Not the bookstore.

Apropos of nothing, the above photograph. Taken adjacent to the very fine Idle Time bookshop on 18th Street. Just don't push that button and ask for The Transmigration of Timothy Archer by Philip K. Dick. Just don't.

So I picked up a City Paper on Friday and discovered, much to my joy and horror, that OM will be playing this Tuesday at the Rock & Roll Hotel, with Jack Rose and Grails... All told, it would be an evening of righteous heavy psychedelia and potent mind-music, and just what this Intangibloid needs, to blow out the pipes after a long string of deadlines at work; deadlines which continue through this week. And there's the rub.

The body is older than it used to be. The prospect of going to a "show" on a Tuesday night has almost become a moral dilemma. It never used to be a moral dilemma, back when the infinite energy of YOUTH could handle such a thing with ease: going to work the next day with a faded hand-stamp and ears ringing, after only three hours' sleep, but having BEEN THERE... Seems like it used to be much easier.

Complicating matters is the fact that the R&R Hotel is located in the swiftly "revitalizing" H Street Corridor in Northeast DC. Not the easiest place to get to, in terms of Metro or bus. I used to walk through that area during lunch-breaks when I worked near Union Station, and the stink of potential danger was there. But I understand much has changed in the past 3 years. Of course, with Columbia Heights and much of Ward 1 in the news lately for gang-related bad craziness, I'm suddenly not the one to judge other neighborhoods. So be it.

Anybody been to this venue? Are they uptight about folks bringing cameras in there? OM is not likely to breeze through town again for a long while, so I'm tempted to git down there and shoot these suckers while they're here. I'd report back with slobbery glee, no doubt.

Stay tuned.

Triple Gipper

Ghosts of war-hawks past adorn an alley facing the Adams Morgan stretch of 18th Street. It's just the latest in a seemingly endless series of detail shots from the streets of DC turned sepia, black & white, or simply grainy and abused beyond recognition. It seems the thing to do, when skies are overcast. Why bother to color-correct a shot, when you could just blow out the color entirely and add a truckload of noise & contrast?

This time, it's a charming trio of severed heads, all belonging to that foul beast who gave DC punks something to meditate on whilst slam-dancing to Government Issue at the Hung Jury Pub in 1986... My god, that seems like an awfully long time ago.

Turning 40 next year.
Time to begin wallowing in nostalgic self-pity.
Look at him: Reagan mocks me.
And Meese is still a pig.

Give the po' man a face

Apparently the theme this week is small-yet-meaningful graffiti. Here we have a nice improvement to a statue in Adams Morgan. They appear to be very happy. Or at least, the large one does. We at IntangibleArts wish them the very best.

No earth-shattering agenda this time. Just A few random observations:

- Rep. Cynthia McKinney will not be charged for her recent episode of striking a Capitol Police officer. This is understandable, I suppose, but she should at least be HANGED for her assinine public behavior after the incident. Such arrogance should be restricted to the Awesome People. We know who we are.

- ABKCO Films has obtained the rights to reissue three of Alejandro Jodorowsky's most infamous films on DVD. These include Holy Mountain, El Topo, and Fando y Lis. This is fabulous news. Faithful Jodorowsky fans have been waiting AGES for somebody to do this. These films are among the most important and transgressive ever made, and thus aren't for everybody; the first 30 minutes of El Topo is enough to reduce your brain to a pillowcase of butterflies. It's that good. Makes Fellini look like bloody Ron Howard. Watch this space for further updates.

- I have no idea what the fire-trucks were here for last night, and by the looks of it, neither did the firemen.

- After sixteen years in publishing, I've finally won my first trade association award for magazine "design excellence." Of course I never actually entered any contests until last year, so the significance of this event is borderline meaningless. But hey, the ASBPE never even had design categories until 2005, so it's a total gas to finally stand in the winner's circle for a change. It's a pity that the winning entry pre-dated the re-design. Compared to what we're doing now, the winning cover looks like total crap, so it's a bittersweet honor at best. Next year, I'll try for the Ozzies and maybe a Jesse Neal award. Remember what I said about arrogance, my friend...some of us have earned the right.

- Gas ovens are completely righteous. They get hot, like, really fast. Electric ranges are, like, so not even.

- The immortal disco classic Get Up and Boogie by the Silver Convention has been stuck in my head for about eight weeks. Perhaps now you've got it, too. Welcome to the club. It's actually a pretty fab tune. That's right.

Of Comcast and Pookas...

And away she went, like a phantom. Phantoms fly naturally, don't they? What on earth do they need PLANES and AIRPORTS for, anyway?

Anyway, M was to vanish for a week, flying back to Michigan to hug trees and family. Work was far too intense to let me go, so I stayed behind to contemplate the extent of my disease. "Work" is an infection of mind as well as lifestyle, and it cripples everything, including one's priorities. It's getting in the way of some serious tree-hugging, dammit, this can't be good. I need to rethink this whole scene. I'd never hugged a Michigan tree before.

Oh well, someone needs to stay behind and supervise the Cable Guy.

After three failed attempts to get Comcast out here to install cable TV and broadband, I finally snagged the bastard. It was a desperate afternoon spent following around this poor, suffering soul while he encountered one puzzling obstacle after another. The previous owners of this house had Dish TV, which didn't make his life any easier: different cables, etc.

To make matters worse, it looked like half the block had jerry-rigged their own cable by improvising an ugly tangle from the main hub in the alley, suspended up there like the black rubber nest of some hallucinating condor. It certainly wasn't Comcast's handiwork. Then it struck me that I'd become an accidental Cable Narc for the whole friggin' neighborhood. Sorry mates, it was really more selfish than all that...I just need to get my own cable TV done before "the wife" gets back from Michigan...

Once Comcast Guy finally split, it was late and I was intensely stir-crazy. Summer humidity be DAMNED, I'm taking a walk. Columbia road to 18th Street and on to Dupont Circle, to drink in that weird stew of human madness and to remind me of just WHY the heck I chose to move back here. It never fails to amuse.

The bunnies were there, as well. As the photo attests, the bunnies were somewhere along Columbia, across from the Safeway. Perhaps Pookas need cable tv as well...

we have a pill for that...

No great social observations this time. No complacentcy-shattering diatribes, no cynical punditry. Just the Pharmacy Bar...it's definitely one of the coolest-looking businesses on 18th street, with its comforting cascade of blue pills, tumbling down the wall like a dream of chemical bliss...

We may need the Blue Pills to get through the next two weeks with sanity intact. For those following our journey into first-time-home-buying, we're now on the final sprint towards closing. Inspection is done. Appraisal is done. Haggling over last-minute repairs seems done.

So now we wait, and TRY to stay calm by sucking the blue pills off the dusty brick walls of the Pharmacy Bar... Tastes like lead-based paint. Need water. I don't know what they DO, man, but I'm gonna find out...

Two weeks and counting.

IDIOTAROD 2006: washington dc

Like the more popular Alaskan "Iditarod", this race requires raw stamina, bravery, and a heroic tolerance for beer. The idea is simple: A shopping cart, a theme, and a team. As many as possible. Freakishly racing through the streets towards the next destination and its pint of ale...

According to legend, the first IDIOTAROD was some 15 years ago in San Francisco. Since then, it has migrated to NYC and now, praise all that's holy, our own humble city.

The gathering of warriors took place outside The Front Page on New Hampshire Avenue at Dupont Circle, and exploded from there. Secret destinations (pubs) were handed out, and for the next four hours, bespangle'd shopping carts and hooting, costumed revellers were everywhere. Dignity in tatters, connecting the dots in an beer-soaked race to tie all the participating bars together before returning home as champions.

The most intriguing cart team was the FSM gang; devotees of Flying Spaghetti Monsterism (pictured above at the finish, holding aloft a sacred effigy of their noodly master). They came with propoganda and all the Pastafarian splendor you would expect from the Semolina Zealots. Utterly righteous.

It was almost as if the Flying Spaghetti Monster himself (itself?) approved of the whole scene: the day was a freakish 77 degrees...the first truly warm day of the year.

So we went blinking into the sunlight, to watch these true athletes confuse the tourists and locals alike. All teams eventually came to rest at TomTom on 18th Street, where further ale was poured, and the shopping carts dispersed......

I have seen the Olympics and it is us.

View the full set of pix here.

Home is where the haggis

After a few posts covering our weird travels to NYC and Arizona, it's good to get the heck back home. Settle down, return to normal. Walk around downtown; forget the chilling temperatures, for cryin' out loud, it's BRISK, dagnabbit. Refreshing.

I've had reason to wonder if dagnabbit should be hyphenated.

No matter! Back to this leisurely walk through the neighborhoods that make ours such a bloody interesting city. Saunter happily down Columbia Road NW from 16th Street and wonder what all that noise is... sirens... the smell of oily smoke... the smell of dust and violated brickwork... shattered glass and the fractured bones of old buildings, releasing a century of ghosts from the blackened marrow...

It was a large fire on 18th Street just under Columbia, in the upper floors of the gorgeous old building which housed the CD/Game Exchange and Chloe. Several fire engines blocked the streets and filthy water coursed down the east-side gutter. One onlooker was weeping. Several men with expensive cameras crawled through the tangle of hoses like centipedes, battling for the perfect angle...

What happened? I asked the rather stoic looking white shephered nearby, tied by his leash to the doorway of Madam's Organ. He didn't seem to know. Or wasn't willing to talk about it.

As of 8:00pm, I could find no details online, and the evening news was much more interested in the house-fire of a certain diplomat in Bethesda. Membership has its privileges, it seems.

Ike can see for miles

In words and image, Eisenhower and his warning are reduced to a rusty smear as we carry on regardless. This was snapped during a Saturday afternoon walk through Columbia Heights, as the tired sun trundled down the westward skies, causing the neighborhood architecture to swell, pregnant with bloody hues.

Nothing else to report. Have acquired Nelson Algren's "Man With the Golden Arm" and Barry Paris' 610-page biography of Louise Brooks...couldn't decide which to read first, so I'm doing both. My brains will surely be scrambled for weeks.

At least, while the military-industrial complex continues its march across our abandoned scraps of human dignity, there's still good stuff to read. Thanks, Ike, but I'm afraid it's a bit too late for wisdom and truth now. What would Lulu do?

Adams Morgan Day

...also known as the 18th Street Festival. This entry could also be called "Images of Adams Morgan Day: the Round-Things-on-the-Right Edition". I didn't realize it until I got the pix home, but I had a strange tendency to compose subjects on the right -- particularly round shapes. Gumbo pots, obligatory self-portraits in Weird Reflecto Lawn Globe Thingies, even the more subtle yellow balls in the dunk-the-dude game... Could mean something is misfiring on one side of my brain. One oar isn't fully in the water.

...perhaps this explains nearly a lifetime of thinking in circles.

The wee munchkin promoting Adrian Fenty's run for Mayor was a nice bonus, also composed to the right. Jeez. Perhaps there's a perscription remedy for this kind of thing. Everything we humans do is the result of a treatable syndrome now, innit?