back to the beginning

[sabotabby]

Been awhile since I've done a dunk postie. I've spent the last two days at Ultra-Red's Articles of Incorporation conference. Quite an intense two days, and I went home with the intention of finally getting to spend a night at home writing a very serious and thoughtful entry and finishing the Al-Awda posters, when...

...I checked my e-mail, and therein were two messages from wlach and zemleroi, respectively. Both of whom were in town for the weekend, neither of whom I'd seen for a disgustingly long time.

Background: When I first moved to Hogtown, I wound up in co-op housing in a dilapidated old Victorian with 11 other people. It was a strange year; in many ways, I'm nostalgic for that period of my life. The house two doors down had 17 people, two of whom were my aforementioned friends, and for various reasons I spent an ungodly amount of time hungover in their kitchen.

Co-op nostalgia hits at the oddest times; standing by the window in what was once both of their bedrooms and is now the common room, looking out at the park where we could never sit because of all the pigeon shit, I missed that sense of camaraderie, trying to live out our ideals -- or sometimes just live together -- fighting giant rats, making art and homemade bread. It was fucked up and dysfunctional and spectacularly warm and life-affirming.

It's almost all new people living in their house now, and nothing's in the same place; it was like watching a movie of our lives six years ago, familiar and strange. We drank Bushmill and caught up on old times (hence the drunk). There was still that sense of interior-decor-as-snarky-social-commentary, comme ça:



Of course, before I got all weepy-eyed for my former collectivist lifestyle, there were some Green Room anecdotes worth relating. We found the best laptop desktop ever!



And we came up with a really good idea for a conceptual art piece.

We're going to steal a urinal from a bar...
wrap it in condoms...
which are filled with pee...
and stuffed with crucifix-shaped pieces of meat.

This is how I intend to make my living as an artist.

And damn, it's 3:30 AM, and I really ought to get to sleep. More babbling when I sober up, I think.

Sober update: Hey, what's all this? Did the Pope die or something?

Comments

[lokust.livejournal.com]

egads, i love ultra-red.

[sabotabby]

They're very impressive. More on that later.

[rohmie.livejournal.com]

What do the window stickers in the first photo say?

[sabotabby]

The sad thing is, I wasn't drunk when I took that. It was just kind of dark and now I can't read it any better than you can.

On the right, with the proper rainbow, it says: "lesbian, gay, transgendered, bisexual, queer POSITIVE SPACE."

In response, someone (read: this guy Andrew whose LJ I still need to locate, 'cause he's funny) put up a sticker with red-and-black scribbles that says something like, "Otherwise, this is a cold, mean, nasty space for NEGATIVE THOUGHTS."

[rohmie.livejournal.com]

So, speaking of queers, how did you like 1776? You never did tell me if I guessed correctly. Are you not getting El Jay comment email notifications?

[sabotabby]

Oh, yes, you were right indeedy. I don't get e-mail notifications, so I'm sometimes flaky with responding to comments past a few days or so. I tried it the other way once, though, and I didn't get around to reading any non-LJ e-mails. So it's a trade-off.

I loved the movie and didn't exactly love the music. (Which is typical for me -- I can count on one hand the number of musicals where I've actually liked the music as music, rather than as plot advancement. I tend to like the concept of musicals, given that I'm into opera, more than the execution of all but a few of them.) But I could seriously watch the guy who played Adams all day, singing or otherwise. He was utterly fantastic. And your comment about Robert's Rules of Order was apropos; I was laughing my ass off through the congressional sessions.

I don't think I can quite write the Franklin/Adams thing, although it was definitely there. The visuals are just too...wrong. (Is that hypocritical given my whole obsession with Nechaev and "I Lost All My Teeth in the Tzar's Prison" Bakunin? I don't know.)

[rohmie.livejournal.com]

Oh, yes, you were right indeedy. I don't get e-mail notifications, so I'm sometimes flaky with responding to comments past a few days or so.

That explains it. I no longer feel all hurt and ignored.

Speaking of email notifications, you neglected to give a website in your comment on my Pat Buchanan video post. My, that sentence sounds awkward. Go there and post it for the benefit of my other readers. - Assuming there was supposed to be a link, of course; but it seemed like there was.

[sabotabby]

Bad me. I shouldn't tease with a phrase like "paleoconservative bukkake," should I?

I wish I'd saved more of the commentary and pictures. It's good icon material. Of course, this all happened while I was tied up at work and the conference. (Speaking of awkward phrasing...)

On another note...finding out from the travel agent (it's a bad idea to book flights directly with airlines in Canada these days...) about flights to Chicago and/or back from Louisville. You're definitely going, right? Or I'll have a very strange week.

[rohmie.livejournal.com]

I'll go if I have to go by myself (which I have threatened my Fellow Workers with doing). I haven't called Barry about his Chicago contacts yet. I will this week. I had seen some of my FWs at a party this weekend but unfortunately it was not possible to discuss anything with them.

It's funny how karaoke can make you utterly despise some of your closest friends. I can take their drunkenness. I can take their drunken nudity. But I draw that line at karaoke. There are limits. That infernal contraption made everyone intolerably loud, annoying and obnoxious. It stirs the inner frat boy in all of us and fills people with ideas like: Let's try to blow the speakers out by singing this song as loud and bad as I possibly can. - That would be hilarious.

I wanted to kill.

[sabotabby]

At least your friends are willing to do karaoke. Most of mine frown on such things. Of course, I have the problem (in addition to my atrocious singing voice) of not knowing the words to the sorts of songs that get played at karaoke bars. I guess that's okay, because a MIDI version of Phil Ochs would probably be atrocious. Still.

I make up for it by participating in McVeigh's sing-a-longs, although I've yet to grow the stones required to get up in front of the microphone and do it.

I do want clarification, however: Were the drunkenness, the nudity, and the karaoke simultaneous?

Our Sordid History

[rohmie.livejournal.com]

At least your friends are willing to do karaoke. Most of mine frown on such things.

Your friends have the right attitude.

I make up for it by participating in McVeigh's sing-a-longs

Okay, some background clarification is called for, lest I look like a hypocritical wet blanket:

I have nothing against getting together and singing. Many years ago, I launched two local traditions that immediately merged into one: Left Film Night and The Red Pint Society. The plan behind Red Pint was to drink, sing Wobbly songs and take over a bar once we got good. The singing part, much to my regret, immediately fell away.

Karaoke is an entirely different animal. As I said, the plan was to get good - not make fun of the material by deliberately butchering it. I had hopes that our individual musical shortcomings would get lost in the collective whole and that we could at least sound somewhat decent. In Chicago, I intend to participate in any sing along that Utah Phillips may initiate. By contrast, deliberately giving Billy Joel's "Piano Man" an especially blood curdling rendition is decidedly something else. And they did this shit for hours last night with no sign of ever letting up before I finally realized it and left with a headache.

Eventually, the film component fell away as well, although it occasionally resurfaces.

I do want clarification, however: Were the drunkenness, the nudity, and the karaoke simultaneous?

No. There have been at least three Red Pints that had become clothing optional. One of them included some unwelcome hectoring to participate and this aspect lifted its ugly head again last night with regard to karaoke. I hasten to mention that there is quite a bit of group overlap and that these were not union events. The worst offenders are not a Fellow Worker and other FWs have never been to these events.

Re: Our Sordid History

[sabotabby]

The worst offenders are not a Fellow Worker and other FWs have never been to these events.

Too bad. I was looking forward to meeting them.

Kidding.

I can see how that would be wretchedly painful. Still, at least there were good intentions, it seems. The last attempted Wobbly sing-a-long in Hogtown was about four years ago.

[frandroid.livejournal.com]

Oh, yes, you were right indeedy. I don't get e-mail notifications, so I'm sometimes flaky with responding to comments past a few days or so. I tried it the other way once, though, and I didn't get around to reading any non-LJ e-mails. So it's a trade-off.

I hive all of my LJ-notifications in their own folder, that way they don't distract me from reading my main email. I find that I spend way less time going to see my 2 friends pages this way, and I just keep up with old messages through the notifications instead.

[sabotabby]

Can you do that with Yahoo, though? It's the only one I regularly check, besides my work address, obviously.

[wlach.livejournal.com]

When we first arrived in Toronto, I was saying to zemleroi (it feels bloody weird calling him that) that if I felt more nostalgic about this whole experience, I'd collapse into a gibbering mass on the Spadina sidewalk. The sad thing is, I kind of was a nostalgic gibbering mass on the night train back to Montreal.

I think the statement: "trying to live out our ideals -- or sometimes just live together" is about spot on. After I graduated from university and the living in the co-op seemed neither appropriate nor desirable, I tried (still trying) to do more or less the same thing-- somehow live my ideals through my everyday actions.[1] Although it feels somewhat less weighty to be writing free software than drafting budgets, cooking vegetarian meals (and non-vegetarian meals, when I didn't approve of such things on principle), taking out the garbage + recycling every week, and god knows what other absurd things.

[1] Which sort of feels like an absurd analogue to some Baptist in the United States trying to get Jesus into every aspect of his life (aka politics, apple pie, and personal fitness programs).

[sabotabby]

What does zemleroi mean, anyway? Did he tell you?

I don't know if I mentioned this, but at some point I do intend to go back to living in some sort of cooperative (not a student one, obviously). The living alone thing is a necessity of my lifestyle now, but I miss the days of reading the newspaper and drinking coffee with everyone milling around the kitchen. I think I've brought a measure of that space to my new digs (you must come by next time you're in Toronto) by employing an open-door policy with my neighbours and having group cooking sessions and the like.

By the way, I'm not sure if this is intended as such,, but it's utterly hilarious. Jesus is part of your personal fitness program.

[wlach.livejournal.com]

No, I have no idea what zemleroi means. We should ask him.

I wouldn't be surprised at all if those cartoons were non-ironic (which does indeed make them even funnier). Right-wing religious fanatics in the states are getting pretty insane these days.

[frandroid.livejournal.com]

This guy looks pretty russian, but since there's some French in his user info, I will provide you guys with french insight:

zemleroi -> zem le roi -> zem the king

totally probably not it, but also:
+-> zem le roi -> j'aime le roi -> I love the king

I don't know if that's relevant or not, but you guys figure it out since you know him.