Jesus found in dog's butthole

Angus MacDougall is a three-year-old terrier mix that has recently been blessed with the revered and holy image of Jesus Christ on his hindquarters. Is this manifestation of The Prince of Peace a coincidence or a bona fide miracle? One thing is for certain, this apparition of the Son of God is sure to inspire controversy. Not much if any true scientific or theological inquiry has been made into the nature of this sign to date, but "seeing is believing" as little Angus' terrier-tush is obviously marked by the likeness of Christ.


So here's my spin on this amazing anal miracle:

picture jesus at the last supper:

Jesus: "waiter? yeah could i have another bowl of chocolate mousse?"

Judas: JC, you've had four bowl of mousse already. you sure you want to eat another?

Jesus: dude, calm down. this chocolate mousse is the nectar of my dad.

Judas: alright, man. just saying.

then jesus eats the fifth bowl of mousse

Jesus: oh man. i don't feel good. aw shit i'm gonna puke.

then he pukes.

and that's i'd picture every time that dog takes a shit.

Paintings

Lately I've started to hit my stride with painting regularly. I'm juggling a perfect amount of projects that keep me busy but they're not overwhelming.

In addition to a few random paintings that I've done for shits and giggles, I'm working on a handful of paintings that were commissioned by friends of mine.

I recently got into acrylics just to see what I could do with them. They dry like 80 times faster than oils so if done right they could increase productivity. Faster results, more paintings, more to get excited about and so on.

I check craigslist every day for old fancy frames for cheap. I snagged a couple a few weeks ago and these paintings resulted.



Physeter Hayes. He was named for his huge frontal lobe.



LIbelulla Hayes. Named for her wings. Feel free to google either first name.



I was asked by a friend of mine to do a painting of a lighthouse for his upcoming wedding in October. He said he'll talk price with me later, but unbeknownst to him I'm just going to give them the painting as a wedding gift.

I'm nearly done with an album cover for a Boston metal band that disbanded years ago but is releasing some new material soon on Willowtip Records. Their guitar player approached me last month after the guy that was supposed to paint their cover bailed on him. Check them out here... Year of Our Lord

Here a quick shot of the lighthouse and Year of Our Lord album cover paintings side by side on the wall.



Months and months ago Jenny asked me to do a painting for her. She also gave me no subject or guidelines or anything. She just payed for a 4' by 2' canvas and that's it. I painted the thing red and started getting sketches together on photoshop for it last night. I sent her the rough draft file and she was ecstatic about the idea so I started sketching out the dark lines last night in the wee hours. Here's what I have so far.




UPDATE:

I worked a bit more on it and now I have to leave for work, unfortunately. So here it is... phase II.



So there you have it. These are some of the things I have going on in late September. If anyone's interested in having a painting made for them email me....

hooker @ randomactsofviolence dot com

Birthday wishes from Dad

I talked to my old man in Colorado about a week before my birthday, which was this past 9/11. I mentioned my brother and I going to NYC for my birhday weekend and the old man replied "Ahhhh shit. That's right. Your birthday is coming up."

We chatted for a little while longer and he ended the call with "If I talk to you I'll talk to you. Have a good birthday."

I talked to him again yesterday and he asked if the package had arrived. He said he sent it on my birthday. I hadn't seen any packages around the house so he called the P.O. to see if there was a problem.

I guess they tried to deliver it but no one was home so it was waiting for me to pick it up.

The clerk handed me an oblong box and I walked out to open it since I had to stuff whatever was inside into my backpack since I was on the motorcycle.

While I was sitting on the bike outside tearing open the box this dude who's voice sounded like Johnny Most with a cold goes "ONLY GOT A FEW DAYS OF RIDIN' LEFT EH?"

I glanced up and said "I'm gonna ride this thing until they start salting and sanding the roads, man"

Then he backed up a bit and slowly stood on one foot, squatted slightly and pushed one fist towards me with an enthusiastic "That's what I like to hear!"

So back to the mystery box from my dad.

I tore it open and inside there was:

1 (one) long sleeve black shirt with a rattlesnake on the front

1 (one) egg of Silly Putty

1 (one) Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle "Raphael" action figure

1 (one) card that read "happy birthday, tiger"


All in all I'd say the old man did well. I have no idea what he was thinking, but I rarely ever do.

Warning: Cougars on the prowl in Boston

Today is dead at work. Dead as hell. I've been here since 10:00 am and it's now 2:00 pm and I still haven't logged into the system required to do actual work work. Ironically, as I start this second post of the day, my first bit of work just came in. It won't be more than five minutes' worth though. Boredom conquers all.

About an hour ago I got up to go to lunch. Then on my way out I remembered that I had leftover pasta in the fridge and there was no need to leave the building. Fuck that. Being in here for 8 hours straight without seeing the outside makes my soul turn into a wrinkled sac of sorrow, so I went outside to walk aimlessly for more time than my boss would allow.

I strolled passed my motorcycle to make sure those ass-sucking jackals we call meter maids didn't give me some bullshit ticket having to do with a hydrant or a crosswalk or something.

I made my way over to Faneuil Hall shops to check out one of the many magazine stores that I frequent in the area.

I was thumbing through some dude magazine guaranteed to make your life better, your abs harder, your money more plentifuller, when I heard the guy behind the counter chatting with one of his regulars.

His name is Costas and his customer, a woman, had a smokey voice.

Costas: How about this guy?
Woman: Yeah he might do. Ah. But no. He's got a ring. All the good ones have rings. Hell, I'll even take a bad one at this point.

That's when I turned and splayed my fingers on my left hand...

Me: No ring here, sweetheart.
Woman: There we go! He... ooh and he's even nice to look at.

(then she looked me up and down for a second and it got strange)

Woman: You have a tool box?
Me: A tool b... well.. yeah but...
Woman: Perfect. You know I love them tall.
Costas: He's very tall.
Woman: Would you look at him? How old are you, honey?
Me: 26.

(She looks at Costas over her glasses)

Woman: Perfect. Half my age. And you don't have a problem with older women?
Me: Oh no. There's no age limit.
Woman: We should really get coffee some time.

I then noticed that she was halfway through a BOOK of scratch tickets. She had bought a ridiculous amount of them and wasn't winning a damn thing.

Woman: Well, bad thing is he's not bringing me luck. I need to win so I can take him on a nice harbor cruise.

I told her good luck and said I'll be around when she hits on one of those tickets.

Her name is Monica. Monica's a Cougar.

And there ain't nothing wrong with that.

I should specify, the first definition is pretty harsh and is not always the case, nor was it the case in this situation. Think definition #2.

Weekend Wedding

Saturday I got up early and drove down to Plainville MA for my friends Joe and Maria's wedding.



There's the lovely couple.

It was a nice bike ride despite the gray skies that loomed. The rain didn't hit us at all that day thankfully. The wedding was in Joe's parent's backyard. It was a nice scene in the New England autumn. Flowers were still in their beds and leaves falling every so often as if someone was standing just "off camera" with a fan and a handful of leaves.

The tree that Joe and Maria were married in front of started growing the day Joe was born back in 1980, according to Joe's mom. His entire family are a beautifully poetic bunch of people and I was glad to have been invited.

They called me earlier in the week and asked me to play the Recession Wedding March on guitar after the kiss.

After they were pronounced man and wife their friend Phil, who became a minister for a day so he could marry them, gave me a nod and I fired up the Les Paul and started it up as bride, groom, bridesmaids and groomsmen made their way back down the aisle... straight to the keg.

I ended up staying there that night on an old futon mattress, passing out fairly early considering we had drained four kegs and who knows how much liquor.

The next morning everyone woke up and dusted themselves off as most of the wedding guests had to fly back out to the West Coast, including the newly weds who live in Santa Cruz.

I rode home, played with some baby squirrels and then went to the infuriating Pats game.





I must say I don't really dig the idea of marriage, but I love me a good drunken wedding.

the Sharking

This has nothing to do with the Sharking, my roomate's band, but I'll start with an anecdote.

We have clients inhouse here at work. They stay from morning till night tearing up their documents with edits. They order food. We vultures get the leftovers. I just went to the bathroom and staring up at me from the urinal was a 2"x2" chunk of a brownie. The hell? 1. The cleaning lady (who I sort of have a crush on despite her being at least 15 years my senior) will have to fish that out and 2. Don't eat at a urinal, you smelly douche.

So you remember that game at the carnival where you have to aim the water gun and shoot the clown in a certain spot? I took good care of that pesky brownie.

Pesky. What a weird word.

SO. The Sharking.

Yesterday over lunch at Asian C, a sweet ass Chinese place in Hingham off Derby st that has a $10 buffet that rules, Skip, Anthony and I talked about their band's upcoming show at Harper's Ferry in Allston. They are in need of a bass player and I volunteered. Normally I wouldn't play bass for another band. It's an odd principle thing that I have, but the Sharking's bass lines are awesome and they are too good of a band to not do this. I'm excited.

Check out the sharking Here.

If you're in the area, come out next Saturday, the 30th and watch me play 4 strings instead of 6.

I have to get my Rickenbacker copy bass fixed up and sounding good.

Screaming down the highway

Weeks ago while coming home on 93 south I was almost sideswiped by an ambulance merging into my lane without looking. I screamed for a few miles after the near miss. Not out of anger, per se, but out of the sheer joy of still being alive and upright at 70 mph. After that I realized that screaming on a motorcycle is a lot of fun.

I can imagine what I must look like without the full face helmet on screaming at nothing in someone's rearview. It's quite therapeutic really.

Screaming on smaller roads and at stop lights is fun as well. People don't know what to make of it. Skip and I rode the other day and as we were crossing the Mass ave bridge, which was full of slow traffic and pedestrians I screamed "I JUST FARTED" at him as we rode next to eachother in the same lane a la "CHiPs".

Singing on the bikes is great as well. Call me crazy, but if two bearded dudes on motorcycles pulled up next to you singing the song from "An American Tale" loudly, wouldn't it brighten your day a bit?

Look out for us.

Overtime

I haven't had overtime in quite some time. Business here at the boring white guy office job has been slow as hell lately. Tonight we had a client in here tearing the hell out of their documents and the might overtime horn was blown when the end of second shift crept near. I was fine with staying because I'm not doing shit tonight and could use the extra money.

It's 1:15 am. And the work has pretty much subsided. But I'm still at work. Why? Rain. Lots of fucking rain. I have my laptop with me tonight, and didn't wear a full face helmet because it was gorgeous out when I left for work. Thanks, New England. Way to be a dick. I have to remember. Always always check the forecast. So hopefully I'll be leaving sometime soon. My eyes are getting itchy. It's time for sleep.

While I'm here I'll continue working on my website, which is going along quite well thank god. Any ideas for domain name?

I don't really think matthooker.com is right. I don't like the idea of using my name straight up. It's kind of... I don't know. It doesn't sit right with me. Actually... I think it's taken. there was a guy named Matt Hooker who ran for president in the last election. Oh well. I'm thinking something odd like www.iamhooker.com

Ideas?

Crazy Cat Lady & Pumpkin Flavored Stuff

last night the weather was too perfect and Skip and I cruised into town after work to get some subs at Newbury Pizza. Skip has a special place in his heart for Newbury Pizza. I had never been there. The only thing good about it is that it doesn't bow down to Newbury chic decor. It's an ugly little place that has those cheesy white letter rearrangeable peg board menus. The subs were pretty gross. Skip's diet still makes me weep. The "meat" on his steak & cheese looked like miniature elephant knees with yellow goo all over them. Wrinkly little folds of grey gristle. Stop the madness.

Anyways... after that we stopped by the Pino Bros tattoo shop to hang out for a bit. Ken, their head artist, showed me a new bass he bought, we shot the shit with everyone...etc. One of the guys asked us about our bikes. He, and nearly everyone I talk to these days, wants to get a bike.

We walked him around the corner so he could check out the bikes. That's when the crazy cat lady bolted from her porch and implored us to do something about her cat which was in a tree.

At first I thought she was Spanish, but after a few minutes of her screaming at the cat in her native tongue, I couldn't tell where the hell she was from. I just knew that the way she kept whining the cats name "AAAAANYA... AAAAAAAAAAHYNA?" over. and fucking over. and OVER again was giving me heartburn. I blurted "ALRIGHT... give me a minute and stop saying the cat's name" as I stood on one of her kitchen chairs reaching for the furry bastard.

We finally got her up on a ladder which was procured from the shop. She yanked the cat by it's tail like she was pull starting a lawn mower. Then she gripped it by the front legs as she waddled down the ladder.

It was heroic.


PUMPKIN

Anyone else dig pumpkin flavored stuff? Ice cream, beer, bread? It's starting to be in season now. One of the sweet things about Autumn.



Smuttynose ale makes a pretty good Pumpkin Ale. They even have a cute little seal on their labels if you're into cute little seals.





Shipyard Brewery makes a damn good one. At least to my novice taste buds.

That's all I've tried thusfar. I need to find more.

On a side note, any other blog people have to silence the voice saying "this post sucks" before hitting "Submit"?

Hotel Edwards

This weekend started off nice and calm. Everyone was out at a show when I got home. Anthony came home soon after I got home and he just read comics on the couch until he went to bed at around 1. I painted until bed, which was around 1:30.

Saturday began the hotel Edwards saga. We gave the name Hotel Edwards to our house because last year around the holidays we housed a different friend of ours every other week. Everyone moved away last year and when it came time to come back to the South Shore for xmas, they crashed with us.

That was fine. It was fun. Seeing friends who had moved away, getting to catch up, etc.

This weekend was a little weird.

Two dudes from NY have been recording at the studio since Saturday morning. They may still be there when I get back home tonight. I'm not sure.

Anyone who's been around a recording studio knows that recording is just another excuse to consume enough alcohol to kill a bull elephant. These two are no exception.

One's a Billy Zane lookalike called "Dingo" by his friends. The other is a rusty-haired Englishman named Nick, who I dubbed "Nigel". After recording all day they unwinded by playing pool later in the evening. Everyone in the house was in on it. Pool is a good time. Unfortunately when it came time for sleep, and that time hit me hard and early, the pool playing's end was nowhere in sight. And my room is next to the pool room. And my door barely even stays shut.

One by one everyone in the house began to go upstairs to bed. I had tried in vain to sleep. Earplugs were no help. With everyone in the house gone, they still didn't show any signs of stopping. I finally gave them shit and they passed out after one last game.

In four days we'll have housed seven different people at hotel Edwards. I'm glad we have the ability to do so, since it helps all parties involved quite a bit. I think in some cases I'm just too neurotic to relax and go about my business. I tend to feel not at home in my own home. Walking on eggshells. Who knows. Maybe it was lack of sleep. I'm thinking I'm too sensitive with shit like this. I get kept up by noise and for a day or so after I start to get agoraphobic. Doomsday looms. I've been like that since I was a kid.

Weak.

The weekend was otherwise great though. Baybeh's birthday party, grilling of swordfish kabobs. Pumpkin beer. A motorcycle ride to Mashpee and back to see the grandparents.

Shit I almost forgot, some good news: I finished two paintings over the weekend. Two portraits painted to look like old deguerreotypes of an odd looking couple from the 19th century which are housed in beautiful victorian brass oval frames I recently bought. I have a few new pieces to put online. Look out for those soon.

Goodbye, Savage

Today I finally sold my first bike, the Suzuki Savage. Or as many knew it the "purple dragon"

I had a message from Don, the old ex-harley state trooper who lives two blocks down my street who I recently met, when I woke up today. I started breakfast and just before eating went into the other room to grab my phone. There was already another message. The old coot is impatient in his retired days.

I called him back and he drove his huge white pickup truck up to the house. He handed me some Franklins and I had to walk the bike down to his house. Thankfully I sold it to a guy who lives on my street. I would have had to lift the thing into a truck to be shipped somewhere else otherwise.

I showed Don the studio and the saloon and he walked through amazed, telling me about how the barn used to be. "There used to be a big ass hole in the floor here... that's where the corvette was lowered into the basement."

We hung out for a few and shot the shit and I suggested we ride some time before the season is over. He said he'd call his buddies. Charlie, Grasshopper, Benny.... Charlie's in Florida chasing girls in their 20's. He likes them young. Don got my email address from me and while pulling out of the driveway he stuck his head out and goes "I'll send you some nude shots of the last girl Charlie got for himself... Enjoy"

So so far it's a good morning. Sold my old bike, possibly gonna get some nude pics of a girl in Florida that some old retired biker is nailing. Hmmm. I'll click with caution.

Tattoo you

Last night I walked out of work at 4:45, drove through enraging traffic on the bike (think straddling a household radiator with a couple grip exercise grip thingies in your hands), went home and threw together some red beans and rice which I devoured in five minutes only to drive back up the street to the Red Cross in Quincy for CPR training.

The teacher was late, had a weird limp, and looked like one of those good luck troll dolls that bingo women line up on their tables.

The videos were hilarious. A whiney woman named Connie (perfect whiney name) and a strapping black dude named... I forget walked you through cheesey enacted injury scenarios. Then we had to recreate them step by step. Actually act out.

The kid I got partnered up with was Scott, a cross eyed civil engineer who looked like he dressed himself from an LL Bean catalog from 1984. Scott had to find the spot to deliver "back blows" when I pretended to choke. Then the poor dude had to perform mock Heimlich on me. When it came time to switch I didn't bother touching him. I gave my mother the Heimlich when I was about 13 or so. It was out of some bad t.v. show. The food even flew across the room. I was all set finding Scott's navel and performing "abdominal thrusts" on him.

We used dummies and they were creepy as hell. Think Michael Myer's mask but with a slight Mona Lisa grin. Oh and they had nipples which I thought appropriate to tweak while I stared at Scott.

After acting out scenarios on the dummies "Buddy you alright?... SCOTT CALL 911!!" in my best Charlton Heston overracting voice for a couple hours, I got my little card.

This is the final class needed for my tattoo apprenticeship at Pino Bros in Cambridge.

In other news I finally got a (free) copy of Dreamweaver on my mac and today I brought it and... uh.. season2dvdsofLost... with me to my boring white guy office job. SO. Hopefully within a month or so I'll have a full fledged website for my art, music, dick and fart jokes, underwear modeling... etc.

Stay tuned.

Bike trade

Yesterday I had a post-bday day off. I figured, what the hell, take the Tuesday off. It was Dahlia's 1st birthday yesterday. If there was a chance I could have seen her, I was going to take it. I didn't, but I hung out with her dad at Bertucci's for a while.

So I slept in a bit. Around 10:00 am Skip knocks on my door and says there's a guy out front who's interested in buying my old bike.

I didn't get too ruthless on my birthday, (That was Sunday night at kareoke. Sorry for peeing on your car, Stina) but I wasn't in the mood to talk to anyone about bike selling business while standing in my boxers. I told him to get the dude's number.

I got out of bed after a few minutes after realizing it was pretty dumb of me to 1. try to sell a bike that's been sitting in my yard for months and not put a for sale sign on it and 2. wave the first interested person away the minute they ask about it.

So I called the number.

The dude's name? Don King. Awesome.

So he lives on our street. Literally about a hundred yards away. Been there since the 1950's. He tells me he has a mini chopper he might want to trade me for my LS650. Skip and I were going to walk down, but I said we had to drive the bikes. As close as it was, this dude is our best bet for a bike gang leader. He's a retired motorcycle state trooper (Skip: "Oh really? Cool." Don: "Nah that's not cool. I hate cops") who took his Harley when he retired and painted it white.

We drove down the block and parked in his driveway. He came around front and we talked for a good 40 minutes just shooting the shit with this grizzled old road dog. He's the nicest guy you'll ever meet. He told us all the old dirt about the house we live in now. The dude who now drives Acela trains for a living and his hot French wife running around nude with no curtains. Yule Brenner rehearsing in our barn for theater productions around the South shore. The dude who kept corvettes and motorcycles in the basement.

It's cool knowing we're not the only guys on the street with bikes.

We checked out his mini chopper and he finally came around like a kid with the best toy on the block who wants someone to appreciate it as much as he does. We all stared at the chopper for a few minutes and then Don shot me a quick look....

"You wanna have a seat?"
"Yeah, dude"
"You wanna drive it?"
"I'm not gonna pass that up"

So here she is. 100cc's of pure power. It sounds like a weed whacker with wheels.



Here's to you, Don.

NYC

"GEEEH???"

NYC was, as you may expect, a good time.

We had a hell of a time getting there in the morning. We left the house about 8:30 or so. The ten minute walk to the subway, the wait for the train... no big deal. We get one stop up and the conductor announces that five the subway stops in downtown Boston are closed because of some electrical problem. Shuttle bus service, no big deal. We only have like five stops to go any ways.

Then we sit in between stops and wait another 10 minutes. Our bus is at 10:00 am. It's about 9:05 and there's no sign of moving.

So when we finally get to the next station we hop off to get a cab. No cabs at the cab stand. I call one. There are like four companys in Quincy that are all quick and decent. We wait. 9:15. 9:25.

Finally a cab comes. Traffic on the highway. I see it before we get on. Take back streets. Going ways the cab driver had never seen. I tell him to pull over and then we sprint 12 blocks to the train. Well, my in-shape brother does. I clonk along in cowboy boots with burning lungs.

We made it.

The movie is the Pink Panther with Steve Martin. I want something really bad to happen to Steve Martin.

We walk around aimlessly in Manhattan for hours. Get food. Check the city out. Hit some random art galleries.

Got a drink at my buddy's bar Phebe's on Bowery. Meet up with him and his brother. Get free dinner and drinks. Jameson and Guinness on repeat.

We meet some girls I'm friends with, Jess and Kirsten. Head over to the Maritime Hotel for some incredible sushi. Giant Sapporo's.

Then out bar hopping. We drop our stuff off at Jess' beautiful apartment in Chelsea. My brother and I are fading fast. Beer is switched out for whiskey drinks at this point. Andy Milonakis is drinking at the bar with us. Odd looking man child.

The next day we hit up Brooklyn. The Weiss McCaide gallery. I was going to buy a piece from the www.rrobots.com exhibit, but I would have had to get it shipped a month from now and the girl working there was a total douche for some reason.

We strolled through Brooklyn after I saw a sign for Indian Larry's garage. We couldn't find the place unfortunately. I would have loved to check it out. RIP Larry.

Back to Chelsea to pre-game with the girls. We headed up to Jess' roofdeck for some amazing views of Manhattan. Sparks and Bud to start off. Terrible alcoholic jetfuel. Then we barhopped as it should be done. Split up from the girls so they could enjoy the company of the English boys they were making out with without having two ogres sitting in the booth with them.

Met up with my old roomate Neil, builder of the amazing Mu Amplifiers. Ended up on some other roof deck party. Saw some girl piss all over herself. Went back to the apartment after my brother and I had a drunken pullup contest on some shaking awning outside some dive bar. Idiots. Passed out quickly.

Sunday we decided to come home instead of our original plan of coming home Monday morning. Glad we did that.

That's about it. Nothing too crazy to tell. No real deal tourist stops or anything. Just a couple dudes hanging out and getting bent with some friends.

Here are the few photos I took. Enjoy.

Satan, Lucifer, Old Black Scratch, Television

Pick a name. Any name.

Before I moved to my current place, the sprawling Edwards compound, I lived in Allston with a few friends. It was towards the end of my stay in Allston that I really got serious about my anti-TV stance.

It started early. I'd watch Dr. Who and WKRP with my dad in the early 80's. Then cartoons took over. Then Night Court happened.

I've always been a pretty big fan of TV. I have tons of useless TV knowledge taking up space in my memory banks. I know characters, actors, episode minutia, producers, blah blah.

In Allston I was completely turned off to TV. For a while we had every channel available through comcast. The bill was crazy. Everything. And Tivo. The mighty Tivo. If I wanted, I could watch something different on TV every single hour that I wasn't at work.

To some people that sounds great. To me it sounds like hell.

I think it's probably because I sit in front of a computer for a third of my day. I can't justify rushing home just to plorp down in front of another screen. Silently gawking at moving lights like an ape.

I had a good run for a while. A good run where I could honestly say "I don't remember the last time I watched TV"

But all that changes when your roomates buy DVD sets of entire seasons of shows.

Deadwood. Damn you. I watched the entire second season.

LOST. Please god no. Enough. Last night I stayed up after my roomates went to bed and watched another full episode by myself.

I need to purge myself of my TV sins.

I need to get a plaque to hang above the TV that reads: Sitting on the couch watching TV is no way to spend time if you're constantly bitching about where you're at in life.

NYC this weekend

My brother has a cool bday. New Years Eve. I used to say to him "you're lucky your bday is on NYE. Everyone in the country is aware of that day. It's not just another day. A random day. Like my birthday September 11th."

So everyone is partying on his birthday, and instead of my birthday being an anonymous day tucked in between summer and fall like it used to be, it's now the anniversary of the worst American tragedy since Pearl Harbor. (The anniversary of that tragedy is the date of my drummer's bday).

Anyways, over drinks in Montreal for my brother's 21st bday, we slurred that we should go to NYC some time. He's never been and I haven't been in over a year.

So we're finally going for my birthday.

We just got our bus tickets yesterday.

I have started checking out galleries I might want to hit up. Here's a cool one I found on the Juxtapoz website....

www.mccaigwelles.com

which is featuring this guy's stuff.

www.rrobots.com

This guy's stuff is in Brooklyn and the prices range from $40 to $2000. My kind of art show. The normal guy off the street might actually be able to leave with an original piece of art.

I've hard artists in Boston ask me to be part of shows (that never get set up anyway) and they've said "I want to keep the prices down. Nothing too exttravagant, maybe around $2000 per piece"

HA!

I'm extremely lucky to get $250 for a painting. If I ever got $2000 for a piece I'd do a standing backflip.

Anyways, I'm excited about my NYC trip. No plans, no place to stay, no nothing.

Look out for us down there in Manhattan.

Here's us like two years ago...

Terrible jobs

Yesterday after going to see Dahlia, the cutest child on earth, Jenny and I grabbed some DQ. While sitting out by the Admiral eating our ice cream we started talking about the shitty jobs we've had in the past. I just thought about how shitty it'd be to work at the tiny little DQ. Always a long line, lots of angry fatties, lots of bratty children, hot, stuffy ... etc.

I'm a rare breed. At 25 years old (26 this coming Monday) I've only had three jobs.

CVS
Boston Market
My current boring white guy office job.

CVS wasn't so bad. Though the location I worked at was equidistant to two old folks homes, so you'd get tracheotomy man, who'd bark orders at you through his gurgling throat hole. It petrified me to the point where I couldn't move. Him, and Franky the womanizing retarded guy not wanting to leave, and the 6'7" dude with the horned owl eyebrows who'd buy the HUGEST package of adult diapers and get pissed if you asked if he wanted a bag. "I don't give a rat's ass who sees."

I quit CVS because I only got like $20 a week because the staff was so bloated and I wouldn't get any hours.

Soon after that I worked at Boston Market.

That place was ridiculous. Me and like five or six of my scumbag friends all worked there along with a gaggle of Haitian dudes and the fat white manager.

The Haitian guys would blast jammin 94.5 in the kitchen. This was in the height of K-Ci & Jo Jo's hit "All My Life" and Puff Daddy was just getting really big. During down time I'd go back there and have dance parties with them. Then someone would inevitably throw a chunk of ham at someone and then the dishwasher hose would get put to use and the fun would end. What a scene. Black kids and white kids dousing eachother with high-pressure water cannons. It looked like Washington DC in 1963, but there was love in that room, dammit. I miss those guys.

I never did anything bad to the food. Never on purpose.

I was at the cutting station one afternoon and a guy asked for a ham dinner. I bent down to grab the ham from the ham drawer with my inadequate tongs. The huge ham slab, fresh from the kitchen and weighing in at about 16 pounds fell to the floor with a thud that sounded like a squash racquet on a wet asscheek. My eyes darted up to see the guy's reaction. He was clueless. He got his ham. Oops.

One night a kid got put on dishwashing who really really didn't want to be on dishwashing. After a few busy hours while I was manning the register, dishwasher man came out and whispered "don't eat the cornbread." He hocked a few extra ingredients into the mix before it was baked. It was with a heavy heart that I handed the little white bags to countless soccer moms that night.

There are a million episodes to speak of, but to keep it short I'll talk about the first one that comes to mind.

Charles, one of the Haitian kids went missing from the back room for a while. He had left to take the trash out and should have been back minutes later.

I finally walked out back to find him covered from fingers to elbows in white dust.

"Charles what the hell happened?"

"Come outside, whiteboy. It's fun" he said in his thick lazy creole accent.

He found a huge stash of 6 foot fluorescent bulbs that he was swinging like swords and smashing all over the dumpster, completely unaware of the poisonous dust all over his person.

Frank Smith

Got out of work and rode over to TT's in Cambridge last night to see the band Frank Smith.

Frank Smith is not a dude. It's just a band name. No one in the band has either name in their name. They are sort of country-ish. The band is made up of some of the best musicians I know, and all are in different bands as well as Frank Smith. Those bands being Lot Six, Eyes Like Knives, Beat Awfuls and others I'm forgetting. There are too many to name. I once described them as the country version of Wu-Tang.

I played lap steel on their last album. I was supposed to be in the band, but never really took the time to get really good at the lap steel. They have since gotten a pedal steel player and he is incredible. Very cool.

They did a couple covers, the Stooges "I Wanna Be Your Dog" and Springsteen's "I'm on Fire"

They jokingly dedicated the latter to me. When it came time for the line "At night I wake up with the sheets soaking wet And a freight train running through the Middle of my head" Aaron, their singer, forgot the line and they just looped the verse, staring at eachother giggling... Aaron mumbled something about a bed and then shook his head and backed off the microphone. The crowd started chuckling.

I jumped up to sing the line and blurted "sometimes I wake up in the middle of the bed w... AW FUCK!!"

The whole room was laughing. It was funny as hell.

They seem to play between Boston and NYC every other day. Keep an eye out for them. They are a great great band, and that's coming from a guy who hates bands.