Last night I had one of the oddest dreams I ever had in my life…

I was over a friend’s house for his birthday. Actually it was his Mom’s house as he was unemployed and back living at his parents’ house. When I showed up, I was surprised to see that he had a new girlfriend who I had never seen before. He introduced her and said she was new to the area and was foreign. She was an odd girl, didn’t say much and what she said wasn’t in English. Mostly she talked fast in some langauge I couldn’t place and she kept jumping on him and smooching him. Then at one point she jumped on him when he wasn’t prepared for it and he toppled over, dropped her on the kitchen table. When she hit the kitchen table she smooshed — I mean her whole body hit like a heavy wet sponge! She just laid there not moving and her body didn’t look right like it had lost some of it’s shape. Weirder, every time I looked at her I had flashing visions of pink frosting. My friend then sat down and looked over at his mom with a look like he was sorry. The room was quiet and no one had yet said a word. Suddenly, his girlfriend jerked up from the table in queasy motion like her bones were more flexible then they should be. She looked up at her boyfriend and leaned over to kiss him. He didn’t move. In fact he looked confused and horrified. Right before she touched his lips, she started vomiting, huge wet chunks of what looked like birthday cake and pink frosting and milk shot out of her mouth all over him. Everyone yelled and quickly scrambled back except for him. He just sat slackjawed and kept glancing at his girlfriend and then at his mother. His mother in turn looked on in horror saying over and over “I don’t know! I don’t know!” The girl grabbed the carton of milk on the table, took a huge swig, and immediately vomited again with more cake coming up. It was then I realised that no one had eaten any cake and I hadn’t even seen a birthday cake; in fact, I hadn’t seen her eat anything! Nevertheless, she kept vomiting up cake and every time she did her whole body would shudder violently and she seemed deflate, like she was a balloon with the air getting let out. Instinctually, I began backing away in horror and as I did I noticed that his mom was hurriedly chanting something. She had an old book in her hands that she was frantically looking through like she needed to find the right page. The book looked ancient and had what looked like recipes in it like an antideluvian cookbook. Everything snapped into place in my head at that point and I saw his ‘girlfriend’ for what she really was, a birthday cake golem that his mom had magickally animated to life. His ‘girlfriend’, the cake golem, had stopped vomiting and got up from the table. She looked visibly thinner now in an inhuman way leaving her body ever so slightly uneven and misshapen. She looked around the room with a ravenous grin that I looked more hungry than seductive. His mother seemed to have found her page in the old book and began chanting louder. My visions of pink frosting were stronger now more than ever now that I know what she was. I turned and ran just as the ‘birthday cake girl’ launched herself at my friend, her supposed ‘boyfriend’, mouth open like she was about to gnaw his face off! The birthday cake golem had lost most its animating life force and obviously needed more. Driven by this hunger it went for the closest life it could find. I ran as screams echoed from the house.

Still reeling from last weekend. Of course, I’m filled with joy and the honor of being part of the grand event that was the All Worlds Fair. But then there also was Sunday the 24th…

12am — Cheers erupt from all the artists as the last AWF show ends for the downstairs vault level of the Mint

1am — Upstairs show is finished with exhausted happy smiles

2am — Wonderful little surprise after-party

6am — drive my girlfriend Tess Aquarium to the airport and wish her goodbye for a month, then drive back to catch a couple hours of sleep

11am — arrive at the Mint for breakdown and watch with heavy heart as all the creative magic disappears

5pm — hop in the truck cab with Chicken John and Joseph Hren to help manage delivering all the wonderfully ridiculous art back to its creators

12am — in bed which was very noticeably absent my favorite mermaid.

Such a bittersweet day. It’s been an overwhelmingly wonderfully intense several months on several levels, and it all came grinding to a halt with such fierce momentum. Heavy, but a heaviness I will cherish as it’s seldom that life gifts such amazing contrasting emotions all in one 24hr period. Also, I walk forward knowing this yielding is only temporary. Tess will be back before I know it and the Art… well you know I can’t stop making Art happen.

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As an addendum… one of my favorite moments from the All Worlds Fair was when someone accidentally spilled black & white paint right by the entrance, 15min before opening of the first show. Me rushing to help clean it up while wearing my white tuxedo. Chicken walking up saying “You got to be fucking kidding me!” And then once it was cleaned, out of nowhere the Emperor Norton himself stepped up and cleaned the paint off my shoes. You couldn’t create a more ridiculous catastrophe better if you planned it. Seriously that was Art.

I’m one of the storytellers this evening at Fireside Storytelling where the theme is Gastronomic Adventures. I’m telling the surreal tale of my dining adventure at The Deutschlander, a restaurant experience Nifer and i had way back in 1998 that was straight out of a David Lynch movie.

GASTRONOMIC ADVENTURES
Wednesday, May 2, 2012
Doors 7:30 p.m. Show at 8 p.m.
The Jellyfish Gallery, 1286 Folsom St., in SF
Admission is $10

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This month’s theme explores the wonderful world of food … aaand things that maybe shouldn’t be food, but somehow find their way to the dinner table. Whether it’s fantastic gastronomic experiences or the eating of things that one really shouldn’t, we’re leaving this theme open to interpretation. This will certainly make for an entertaining night of storytelling. Come hungry, or … not.

For posterity’s sake and because it makes me laugh, here’s my bio that I submitted to Fireside for the evening:

Colin is a designer, developer, medical illustrator, artist, lover of tomfoolery, and aficionado of anything brewing with mirth trouble. He is known for promoting the joy of diminutive creativity and 1/16th scale pyrotechnic destruction. Also, he gets great pleasure in having convinced people that wearing heavy scratchy dapper wool attire while cycling is both fashionable and sane. In the main, all his creative output is dedicated toward continuing the Fahrion family tradition of being kinda sorta famous with little monetary rewards to show for it like his wonderful and talented mother, the inventor of Strawberry Shortcake.

Mother Mother new album “Eureka” sees a shift more towards rock, shedding most of their country flair and some of their eccentricity. Musically it’s still rich, with songs straddling the line between catchy and complex. If anything they’ve gotten better at their trademark intra-song shifts from head bopping fist in the air rock to grooving melodic three part harmonies. While I personally miss the eccentric country flair from their prior albums, it’s still varied and good.

Still something felt missing for me that I couldn’t put my finger on at first. Few if any of the songs off of “Eureka” pulled me in as some of their prior songs have. One of my favorite aspects of Mother Mother has always been their visually rich lyrics full of metaphors and stories and it wasn’t until my second listen that I realized “Eureka” was missing this. Their older songs like “Hay Loft” and “Neighbour” plainly lay out a story, and songs like “Train of Thought” and “Wrecking Ball” very effectively use visual metaphors to suck you in. The “Eureka” album has a few songs that still have this quality, namely “Carve a Name,” “Baby Don’t Dance,” and “In The Wings.” However, if you are like me and like your music to tickle your visual cortex and also occasionally engage you with a story then you may find this album somewhat disappointing.

Also, overall I feel the album is too studio. There are a number of songs that could use an injection of the raw energy they put into their live shows. The album version of “The Stand” is emotionally flaccid in comparison to when I heard it live during their recent appearance at the Rickshaw Stop. Live you could really hear the frustration and disgust in the chorus line: “I can hardly stand the sight of it all.” Whereas, on the album it just sounds cute and a little funny. The track “Aspiring Fires” is especially bad in this regard. For a song about being so crazy that people “run for their life” it feels rather tame without even a hint of malice hiding in the nooks and crannies. There are exceptions to this such as the song “Problems” where all three singers belt out the chorus line like a fist: “I’ve got problems! Not just ones that are little.”

That said it can be hard to capture that energy in the studio and many of their older songs are also better live. They put on a great show as the band has an excellent charisma that really shines through on stage and they are rock’n booty shaking fun.

But don’t take my word for it. You can listen to the album in it’s entirety streamed below via Soundcloud. Or just buy it. The digital version of “Eureka” is currently only $7.99 on iTunes (while Amazon has it only for $5.99, their version is missing  the bonus tracks which I think are some the best songs). I may be critical of the album but there are enough fun rocking catchy songs on there that it’s worth having and they are a great group that I feel are worth your hard earned cash — especially at that price.

Mother Mother – Eureka by RS MARKETING

Bacon wrapped hotdogs under the Doggie Diner Head. Cops, lots of cops. “It is illegal to burn trees on Ocean Beach. Those who do so may be cited or arrested,” the loudspeaker spoke up and said.*

What’s the plan? What’s the plan? Just go! Grab a tree and attempt to make it through—everyone at once and everyone for themselves. Some went straight, others zigzaged through the darkened streets. Left here, a right there, a few more blocks north hauling our post yule sacrifices avoiding the flashing lights. Then when the coast was clear hurriedly crossing the street and down to the beach.

A fire could be seen already underway to the south, but it was already thoroughly busted; so a second yule fire was lit where we stood. As it lit, a third fire could be seen sparking up further north on the beach by another rogue band of revelers. Those from the first fire came strolling to our fire looking for more Post Yule Time cheer. A couple more trees made it to the fire and there was brief lovely respite from authority who were too spread thin to even bother.

The fire died down, the last embers being shoveled over silently by a couple officers. The crowd dispersed, walking away from the beach, past the line of police cars. Sad looking lonely unburnt trees lay dropped everywhere, but it did nothing to dampen the cheerful mood. And so ended the 22nd annual Post Yule Pyre.

Post Yule Pyre (image by y3rdua)

* Up until 2006 it was legal to have bonfires on the beach. Since the ban went into place, they have steadily increased the police presence trying to stop the Post Yule Pyre tradition. As a result, Instead of one bonfire to clean up after there are several, not to mention the numerous dropped trees that lay scattered everywhere. The irony is if the authorities even quasi-sanctioned the event and didn’t chase people away, it is the type of crowd that wouldn’t be difficult to get enough volunteers clean it up.

Earlier today, @sfslim sent out the following tweet:

Cannot express how grateful I am to have friends who, when presented with a new project, ignore “why?” and immediately dive into “how?”.

The nature of twitter encourages a certain level of me-too-ism.  The medium actively encourages agreement with quick and easy retweets. Also, it’s brevity makes back and forth debate difficult—if not completely discouraged. As a result, it was unsurprising that SFSlim’s post was responded to by a number of people in a typical “Hear! Hear!” sort of way. The first to respond was @ctpctp‘s who’s response focused on this as a marker for in/out group traits:

That’s been a dividing line I’ve used for a long time now. I’m ever wary of the ones who ask “why would you do that?”

What was interesting about these responses was the fact that SFSlim’s quip could be interpreted in a couple ways:

1. I am grateful that I have friends who understand the “why?” of my ideas implicitly.
2. I am grateful that I have friends who don’t care about the answer to the question “why?”

Also interesting was that most others latched on to the second interpretation. There was @yerdua‘s response:

I wonder how it is that we realized “why?” is often a useless and nihilistic question. “How?” leads to much more action.

And @nelz9999‘s brief reply which was posed as a question to those who ask “why?”:

“Why would you ask that question?”

And then another (who will go nameless due to their account being locked) channeling a slightly more articulate yoda:

There is no “why,” there is only “yay!” Yay yay! “Why” acts like “yay” should be rationed, but we know the spring is eternal. YAY

And from another:

Similar to an old t-shirt slogan “If I had to explain it, you wouldn’t understand”

Call me an old school art fag but I think the “why?” is important. To not care about the “why?” is to not care about meaning which—to directly disagree with @yerdua—is the definition of nihilism. Sometimes the answer to “why?” is something simple as “because it’s fun! yay!” or “because it makes me laugh” or “because it’s beautiful” or “because I wanted to challenge myself.”

I certainly had my hand in a number of projects with simple answers to the question of “why?” that I’ve enjoyed and loved. However, I have a deeper connection with the projects that have complicated answers; often these answers involve both the creator and the audience. Sometimes these answers came during the initial brainstorming and other times they were summoned during observation of the resultant project as it happened. Whether developed pre- or post-hoc, it is this meaning which, to me, makes a project Art with a capital A.

I know that SFSlim and several others grok what I’m saying here and most who responded were only caught up in the me-too-ism of twitter. In fact, many of these same people have created art projects with real depth and with clear answers to the question “why?” However, I also must ask why are these same individuals being disdainful the question “why?” I mean what is wrong about being able to articulate one’s reason for doing something? And more importantly do we only care about connecting with like-minded individuals or do we have something to say to outsiders who are brave enough to step forward and ask “why?”

So to all of you who responded to SFSlim, the next time you have a project that you are passionate about, I challenge you to come up with an answer to “why?”