Vampire Santa's coming to town

What's that I hear? Is it the sound of Vampire Santa dragging his sorry sackful of eggnog around once again for the holiday season?

You betcha!

And as the sole purveyer of Vampire Santa's Eggnog, I have only one wish for you: That you get a bottle. But we'll see how good and/or bad you are in the next few weeks.

Big ups to Cricket Press for the art collab!

Las Musicas de los Rock

Today's title was inspired by an album by Pussy Galore, diligently based on a well-teased series of Spanish compilation albums. I'm pretending I knew all that, by the way, when in fact, I had a vague recollection, and sussed out details on La Internet, just now.

It's great to be an information junkie. How could there be a better time to be alive? Though it's probably better when it's your job or when you don't have anything else to do.

And you know who's job it is? Librarians. I discovered an interesting thing in the course of working on my WRFL oral history project: Punk rockers are quietly taking over the library. Did anybody notice?

There's a lot more tattoos in LIS than I imagine there were 20 years ago. It seems perfect really; despite some misunderstood trouble-making ne'er-do-well stereotype, many of the punky people I've known over the years we in fact quite introverted — when not located in or near the slam pit in front of some high-octane live band like Active Ingredients.

And as the world of zines and other underground literature gave way to the much much bigger world of the Web, it's probably no surprise that these folks got pulled in, finally finding more kindred spirits than the couple of dozen (maybe) that they'd found in their hometowns.

Which brings us to the New Wave of LIS people. Just as punk gave way to new wave in music (because the musicians couldn't help but get better on their instruments, despite not really wanting to), maybe that idle fascination turned into a career for some.

This is a good thing. The library is one of the last great institutions in this country, somehow not yet sponsored by Microsoft or General Mills. It makes good sense and is comforting that the people running the show be enormous iconoclasts, because maybe we stand a better chance of not losing the library concept, in their hands.

So be extra nice to librarians. Who knows what tattoos are lurking underneath those practical, mildly conservative workclothes?

By the way, you know who is a terrible example of a good librarian? This lady.

Problem-solving through tequila!

photo.jpg
Originally uploaded by mrtoastey

I've got no problem that can't be alleviated by sitting outside and drinking high-grade tequila!

With the possible exception of ensuing poverty due to an increased dependence on high-grade tequila.

The Loudon Buffet

The Loudon Buffet
Originally uploaded by mrtoastey

Loudon Buffet — Loudon Square, if you want to split hairs — stands tall, a relic of a fading restaurant time. Beets, macaroni salads, hominy, liver, and dozens of other things. When you
walk in the door, somebody gets your attention from across the room to see what you want to drink. I usually have unsweetened tea. After I fill my plate (for the 1st round), there's my tea, waiting for me at the table. I like that.

Some people think Loudon Square is dirty. I think it's just not buffed to plastic perfection like most of the places that have replaced this type of eatery over time. In the name of progress, apparently.

Too bad for progress.

I don't know what will fill the void on that inevitable day when — hopefully many years from now — Loudon Square closes. I don't think there's anything left that fits the bill. I don't know where I'll go.

Anyway, to plagiarize some bar review I once read:

Loudon Square is amazing, a nearly-forgotten classic — but please don't go — you'll just ruin it for the rest of us.

Sworn

Right now: my life, my mission, my focus: The Lexington School

I've been working with my fine TLS folks for months and months on the school's 50th Anniversary. It has been a cast of literally thousands. Okay, many hundreds, anyway…

There's been photography, graphic design, party planning, and a myriad of coordination — all the things that I love to do.

The event itself is a wrap, but work continues feverishly on the mammoth 50th anniversary edition of the school magazine. Normally, 24 pages, maybe 36 sometimes — this one is over a hundred pages.

So what I'm needing to say, pretty much without exception or intended offense: Don't call, don't write. I am trying to keep my head above water.

Fortunately, there's deadmau5 and Tasty Noodles.

… and on the 8th day, God sipped some Tequila

After years and years of shuddering, I'm starting to develop a mad fondness for tequila.

I think I'm not alone in having misunderstood what might rightly be called Mexican champagne — or bourbon, for that matter. (here's an explanation of why).

It's a complicated landscape: there's highland and lowland agave, and then at least three grades: blanco, reposado, and añejo. My taste — and more signicantly, my curiosity — was wetted by a typically-delightful Esquire article evangelizing tequila recently. (Which is what Esquire does best, by the way — a frequently-captivating magazine, to which I am a proud subscriber for years)

Good tequila, it turns out, is a sipping beverage. Who knew? I think that's part of the problem, the whole tequila shots, lime, salt, etc. thing — it's an undeniable mythos, and it would be interesting to research where it came from. (Some of that mentality, not unlike other boozes, turns out to be designed to soften the bite of lower-quality stuff)

The top-shelf stuff — which ain't cheap — is something else entirely. You like bourbon? Good bourbon? You could like tequila. It's as simple as that.

I'm still looking for the right balance of price and delight. The Esquire article provides some very helpful insight into the nature of the beverage, and some places to start.

So far, I strongly like Jose Cuervo Tradicional reposado and I love Herradura añejo. I've followed my nearly-drained bottle of the latter with some Milagro añejo, but I'm less than thrilled with that. Tequilas are so different from one another it turns out!

I'm still resistant to crossing the $50 mark — and reaching for the Gran Centenario or more likely this Chinaco bottle — but it's probably only a matter of time; I've found that sitting at night in the quiet autumnal Campsie backyard, under the stars, with about 3 oz. of quality tequila? Almost pricelessly peaceful.

Season succulents

Season succulents
Originally uploaded by mrtoastey

I've always had a great love for succulent plants. I think it's
because they sort of look alien.

I've kept them for years, but feel like I've waxed and waned on my
cultivation ability.

Anyway it's been a great year. I did a lot of connecting and research
trying to improve my skills — and the payoff was some very vigorous
jade plants!

What I learned: drainage, drainage, drainage. Thing number 2: filtered
light.

And a 3rd thing: pruning. It's something I've never liked doing, but
it has made my plants fierce.

I've been cleaning up the jade kingdom for moving inside for the cold
months, and today's best thing: all of the clippings — which I've
been stacking on the kitchen counter — I got to give them away to my
March Madness Marching Band dearies!

It fills my heart with joy that: a) so many were interested in a
clipping and b) I figured out how not to discard pieces of the plants
that give me such delight.

Did I mention that it was the most beautiful Nocember day?

(pictured: thriving clippings that I brought all the way back from the
Shochat's Berkeley CA yard. Thanks, Ashley!)

Autumn in the Bluegrass

Miss Olive
Originally uploaded by mrtoastey

Suffice it to say: Autumn in the bluegrass is beautiful. Sure — it's getting cold, and I'm not crazy about winter but in some way, the changing leaves and musky perfumed bluster — and the clatter — are reassuring sentinels of the seasons' cycle. I like the smell, and feel and look of autumn.

Last night, sat in the back yard with an old friend and we wondered about some things, through the delirious mediums of cigarette smoke, bourbon and ice, in hefty reassuring big-bottomed glasses. We wondered about friendship and what happens to it over time. Sometimes it doesn't work out, but there's not always a dramatic turning point. one of the best encapsulations of this is Springsteen's over-played but spot-on "Glory Days."

Aging (gerund?) friendships is a tricky business; I'm occasionally irked and exhausted by old friends — no matter how dear — who can't seem to stop rehashing times gone by. It's not that I don't, I am fully aware,* there's just so much going on right in front of our noses, let's talk about that, ok?

Rachel is a good example, and that's what we talked about last night. We both have the incredible frame of WRFL: a formative, unforgettable experience for her, for me, and for many of us 'back then."

Twenty years ago, our friendship was of mild consequence, to be candid — pleasant but not really intrinsic. Neither of us had too much trouble losing touch in the intervening years. Twenty years later, our friendship has more appeal to the both of us. And some of that comes from a mutual dislike of quote-unquote "Glory Days" talk.

We tried to understand how it works and how holding onto old friendship can be a slippery business: to appreciate the past, to let go of demons, to treasure one's personal experiences — and shared experiences with those loved ones, that we're so lucky to have had — and yet still see the delight and wonder that is now and today. In a myriad of forms and instances that I must certainly miss over and over. And I just can't dwell on those missed — then or now. I can only revel in the instances that I do get.

*Finally, there's a terrific irony here that I don't want to ignore: In spite of all this heady talk, I've been the director of an oral history project for over two years about the beginnings of WRFL. How could anybody be more "Glory Days" than me, then?

Maybe in some uncanny way, I've gotten to be the guy who gives people the opportunity to recollect. I've always liked that word, and it's taken on much greater meaning since embarking on this project. It's much more evocative to me than its cousin to remember. I've enabled people to recollect their memories of those wonderful, turbulent, coming-of-age days. Meanwhile, I've gotten to actually recollect those people as living breathing souls. And selfishly, I get to see how those people fit into my life and world — if in fact they even do. Or I into theirs.

It's tempting to say something like "it's cool to see how people turned out," but I think that's a disservice to the Present. If you're still alive, you're not done, you ain't baked. The only people that I would feel comfortable talking about how they "turned out" would be dead people.

In the meantime — Life — we're all works in progress. The WRFL project has afforded me the treasured opportunity of checking in on people, armed with the comforting context of our shared past at WRFL. But my greatest delight always comes from talking to these old (one might even say "former") friends about something — anything — that we've never talked about before.

"Yesterday is history. Tomorrow is a mystery. And today? Today is a gift. That's why we call it the present.”

Babatunde Olatunji

Biz lex portrait

Biz lex portrait
Originally uploaded by mrtoastey

Scouting for a WEG portrait for bizlex. Probly need to keep looking.

What Do Roses Smell Like Again?

I feel so out of touch with blogging, and I guess I have myself to blame, though it's easy to blame Facebook. Or Facecrackbook, as my pal AliThinks says. Taking a look at her blog this morning is actually what has inspired this post.

I've been "busy" for so long now that it's probably well past sounding important and gone to just being annoying to anybody who hears it from me. What is this "busy" thing all about? I've twice seen this delightful programmer/lecturer named Phillip Kerman who decries "being busy" as a form of disorganization. I don't disagree, and my office is currently a testament to complete chaos.

I feel like I work for whoever yells the loudest, and I would really like to get out of that. But I'm not currently wired that way. I keep trying to check all the things off the list which has never worked to my knowledge. I don't know how to be empowered by the list and yet not be a slave to the list. Brother Chris has some arcane approach, something about "put big things on the list. and then at the end of the day, throw away the list. start again tomorrow with a new list."

Something like that. It's pretty arcane to me.

Lately, I've done so much cool stuff, though. I would like to return to my once-upon-a-time modus operandi of using my blog as a kind of personal scrapbook.

Right now, I'm trying to finish a blur of work projects, but what I really want to be doing is culling and sorting my Burning Man photos — which are over three months old. Bah. They're coming soon.

Hang on, Gypsy Queen. Your photos are coming. And my memories.

I had a recent thing happen that caused my blogpride to swell, though. I did this Zombie Photobooth thing again this year — once for SWAvm, and then again for the Beaux Arts Fall Ball — to great delight, even my own. (actually, technically, I did it three times but due to some miscommunication, the original gig — at 3rd Street Stuff for Thriller — was kind of a bust. But I will post the few photos that I shot)

It's a kind of tricky digital setup and as I prepared and made sure that I understood WTF I was doing, I did a google search to find a tutorial on "tethering" (shooting directly from camera to computer), and I found … a link to my blog. Because, shockingly, I had actually written a well-notated blogpost on how I did it last time. It was like Past Mick leaving a breadcrumb trail for Future Mick.

Anyway, fuck Facebook, for reducing my blogging to one or two sentence bursts that are written in a creepy 3rd-person voice. (and were I ON Facebook right now?* I would have typed "fvck" instead of "fuck" because of a fear of reprisal from the Faceless Facebook management)

Big love to blogging. I think I can have my coffee now.

*Note to those of you reading this on Facebook though the atrocious "Notes" feed: I didn't write this on Facebook. I'm wrote this on my BLOG. It's called Mingle Freely. Feel free to visit it, as I worked hard on it for years… until Facebook distracted me with its irresistible pointlessness. Probably, like me, you have other things that you could do, but are weedling away the hours on this infernal timesuck. I wish I could quit it.

Beaux Arts Halloween Fall Ball at Busters - Zombie Photobooth

Beaux Arts Halloween Fall Ball at Busters - Zombie Photobooth
Originally uploaded by mrtoastey

A Mad, mad, mad, mad Halloween weekend that made Lexington genuinely seem like the center of the universe.

Three times I set up the Zombie Photobooth and captured the delight and revelry.

This is the set from Beaux Arts Fall Ball for Halloween at Busters, featuring not one but TWO performances by my own March Madness Marching Band and the wildly-anticipated Lexington return of Man Man.

SWAvm rehearsal dinner at Busters

SWAvm rehearsal dinner at Busters
Originally uploaded by mrtoastey

Just wonderful, wonderful fun with the SWAvm Wedding festivities, including one-for-the-books Halloween party at Buster's, including performances by my own March Madness Marching Band and Man Man.

Plus, I did Zombie Photobooth, both for SWAvm and also for Halloween kicks and it was a wild success.

Here's one of two Zombie Photobooth photosets.

Hairmasters in Eastland

Hairmasters in Eastland
Originally uploaded by mrtoastey

Can I just say "wow?"

Oral History Association

Oral History Association
Originally uploaded by mrtoastey

Os Mutantes enchants WRFL Boomslang Festival

Os Mutantes enchants WRFL Boomslang Festival
Originally uploaded by mrtoastey

Sqecial's Boomslang lighting at Busters

Sqecial's Boomslang lighting at Busters
Originally uploaded by mrtoastey

are you ready for www.boomslangfest.com ? Pictured: Sqecial Media's
divine lighting install graces the main stage, where — very soon —
amazing music will happen, including performances by Faust, Mission of
Burma, and Os Mutantes! Plus jillions more!

My gig at Burning Man: Makin' PSAs for the Man.

Hey, wow! It turns out that my buddy and sort-of Burning Manager Jkanizzle from Black Rock City 2009 made this video that shows exactly what I was doing for BMIR radio this year! Some of my fave memories, both the job and the people I met through the job!

Watch BMIR PSA Tutorial in Educational & How-To | View More Free Videos Online at Veoh.com