Cornelius + NYC Diner + Blood Diamonds + Futuro TNAC Campaign

I went to see Cornelius in NYC last night with Liz Newnam, Zane K. and Bob from "Zebras...". My face still hurts from all of the excitement. Dining at a NYC Diner followed - if Kraftwerk designed a diner and the cast of "Friends" wrote the menu, you'd have the place we ate at. I couldn't concentrate hard enough on the menu, so I just copped out with chicken fingers.

"Blood Diamonds" sucked. I felt so gross watching the end - specifically designed to make white people feel good about themselves. The entire movie should have been an African pointing out of the screen shouting "you materialistic, evil motherfuckers! you ruined this country! fuck you and your diamonds!" It's a good thing I verbally requested and was guaranteed 100% conflict-free diamonds, otherwise I would be "pontificating from the depths of my own ignorance" again.



Behold, the FUTURO HOUSE!

This week, I:

Shit is Serious Business by the lovely Nissa Lee (who just got a job copy editing with the AC press)
What's in a Name? A List of City Eponyms by Me
Headlines - Tom Cruise Scientology Joke by Me

TNAC featured on SOCIAL DESIGN SITE

Kielbasa Lunch

Today at work, I had kielbasa for lunch. It was from a street vendor cart two blocks from the office. It was a transaction that felt so right - allow me to explain:

There's a few hip coffeeshops and luncheons on the bottom floor of my building. They're pretty, I'll give them that. But I kind of enjoy that down-in-the-trenches feel of eating on the go in a city. I want to get to know my lunch provider on a first name basis. I want to talk to him or her about the fuckin' weather, the phils, and "if I saw that crazy shit on the news."

After I gave the street vendor his cash, he replied, "thanks bud." I feel this is a good first step. When I buy 2 or 3 more, i'll introduce myself.

There's a sidebar here - the same sort of transaction happened in one of the small coffee shops in my lobby. The guy who poured my tea asked me what my name was and promised me he would remember it as long as I worked there. I found that to be a pleasant gesture, but I wanted to test him on it. I went back a couple of days later and indeed, he remembered my name, but the way he said it made me feel like he attached my name to an order and not to my face. After I said "green tea with lemon," he replied "Jeff, right?"

That makes me feel like i'm "Green Tea with Lemon." The kielbasa guy, on the other hand... I see a lot of potential there. In the future, he may ask me about work and "what us college grad hippies are doing up there." I would appreciate it.

"The Gipper" + David Duke goes femme + Mass Transit Stories

Ronald Reagan: The Sacred Cow

I caught the heat from both sides of the aisle for my Ronald Reagan rant on TNAC's The Street. While I should have been clearer about Obama's comments (he never actually praises the Reagan years), I am proud to take my shot at "The American Destiny" political system. We're not the British Empire. I'm surprised I didn't end up on any right-wing watchdog sites. Maybe you could leak the story?

David Duke hates gays, but pretends to be a woman to sell anal sex advice books.

"Using the pseudonym Dorothy Vanderbilt, Duke published a self-help book for women, titled Finders-Keepers, in 1976. The publication gives advice to women regarding vaginal exercises, fellatio, analingus, and anal sex. The manual is no longer in print and hard to find; however, the Times-Picayune, a New Orleans newspaper, managed to find a copy and trace the trail of its proceeds to the original author via the publisher. Duke compiled information from various women's self-help magazines, and published the book to raise money for his activities, though the book turned out to be a flop." -wikipedia

Read about it in The New York Times

Tales from The Bus

Taking the express bus into Philly supplies me with plenty of interesting stories. It has also been a good way of gauging public opinion. Unfortunately, it gives me a first-hand look of how bad conditions are in Camden. I can't believe the city government would allow those main streets to look like that while focusing on building luxury condos on the waterfront.

Coming soon-
I have an Op Ed appearing in The Norwalk Hour in Connecticut - possibly in other national publications close to Connecticut. It deals with the materialistic side of "Going Green," and how saving the environment shouldn't involve a shopping list for the wealthy.

The Escalator to Nowhere project - Details TBA
Jeff goes to New Orleans! (March 6th to 9th)

Great Moments in Stand-up

A classic...



An example of powerful physical humor in storytelling. The sound of Rickles' voice just made you laugh.



And then there's Bill Hicks... died too early.

NJ Transit + Small Town Fires + Legos

Trying to buy NJ Transit bus tickets online is a practice in amateur acupuncture - The kind performed by the shaky assistant when the master had too much to drink... I must have conversed/cursed at 10 telephone menus. Some of these menus are just unecessary-

"Press 1 if you really meant pressing 4 just now... or press 2 if you meant to press 7. Para habla espanol press 9."

So this may end up as some sort of Op-ed, although I'm working on a San Francisco piece right now... I would much rather complain about something that bothers me directly than indirectly. I'd tell you what the SF piece is about, but I don't want to jinx it.

Hey Kiddies! Some new stuff!
The Jetsons and American History 1960-2007 by Me
Tidbits Vol. 1: Urban Art by Me
The Place to Pee by Nissa Lee!

Small Town Fires reviewed on LosingToday.com!

excerpt from the review-
"Currently to found applying the finishing touches to their debut EP these four treats serve as indication as to the ensembles deft knack of turning up pop pearls of the highest order from the strangest of sources - the slinky electro buzz of ’pink pixels’ sounds like ’penthouse and pavement’ era Heaven 17 submerged in the cosmic fluffiness of Stereolab, distant memories of Devo are dispatched into textured wells of motorik techno funk servitude on the Tom Tom Club meets Front 242 like ’mother of keith moon’. Yet it’s the strangely obscured ‘the abdomen drum’ where the band excel, a crooked sugar pop gem dipped in lysergic glitter and reformed into a buzzing bubblegum bomb to mainline perfectly into the fried melodic territories of Roy Wood’s Move only to be sprinkled with the wayward tendencies of Apples In Stereo and Of Montreal. We await that EP with baited breath."

I'll take it!

Legos- I need a bulk of legos for a project i'm working on for The Next American City. I'm back to crazy schemes and impossible tasks, just like the old days. Anything to keep me away from the election.


Have you caught Obama fever?

The Next American City + (or vs.) The Future

I've been writing for The Next American City's The Street for a few weeks now, and I'm grateful that I can waste an entire afternoon reading about the downtown development of Anchorage, Alaska. I'm also exciting to be sharing webspace with good writing. TNAC has a variety of style. Good stuff: Hayley Richardson's Punk as Fuck, Simmons Buntin's Fantasy Urban League. My fiancee, Nissa, is also writing for the site. I would have included her Gay Communities article to the list, but is that unethical?

I took down some of the posts on this blog because they looked too much like online journal entries, which I hate. Mostly because i'm in that "bitter to youth" phase. It's a loving phase.

I'm going to stick with my once a week promise. I need to think of a theme. Right now, I can't think of anything but Alaska.

This looks like a journal entry. You can't escape it.