10.21.04
CMJ.  Times like this I wish I had a camera.  First night I went to the Secretly Canadian showcase at a place called "The Coral Room."   The place was beautiful, with coral textured walls and shining blue aquariums throughout, including a large aquarium behind the bar, maybe ten feet high, thirty feet long, and housing a coral reef and sundry tropical fishes.   Strangely, the beautiful undersea world was disrupted every thirty minutes or so by the appearance of a mermaid.  Yes, a woman in a mermaid outfit would loll about as one of the fish.  It was surreal.  Not the tropical scene with the mythological creature, but the larger scene of standing in a bar in New York City where they actually dress up some woman as a mermaid and drop her into a fish tank for the mild, momentary amusement of bar patrons waiting to hear the next band.
     I ran into Sufjan Stevens there and told him I saw his show in San Diego a few months ago.  He seemed genuinely shocked that someone recognized him from some distant show.  The surrealness continued when Brother Danielson played his genre-defying music from inside a big velvet tree.  I said hi to Damien Jurado after he played and hoped he would cheer up someday.
     One of the best things about CMJ is that there are so many people from all over the country in town for it.  Just about every time you get on a subway train anywhere in the city, there are obvious CMJ kids there, and you can just start talking about what shows you've been to and what shows you're going to.
    I stayed in the East Village at the pad of UCSD writing prof Eileen Myles, which is being kept up by recent graduate Corrine Fitzpatrick.  Both of them are very cool.  I remember walking back through the East Village at 2am one night and it might as well have been 2 pm.  Droves of people and everything open, not just the late night bars.  I thought about how cool NYC is and how I should move there, but then I found myself in Times Square one night, so my romanticized view of the city was well-tempered, because that place sucks.  All smelly, full of obnoxious commercial lights and signs, people be yelling at each other.
     Got back to Eileen's around 3am, woke up at 5:30am cuz I had to go get in line for CONAN tickets!  Got a ticket at 9, went back, crashed for a bit, then goofed off till the show.  Tracy Morgan is so funny.  I love that guy.  Jimmy Eat World played, which was cool.  Afterwards, dashed to the spacey Lanterna show.
     "No one is listening...any...waaaaay."  Saw The New Amsterdams and they played "Idaho," which made me happy.  Stuck around for the Saves the Day acoustic.  They played a lot of old stuff, which was cool, but everyone was singing along, which was kind of depressing.
     Went by the Guggenheim.  Frank Gehry's architecture is great of course, but they had some crazy "Aztec Empire" exhibit, and they were charging $18, and there was a line around the block.  I walked on by..  Went by the Whitney, saw Jennifer Pastor's "The Perfect Ride" piece, some great Pop Art, Romare Bearden, as well as some stuff by Edward Hopper.  Actually ran into fellow UCSD grad student Rachel Beth in front of a Warhol.  Went back to CMJ to catch Saul Williams on the day stage.  Good stuff .
     Caught The Six Parts Seven show.  As I was going into the venue for the Sufjan show, there was a kid who was overwhelmingly bummed because they weren't letting people under 21 into the show.  He had traveled from far and this was the show he was at CMJ to see.  I felt so bad for him.  When I got in I met a kid who was 19 and apparently he had just talked his way in.  He said he pleaded with the guy at the door and declared that he would be invisible!  Ha ha!
     "Why pluck one string WHEN YOU CAN STRUM THE GUITAR!"  Saturday saw Mewithoutyou at the Knitting Factory.  Ran into the drummer and somehow it came up that my cartoon was playing at the film fest and he said they were thinking about having some animation for their upcoming video.  Hopefully they'll contact me.  That would be cool, huh.  Being able to pay rent would be so awesome!
     Stoked to get back to SoCal and go surfing only to find it was raining in San Diego for the first time in six months, and you can't go surfing during rain or after it rains because of the heightened bacteria levels.  You know, it's not a matter of one or the other, businesses or the environment, as the government, which is purchased by the businesses, would have you believe.  We can build a strong business economy AND protect the environment, which belongs to everyone.  Those of us who care are insignificant, though, and Walmart is going to win every time.  Then again, the Red Sox just beat the Yankees.
rc Oct.20     

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