last week i was in st louis for another mini-show (just two guest artists, 150 or so attendees, cocktail reception) - the show went amazingly well - really really nice.

this pic was taken about 30,000 feat somewhere over iowa. the twin cities is still snow free, and honestly - i'm ok with that - i'm just not ready for winter yet.... tho' it sure looks pretty from here.

while in st louis i took time out to see the gateway arch - yea, i played tourist for a few minutes (it's all you really need is a few minutes)..... on my way to see the arch, i stumpled on the above location - an old switzers licorice factory. i really love burned out buildings like this - shows some real history if you ask me.

i took shitloads of pics of the arch (it really is an engineering marvel), but this one is my favorite. i also took the elevator (lets use that term loosely) to the top. it's not the greatest view, but it's pretty fuckin' cool overall.

lily was here

2006-11-02T21:44:00.000-06:00

a) dave stewart is a god - such a beautifully understated, simple tune - but fuckin' beautiful.
b) candy dulfer; not bad considering she was 17 when this was recorded. the woman knows her way around a sax.
c) rented the moview "lily was here" soley cause dave did the score - movie sucks.

3 of me

2006-11-02T14:23:00.000-06:00

HowManyOfMe.com

There are:
3
people with my name
in the U.S.A.

How many have your name?

what i found more interesting (you can too if you do it for yourself) is this:

there are 245,974 people in the U.S. with my same first name.
statistically the 263rd most popular first name. (tied with 3 other first names)
97.56 percent of people with the first name kyle are male (though i love it for a girl's name).

there are 3,900 people in the U.S. with my last name.
statistically the 8512th most popular last name. (tied with 90 other last names).

now, some of you will know i dispise my last name. hate it with a passion and one of these days i will get off my ass and change it. i will be changing it to my maternal grandmother's madien name. not only will i get rid of a crappy foul last name (that i associate with my foul, bastard of a father), i'll get to honor my grandmother by taking her name - and i think that rocks.

when i do this however, i will become less unique as i will then share my name with 22 other blokes. oh well... lol.

fall in minnesota

2006-10-29T13:51:00.000-06:00

joyce momont

2006-10-29T08:43:00.000-06:00

in memory

joyce momont

joyce momont, committed red ribbon ride crew member and volunteer died thursday, october 19 due to complications from multiple myeloma.

the above picture was taken of joyce and myself at the closing ceremonies for the 2004 red ribbon ride.

joyce was one of the most amazing and pure souls i've ever had the honor of knowing. we first met on the 2002 twin cities->chicago aids ride where she was a crew member and i was crew director. then 77 years old; i was blown away by her never-ending energy and passion for the cause. she continued to crew for the inaugural red ribbon ride in '03. due to multiple myeloma she was unable to continue to crew the ride for the next few years, but that didn't stop her from being the most dedicated of volunteers. every wednesday she was in the ride office stuffing envelopes, processing checks, organizing supplies and generally keeping the rest of us on our toes.

this past summer i had the pleasure of getting to know joycie in a completely different way. she agreed to speak to the riders and crew at the closing ceremonies of the 2006 red ribbon ride. during our conversations regarding what she would speak about, i learned about her daughter (who committed suicide), her acceptance of her son andy's coming out and subsequent hiv diagnosis, her complete joy when her son met, fell in love and married his partner kim.

when so many people would choose to view these occurrences as hardships or failures, joycie chose to take the experiences and go forward. she was an ardent supporter of glbt issues, a fighter of hiv/aids and a deeply religious women who believes that god put her on earth to do good work and to honor all people.

joycies trademark was her purple sequined hat. that hat was worn whenever she was doing work in the glbt & hiv/aids community. i remember seeing her once at a benefit for minnesota aids project; i hadn't expected to see her, but across the room, i saw that hat sparkling. her other trademark was her smile. i can honestly say in the 5 years i had the honor of knowing her, i never once saw joyce without that amazing smile.

one of my proudest moments was watching joyce speak to the riders, crew and friends and family of the ride, with andy and kim on either side of her. the support and love that that family has is one we would all be lucky to receive.

to joycie, with love - you will always be the heart and soul of the red ribbon ride and my life is better having known you.

once again, under the needle

2006-10-27T09:17:00.000-05:00

yup, i did it again, and i am surly going to hell for it (nevermind of course, i don't believe in hell)... yesterday, phase 2 of my sleeve tattoo began. 3.5 hours of ink time (including a bit where i feel asleep during the tattooing) and my sleeve is finally taking shape.

to refresh your memory... here is phase 1 of my sleeve. the symbol is the 8 auspicious symbols of buddhism. these symbols are extremely personal to me and i was wanting to find something to compliment the symbols without detracting from them or pulling focus.

we (trevor, my tattoo artist and i) went down a number of different paths before we hit on this one - simple use of asian imagery for wind/air mixed with lotus flowers & cherry blossoms. when we started phase 1 (the symbols) it was important to me to make sure there was a lot of movement in the banner (the victory banner representing the victory of one's body, speech, and mind over negative obstacles). phase 3 of the sleeve will actually go above what you see now and will be tibetan prayer flags flapping in the wind.

the bulk of phase two is monochromatic. i wanted the symbols to pop.... everything here is grey shade work with the exception of the lotus flowers and cherry blossoms which will get color on monday.

color me one very happy boy.

untitled

2006-10-15T12:15:00.000-05:00

i do feel it's important to note that i'm not just being irresponsibly flip by posting such an image. i firmly believe we are closer to this than i ever thought america would be. we once were a proud, honest nation committed to trying to make the world a better place. now we're just the bully in the playground willing to do anything to get it's way.

it's a sad state if you ask me.

fascism; the word has been bandied about quite a bit in the good'ole blogosphere, but what does it really mean - and are we there?

according to wikipedia: Fascism is associated by many scholars with one or more of the following characteristics: a very high degree of nationalism, economic corporatism, a powerful, dictatorial leader who portrays the nation, state or collective as superior to the individuals or groups composing it.

hmmm on a number of fronts it would certainly look like we are getting close.

you see yourself as a leader / may my thoughts be with you

if you try to divide and conquer / we'll rise up against you

we know only the strong will survive / but the meek will inherit

so if you've got a coat of arms my friend / i suggest you wear it

john mellencamp / we are the people

battle of the bands

2006-10-14T21:06:00.000-05:00

holy shit..blog of the day

2006-10-14T20:54:00.000-05:00

from www.citypages.com:

MINNESOTA BLOG OF THE DAY

9thWave is a Minneapolis production manager blogging about hypothetical married-to-Prince questions, the attractiveness of UPS drivers, and underwear fetishes at Stage Right ... Stage Left.

green politics

2006-10-13T07:33:00.000-05:00

simply put we need more people running for office like otto

president or shrubbery?

2006-10-12T19:54:00.000-05:00

brian over at cheapblueguitar.com found this... it's brilliant.

i've been thinkin' about you baby...come live with me

2006-10-12T17:01:00.000-05:00

honest to god/buddha/krishna/allah nothing makes me quite as happy as new music. sliding that silver disk into the slot, or dropping the needle in the groove, or hell - even clicking on "buy song" and then wrapping the headphones 'round my ears and taking in the new tunes - it seriously turns me on.

twilight singers (referenced previously here: sr...sl/twilight) is the band of one of my favorite songwriters; greg dulli. mr. dulli used to be in a band called the afghan whigs which pretty much rocked my world. the singers, while not a "rock" band in the truest (or most obvious)sense of the word still rock my world. dulli & company have an uncanny way of wrapping a turn of phrase around a slinky bass line or driving drums or harmonic organ. more lowkey (even at their loudest moments), and certainly more electric (and eclectic) than the whigs - it's been a fuckin' blast to watch greg & co. on their musical journey.

october 10 marked their latest e.p. release "a stitch in time". this 5 song disk features such alt-rock luminaries as mark lanegan (formerly of screaming trees) and joseph arthur joining the fun. the e.p. opens with the sublime 'live with me' originally written and performed by massive attack. that's one of the things i really love twilight singers - they're not afraid of playing with other musical genre's, in this case turning an electronic tune into a killer blues rock exploration.

i've had this thing in my ears non-stop all day today. i've just burned the disk (purchased legally of course from itunes) and i'm gonna crank it all the way home when i leave work in a few. seriously fuckin' happy. the music is great, greg's voice is urgent and sexy and dangerous and the band sounds better than they've sounded in ages.

i was gonna fly to n.c. to see cb to see the band live in a couple weeks; but work calls and i won't be able to make it - now i just gotta talk cb into a weekend trip somewhere else to see one of my top ten favorite bands rip it up live.

"...your mind don't need to know, the blind are lead below, but baby when we close our eyes you feel the lover start to sympathise..." sublime/ twilight singers

big crying mess.

2006-10-11T19:12:00.000-05:00

yup that's what i am after watching this video. damn sweet moment.

after watching the video go here to read the article: redeyechicago.com/proposal

picture of the day

2006-10-09T19:52:00.000-05:00

so on friday i had the entire day to myself in chicago - i bummed around the city, took an architectural boat cruise, went to the museum of contemporary art chicago; just generally hung out in a city everyone seems to love (except me).

now that said, i had an exceptionally good day just pokin' around and taking in the city. maybe chicago ain't as bad as i think.

i fancy myself a bit of an architecture geek and on that tip, i gotta give the windy city props. this is my favorite pic that i took on friday, i love the old meets modern vibe and the clean line of the skyscraper mixed with the historic nature of the church.

update / rant

2006-10-08T12:24:00.000-05:00

ok, have not said much lately cause mostly i've just been busy as fuck traveling all over producing shows and sales meetings (you know your traveling a lot when your status on worldperks goes up two levels in one week)..... here's the quicky update:

camera stolen in cleveland
new camera purchased, not sure i like, may return
no resolution on the mice situation
two new shows added to my calendar in november
still casually looking for a new apartment
picked up the cat/dog from my mom's last night; she's been there for two months - ugg
officially a virgin again
officially fed up with this country's direction
wen't to del and scott's commitment ceremony. so damn cute it'll make you sick. congrat's boys :-)
saw the rock and roll hall of fame; not impressed (and saddened a bit by this)
picked up the new killers cd; liked it.
also got the new basement jaxx (good), a siouxsie re-issue (great) and a robbie dvd (in love).
hung out with ray & jeremy for two days in chicago. was wonderful to see them
took an architectural boat cruise of the chicago river & lake michigan - pictures to follow
had dinner at panangs in china-town - mango shrimp is buddha's gift to food

ok, there's my life in a nutshell for the past two weeks or so....

and now here's my rant. i have not touched the foley scandal as i was still trying to process it all. but it comes down to this. the hypocrisy of the republican party is outrageous. why are the dem's not doing anything?

for a party that runs primarily on family values (and fear), this is interesting (taken from http://www.armchairsubversive.com/):

- Republican Congressman Mark Foley abruptly resigned from Congress after "sexually explicit" emails surfaced showing him flirting with a 16-year old boy.
- Republican executive Randall Casseday of the conservative Washington Times newspaper was arrested for soliciting sex from a 13-year old girl on the internet.
- Republican chairman of the Oregon Christian Coalition Lou Beres confessed to molesting a 13-year old girl.
- Republican County Constable Larry Dale Floyd was arrested on suspicion of soliciting sex with an 8-year old girl. Floyd has repeatedly won elections for Denton County, Texas, constable.
- Republican judge Mark Pazuhanich pleaded no contest to fondling a 10-year old girl and was sentenced to 10 years probation.
- Republican Party leader Bobby Stumbo was arrested for having sex with a 5-year old boy.
- Republican petition drive manager Tom Randall pleaded guilty to molesting two girls under the age of 14, one of them the daughter of an associate in the petition business.
- Republican County Chairman Armando Tebano was arrested for sexually molesting a 14-year-old girl.
- Republican teacher and former city councilman John Collins pleaded guilty to sexually molesting 13 and 14 year old girls.
- Republican campaign worker Mark Seidensticker is a convicted child molester.
- Republican Mayor Philip Giordano is serving a 37-year sentence in federal prison for sexually abusing 8- and 10-year old girls.
- Republican Mayor Tom Adams was arrested for distributing child pornography over the internet.
- Republican Mayor John Gosek was arrested on charges of soliciting sex from two 15-year old girls.
- Republican County Commissioner David Swartz pleaded guilty to molesting two girls under the age of 11 and was sentenced to 8 years in prison.
- Republican legislator Edison Misla Aldarondo was sentenced to 10 years in prison for raping his daughter between the ages of 9 and 17.
- Republican Committeeman John R. Curtain was charged with molesting a teenage boy and unlawful sexual contact with a minor.
- Republican anti-abortion activist Howard Scott Heldreth is a convicted child rapist in Florida.
- Republican zoning supervisor, Boy Scout leader and Lutheran church president Dennis L. Rader pleaded guilty to performing a sexual act on an 11-year old girl he murdered.
- Republican anti-abortion activist Nicholas Morency pleaded guilty to possessing child pornography on his computer and offering a bounty to anybody who murders an abortion doctor.
- Republican campaign consultant Tom Shortridge was sentenced to three years probation for taking nude photographs of a 15-year old girl.
- Republican racist pedophile and United States Senator Strom Thurmond had sex with a 15-year old black girl which produced a child.
- Republican pastor Mike Hintz, whom George W. Bush commended during the 2004 presidential campaign, surrendered to police after admitting to a sexual affair with a female juvenile.
- Republican legislator Peter Dibble pleaded no contest to having an inappropriate relationship with a 13-year-old girl.
- Republican advertising consultant Carey Lee Cramer was sentenced to six years in prison for molesting two 8-year old girls, one of whom appeared in an anti-Gore television commercial.
- Republican activist Lawrence E. King, Jr. organized child sex parties at the White House during the 1980s.
- Republican lobbyist Craig J. Spence organized child sex parties at the White House during the 1980s.
- Republican Congressman Donald "Buz" Lukens was found guilty of having sex with a female minor and sentenced to one month in jail.
- Republican fundraiser Richard A. Delgaudio was found guilty of child porn charges and paying two teenage girls to pose for sexual photos.
- Republican activist Mark A. Grethen convicted on six counts of sex crimes involving children.
- Republican campaign chairman Randal David Ankeney pleaded guilty to attempted sexual assault on a child and was arrested again five years later on the same charge.
- Republican Congressman Dan Crane had sex with a female minor working as a congressional page.
- Republican activist and Christian Coalition leader Beverly Russell admitted to an incestuous relationship with his step daughter.
- Republican Judge Ronald C. Kline was placed under house arrest for child molestation and possession of child pornography.
- Republican congressman and anti-gay activist Robert Bauman was charged with having sex with a 16-year-old boy he picked up at a gay bar.
- Republican Committee Chairman Jeffrey Patti was arrested for distributing a video clip of a 5-year-old girl being raped.
- Republican activist Marty Glickman (a.k.a. "Republican Marty"), was taken into custody by Florida police on four counts of unlawful sexual activity with an underage girl and one count of delivering the drug LSD.
- Republican legislative aide Howard L. Brooks was charged with molesting a 12-year old boy and possession of child pornography.
- Republican Senate candidate John Hathaway was accused of having sex with his 12-year old baby sitter and withdrew his candidacy after the allegations were reported in the media.
- Republican preacher Stephen White, who demanded a return to traditional values, was sentenced to jail after offering $20 to a 14-year-old boy for permission to perform oral sex on him.
- Republican talk show host Jon Matthews pleaded guilty to exposing his genitals to an 11 year old girl.
- Republican anti-gay activist Earl "Butch" Kimmerling was sentenced to 40 years in prison for molesting an 8-year old girl after he attempted to stop a gay couple from adopting her.
- Republican Party leader Paul Ingram pleaded guilty to six counts of raping his daughters and served 14 years in federal prison.
- Republican election board official Kevin Coan was sentenced to two years probation for soliciting sex over the internet from a 14-year old girl.
- Republican politician Andrew Buhr was charged with two counts of first degree sodomy with a 13-year old boy.
- Republican legislator Keith Westmoreland was arrested on seven felony counts of lewd and lascivious exhibition to girls under the age of 16 (i.e. exposing himself to children).
- Republican anti-abortion activist John Allen Burt was found guilty of molesting a 15-year old girl.
- Republican County Councilman Keola Childs pleaded guilty to molesting a male child.
- Republican activist John Butler was charged with criminal sexual assault on a teenage girl.
- Republican candidate Richard Gardner admitted to molesting his two daughters.
- Republican Councilman and former Marine Jack W. Gardner was convicted of molesting a 13-year old girl.
- Republican County Commissioner Merrill Robert Barter pleaded guilty to unlawful sexual contact and assault on a teenage boy.
- Republican City Councilman Fred C. Smeltzer, Jr. pleaded no contest to raping a 15 year-old girl and served 6-months in prison.
- Republican activist Parker J. Bena pleaded guilty to possession of child pornography on his home computer and was sentenced to 30 months in federal prison and fined $18,000.
- Republican parole board officer and former Colorado state representative, Larry Jack Schwarz, was fired after child pornography was found in his possession.
- Republican strategist and Citadel Military College graduate Robin Vanderwall was convicted in Virginia on five counts of soliciting sex from boys and girls over the internet.
- Republican city councilman Mark Harris, who is described as a "good military man" and "church goer," was convicted of repeatedly having sex with an 11-year-old girl and sentenced to 12 years in prison.
- Republican businessman Jon Grunseth withdrew his candidacy for Minnesota governor after allegations surfaced that he went swimming in the nude with four underage girls, including his daughter.
- Republican campaign worker, police officer and self-proclaimed reverend Steve Aiken was convicted of having sex with two underage girls.
- Republican director of the "Young Republican Federation" Nicholas Elizondo molested his 6-year old daughter and was sentenced to six years in prison.
- Republican president of the New York City Housing Development Corp. Russell Harding pleaded guilty to possessing child pornography on his computer.
- Republican benefactor of conservative Christian groups, Richard A. Dasen Sr., was found guilty of raping a 15-year old girl. Dasen, 62, who is married with grown children and several grandchildren, has allegedly told police that over the past decade he paid more than $1 million to have sex with a large number of young women.
- Republican Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld authorized the rape of children in Iraqi prisons in order to humiliate their parents into providing information about the anti-American insurgency. See excerpt of one prisoner's report here and his full report here.

i bet if u threw that ass in the air it would turn into sunshine

2006-10-02T21:38:00.000-05:00

ahh yes, the brilliance of prince - is the video great? naw, but that fuckin' horn section kills on this thing.

this one's for wendy....

82 things...

2006-09-30T13:16:00.000-05:00

i hate incomplete lists. seriously.

for the past few months i've been writing the 100 things about post that every blog seems to have. mostly, i write it when in the air flying here, or there.

but it's not complete, so i have not posted it.

however, the buddhist in me needs to see the complete in the incomplete so as a lesson, i've decided to post what i have.

more to come i'm sure.

1. kyle is my middle name. i don’t go by or use my first name. and one day i'll get off my ass and change it (and my last name too - i hate my last name)
2. i’ve crashed 3 cars (1 was for sure my fault, 1 may have been and i’m pretty sure 1 was so not my fault).
3. i hate cheese in cheese form and on sandwiches.
4. i’m ok with cheese in something – lasagna, pizza, greek etc…
5. i learned the most about sex from a “sex encyclopedia” (with pictures) that was on my parents bookshelf – i would sneak a look at it whenever I could.
6. the first records (45’s) i owned (other than disney/kids stuff) was black magic woman (santana) and disco duck – i was 5 or 6.
7. i can still remember where i was when i first listened to: prince & the revolution’s around the world in a day (walking down 46th street in columbia heights, mn on a cassette in my walkman), prince & the revolution’s parade (driving back to school after cutting class to buy it & listening to it in the car) and prince’s sign o’ the times (during play practice on my cassette walkman).
8. i am (to most people’s surprise) painfully shy.
9. i’m afraid of roller coasters.
10. the first rock concert i was allowed to attend was a christian artist named steve taylor – to this day, i dig steve taylor (except when he gets overly preachy, which doesn’t happen too often).
11. my first real concert was madonna’s who’s that girl tour in ‘87.
12. i also saw madonna’s drowned world tour in madison square garden (15th row center).
13. given a choice, i’d rather see a band/singer in a: 1) club/bar 2) small theater 3) stadium
14. i’ve seen prince over 100 times
15. the top 5 best concerts i ever saw were (in no particular order):
- prince @ paisley park in 1996 when he premiered the emancipation album.
- madonna @ madison square garden in 2001.
- the twilight singers @ the fine line in 2004.
- siouxsie @ house of blues in chicago in 2005.
- concrete blonde @ first avenue on the mexican moon tour.
16. i’m really bad at math. really bad.
17. i’m a pretty damn good photographer if you ask me. i’d be dangerous with a real camera.
18. king george is bringing about the complete & total downfall of the united states.
19. pepsi is god’s gift to pop. tho’ i only allow myself to drink it when i’m on a plane or producing an event (or really stressed out).
20. i’ve only been in one physical fight and it was in 6th grade.
21. i make the world’s best jambalaya. really.
22. i once drove a friend of mine to the clinic to get an abortion.
23. i believe it is fundamentally important to allow a woman the right to choose.
24. i’m very conflicted when a woman says the father has no say in her having the child or not.
25. i realize this is a dichotomy.
26. i like the smell of gasoline.
27. i believe in ghosts
28. i also believe there is life elsewhere in the universe.
29. cuddling is more intimate than fucking.
30. i have no discernable athletic talent.
31. i hate sleeping in clothes.
32. the song ‘gabriel’ by lamb is quite possibly the most beautiful song i have ever heard.
33. the song ‘strange relationship’ by prince reminds me of cindy.
34. i’ve not talked to cindy since 1988.
35. this saddens me tremendously.
36. i do have a tendency to end friendships.
37. i lost cindy to drugs.
38. i have no tolerance for drugs.
39. that said i have smoked a joint or two. i don’t feel strongly one way or another about marijuana.
40. kate bush is god.
41. there is no refuting that belief.
42. i would spend as much money as possible to see kate perform.
43. as she has not performed in public in a very very very long time, i do not think i’ll ever get that opportunity.
44. i’m the rare kate fan that prefers ‘the sensual world’ to her masterwork ‘hounds of love’.
45. tho’ i gotta give it up to hounds… that thing is fuckin’ brilliant.
46. i believe in the power of song placement on a record.
47. kate bush’s ‘nocturn’ amazes me on every level; from the voice to the lyrics to the arrangment – it could give lamb’s ‘gabriel’ a run for it’s money.
48. kate has a symbol that’s hidden in each of her album covers, i have that symbol tattooed on my ankle
49. i have 6 tattoos.
50. i will tell you about any of them (except one).
51. i am getting more
52. i hate that at 36, i’m still alone.
53. i have quite possibly the best job in the world.
54. the company i work for has ruined me for ever working for a corporation again. they understand that you can balance the right way to do business without affecting the planet and it’s indigenous people’s in a harmful manner while still making a profit and showing real care for the well-being of their employees..
55. i am a complete and total work-a-holic. but i love it. every minute.
56. i have grown more, and been challenged more in the past year and a half in my current role, then in the last 15 years of my professional life.
57. i honestly don’t get why straight guys are struck dumb by a woman’s breasts.
58. to the best of my knowledge, i have never slept with a woman.
59. that said, there is a very slight chance something may have happened in winnipeg in 1989.
60. i was drunk enough that i couldn’t say with any amount of certainty one way or another if something happened.
61. my favorite painter is mark rothko
62. i think the ipod is one of the greatest inventions of recent time.
63. i have two ipod's. they have names: “catch” and “whaley-boy”.
64. both names come from characters in christopher moore’s books.
65. my favorite book of all time (and subsequently movie) is to kill a mockingbird.
66. until it actually happened, i never thought I would live to be 30 years old.
in fact, I couldn’t even comprehend the possibility, or visualize that life.
67. i do not know my biological father, nor did i have a good relationship with my adoptive father.
68. both men essentially walked out on me.
69. i’m pretty sure that that might have something to do with my innate distrust of most men.
70. i believe in absolutes. there is very little that is “grey” in my life. i either love it or hate.
71. i wear my heart on my sleeve and you know if i like you or not and what i think about a given situation.
72. i have 3 piercing’s. two of which are in my left ear.
73. the guitar solo in the song ‘dolphin’ by prince is one of the most blissfully perfect moments in music.
74. that said, the tune ‘i love u, but do not trust u anymore’ also by prince is one of the most hauntingly intimate songs about the end of a relationship i’ve ever heard and almost always makes me cry.
75. it has taken me approx. 3 months to write this list. but it’s been kinda cool going through this process.
76. there is nothing quite like watching the sunset from above the clouds.
77. the original title of this blog was ‘kyle loves bunnies’
78. though i don’t actually have strong feelings about bunnies one way or another. it was just something landry and i came up with one night.
79. it still kinda makes me giggle when I think of the old title.
80. i really like words. tho’ i tend to overuse a word when i really like it until even i grow tired of it.
81. as such i love a good turn of phrase or lyric.
82. my love of lyrics annoys cb to no end. which is odd, ‘cause he loves poetry.

color me annoyed

2006-09-22T10:47:00.000-05:00

greetings from cleveland...

...so i'm sitting in a starbucks (really, does the world need a double shot of starbucks?) because my hotel room at the lovely wyndham playhouse square hotel in aromatic downtown cleveland isn't ready (i won't begin to describe what the aroma in question is - but it ain't good) and i logged on to read comments from my wonderfully intelligent and charming (not to mention stylish, attractive as hell and witty) audience and i got this regarding my recent post on the war:

Anonymous said...
So what's your point????
Friday, September 22, 2006 10:18:39 AM

let me start by saying i fucking hate anonymous comments. i think, for the most part it's terribly rude to leave an anonymous comment. i mean really, why hide behind anoniminty? if you feel strongly about something then you should feel comfortable putting your name on it - don't you think?

what really troubles me about the above (and a few other regular anonymous posters) is that there isn't enough of a statement there to actually know if he/she is being positive, challenging or argumentative. couple that with my inability to enter into a discussion/debate with anonymous and i get annoyed. i mean seriously - if your going to post be willing to debate your ideas, otherwise - really, what is the point?

so then, effective now, i will no longer allow annoymous comments on my blog. on a personal level this only really affects me with my friend ray (he doesn't have an account, but should get one) - everyone else that comments tends to have an account. at least ray had the balls to sign his name (or leave a signature remark on the post that i could use to identify him with).

anyone wanna debate me on this, or in anoymous wants to come out of the closet, feel free to email me.

more to talk about but i have a meeting with the hotel regarding my show this weekend.

cheers to all!

p.s., i hate bloggers spell check program.

the softer side of robbie

2006-09-20T08:19:00.000-05:00

ahem....:

dead sexy, that's all i'm gonna say.

and now.. for no other reason than, i can here's robbie in the buff.... cheeky bastard:

a dirth of posts...

2006-09-19T22:11:00.000-05:00

...have you noticed.

yea, yea, yea, your sick of hearing how busy i am... just deal.

i've been home for about a minute and a half and now, am off to dullas va (don't be jealous), from there i go to cleveland (i know, hot in'it?) and then cincinnati (you know you wanna be me).

to sum up my life thusly: one amazingly dull hotel room:

hotel not to be named to protect the guilty - suffice to say, the shitties event service of any hotel i've ever experienced.

to another:

the hilton park cities. a lovely hotel with bad taste in bedding.

of the 8 regional sales meetings i'm producing around the country, the new york metro version is one of them that i couldn't attend due to previous commitments. and that meeting was today.

of course, that is the meeting that went a dramatically bad way.

tonight, as i was packing for my next trip i got a call from the vice president who's meeting's i was producing.

short story: mice. lots and lots of mice. all over the meeting, from a mouse on a curtain rod, to a mouse during dinner, to a mouse scampering across the meeting space.

suffice to say, the veep is not pleased and it's now my job to resolve this with the hotel. guess what i'll be dealing with in the morning.

it's shit like this that makes me wanna drink - i mean seriously, it's not hard to keep a clean place is it?

2,684 dead

2006-09-17T20:33:00.000-05:00

willfully stolen from planet voenix:

also, i have not tracked our casualty count as of late - but given king george's complete and total lack of respect for the people of the world (unless of course they're republican, pro choice, god fearing americans), i thought it was time to mention it again.

2,684 - u.s. casualties in the iraq war (i refuse to call it a war on terror)
8,898 - iraqi security forces and civilian casualties

both numbers culled from: iccasualties.org

boys in chaps... yum

2006-09-16T10:23:00.000-05:00

from my recent show in dallas.

let me sum up by saying i love my job i love my job i love my job!!! and, not that any of you are looking at the details, but the guest artist who used these chaps, actually embedded advertising posters from my company into the chaps themselves - looked amazing. and the boys (ahem, packages) certainly weren't bad either... hehehe

goin' 2 atl

2006-09-10T19:12:00.000-05:00

Well the show is over (one more this season), and I'm sitting in the oh so lovely (sarcasm dripping freely) dallas fort worth(less) airport - myflight is delayed and I've just had a tasty beer and am more than ready for a nap.

I'm on my way to atlanta for a sales meeting I'm producing. From there I fly beack to dallas for another sales meeting.

Regarding the show, there were a number of really cool parts, and more than myfairshare of "how the fuck did we just pull that off" moments.

Whaen I get a real net connection ill post some pic's - a couple of which, the homo's will love (all ill say is "chaps".

More when I get to atl....

new feature here at sr...sl

2006-09-09T08:30:00.000-05:00

the hotel rooms of kyle.

i spend an obscene amount of time in hotel rooms - so now you all get to help me compare. may i present the hilton anatole in dallas texas:

score: 7/10. the room is comfortably appointed and the artwork (asian) is really quite nice. the bed is comfy. the bathroom (ooh i should take a pic of that) is cramped with bad lighting (which makes shaving less than ideal). also the room had a vague smoke smell. hate that. the business center charges $2/print, .25/copy & $9.00 to fax the first 3 pages of a document and then some ungodly number for pages after 3.

on a more exciting front - my boss lives in toronto, so i only ever see her on events; yesterday was my annual review. let me quote here: "you are the best show manager we've ever had." let me sum up the review by saying i rock!

here's a view of my boss (the black dot sitting in the middle) just after my review:

the joys of blackberry

2006-09-08T08:26:00.000-05:00

Welcome to me first remote post using my b'berry.

I'm sitting at the minneapoplis st paul international airport just about getting whiplash from all the uber hot guys. Woof, this place is swimming in beefcake!

So I have on flaw (that's right just one), procrastination. While the + side of this is that I thrive on last minute energy, sometimes I push it just a bit too much...

I had the brilliant idea that I would wake up early (which I did) and pack this morning for my 8 day business trip... God was that dumb! I fucked around too much this morning and was seriously scrambling to get ready before tthe cab arrived.

Lesson learned, ill be much better in the future. Seriously... Stop laughing at that (grin).

More after I get to dallas.

the sky is a poisonous garden

2006-09-07T23:04:00.000-05:00

first off, points to anyone who can tell me the source of the title of this post.... the sky was indeed a poisonous garden tonight - the pics, of the minneapolis sky, were taken as i left the office tonight:

one last pic, my new toy: blackberry 8700c. i'm completely in love with it, but may only be keeping it for a few months - sometime this fall blackberry will be coming out with the 'black pearl' - i'm anxious to see that! (oh, and yes, i turned into one of 'those' people tonight, talking on my bluetooth handsfree while wandering the aisles of a store talkin to cb {but mainly i did it to annoy cb]).

posts may be a bit sporadic over the next week or so, i'm off to dallas tomorrow morning for a show, then sunday night i fly to atlanta for a sales meeting i'm producing, then wednesday, i'm back in dallas for another sales meeting - home friday night.

sip your tequila / give me some time to unlearn all i've learned / for the spring to unwind

looks good to me

2006-09-07T13:04:00.000-05:00

i honestly don't know what all the fuss is about daniel craig being the new james bond - seriously, it can't be all because of the blonde hair. he def. looks the part to me:

and the trailer looks hot as hell:

and really, isn't it about time they re-invented this series?

from the book of obvious....

2006-09-06T20:16:00.000-05:00

....dating sucks.

fucking sucks.

so cb (and ray, camel, ax and many others who read this blog) will tell you that i'm too picky when it comes to dating and that perhaps, just perhaps i should be more open to the experience and date/fuck/whatever with more regularity and bring down the curve when it comes to who i choose to go out with. i know they mean well, and i do appreciate it (on a certain level ), pisses me off too. lol.

and i have to admit hearing them say it as often as they do has kinda got me to thinking, do i expect the unachievable? do i have a wish list of characteristics of a future partner that i will never be able to mark off all of the options?

i don't really think so. am i choosy...? yea. and truth be told, i'm kinda ok with that. yes i spend too much time home alone and i certainly would like to explore the forbidden fruits more than i do - but at the end of the day, i just don't wanna settle.... and damnit, i don't think i should have to.

my list of desirables is actually not all that long, and certainly not that specific. of course, everyone lusts after the guys with perfect bodies and money and all of those trappings, but in the big reality of day-to-day life, i really don't expect those things. i'm a far site from perfect, i don't expect anyone else to be perfect.

what i do expect/want/desire is intelligence, loyalty, compassion, talent, humor and sexy eyes (the only physical trait that's a must - i like to get lost in eyes). i find that my physical type changes frequently and has much more to do with the person than the body.

so with cb's words ringing in my ears i agreed to "meet" a guy on sunday. this particular guy - lets call him bob, is someone i've talked to on and off for about a year online. Invariably, these conversations never went particularity well. bob you see, was fond of not really answering questions or giving vague responses all the while informing me that i was the one with the problem. more than anything i hate feeling like i'm being fucked with - nothing will make me pissed off faster than feeling like i'm being played. repeatedly this is how i felt with this guy, yet he would always come back, initiate the chat and be charming for a bit before pissing me off. i feel like i'm playing a game to which i don't know the rules.

well sunday, he found me online and asked me out. it was a beautiful day and he suggested a drive to stillwater. stillwater is about 40 miles away from minneapolis and one of the most beautiful small towns you've ever seen. i agreed (somewhat hesitantly) realizing i need to put myself out there if i ever expect to have someone in my life again, right?

well, almost immediately i knew it wasn't gonna go well. when he picked me up, his car was a complete and total mess - shit everywhere (if your going to insist on driving, as he did, at least stop at a gas station before hand and toss out the trash) - and he was a smoker. my gut response was to say thanks, no thanks - but then i thought... "maybe saying no right off the bat is part of my problem". so i got in the car and away we went.

perhaps it was nervous energy, but bob was a mile-a-minute talker. talking about all the things that have happened in his life that have gone wrong and how its everyone elses' fault. and how he hasn't had a ltr for years, but how he had a fuck buddy for about 5 years but how he had to cut if off 'cause "it just wasn't going anywhere". now, i've noticed this is a common trait with gay men - and it annoys the fuck out of me. honestly, take a good long honest look in the mirror; invariably we all have something to do with the situation we are in. i can honestly say everything that has happened to me; i had some ownership in it.

then he launched into everything that is wrong with me personality wise - apparently he's always thought i was a little demanding and bossy, but yet, why did he ask me out..? continually ask me out. throughout all of his diatribes he would casually grab my knee or rub against me in the car. apparently i'm also a control freak (which i really don't think i am in my personal life... i think i'm pretty easy going in the big picture).

once we were in stillwater, he would "bump" into me while we were walking down the street or browsing in the antique stores that line the street. i will give him credit for asking if he could smoke in the car (i said no, perhaps that makes me a control freak); so he waited until we were outside... the conversation was odd and forced and he brought it back to me a time or two that we could have met a year ago if i hadn't been so bossy online.

he was throwing some heavy signals that he would like to get to know me better (again, if i'm so terrible, why?) and on the ride home i made it pretty clear that this was not a date; just a chance to meet and hang out. as we got closer to my apartment he asked if he could come up - i said no. i mean, really - what was the point. if there was an attraction, it was certainly one sided... i'm not looking for a fuck buddy, and if i were, it would be someone a little more evolved - and someone who didn't tell me what was wrong with me constantly.

i will say i did try, i tried to get him to talk about his passions/interests etc..., but he always just came back to how his last job did him wrong, the fuck buddy wasn't taking it to the next level etc...

wow, i sound mean. i swear i wasn't being outwardly mean.

there was just no spark between him and i. not even a friendship spark. and i really don't understand why he would want to hang with me (hang being the operative word), if i'm as controlling bossy and mean as he said. (i won't even go into detail about the awkward moment in the car with the hug/handshake/kiss moment - ewww).

i really don't get it.

i'm sure bob is a good person, but he's just not the person for me. and i'm not the person for him.

if this is what my friends mean by get back out there and lower my standards, i don't want to. i'd rather be alone.

is it so hard to find someone that can challenge me mentally, physically and emotionally who's not afraid of being real or just wants to hang out and cuddle on the couch and watch a movie, or go up north and go camping or go enjoy a nice dinner? i want someone that has interests and passions and believes in something.

yes, i'm lonely (wow that was hard to admit to the world at large), and i do want to put myself out there more, but at what cost? i lost about 3-4 hours of my life i'll never get back - all for what, to hear about what a rotten person i am, while having the same person throw themselves at me?

it's just not worth it.

i
hate
dating.

but i'm not going to give up - i'm going to try and put myself out there more, flaws and all.

music heard...:

sophie b. hawkins / listen
the twilight singers / feeling of gaze
new order / working overtime
tori amos / fayth
george clinton / paint the white house black
thomspson twins / lay your hands on me
wendy and lisa / always in my dreams
prince / do me baby
alanis / hand in my pocket
siouxsie & the banshees / face to face
meshell ndegeocello / fool of me

what the hell is a hair show?

2006-09-06T11:18:00.000-05:00

so i've recently got a bunch of emails more or less asking "what the fuck do you really do"? so i thought this is the perfect time as i've just finished a major show and wanted to share a couple of interesting pics:

there are 3 main aspects to my job as "show & production manager" - produce, facilitate, plan & execute: 1) hair shows, 2) corporate meetings and 3) trade shows. most people don't have a clue what a hair show is so i tend to explain it like this - think of a fashion show, now make it about the hair and not the clothes, make it 5-8 hours long and make it about educating and inspiring hairdressers. that's what a hair show is. on a show such as the one pictured above, we spend approx 4-8 months planning all facets of the show; from working with the guest artists (the people on stage cutting and coloring the hair), to facilitating model searches, to arranging for props or special stage actions the artist wants, to planning for food and plumbing and electrical needs. depending on the event, sometimes i'm the stage manager, sometimes i'm the director, sometimes i'm orchestrating all of the various things that surround and support what's actually happening on stage or at the meeting. it's a pretty awesome job if you ask me.

scott over at scott-o-rama had an interesting post about liking/loving/hating your job and feel somewhat guilty that i truly love my job. i also realize how lucky i am to be able to say that. not only do i love my job, but i completely and totally respect the company i work for - from the products we make, to the ways in which we support and honor the environment. it makes working the oftentimes very long hours planning our events all worth it

rest in peace steve irwin

2006-09-05T20:55:00.000-05:00

rest in peace steve.

ok, i seriously loved steve 'the crocodile hunter' - i mean, yea, he had that hot aussie accent, and he was hot in that hunky/beefy outdoorsman kinda of way, but he was also an amazing zoologist who's passion for all things environmental and ecological. you could see his passion and excitement anytime he was willing to make a fool of himself to talk about animals.

he was brilliant at making one feel immediately at ease with the animal world he and his wife showed on their various shows - he will be missed.

oh, and to those who will say he deserved it, nobody deserves to have what happened to him happened to them. i will agree that it was probably inevitable that something like this happened to him, but he certainly didn't deserve it. saying he deserved it is the easy way to go...

rip croc hunter.

magni oh magni

2006-09-05T20:46:00.000-05:00

may i present my future husband magni:

some will say 'but he's married/straight' - not in my world. he's mine, i call him. dibs. he could have me at "góðan daginn"

whew... time to breathe

2006-08-30T07:24:00.000-05:00

hi all,

sorry for the lack of posts... last week was one whirlwind of activity, from my trip to la la land to a show here in minneapolis. i'm home for a week and a half (and on vacation for the next 5 days starting tomorow), and have lots to talk about, but while i get back into the swing of things, here are a couple pics from my most recent show:

this headdress just fuckin' rocked... so delicate in person - it was hand made out of paper over the course of 3 days by one of the guest artists... and were applied to the model live on stage.... i'll try to find a pic or two of the finished product.

ok, while not from the show technically, this pic was taken downtown minneapolis during the course of the weekend. i just love this shot - the competing vertical and horizontal lines really intrigue me.

more later....

models and birthdays and naked french rugby players (oh my!)

2006-08-25T23:06:00.000-05:00

thank god today is over.

as i've mentioned a time or two, we've been short handed for a few months. one aspect of our shows is a model call. the success of a show can be made or broken by the success of the model call. since we've been short staffed, i have taken over the task of organizing the model call for the biggest show we will do this year.

i'm beyond happy with the model call we had tonight - a ton of girls and guys showed up and all 5 teams in the show were happy with the selection.

i am beyond happy right now.

here are a couple of pics, the first one is just as the model call started, the second is during the chaos of it all:

on a unrelated note - tomorrow (saturday) is cb's birthday (chances are i won't have much acccess to my 'puter tomorrow, so i'm celebrating early).

(cb & his cannon, london, february 27, 2006 [oddly enough, my birthday])

so a very happy birthday wish for one of my favorite people around!!!!

so here's a lil' prezzie for cb, i know he loves rugby players, and i know he loves naked guys, so combine them and you get a home run.... so here's to cb on his 29th b-day, naked french rugby players:

view through a sanyo mm-8300, newest to oldest

2006-08-25T06:51:00.000-05:00

just home from los angeles (ok, actually a day late), but home just the same - thank god. i can honestly say, i'm not a huge fan of l.a.. i was there for the first of 8 regional sales meetings i'm producing - the meeting was a hit (yay!).

i forgot my fuckin' camera at home - i was so mad, so all i had was my cell phone to snap these pics to share - not bad really:

we were staying at the ritz carlton marina del rey. one of my preferences when doing meetings in hotels is that i rent rooms that have windows. nothing is worse than sitting in a hotel conference room with no windows for two days straight. this is the view from our meeting room - not bad eh?

but better still is the view from my hotel room - this is dawn on wednesday. yea, i know its a crappy cell phone camera, but check out the huge yacht dead center... that thing was cool as fuck all lit up at night.
another view....

one more view from my room....

ok, everyone knows that the ritz is supposed to be one of the best hotels in the world & i will certainly say that their service is impeccable and it was the best hotel food i have ever had, but you gotta admit, this is one ugly as fuck chandelier. i prefer clean, modern lines - the ritz was a little to "chintz" and gold brocade for my tastes.

men are pigs. it's true. snapped this pig while waiting for the train on my way to la la land. in 5 minutes, he spit big gob's of backwash 5 times on the concrete of the train station. seriously, learn some fuckin' manners.

i'm a big fan of safety. oh yea. i see nothing wrong with snapping a cool shot of the sky while driving 85 miles per hour down the road... hehehe. safety first i always say.

and lastly, this little nugget from two weeks ago when i was in denver. this was taken on the tram from the terminal to baggage claime at the denver airport. i swear to you, i never get cruised or checked out, but this guy was doing both big time. he was cute too - prob. 23-25 max. very cute.

today begins all the pieces of the biggest hiar show in minneapolis we will produce this year. model call is tonight, rehearsals tomorrow & the show on sunday.... i'll snap some pics with the real camera - i promise.

best cock on the block

2006-08-18T19:44:00.000-05:00

there are 6 people in the world i know i can count on when needed - ray, cb, wendy, scott, stacey & landry. landry is pictured here (with her friend bryce - i do not know bryce, i wouldn't mind knowing bryce):

landry and i met sometime in 1999 on the internet. at the time she was in new york and i was in minneapolis (much as it is today). we met on a yahoo group for participants for the alaska aids vaccine ride which would take place in the summer of 2000. to this day i don't know why we clicked, or for that matter, which one of us emailed/messaged first. all that mattered is that i fuckin' fell in love (platonically people - we're both good homo's) with this kick ass chick from ny.

at the time both of us were on aol and our email back and forth quickly gave way to instant messaging where a common greeting from me was "hey baby, wanna fuck?" this confused her girlfriend greatly. and entertained me to no end.

fast forward to the ride - we were in fairbanks alaska on day zero (the day before the ride starts) and i was busy doing whatever was involved in my crew manager role on the ride (landry was riding) - all i remember is this wicked blur of a girl yelling my name then running across the lobby and hugging me. how she knew it was me is beyond me. without a doubt, that was one of the most physcially challenging rides any of us had been on (for both the riders and crew) and as such, we honestly only saw each other maybe 3-4 times during the whole week, but just the same - i knew i had a friend in her.

there it was the start of a life long (or at least a 7 year - hey is it time for one of us to cheat on the other?) friendship.

she's the one i choose to escape to after the debacle that was nick (new york is a lovely place to get lost for a few days while mending a broken heart), she's the one that never ceases to amaze me with her brilliance or talent. she's the one that can piss me off in one second flat, only to melt me with that shit eating grin the next.

so why you ask am i tripping down memory lane for ya'll...? well firstly, i thought i should introduce you to the girl that blew off helping me with my banner up above ., and secondly - well - tonight, as i was avoiding work talking on gtalk with wendy and landry and brian, she brought up the common topic of music (apparently bryce is scary savant like when it comes to music - i thought i was her only scary music freak friend; hey, wait-a-new-york-minute, this means she is cheating on me; hrumph).

which reminded me the bitch promised me a cd about 3.5 years ago and has yet to deliver.

yup, that's right, this trip down memory lane just got a little pot-holey.

we were sitting in my apartment one cold february day (she came to down to get me drunk for my birthday), and she hipped me to this cool act "bitch and animal" with this fuckin' great song "best cock on the block" on it. she promised to send me the song "the very minute i get back to new york". fast forward 3.5, i'm still waiting.

yea, yea, yea, i could just go buy the damn cd, and under other circumstances i would - but the principle demands that she fulfill her promise to me.

so here's what i need from all of you - i need to you to email her imploring her to make good on her 3+ year promise.

i have a killer mix cd in my head that is all based around this track - i need this track.

seriously, my eternal happiness hinges on my getting this song.

:-)

p.s., i think that picture pretty much makes her look like she thinks she is best cock on the block. :-)

introducing... the sr...sl models:

2006-08-17T21:40:00.000-05:00

hey you... yea, you... look up there

that would be my fuckin' awesome incredible stupendous title banner. dont'cha love it? of course you do. you'd be insane not to. now sr...sl feels like home. those girls, they are my official entourage - i take them everywhere with me, always dressed to kill too. :)

so here's the story - i took that picture (it fuckin' rocks, don't it?) - and i love love love that photo. it's one of my favorites that i've ever taken. of course it's fitting for a blog called stage right stage left. i took that picture during a show (stage right to be exact).

a couple of thank you's - firstly, to my co-worker susie (who is an an amazing graphic designer), who took my raw picture and shaped it the way i wanted it. thank you!

and to brian who worked with me via gtalk to get the fucker to work. he rocks. i'm a complete idiot when it comes to html (come on, you can't be surprised - afterall i spend all my time with models, the stupidity rubs off) and he was able to walk me through it brilliantly.

thanks also to landry who began to help me with this about a month ago. i have no doubt you would have figured it out, but i couldn't wait forever babe - i still love you and your are officially my favorite new yorker ever.

:-)

mental vacation

2006-08-17T08:10:00.000-05:00

work has been kicking my ass lately (which you all know, and i'm sure are sick of hearing about it)... but the deal is when i'm this busy, i can't see the forest for the trees and invariably end up without a life. as such, i have little to post about. however, it's 8:06am currently and i've been in the office for three hours already so i'm going to take a mental vacation for a bit and regale you with some photos i took while cb & i were in london this past feb/march.

these first pics were from st. pauls cathedral... it's important to note, that while i actually do love churches (specifically their grandiosity and architecture), i had no real interest in going to st pauls. cb made me do it, and i'm better for it.

i love framing things. i know it's a base skill, but if i can put something within something else, i dig it. this is the millennium bridge gate framing the cathedral. directly behind me was the river themes.

more framing - this from the second highest point on the dome looking out at one of the clock towers on the church. this was the highest point either cb or i could manage (between his heights issue and my claustrophobia issue - we made one sorry pair).

here's a couple from the tate modern. while i'm exceptionally lucky to live in minneapolis where we have one of the greatest modern art museums in the world (walker art center), the tate was just an amazing moment for me. the mark rothko gallery was a religious experience for me. rothko is a god. that's all i'm gonna say.

the museum as seen from st pauls.

the entrance hallway... awesome

forced perception rocks doesn't it?

evening

2006-08-16T05:55:00.000-05:00

couldn't resist takin' a quick snapshot of my city's skyline last night.... great evening. minneapolis 8.15.06

may i introduce you to srxxxsl?

2006-08-13T13:51:00.000-05:00

hmmmmm (warning, don't click if easily offended or if you dislike tasteful images of the male nude) hehehe

tugboat's a greedy bitch

2006-08-13T13:15:00.000-05:00

for tugboat's benefit, here is phase one of my "sleeve".

first a bit of background... i have 6 tattoos & throughout the years a subtle theme has progressed - all of the art on the right side of my body (stage right) is black work is tribal and/or east indian in origin. the ink my left side (stage left) is asian in design and quite colorful.

in the first picture (cell phone pic) you see the outline phase of the first bit of my sleeve. due to the level of detail in the symbol, this took just shy of 3 hours to complete:

the next pic is a perspective shot & was taken in a hotel room. normally i never drink coke or eat pringles (honestly, they are kinda disgusting), but at 2 in the morning, while on a show, beggers can't be choosers. i just love the forced perspective of this shot. the ink still isn't complete, but the colors have started to been added.

i had another amazing pic of the actual ink in process, but for the life of me, i can not find it. ugg. ms. bees knees can attest to the brilliance of the shot i'm missing.

and now the completed 'phase 1' tattoo. the symbol is the 8 auspicious symbols of buddhism (in their combined form). the whole thing took about 10 hours to complete (mainly due to the level of detail). i'm beyond thrilled with how it turned out.

phase two will continue the buddhist theme and will consist of a tara, tibetan prayer flags and some other asian symbolism.

i'll keep you posted. :-)

meme of the day

2006-08-12T19:52:00.000-05:00

got this over on planet voenix& thought it might be an interesteing excersie to get my creative juices flowing again...

1. Would you get back with your last ex if you could?no.
one time was more than enough in the dysfunctional world of nick.

2. What color shirt are you wearing?
yello

3. Would you kiss anyone on your blogroll?
ummmm - yes. but i'm not gonna name names.

4. Do you have a ‘thing’ for someone on your blogroll?
ditto to number 3

5. How many people on your blogroll do you know in real life?
two; cb and landry

6. How many kids do you want to have?
undetermined. i'm still a kid....

7. Do you have a good relationship with your parents?
it's getting better

8. What name would you want besides the one you have?
i think i pretty much have the name i want, considering i chose it. tho i am gonna change my last name later this year...

10. What did you do for your last birthday?
landed in london. rode the london eye. saw the crowned jewels. had dinner with cb.

11. What’s your main ringtone on your phone?
just a normal ringtone that came with the phone, however, for cb's ringtone it's tie-fighters from star wars. and landry's is a secret.

12. What time did you wake up today?
9:00am

13. What were you doing two nights ago?
working

14. How many times have you been tattooed and did it hurt?
times as in sessions or times as in individual tat's? sessions - i've lost count. tats - 6. depended on the location.

15. Name something you can’t wait to do.
slightly altering planets response: i’d like to live long enough to see george bush and everyone in his administration impeached and/or put up for a war crimes in the hauge (and found guilty of course).

16. Last time you saw your Mom?
2 weeks ago when i bought "3"

17. What is one thing you wish you could change about yourself?
i'd like to have a body like jason statham. or at least have his body in my bed.

18. If you had $250,000, what would you do with it?
buy a loft.

19. How long have you worked at your current job?
6.5 years with the company - 1.5 years in this job

20. Are you messy or organized?
messy :(

21.Describe the underwear you have on?
commando baby.

22. Last thing you ate?
m&m's

23. What’s your favorite month?
october

24. Your least favorite month?
january.

25. What’s the last piece of clothing someone borrowed from you?
track jacket (my boss is terminally cold)

26. Who is getting on your nerves right now?
pretty much anyone who still thinks king george is a good thing for this country.

27. Most visited webpage?
imdb.com

28. Last person you text messaged?
cb

29. Last person to make you sad?
erik

30. Would you take a bullet for your best friend?
yes

31. Favorite kind of drink?
hawai'ian screw

32. Favorite food?
pizza

33. Favorite dessert?
vanilla ice cream

34. Have you been to Europe?
yes

35. If someone you hated died, what would you do?
dance on their grave baby

what a fuckin' week

2006-08-12T17:26:00.000-05:00

to my faithful 4 readers.

my apologies for being remiss in posting to sr...sl lately. i've officially entered into my busy season and things are nuts at work right now.

case in point, i've spent the last three days in back to back to back interviews for a show administrator job - a posistion we've been without for a few months.

nothing is more soul sucking than interviewing job canidates.

as an example the following topics/actions all occured with one canidate:

date rape drug
stolen money
major avoidance of eye contact coupled with a
server nervous verbal tick
home made scrapbooking gifts for my boss and i
a childrens book with an inscription (written to me)
other gifts including: two towels, lightbulbs, pantyhose & a travel sleep sack and neck support

in all my years of interviewing people for jobs i've never been givin gifts. it's a little oft-putting. espicially home-made ones. the nerves, that i can understand - discussing inapprorpriate things in an interview is never a good thing tho'. here's the challenge - i really do like this canidate as a person, it's just that there are so many things that went wrong - i really wanted it to go right. ::sigh::

however, we finally hired a show administrator yesterday! yay us. we thought we had a great canidate right out of the block, but the 3rd to last interview shifted herself into poll position and hit the ball right out of the (interview) park. so in two weeks, some of the slack will lesson as we get her up and running - nothing like stepping right into the fire (her 2nd day on the job will be stage managing our second largest hair show with me).

some random thoughts:

- ok, i know the entire blogosphere has recapped the whole terror plot ad nausium but i just have one question.... if we are safe, then why has the threat level been made higher than ever?

- while in denver, i got a killer head cold that's hanging on for dear life. fuckin' bugs. if anyone has any tips on how to handle a head cold while in a pressurized petrie dish (aka plane), feel free to pass 'em along - i spend way too much time in pressurized petrie dishes.

- work on the phase 2 of the sleeve tattoo is going to start soon - i'm super fucking psyched to go under the needle again.

- oh, and as promised, here are some random pictures from the most recent show... enjoy:

ray

2006-08-07T17:33:00.000-05:00

happppppppppppppppppppppppppppppy
biiiirrrrrrttttttthhhhhhdddddaaaay
ray!

(ray - in the red, and his partner jeremy in chicago - july 2005)

back from the mile high city

2006-08-07T16:55:00.000-05:00

hi all,

miss me? :-) i'm back from denver where we had an awesome hair show & will blog more about that later...

but first, i got an email today about an interesting sounding never give up that i thought i'd share with all of you - the author, kevin winge, is the head of an amazing organization in minneapolis called open arms of minnesota. open arms is one of the beneficiaries of the red ribbon ride, which you've all heard me talk about in the past. open arms is a meals-on-wheels type of program founded originally to serve the hiv/aids community & has recently begun to also serve the breast cancer, ms & als communities. i also had the huge honor of having kevin speak at the opening ceremonies of the ride. i will be forever be humbled by his words and actions... he's an amazing man.

"A few days into the new year of 2004, I was walking down a hospital corridor toward the room of a friend who was dying, when I had a flashback. Just for a moment, it felt like it was 1995 and I was in a hospital in upstate New York, approaching the room of another friend who was also dying. Of course it wasn't 1995. I wasn't in New York, and I wasn't visiting my gay white friend who was dying of AIDS. It was a new year in a new century. I was in Cape Town, South Africa, and this time the friend dying of AIDS was a black mother of three children.

"Two friends: a wealthy, white, gay man in America and a poor, black mother in South Africa. The only thing they had in common was that they died of AIDS. Yet, when I think of Nombulelo, John creeps into my memory. And when I think of HIV/AIDS in South Africa today, IÂm transported back to the start of the AIDS epidemic in the U.S. in the 1980s. I keep asking the question: don't we have a responsibility to help people living with HIV/AIDS wherever in the world they live?"

~ Kevin Winge

i urge you to check out the book - it looks like an interesting and timely read. i'll be picking up a copy tonight.

we dance underneath the radar

2006-08-03T21:10:00.000-05:00

i am an exceedingly happy boy right now.

earlier tonight, i was making the walk in music (music the attendees of a show hear as they walk in and find their seats) for my show this weekend and i decided i needed something new - i wasn't feeling any of the 22gigs of music loaded on catch (my ipod - what..? your ipod doesn't have a name? how tragic).

so down to cheapo i went. cheapo is a massive new & used cd shop here in minneapolis. i was hip to find a a couple of things, but low and behold - i found something i gave up hope of ever finding:

the rare 1988; pre-hard electronica underworld release 'underneath the radar'.

this piece of 1980's new-wave pop trash is a delightful reminder of what it felt like to be a kid with no cares in the 80's. life really was just a wash of synthesizers back then. now, of course, given underworld's direction in the 90's, i'm sure they'd rather forget this ever existed & truth be told the rest of the album is terrible - but i fuckin' love the title track. it's dark and it's sexy.

indeed, in the official bio for underworld you rarely ever hear about this piece of fluff. too bad - i hate when bands don't acknowledge they have a past.

i had given up on ever finding a digital version of this track. it doesn't exist on itunes. it doesn't exist show up on 80's compilations. fuck, i was even looking for it on cassette that i could then burn onto disk - to no avail.

but low-and-behold, there it was for a paltry $5.95. can't beat that. also picked up a used copy of the joint cd/dvd of madonna's latest i'm going to tell you a secret and a used copy of the lastest duran duran.

a good musical night to be sure.

off to denver in the morning with limited access/time for the internet. hopefully i'll get some great pictures of the show to share with the 4 of you that read this... lol

peace.

giddy as a school boy

2006-08-03T13:19:00.000-05:00

ok, i have about a million things i need to accomplish before i fly to denver tomorrow morning, but the only thing i really wanna do is rush home and pop in this:

thats right boys and girls, v for vendetta came out on dvd this week. i absolutely loved this film - on every level. the acting was sublime (yes, cb, i said sublime), the action incredible, the story was a beautiful allegory on life in america these days. hugo weaving & natalie portmen were amazing. love this movie!!

in other random entertainment news:

yippee-kai-yay-mother fucker, they're making another die hard - while not a huge fan of bombastic action flicks, i was actually a huge fan of episode 1 & 3 of this series. i found them to be amazingly warm for an action flick.

stephen king & john irving implore jk rowling to not kill harry potter

ignoring episodes 3-5, the 6th installment of original underdog story, rocky is coming soon - remember sylvester before he sucked? - check out the trailer for rocky balboa (and it doesn't look like it will suck)

eat a fuckin' burger already would ya?

2006-08-02T20:52:00.000-05:00

so tonight was the 3rd of 6 model calls that i'm doing for my upcoming hair show at the end of the month.

firstly, i gotta say craigslist rocks for recruiting models. we've never advertised on craigslist before, but it's awesome - some great girls and guys are showing up.

the pre-calls (the first 5 model calls) are really just more meet and greets, and excuses to collect information on the models (and judge them; hey it's a tough job to make your living off of your looks) - the final call (the last one) is the really interesting one. it's like a model free-for-all while they all push and shove to get the spot they want.

it's funny watching skinny girls and guys fight to get what they want. i mean, god, the girls are so skinny i'm amazed they have the muscle control to stand on stilletto's while maintaining that detached "i could care less" look.

i do really wanna just ram a burger down their throats. my god their skinny.

music heard....

the chemical brothers / left right

god bless tight board shorts

2006-08-02T12:34:00.000-05:00

yum.... laird hamilton in tight board shorts (with eddie vedder from pear jam). (for a....ahem.... larger view, double click the image)

heath ledger in the batman sequel

2006-08-01T15:42:00.000-05:00

an interesting bit of casting news. i'm not sure what to think of it, but i'm game for anything christopher nolan does to batman considering the brilliance of batman begins. this was taken from aint it cool news.

BURBANK, CA, 31 July 2006 – As a follow up to last year’s blockbuster Batman Begins, Christopher Nolan is set to direct Warner Bros. Pictures’ The Dark Knight, written by Jonathan Nolan, based on a story by Christopher Nolan and David Goyer. The film will be produced by Emma Thomas, Charles Roven and Christopher Nolan. Additionally, Christian Bale will resume his role as Bruce Wayne and Academy Award nominee Heath Ledger has been cast as The Joker. The announcements were made today by Jeff Robinov, President of Production, Warner Bros. Pictures.

Christopher Nolan revamped the Batman franchise in 2005 with the immensely successful Batman Begins, starring Christian Bale in the title role, which chronicled the early years of the superhero. Nolan first garnered attention from critics and fans in 2000 with the groundbreaking drama Memento, which he wrote and directed. He went on to direct the thriller Insomnia, starring Al Pacino and Robin Williams, and recently wrapped production on The Prestige, with Hugh Jackman and Bale.

Bale was most recently seen in the ensemble cast of Terrence Malick’s The New World. His other credits include Little Women, Portrait of a Lady, Metroland, American Psycho, Laurel Canyon and Steven Spielberg’s Empire of the Sun, which was his first starring role.

Ledger most recently earned Oscar Golden Globe, BAFTA and SAG Award nominations and won the New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actor for his portrayal of Ennis Del Mar in the award-winning drama Brokeback Mountain. His other credits include Casanova, Monster’s Ball, Lords of Dogtown, The Brothers Grimm and The Patriot.

“Chris’ unique vision is what made Batman Begins such an outstanding film and we could not imagine anyone else at the helm of The Dark Knight,” said Robinov. “We also can’t wait to see two such formidable actors as Christian and Heath face off with each other as Batman and The Joker.”

“I'm excited to continue the story we started with Batman Begins,” added Nolan. “Our challenge in casting The Joker was to find an actor who is not just extraordinarily talented but fearless. Watching Heath Ledger's interpretation of this iconic character taking on Christian Bale’s Batman is going to be incredible.”

Production is set to begin on The Dark Knight in early 2007.
Nolan and Ledger are represented by CAA.

drakkar noir

2006-07-30T20:06:00.000-05:00

to all the clueless boys in the world (by way of one specific hunky jock wandering the aisles of target today):

it's 2007 - put away the drakkar noir.

nobody likes that aroma really. and truth be told, none of us liked it in 1987 when it was popular (we just wore it to be cool).

if your going to wear a synthetic cologne (eww), then at least go for something upscale like:

issey miyake or givenchy to name just two.

personally, i'm not a fan of synthetic aroma - go with essential oils like aveda if you ask me. the fact of the matter is, synthetic aroma's really smell nothing like the plants and flowers they come from -

as an example.... lets say i'm calvin klien and i'm making a new cologne with rose oil as it's primary base.... i'm gonna take the cheapest form of rose oil known to man (the oil from a rose petal can be extracted (a process called steam distillation) 15 times. the most expensive/potent/pure form of rose oil comes from the 1st extraction. all the following extractions are a little more diluted, or less "pure"), or the 15th extraction. i'm then gonna take 1-3 drops of this diluted form of the oil and have a computer "replicate" the diluted aroma by synthesizing it using petrochemical bases. then i'm going to add another synthetic "binder" which makes the aroma "stick" to the body for a long time (in some cases, the binders are so strong - umm drakkar anyone - that they can actually stay potent on clothing after it's been washed). that's the real reason people are sensitive to perfumes & colognes - it's not the aroma itself, it's the synthetic "binder" that overwhelms the entire fragrance in the first place.

so concludes your "aroma 101" class. there will be a test.

i just don't see the point. if your trying to smell better, why wouldn't you want to smell as much like a natural aroma as possible?

oh and to all the "natural-boys" in the audience. i love the smell of a man as much as the next guy, but there's a very fine line between smelling natural and masculine and smelling rank and raunchy. there is nothing wrong with wearing an aroma that compliments your natural body chemistry.

just. not. drakkar. ever.