052821
god, i am so eternally grateful for my friends, and to be in community with others...what more could one ask for?052721
[Fonts in Use][The People’s Graphic Design Archive]
052521
uhhhh!!! so much going on these days, life just isn't letting up, but I guess its more fun that way?*we won trivia last wednesday at milk bar, our first time going, but it wasn't as gratifying as we thought it was going to be because the questions were just not that interesting, nothing like pub trivia, zach and I moped about it...pub trivia was so obscure and difficult and you really got to feel good about yourself if you got an answer right..wonder if we could host a trivia night at joof...
*on Thursday we went to fremont and stayed overnight, my mom ordered a ton of indian food as always, it was nice-ish, as it always is, I FaceTimed Jon for like 2 hours
*friday was crazy, I went to yoga at baker beach with these girls, farm's friends, and it was so fun - we smoked a j and I was so high during yoga, going so many places, even though the flow was a little strange and the sand made it difficult to balance...but god, what an amazingly beautiful city we live in, just spectacular, and then after the yoga portion it was a silent disco, and it was so nice to be in the company of women, something I never get to do...
*saturday was a wild ride, did some light cleaning in the morning and was just generally feeling a nice vibe, the sun was out, listened to some dead, some zepp, zach found out he didn't have bedbugs, just poison oak (yay!) and we picked up farm in the haight and went to meet the girls at fort mason, beautiful day, was so nice to be outside in the decentralized frat party...Jon came by, that was so nice, I was already drunk and it was such a nice surprise to see him in his funny sweater, meandering about our city...day drinking is so fun! I invited sam, he came too, then darren joined us later and we just drank and hung out...got pizza from slice house...smoked a j at the law School...zach and I hopped the gate to see a better view but it didn't deliver...farm came by later really wasted...Jon left and darren slept over...and of course sam... in the morning we had a leisurely brunch at eats at the farmers market and then came home..zach found a ceramic dispenser thing for the free tea idea...came home hit the bong listened to the dead...went to the coop to get groceries, came home, more weed, sex and the city, leftovers...
*yesterday...monday? went to sam's studio...slept over...I like hanging out with him...he will never read this but still feel weird writing too much here... haha. last night I slacked on helping with the e-worm article so I grabbed an 'im sorry' drink for zach from ritual this morning - and then immediately started talking about myself...im just like carrie and her bullshit bagels....hahahahahhahahahahha
it occurs to me that things are just fine...the one unmet need I had has kind of been fulfilled, really...the need for intrigue...all my friends are coming soon and its just going to be one giant party all the way through the summer, probably, unless someone dies, which I feel is coming...no one can be this happy for this long...every time I am sad I think 'great, I'm buying myself more time...' until something really terrible happens...I guess that's more of a guarantee than a fear, if you don't put a time frame on it...
remembering how it felt on the boat... whisked away by the tides of life... turbulent waters... just trying to keep both feet on the ground...in the shining overhead sun, amid the circling gulls, in tune with the jellyfish floating underfoot...bobbing and ebbing and flowing to the silent dead...the pristine beauty of the city ahead...time standing still for a bit in the chaos of it all. . .
052021
happy trails! by pardoner051921
old school SF raves circa early 90's"Fighting the tide: Underground dance music in the Bay Area" via RA
thoughts bouncing around my head...maybe I need to stop smoking so much weed...
how to make a plum show less porch fest and more funky/intentional/considered?
that article has some nice stuff in it, the above one from resident advisor, but something about it feels a little foreign and hollow to me. it occurs to me maybe that it is because none of those people are my community, are my friends, are people I know. zach used to always say back when I was in the depths of my existential depression pre-covid that instead of joining a scene, it would be so much better to just make our own, and it didn't click for me then, but it clicks for me now...who wants to go to a random party where there's a random clouty DJ and you barely know anyone in the crowd? the separation between artist and audience, the sense only of an abstract 'community', but maybe not real...what we did with porch rave felt much more organic, but maybe that was just the feeling for me, or for zach, or for darren, because we knew everyone-ish and it was all friends and friends of friends...but maybe that's the essential component? it has to just be people 1 degree of separation away from you? our party was not exactly invite-only, but it functioned like that, because why would anyone else want to come? and why would we want anyone else to come...
it reminds me of e-worm, and the interview, and the question about 'would you let anyone else join?'...and I guess its honestly fine by me if zach is the plumber with the decision making power, because why would we want random people to join e-worm? all this talk about radical inclusivity...what about radical exclusivity?
there must be some way to square that with openness, with being your full whole person, and jumping at the opportunity to meet more like-minded people, who might enjoy the same kind of thing...but less about 'they are audience member who I invite to my show,' and more about 'could they contribute to this vibe we are all trying to build together?'
safe spaces...BIPOC...yawn...am I allowed to say that? feels so 2017 to me...I respect the project, it's just not mine, but of course that doesn't mean we have racists at our parties...is it lazy to just be trying to create a vibe?
another recurring theme in that article, the artist/DIY types vs. the tech people...interesting to think about us in the context of this debate, when we fit so squarely in between, or maybe not in between, but on another axis, like 4d...what do you do with the young bourgeois hippies? the uchicago grads...the bohemian intelligentsia? surely there is historical precedent for that sect in San Francisco, but is there some more imagining/narrative-building to be done there?...it seems tired and lazy to frame the debate, always, as robotic boring tech people who went to fancy schools and make upwards of 100k, vs. the poor artist-types who are just trying to survive in the urban jungle...again, yawn! it's 2021, there's so much more there to it than that, so much more minutiae and cultural milieu to dissect, and besides, Jon says to stop categorizing people...'can hang', 'down to vibe' - that's the only category I'm here for...
anyway, who said you have to live in a dirty warehouse and do coke to be a part of the 'underground', or the 'counterculture'? I think we can sip our karma lattes and play tennis in golden gate park on the weekends, and still be recognized for trying to do something fun and different...who said you have to suffer for art? if you can afford to have a good life, surely you should...and wouldn't it be a waste of time to slum around?
of course, how to square this with a radical politics? being performatively woke is of course never enough, but what is enough? once you build a community, you feel some self-interest around it, and you protect and defend the people you care about, like we felt and did at uchicago...it has been really difficult, admittedly, to feel a similar sense about me in SF, despite being from the Bay Area and ostensibly having so much history here...I think the sense of urgency I felt about it in Chicago, though productive materially, was actually not necessary, it's a slow fight to justice and though it's important to put in the work, its a lifelong project and not something to kill yourself over...I'm just trying to get both my feet planted in a place, and learn about the struggles that came before me, and get a lay of the land through my job...maybe I'm overthinking it - of course I could be motivated to do something that I thought would better my community, but maybe the essential thing is what is that community, who is in it and how do you build it, and maybe it necessarily has to be small-scale, and based on your real relationships with people...if someone tried to cut down our neighbor's tree, I would tie myself to it, if someone tried to evict a friend, I wouldn't let it happen...maybe the city is too abstract a metaphor, in our client call yesterday we talked about messaging around Minneapolis exceptionalism, leading the rest of the country, united in progressivism, and I thought to myself, I personally don't feel San Francisco has any of that, in fact at the thought I kind of cringed, as if it were embarrassing or shameful to be lumped in with the rest of such an often depraved and hollow populace...but is it just the tech people? not really, or not only, at least...some of those white marina people hanging out at fort mason on Saturdays seemed like they could have been fun, and it was cool to see such an organic party develop without any institutional backing or hierarchy...everyone was just trying to have a good time, and there is some beauty in that, I respect and can appreciate it...I'm not ready to accept that everything is rotten to its core, maybe we can hack it and make it beautiful and free, too much divisiveness in this city to begin with...
anyway, im really itching to throw another party, to be in communion with the people who I love and appreciate, and only those people, and people they trust to bring into our circle...there's that word again - TRUST...how does trust function on e-worm? probably how it functions in real life, too...it's also an evolving thing, if you invite someone to a party and they cause problems, just don't invite them again...how will all these thoughts evolve once we actually have an institution involved, the institution of joof? we call it an institute in kind of a tongue-in-cheek way, as reformed academics, but there is some truth to the harrowing legacy of institutions killing real communal culture, or at least confusing the vibe...we need to really stay true to our vision of everything just being done for the homies, and for the art...I think maybe radical exclusivity is the way to go, but then isn't it annoying when they have 'VIP receptions' at fancy art galleries? (although when zach and kaesha and I went to that one at the Smart, it really wasn't anything special, and not even really that clouty...) maybe we make a farce of the whole thing, and our VIP reception is for no one actually important, just for our friends, and instead we call it 'squad hours' and you only get in if you let zach kiss you on the lips... hahahhahah
not taking yourself too seriously seems to be an integral part of the whole thing, but of course we have to square that with chris' perennial caution that that doesn't mean we don't take our art or our projects intentionally, and consider them seriously, as something material and important, and as something with legacy, or value...but also, im just a kid still, and just trying to figure out how the world works, and though it can also feel so serious at times, life really is so silly, and I think not losing sight of that silliness is crucial...
051821
how to stop being dissociated during sex?051721
man this weekend has been crazy...while Israel continues to carry out its apartheid regime, we have been enjoying ourselves more than most...on friday we threw our porch/yard rave at Darren's, it was super sick, I had so much fun and it sounds like everyone else did too. it was so fun to play my set and I feel like I did really well, and everyone was so full of nice words for me...I dont know that I even fully processed it, but it was just so nice to finally be with friends and friends of friends and feel like a real scene was coming together. everyone was so down to dance and get weird and I just felt so happy to be there with all the people who I care about. after we all danced to Darren's sick closing set we all mobbed the garage and just were so fucked up and beat, it was so fun, then farm and I got a ride back to sf, and then I spent the night in the mission and spent saturday j getting really high and passing out at like 8pm after we got Nizarios...sunday was supposed to be chill, we started off the morning with a routine walk to the farmers market, and on the way we saw our new neighbor friends, and then we walked back with Hannah, and talked about gardening and work and psychedelics...I did some chores, reinstalled my record shelf (yay), and started to read my new ant farm book...later we thought we'd show up to hippie hill with a 6 pack for farms bday, but then it turned out to be a whole thing, and we somehow just got way too crossed off boochcraft and an indica j from these new haight friends we made, and then we all walked to the haight cuz I really wanted some spinach dip from Gus's, but then we passed by milk and we remembered that Hannah said earlier she was bartending a drag show there tonight, at 7, and what time was it, oh it was 7, we stopped in and she said we could grab food and come back, so we went to slice house (where literally the hottest guy ever was working, what?) and grabbed some pizza (too much pizza these days, need to stop) then hit milk bar for such a random drag show (nothing like seeing plastique tiara on ketamine at the drive in drag show in LA, let me tell ya), and there was a two drink minimum so then we had to just get even more fucked up, the whiskey peach sours at milk are so good but also like jolly ranchers, and then after that I had to get an old fashioned to counter the sugar, and then god we were just way too fucked up walking home from this random thing, but it was so nice to hang with farm and make new friends, and when we left home I really had no expectations, I was wearing a turtleneck sweater...but then I woke up at 3am and was just still drunk and thought to myself, god bless me for being still only 23, who knows if I will be able to handle doing this to my body when im 30...and then zach and I mused on how sick it was to be doing the thing we have been talking about wanting to do for so long, and i can't wait to throw another porch rave, it was just so much fun and I felt so good about creating fun for people, and zach said it was maybe the best concert he'd ever been to, how sweet is that, but also I feel inclined to agree, its just so nice to be able to listen to sick music (the sub really made it) in the company of basically only your friends and friends of friends...what more could you possibly ask for? I would so much rather just all my friends get fucked up together...darren and I are really trying to get good at throwing parties, we've got the itch, and I think we can do it, this went about as well as it possibly could have gone, and besides we gotta throw another one before we have to return the sub...
thinking also casually about archiving...would be nice to just have a bunch of fun posters for all the events we have thrown, or will throw in the future, and also it would have been nice to have photos...in the future maybe I should bring my d800, go full Ryan mcginley mode, or maybe I just leave around a Polaroid with a bunch of film...what a crazy year this is shaping up to be, truly...
051321
I know no one here really cares about my professional development, but ive been going pretty sicko mode recently, so imma put it all here for future reference...*I just won a reed award for my yes on r social graphics, for 'best use of a social platform'
*I won a pollie the other day for my yes on r mailer
all the stuff I designed for yes on r is here
*im taking a course at RISD this summer (type+image), which they let me skip all the prereqs for (had to dig up my transcript for that one!)
*not only am I a panelist at sf design week, but they gave us an application fee waiver for being BIPOC lmao
Designing for Advocacy: The Roles and Responsibilities of Creatives in the Resistance
*california arts council invited me to be a grant reviewer for JUMP StArts, which funds art programs for system-engaged youth!
*I did my first proposal + pitch ever a few weeks ago, and it went fantastic - we got the contract to do yes 4 Minneapolis's mail program AND their website AND their new logo and branding (!)
https://yes4minneapolis.org
that's all for now, but if I remember anything else imma put it here...
051221
god Im way too fucking high with a massive headache and a whole milk boba stomachache, I think Antonio made me dairy free...cloudy day in the Richmond, a little bit in the thick of a storm here, emotionally, I mean, or, rather, not emotionally but circumstantially, with regards to the happenings of life, many visitors we can see over the horizon, some trips in tow, general frivolity and socializing that seems it will carry me over til august, maybe even later...I have a strong feeling that maybe interestingness is not the currency we believe it to be, to my absolute horror...all I can do is be myself, I guess, and being myself I am...im preparing for a set on Friday, feeling some mild stress, but nothing a good night's sleep can't cure, and besides is there anything a good night's sleep can't cure? I guess the problem is getting a good nights sleep...who said the sleep was the night's anyway...Louis was maybe a little bit of a Neal Cassady type figure, wasn't he, and wouldn't he love to hear that...weird to move on from love to this sort of indifference that it occurred to me most people feel when they are dating, most of the time, or if not indifferent then maybe a mild sort of affection, nothing like the all-encompassing intense and passionate obsession I experienced with my two exes... or maybe I'm looking back with rose-colored glasses, and maybe it really wasn't that crazy to start with, and maybe love is a function of intimacy, which is itself a function of time, and actually im rewriting what it was actually like...no way to know, I havent done this really since the beginning of 2017, when I was 19 and deep inside the chaotic and kind of rambunctious fabric of college, and so I can't really parse out who I was back then, or how I must have felt...maybe that's the point of journaling...050721
how weird to read my writings from 16 and learn about something I had forgotten about?
reading about Gary Warne, sf suicide club, living at 800 Shrader, he seems lit but then he became a cop? weird!
pranks....pranking....I want ori to stand out of the roof of my car with a scepter as we drive around SF...
some interesting stuff in here. . .
"Among other adventures, both planned and spontaneous, the club has eaten din- ner with the Moonies, staged a giant trea- sure hunt ending in a pie and water- balloon fight, attempted to board The Golden Hinde {a replica of an 18th cen- tury sailing ship), spent the night in a ghost town, climbed up a 40-foot rope ladder into an abandoned hotel, imperson- ated a group of mental patients in down- town San Francisco, had a giant frog enter a human in the annual Calaveras County Frog Jumping Contest (he was disqualified), explored the Oakland sew- ers at night, posed naked on an early morning cable car for a postcard reading "WELCOME TO SAN FRANCISCO," and had a champagne dinner on the Golden Gate Bridge."
“WANTED: BIZARRE PHOTOGRAPHS, FAVORITE NEWS CLIPPINGS, WEIRD MAGAZINES, DADA ART, REALISTIC SATIRE, PRINT-OUTS FROM/OF FAKE ORGANIZATIONS YOU HAVE COLLECTED, WACKY LETTERS AND THEIR RESPONSES, DOCUMENTED PRACTICAL JOKES, MISCELLANEOUS TID BITS FOR AN OPENING IN SAN FRANCISCO, FREE TO THE PUBLIC. MAIL TO THE MUSEUM OF THE INCONSEQUENTIAL, GARY WARNE, CURATOR, 1323 11TH AVE., SAN FRANCISCO CA 94122 (415) 661-4121. YOU WILL RECEIVE SOME OF MY FAVORITES IN RETURN NOW, AND A NOTICE FOR THE OPENING WHEN IT OCCURS.”
"On any given night, while most of us Spend the evening plopped down in front of Miami Vice— or counting ourselves adventurous if we're catching a new band at a local watering hole— the Cacophony Society could be tour- ing the sewers of Oakland, playing Capture the Flag by moonlight in the Marin Headlands or Assassin in Macy's, holding a vampire initiation ceremony, putting on their own vaudeville show, noshing at a midnight barbecue in some remote industrial setting, indulging in a little postindustrial cave painting or ritual lying around a bonfire, dining in formal attire on the Golden Gate Bridge, parading down a populous street conceal- ed in huge cardboard boxes, or perhaps they're just playing Killer by candlelight in a vast, underground, deserted, World War Two bunker during the Summer Solstice. The next morning it's time for a poetry breakfast in the woods (of Golden Gate Park), com- plete with musical accompaniment."
it occurs to me that maybe we are too patrician for the rites of the SF suicide club. I can imagine zach saying - "but, that just sounds unpleasant." and maybe he would be right...how, then, to incorporate the jocularity and playfulness and underground-ness of all this, while still staying true to our nouveau riche life-styles... maybe we posture to be 'hard' but truly we are just a little soft and squishy, and desire comfort, and certainly not discomfort for discomfort's sake...im oddly not too worried about all that, though, because it seems contemporary to live this life and have those wants, yeah the bowery school liked to play around with piss and trash but we're much more vampire weekend than that, for better or for worse, and anyway maybe you need both in the counterculture, like a yin and yang...
050621
IN HARMONY WITH THE TIDES OF LIFE!050521
why does this look like gentrified Airbnb?Human Hotel
exquisite corpse game on shrooms could be fun
focus on process translates well to exhibitions from games
sculpy exquisite corpse sculptures...
thinking about the institution as a legitimizing force, and also the re-legitimization of the institution - sucks that creating one has so much to offer young artists. what would it look like if we lived in a world where we didn't have to create our own institution to have freedom of inquiry and experimentation? where private property was not integral to the project...one of those things, can't really blame the individual but the structure is deeply flawed
surrealism as the early 20th century version of 'just being random'
surrealist games - automatic drawing, the game of creating rules as we were walking down the LA sidewalks to guide our path...
some interesting-ish Neo/contemporary surrealist stuff in Gagosian's DAYDREAMS AND NIGHTMARES
revisiting Dan Colen and the bowery school
remembering when chris sent around chasing dash snow...what I would give to just be a white boy being recognized for my mediocre art as part of some urbane milieu in the early 2000s?
jeffrey and I are musing on relational aesthetics again...sort of coming full circle. maybe they were on to something?
Terence Koh
feeling envy for chaotic energy...need to all be in the same place...grateful dead house...anarchic...
joof as container...Jeffrey Deitch seems like a funny guy...
050421
emo last night, lonelyseems like life just keeps on going
sometimes when I have a major breakdown the next morning feels clear and light and fresh, like a rebirth of some sort, but today I just feel mildly hungover and still kind of unhappy. but I guess that's the way it goes sometimes. when you sit with the sadness for a while though it just kind of fades into the background...
will I ever stop being emo? it occurs to me that being 23 and emo is still kind of a vibe, but maybe 40 and emo less so...
gonna pick up a new hair dryer from Best Buy. maybe that will make me feel better. need to plan a set for porch rave. started writing down to do lists on pieces of paper and taping them up on my walls, then realized in horror that was exactly what my dad used to do in his manic stages...obsessive notes on every book and printed out pieces of paper like my adderall-induced scribbles in discipline and punish...maybe I just give up now and commit to going out in the same way, no time for fear or anxiety about it, and then maybe I can make peace...
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