short interview with me in the Comics Journal 293
Category: Art and Photography
There's a short interview with me about the Nerdlinger Awards in the latest issue of the Comics Journal (293). It's pretty short so you can probably read it in the store, but check it out nevertheless!
SPX 2008: Party in the Middle of Nowhere! (full report with pics)
Category: Life
My photos are almost all stolen from other people. Sometimes MK Reed, sometimes Brian Heater, who keeps track really? I apologize if I used your photos and you didn't want me to. Anyway! On to the SPX recap, in all it's looooong ass glory.
How the hell did I end up in this swank-ass hot tub with a bunch of half naked cartoonists? READ ON.
Our drive down started early and ended early. I came down with Robin Enrico and Hilary Florido, who are two of the most entertaining pervert weirdos to share a car with for several hours (and I mean that as the highest flattery). We stopped at a couple of rest stops in search of the Big Boy, and after a false start, we found him!
We also found some entertaining kids' rides and took our photos on them. The Batmobile was from Batman Forever.
We got to the hotel and checked in around early afternoon, long before many of our friends and hotel roommates, so we took the time to stop at Old Navy and purchase some bathing suits for Robin and Hilary (I brought mine) and we went swimming in the hotel pool for an hour or so. No one else was there (except for the life guard) so it was pretty cool, we had the whole thing to ourselves. Sadly we did not get a photo of the three of us in our matching bathing suits (I had the same bikini top as Hilary, she had the same trunks as Robin). You'll have to use your imagination to dream up the most ridiculous on-sale bathing suits your mind can conjure (the trunks had a drawing of a surf shop on them with a sign that said “SO OPEN” just under the butt area, hahaha).
Later that night was the third annual Nerdlinger Awards! We had to find our way to Baltimore's own Atomic Books for the festivities (the awards were part of an evening's entertainment including several readings, bands, cake, beer, etc) and along the way, we got lost and ended up at a McDonald's in a shady area that seemed to be populated only by crippled people. It was REALLY weird. We stopped in the McDonald's to pee and call for directions and there were a large amount of people in wheelchairs, on crutches, and using canes. It felt like we fell into an alternate dimension. Well, eventually we found our way out of that area and got to Atomic with time to spare! The three of us (Robin, MK and I all jointly run the Nerdlingers – Robin maintains the website, MK made the labels and got the beers, and I maintain the email address and handle all the correspondence) ran the awards without a hitch. Well, other than the fact that about half the “nominees” (winners, really) did not show up. A lot of people had trouble finding the place, and a lot of people were tired from traveling and didn't want to risk the hour long drive that they weren't previously familiar with.
It was fun anyway, though. Anytime we called out an award for someone who wasn't present, we'd just yell out “Who wants to be (so and so) for a night?” or “Who wants a beer?” and as long as that person promised to give the winner their “award” the next day, all was good. I haven't heard of anyone not getting theirs this year, so it must have worked out okay.
Also present at the Nerdlingers was Keiko, a film student shooting a documentary about me for an assignment in her documentary class. Keiko is actually a Bouncing Souls fan who isn't really into comics, but she found out about Sing Along Forever through the Bouncing Souls and ordered a bunch of my other comics as well, and I guess she liked them because she emailed me about doing a “day in the life” kind of thing about me. I suggested that she come to SPX instead, since it was about a week away at the time and definitely much more interesting than watching me sit on my ass writing blogs on the internet and drawing at my desk all day. Luckily her mom actually lives nearby where SPX is so she decided to come down and stay with her for the weekend while she filmed!
So yeah, Keiko was there filming and it was pretty fun. I drank a bunch of beers and hung out and whatnot. Just after the bands came on we decided we had had enough fun for an evening and went on back to the hotel (but not before indulging in some awesome pink breast cancer awareness donuts and a Slurpee at the 7-11).
Saturday morning, SPX proper began and business was booming at my table! I'm sure having three new comics helped a lot, but it did seem that the crowds were quite strong all day in general. A lot of people came up and asked me which of my three debuts to vote for, and I realized that perhaps putting all three on the ballot for advertising purposes may have backfired in terms of Ignatz-winning purposes. I didn't really think I'd win the Best Debut award anyway, but I certainly didn't do myself any favors by splitting up the votes between three books!
All in all, Saturday sales were basically an explosion of goodness for me. I came within about $50 of my personal sales record for an entire weekend in one day, which is unheard of for me. Sadly, I didn't get to leave my table at all (except once to pee and get a snack) because Zane, my usual loyal man-slave, couldn't come to SPX this year. He had to stay home and watch our neighbor's dog while they were on their honeymoon, and usually they walk our dogs when we're away, so he had to take care of our dogs as well. Our neighbor's dog apparently has had terrible liquid diarrhea so it was certainly no fun for him to stay home and clean up after a diarrhea dog three times a day while I was down at SPX having fun. I missed him a lot but I got to give my friend Marianne his tag (with the name “Wesley Nylle” on it) so she could get into the show for free, which was cool.
After the show ended on Saturday a bunch of us tried to go get Thai food at the Thai place down Rockville Pike (Tara Thai) but it took so long to walk there and back, and there was quite a wait at the restaurant, some of us decided to get it to go and eat back at the hotel because we had to be back in time for the Ignatz Awards (MK was nominated for one, and I was presenting one).
On the way to the Thai place we happened upon an abandoned shopping cart and adventure ensued! First, Robin got Joe to sit in it and ran him around. Then Robin got in and me and MK jointly ran him across the parking lot while he screamed STOOOOP IIIIIIIT DON'T GO ANY FAAAASTER I'M GONNA DIIIIE!!!!! Which of course, prompted us to run even faster and crash him into a column at the end of his ride.
Robin drives Joe Flood to the strip mall Thai joint
Joe jumps from the cart
Robin gets his bearings after we crashed him into a column.
Once MK, Robin, Keiko and I got back to the hotel and sat down to eat on the patio, Keiko confessed to feeling a bit ill and had to leave. Unfortunately, this meant she would not be able to film the Ignatz Awards and the Karaoke Karavan as originally planned. But it was okay, she got to go home and get some rest and we would all take photos for her and talk about the evening on camera with her the next day.
We all walked downstairs for the Ignatzes, which we thought started at 9pm but the doors were still locked when we got down there so we walked around and hung out, chatting with friends until they opened the doors. I got to sit in one of the swanky front-row seats marked “RESERVED” because I was presenting the award for Outstanding Anthology or Collection. I had a few friends in the running for that award so I was hoping one of them would win so I could pass the brick onto them myself.
I sat next to Kaz, who was also presenting, and he confessed that he was extremely nervous about public speaking and had to pee incredibly badly. I shared with him my own unfortunate nervousness trait, which is horrible gas pain and the general feeling of having to take an urgent crap (which I was definitely feeling at the time). Fortunately, the award I was presenting was the first one, so I got it out of the way fast and the feeling of having to poop went away soon after.
Greg Means won the award for Papercutter, so I was totally stoked and excited to be presenting it to him! I almost got into a fight with the Mexican wrestler guy who was handing out the awards (no one told me I wasn't supposed to touch them!) but I did get to shake Greg's hand when he got to the podium, which was awesome. Papercutter's on FIRE!
We were both as excited as we look (pretty excited)!
A bunch of other friends won Ignatzes this year as well and it was SO great to sit in the front row and cheer for them! MK didn't win one, but she did get the loudest applause when the nominees were announced, which was great. I compared it to high school graduation, which it reminded me of (the stoners and drunkards get the most “woo”s). Achewood won Best Online Comic again and a guy in an ape suit accepted again, like last year. It was just as awesome as it sounds (pretty awesome!).
After the awards, I ran up to the hotel room to get a few minutes of peace to myself (sharing a hotel room with five other people doesn't afford much quiet time) and to change into more casual clothes (I was still wearing my patented pinstriped shirt/tie/vest combo) and give Zane a call to let him know how everything had been going. Soon after that, Joe Flood came up for a little bit and we had a good chat about the state of things. We grabbed a few of his Newcastles and went back downstairs to join the party and corral some people for the evening's Karaoke Karavan.
I had made a bunch of fliers but all of them had been given away or taken during the day on Saturday and there weren't enough to go around. Luckily I had one flyer left in my wallet that I could show people and they could write directions down, at least. Next year I'm making a LOT more flyers!
Once we managed to corral a few stragglers, we made our way to the lobby (which we had told everyone was the meeting place if you need to get or give a ride to someone). When we turned the corner, I think we were all shocked at the turnout. The huge lobby was almost halfway full of people. Someone asked if they were all waiting for karaoke… and they WERE! It was an amazing, if daunting and somewhat terrifying, moment.
Soon we organized everyone into cars, got rides for those without one, and directions to those without them, and headed off into the night. Turns out Zip Café (the name on my business card from 2007) is now known as TAJ, which caused some confusion. Even the internet told me it was still called Zip Café! Anyway, everyone pretty much figured it out and got there eventually. By the time we got there, the place was already bumpin' and there were THREE ROOMS full of people karaoke-ing it up! Our goal for this year was to fill up two rooms so I was quite pleased to say the least.
Some of the highlights of karaoke for me were:
Singing a duet of what was SUPPOSED to be “Cum on Feel the Noize” with James Kochalka, but the words were all in Korean so we had to make some up. By the end we were just making up all the words and it devolved into a rousing chorus of “Something in Korean! Something in Korean!” Even a bunch of people in the crowd were singing it! Eventually we got it to show the words in English but by that time I think everyone was kind of sick of the song. There was a time in my life when, believe it or not, the James Kochalka Superstar album “Monkey Vs Robot” was quite important to me (I was even present at the filming of the “Don't Trust Whitey” video and if you look fast you might even see me in it holding a sign that says NO!) so it was what I would call “exquisitely awesome” that I got to sing such a weird duet with him.
Hey I found a YouTube video of it too!
I also did my traditional duet of a Weezer song with Alec Longstreth (“Buddy Holly” again this year). As promised, he took his shoe off during the “don't look now but I lost my shoe” part and we got the whole room jumping up and down with the unstoppable force of our combined energy. It was awesome! We also did a duet of “Eye of the Tiger” to a similar result.
There's another great video of a bunch of people doing "We Built This City on Rock N Roll":
There was also some kind of weird punching bag “game” in the bar part of the karaoke place where you basically paid a dollar to punch a punching bag once, and it would rate your punching abilites. MK and I both tried it. I didn't understand how it worked at first and got a low rank, on my second try I got “Brutal” which is sort of in the middle. MK got “Boxer” which is the top rank. It was much higher off the ground than me though so I had to reach to punch it and everyone agreed that affected my ability to hit it as well as MK could.
There's a video I found on YouTube of Alec Longstreth playing the game. It's pretty funny:
Anyway, Karaoke Karavan was an OVERWHELMING success this year. I couldn't be more pleased with how it turned out. We had freaking JAMES KOCHALKA and JASON LUTES, both SINGING this year (last year, Jeff Smith came but didn't sing. Not that that's any less awesome of course.). People kept coming up to me being like “Hey you're awesome! Have a beer!” so I got pleasantly drunk on both my giant ego and the beer that was continuously handed to me (at one point I had two bottles, one in each hand). MK was a particularly spectacular drunken disaster, earning herself the new nickname of MK Wreck (previously that weekend I was calling her MK Reek, because of the hilarious misspelling on her SPX name tag). I probably told her “I love you maaaan” about twenty times because she was being so hilarious and drunkenly awesome.
And there's an amazing video of it!If you only watch one video of drunken cartoonists singing karaoke, let this be the one:
The best part, though, was running from room to room seeing what everyone was up to. It was just cool to poke my head in each room (there may have even been four going at once at the height of it) and know that I had a part in this amazing evening, bringing all these wonderful people together. It just felt great.
At the end of the night, Robin tried his best to collect money from everyone to cover the cost of the rooms, and luckily a few people very kindly overpaid, which made up for the many people who didn't chip anything in at all. We tried to get a cab, but no cab every showed up, so more people than should pleasantly fit into a car made our way back to the hotel with our designated driver, Robin, at the wheel. At some point I had my head in Mr Phil's lap because I was sitting on Colleen's lap and a cop drove by. Somehow this started a string of hilarious innuendoes ending with Mr Phil being forever known as Phil “Cumface” Jackson. I don't even remember the specific joke that led to that nickname, but now whenever I see him I just call him “Cumface.”
One of the ways you know the organizers of SPX are truly on the ball is the fact that the show does not open until noon on Sunday and believe you me, we exhibitors NEED that! I was so unbelievably overjoyed to wake up at a reasonable hour, only minorly hung over, with a hoarse-as-hell voice to boot, and time to spare for a coffee and a danish at the 7-11 around the corner.
Sunday was great, if a bit slower than Saturday (but that's to be expected). It didn't take much for me to reach my previous sales record since I had come so close to it on Saturday, but what I didn't bargain for was quite how much my sales would increase! Not only did I break my previous record, but I surpassed it by about 50%! I was astounded. I'm sure a lot of that came from having three new books, but still. I can't say I wasn't completely stoked on that. It was the first time I not only covered the cost of the entire trip, but made an actual profit. That's huge for me.
MK and I also decided on our final band name on Sunday, after I observed her using a hole-punch to make some books. We had previously decided to change our band name as much as possible because it's funny, so when we played shows we could say “Hello we are (band name), formerly known as the Nerdlingers, formerly known as Sock and the Silicocks, formerly known as Chigger Tang, formerly known as 200% Ladies, formerly known as Apple Sexuality, formerly known as the Slutty Apples.”
Our new, and now permanent, band name is “the Hole Punchers.” We were very excited because it works on at least three levels (think about it)! Plus – I invented the perfect band handshake (or, bandshake) to go with it! It's pure minimalist genius, you have to see it in real life to understand.
By the end of the day, when we all packed up our stuff and brought it upstairs, I realized I had traded for a HUGE pile of new comics, as usual. Since I wasn't able to leave the table all weekend, I didn't feel like I traded much, but I forgot just how many people stopped by my table just to trade! It was a lot! I can't wait to go through my stash later this week and read it all! The only one I read right away was Kate Beaton's “History Comics” (it was also the only comic I purchased with money) mostly because I wanted to show it to other people who had not heard of it (like Joe Flood).
We all went back downstairs to meet up with Keiko (who had been filming me most of Sunday) so the four of us (me, Joe Flood, MK and Robin) could be filmed talking about what happened the night before at the Ignatzes and karaoke. After that, we all grabbed some quick falafel, changed into our swimwear, and headed down to the hotel pool to meet up with Alec Longstreth and friends for a pool party at 9pm.
After we had already been swimming for about ten minutes or so, Alec showed up and quietly whispered to us about some other, “better” pool across the street. He showed us a mysterious key he had somehow come upon and we all agreed to dry off and set out across the street to try out this supposedly better pool (which was rumored to be a complete spa with a hot tub, sauna, and steam room as well as a pool and full workout area with free weights and whatnot).
Soaking wet, we set out across the street to the Grand, which once we walked in, we realized was WAY out of our league. Alec walked up to the concierge like it was a totally normal thing and explained that we were from the Marriott across the way, and they had said it was okay for us to use their pool. The guy takes all of us (me, Joe Flood, MK, Robin, Alec, Gabby, and Gabby's friend whose name I don't know) over to a white door, opens it up to reveal the parking lot, points at the Marriott and says “It's over there.”
Obviously the guy was confused so Alec explained again. The guy referred us to another guy, who had Alec sign in and explained how to get to the pool downstairs. When we asked where it was exactly when we got down there, he simply said “The spa will be all around you.”
We got downstairs and the guy was right, there was exercise stuff EVERYWHERE. But no sign or directions to the actual pool area. Some searching led us to a pair of locked glass doors and a darkened pool. It closed at 9pm. Fortunately, someone was intrepid enough to walk through the ladies' locker room, and we all followed (to the shock of a few older Asian women changing there). There it was, the door to the pool area!
We went inside and walked around. There it was, the hot tub! And the bigger, better, nicer pool! The locker rooms even had saunas and steam rooms (which we all tried out in the men's locker room). My favorite part though, was definitely the hot tub:
We would alternate between all of us sitting in the hot tub for 15 minutes, and all of us swimming in the pool for 15 minutes, and before we knew it, several hours had passed! We swam in the dark most of the time, because it was just cooler that way, and Alec tried to find the switch to light up the pool itself but was unsuccessful. It didn't matter though. We all agreed it seemed almost magical that we happened upon this place, this secret hot tub, this darkened pool area far too nice for any of us to normally afford and that we were probably not supposed to be in anyway. It was definitely the highlight of the trip for me, and a spectacular way to end the weekend. We spent a few minutes jumping around the parking lot in victory.
When we got back to our own, less fancy hotel, we found Liz Prince, Maris Wicks, Greg Means and Joe Quinones hanging out in the lobby and regaled them with the tale of our awesome adventure. I sat in a lobby chair and left a wet butt print there before retiring to the room to shower (my legs were already flaking from the chlorine drying them up). I was soon joined by everyone else, who had decided to attend a hotel room party on the 9th floor in Julia's room. I got dressed and tried my best to hang out at the party, but I was so beat from the pool party adventure I ended up going back to the room and going to bed pretty early. Apparently I missed an epic game of Bloody Knuckles that rendered MK quite bruised and swollen the next day. Dammit!
Monday morning we woke up slowly and eventually headed off to the Original House of Pancakes in Bethesda (over by the old SPX location) and we had an excellent breakfast to fuel our respective drives home. After we finished, MK and Joe headed off in their car and Robin came with me to CVS to pick a few things up. As we walked up to the CVS, a crappy care drove by with someone hanging out the window yelling “FAGS!” We turned to the call and saw none other than MK herself hanging out the window.
I'm finally back from SPX, both physically and mentally (well, MOSTLY mentally). I think you can see from the photo above that I pretty much won at life this weekend. How many times do you get to party in the middle of nowhere, present both legitimate and semi-legitimate awards to your friends, sell a TON of comics, sing a karaoke duet in a language you don't know with one of your heroes, have the best time ever, AND hang out with all your friends in a hot tub you're not totally sure you're allowed to be in? I mean REALLY.
Anyway, as you may remember, I have three new comics that debuted at SPX and are now for sale in the store. They are Sing Along Forever, Freewheel 1, and My Brain Hurts 10 (the final issue). All of them have preview pages you can see by clicking on the covers in the store.The My Brain Hurts Value Pack has been changed to reflect the addition of 10, so now you can get Volume One (which collects 1-5) along with issues 6-10 for an even $20 (plus shipping).
Unfortunately you may notice upon looking in the store that Layover is no longer for sale. I sold 10 of the 14 I had left (total print run of 100) at SPX this past weekend and sadly only two of the four left are sellable (two have bends and stains on them) so I'm just gonna wait and sell them at the next con.
Full SPX blog post coming later today, I promise!
Currently
listening
:
The Gold Record
By
The Bouncing Souls
Release date: 2006-06-06
As I continue to gather my thoughts (and other people's photos) of SPX 2008, I invite you to enjoy this year's installment of my Bob's Big Boy Growth Chart (pictured above). Every year on the way to SPX (and basically every time I am in a car that passes a Big Boy) I have to take my photo with the Big Boy statue.
Full blog post coming soon! But here is the quick lowdown in list form:
-Best SPX ever! -Best sales ever! -Best Karaoke Karavan ever! (rocking out on a Korean duet with James Kochalka was pretty great) Something in Korean! -Best SECRET MOTHERFUCKING RICH PEOPLE HOT TUBBIN' ADVENTURE EVER!! (yeah you KNOW you want to know more about me, Alec, MK, Robin, Gabby, and Joe Flood in a fucking secret rich people spa) -Best Nerdlinger Awards ever at Atomic Books! -Best gettin' my ass filmed for a documentary ever! -Best presenting an Ignatz Award to one of my own fucking friends ever! -Best strawberry pancakes and hash browns at the OHOP on Monday morning ever!
So hey, it's Wednesday! That means quite a few things! First of all, of course, it is hump day (the best day of the week)! Second of all, it means there are only a few days left before the 2008 Small Press Expo kicks off this weekend! Are you totally psyched? Because I'M totally psyched!
So there is a LOT going on! Let me fill you in on some of it.
First off, on Friday evening at Atomic Books, I (along with my two partners-in-crime, MK Reed and Robin Enrico) will be hosting the 3rd Annual Nerdlinger Awards! The Nerdlingers are a pretty short & sweet ceremony, so we're holding them as part of the many other things going on at Atomic Books that night (like bands, readings, book releases, etc). Be sure and stop by between 7-10pm this Friday Oct. 3rd. Here's the address and phone number:
Next up, at SPX proper, I will be debuting three new comics! You heard right! THREE NEW COMICS! I've been a busy little bee.
My Brain Hurts 10 - the final issue of my long-running minicomic series following the lives of a group of queer punk teenagers in NYC.
Freewheel 1 - the first issue of my new ongoing minicomic series about Jamie, a 12-year-old girl who wakes up one morning to find her brother missing from their foster home. She decides to run away and find him, embarking on an adventure that leads her to a secret society of hobos, train-hopping, and the truth about her lineage. You may remember Freewheel as having previously been published on the web, and it was. I gave that up and now it's just a minicomic.
Sing Along Forever - a 44-page, one-shot minicomic extravaganza revolving around my obsession with the band the Bouncing Souls, my 4-hour trek to meet them, and the unexpected adventure that ensued, ending with possibly the second greatest day of my life so far.
I will also have new My Brain Hurts t-shirts for sale. This is the new design:
Don't forget about Saturday night! There's a lot MORE stuff going on! Like the Ignatz Awards, which I will naturally be attending. I'm also presenting the award for Outstanding Anthology. I'm probably not going to do anything interesting or funny while presenting the award, but it'll be fun for me, at least.
After the Ignatzes I will be hogging the chocolate fountain (wow, that sounds like some kind of fucked up euphemism for something) and hobnobbing with my fellow nerds until around 11pm when I will be skipping off to the hotel lobby to get ready for the 3rd Annual SPX Karaoke Karavan! I will also hopefully have physical paper fliers on hand during the day to give to people, with directions on the back. If you didn't see my post the other day about the Karaoke Karavan, check it out for all the details.
LAST BUT NOT LEAST...
There will be a film student following me around at least part of the time. She's doing an assignment for her documentary film class on a day in the life of a DIY artist (me). I suggested she come to SPX because it's much more interesting than watching me walk my dogs and sit at my desk all day at home. Luckily her mom lives fairly close by so it's convenient enough for her. If nothing else it'll make the weekend a little more interesting, eh?
3rd Annual SPX Karaoke Karavan
Current mood: devious
Category: Parties and Nightlife
Coming this Saturday! After a long day at SPX! After the Ignatz Awards! After the chocolate fountain after the Ignatz Awards! It's the 3rd ANNUAL SPX KARAOKE KARAVAN!
We meet around 11pm-ish on Saturday, Oct. 4th (after the Ignatz Awards after-party) in the lobby of the hotel (the Marriott at 5701 Marinelli Rd, Rockville, MD) to organize rides before heading off to ZIP CAFE at 2131 Veirs Mill Rd, Rockville, MD.
Last year we packed their biggest room! This year, let's pack TWO rooms!
Last year we convinced Jeff Smith to come! Who will it be THIS year??
Be prepared to chip a couple of bucks at the end of the night to cover the costs of the rooms ($5 is a rough estimate). We will also have a CBLDF representative on hand to collect donations for the always-excellent Comic Book Legal Defense Fund!
To give you some idea of the shenanigans, here is a video from last year:
How can you go wrong???
Currently
listening
:
The Gold Record
By
The Bouncing Souls
Release date: 2006-06-06
3rd Annual Nerdlinger Awards - Now With 67% More Legitimacy!
Current mood: stoked
Category: Parties and Nightlife
Hey everybody! Who's psyched about SPX this year? I know I am!
Some of you who've known me a while know I'm one of three originators (the other two being MK Reed and Robin Enrico) of this thing called the Nerdlinger Awards at SPX. We started the Nerdlingers in 2006 after an insane night of drunken revelry several weeks before that year's SPX in which we somehow came up with the idea. We decided it would be awesome to give awards to people we thought were underappreciated, or maybe they were perfectly well appreciated and we just liked them, or maybe we just thought they had a special thing they should get an award for. We made labels and put them on beer bottles. We had the "ceremony" in our hotel room at SPX and it was a smashing success!
The following year, we decided that we should keep the awards interesting and instead of choosing winners ourselves every year, we put it to the previous year's winners to each choose one person and one category for that person to win. We ended up with some great categories like "Second Best Beard in Comics" and "the Hat-Trick Va-jay Award." We filled up a bathtub with beer! We had a big party and it was awesome! We even had short music clips that we played for each winner as they accepted their award!
This year, there are two HUGE improvements to the Nerdlinger Awards -
One downfall, at least to me, is that now people will know that the three of us are responsible for the awards. Personally, I really enjoyed playing the part of The Mysterious and Unknown Esteemed Awards Committee.
However, I am still going to keep the nominees (winners, really... it's just funner to call them nominees even though all the nominees win awards) a secret until the awards happen.
Anyway, I hope that if you are going to SPX you will check out the party at Atomic Books and witness the 3rd Annual Nerdlinger Awards! Here's the info:
ATOMIC BOOKS TURNS 16! We're celebrating with the SPX-PLOSION PRE-PARTY Featuring Jesse Reklaw, Brian Ralph, Lauren Weinstein, Julia Wertz, Laura Park, Theo Ellsworth, Austin English, Ken Dahl, Ben Claassen III Live music by: Closed Caption Comics, Sam Gas Can and special guests!!
Going to SPX? Plan on buying Sing Along Forever? Want a cool sketch?
Category: Art and Photography
I got this idea just now while drawing a sketch of a friend's favorite musician for him inside his copy of Sing Along Forever. I realized it might be pretty cool if people who are already planning on picking Sing Along Forever up at SPX wanted a sketch of their favorite musician/performer inside the cover I could do that in advance and make it pretty neat.
I am really not the kind of artist that's good at doing on-the-spot sketches but if I do them in advance they usually come out pretty cool (like the one I just finished for my friend). So I figured, why not give it a shot?
If you would like to order a specially made copy of Sing Along Forever with a message from and portrait of your favorite musician/performer inside the front cover, you can order it in advance for $7 (That's $3 on top of the cover price). This is ONLY, I repeat, ONLY available for people planning to pick it up at SPX. (Though I might make it an option after SPX for people to order online, but it will probably be more than $7 in that case due to shipping costs) I definitely won't be able to do this DURING the show, so if you want to order one of these neat little personalized comics to pick up at SPX, there's a handy PayPal button on my other blog (MySpace is being freaky with the PayPal related HTML today for some reason).
If you already placed a pre-order, which comes with a sketch inside, and would like me to draw a particular musician/performer inside your copy, let me know. The pre-ordered copies are getting sketches anyway, so it would be only fair for y'all to get a special one if you want it.
Currently
listening
:
Make Believe
By
Weezer
Release date: 2005-05-10
I followed the Bouncing Souls for 3 days and all I got was this AWESOME WEEKEND.
Current mood: adventurous
Category: Life
A few months ago, tickets went on sale for a trio of Bouncing Souls shows in NYC, NJ and Philly over the course of a single weekend and just two weeks before SPX. I hadn't really thought through Sing Along Forever yet, but I knew I was going to do a comic about the Bouncing Souls, and I knew I wanted to finish it around that time. So I bought the tickets and let them be my motivator to get the comic done and printed up before then, that way I could give the comic to the band in person instead of sending it through the mail.
Just ONE DAY before the show in NYC on Friday September 19th, I had the comics printed, stapled, and folded and I was ready to go! An entire weekend of nonstop Bouncing Souls action to celebrate the completion of not only Sing Along Forever, but the last issue of My Brain Hurts and the first issue of Freewheel (all of which are debuting at SPX).
The first show was at Terminal 5 on West 56th Street in NYC on Friday. I had to figure out how I would transport the comics to the show, get through the show without them getting ruined, and then figure out how to get the comics to them afterwards. I figured if I wore my big baggy shorts I could just barely fit two comics in each pocket, and if I put them in bags and taped them they wouldn't get too much sweat on them.
Sick of it All was playing when I got to the venue, and they are always amazing to see live. I actually just saw them about a month ago at Irving Plaza when they played with Bloodclot and Rancid. They were amazing then and they were amazing on Friday. I highly recommend if you ever get a chance to see them, even if you don't think you'll like them, you should do it. They are an amazing live band with lots of audience participation. Not to mention they play that great, super solid classic NYHC which is always great.
After Sick of it All, the crowd began to sort of shift around and I was able to shimmy my way up to the front, sort of left of the stage, right behind the first row of people. I usually try to scout out where the shorter people are up front, and stand behind them so I can see. Also I usually assume the people closest to the front are gonna be the most into it, and those are the people I want to be near when the band is on because nothing sucks more than rocking your little heart out and everyone around you is looking at you like you are a crazy weirdo for being so into it. That happens to me a lot.
The Souls played an awesome set and the crowd was super pumped, as you would expect a NYC crowd to be. There wasn't really any stage diving because there was a big barrier and bouncers all over. I think one guy managed to get over and jump off but otherwise it was just crowd surfers coming up from the back and then they would get tossed to the side by the bouncers. I'm not really someone who enjoys crowd surfing myself (I prefer to stake out a good spot with a decent view and stick with it), but I enjoy the chaotic nature of random bodies being flung overhead. Highlights of the set included a half-acoustic version of Headlights Ditch (which was AMAZING, I hope they record it at some point), Johnny X featuring… Johnny X (which I kind of assumed they'd be doing since they were playing NYC, why wouldn't they?), and one of the new songs they've been working on (which had a sick beat and I couldn't help but rock out to it even though I didn't know the words).
Oh hey, look, someone put a video on YouTube of them playing Private Radio that night:
After the show everyone slowly filtered out and I checked my pockets to make sure the comics were still okay, and they were in surprisingly pristine condition. All I had to do then was somehow find at least one member of the band to hand the comics off to. I had taken some time earlier in the day to write individual notes in each of their copies and do a sketch of them in each one so they were personalized. I definitely didn't want them to end up getting lost in transit or something if I gave them to someone else to give to them.
I walked down the block a bit and thought about it, and then realized that if I could find their truck and wait around long enough, eventually one of them would come out to it. Their truck is pretty distinctive and easy to find because it has a big soccer ball decal on the back. But where would the truck be? Probably around back on the other side of the building, I wagered.
I felt REALLY fucking creepy just sitting over by the truck so I walked down the block a bit more and enjoyed the cool September breeze coming in from the river, and the few stars shining in the sky. I lived in that neighborhood many years ago when Terminal 5 was a different club frequented by bridge & tunnel guidos who would routinely make their way past my bedroom window drunkenly hollering at each other at 4am when the clubs let out. I never thought I would be nostalgic for that neighborhood but I was definitely feeling the bittersweet pangs of nostalgia walking over towards the river. When I lived in that neighborhood we'd go to the river to give our deceased pets a water burial (my roommate and I went through two pet rats during that time), and whenever the house was too full of guests I would walk over there to drink coffee and have some peace and quiet. I would ride my bike up and down the path there to get to work and back every day and it was always the best part of my day, with the wind in my hair and the river by my side.
So these are all the things I was thinking about., walking around. I walked back across the street from where the truck was since there was no one on that side of the street, I felt less awkward. However I was sitting in the dark under a scaffold, so even though I felt less awkward I felt about ten thousand percent more creepy. After about 15 minutes of that I went back to the same side of the street as the truck and sat down in a weird little vestibule hoping to blend in and not be bothered by anyone for loitering. I slowly got shuffled further and further away from where the truck was by club staff who were unloading some big metal gates right next to where I was standing.
After maybe a half an hour total of waiting, I heard someone say “Goodnight Greg” and I looked up to see Greg quickly walking by. I tapped him on the shoulder and he stopped for a moment while I gave him the comics and we chatted briefly. He seemed very excited and appreciative about the comic. Hugs and smiles were exchanged and we each made our way to wherever we were going (in my case, home). I felt very smart for having formulated a plan that actually worked out the way I wanted it to.
The next day was the show at the Asbury Park Convention Hall in New Jersey. The Bouncing Souls were playing after a roller derby bout between the Jersey Shore Rollergirls and the Wall Street Traitors (the Gotham Girls' travel team). This was pretty awesome because I LOVE roller derby. Zane was coming too, so that was pretty special since it's rare that he comes with me to the things I do, like if I go to a show or a comic convention (except for MoCCA and SPX which he always comes to). He loves roller derby too so that was a nice selling point. We took the NJ Transit train from Penn Station and along the way we actually saw one of the Gotham Girls, who commented to Zane on his reading material (A Game of Thrones). Turns out she was Em Dash, Zane's favorite skater! Pretty awesome.
Neither of us really knew our way around Asbury Park or anything but we figured the place would be easy enough to find since I knew that it was on the boardwalk. First we found a really nice little restaurant and had dinner, and our waitress told us if we walked to the boardwalk, the Convention Hall would be “a really big building, you can't miss it.”
Walking towards the boardwalk we both remarked on the oddness of Asbury Park. There was plenty of old dilapidated buildings like the Coney Island of old, alongside brand new condos that were still being built. One block there would be no sidewalk, just dirt, and the next block would be a sidewalk clearly built within the last six months. I lamented the fact that I forgot to bring my camera when we finally got close to the boardwalk and saw several really amazing abandoned-looking buildings (one that Zane kept calling “the Wizard's Tower”).
None of these appeared to be any kind of convention hall, though, so Zane wanted to ask someone for directions. Just then, a guy in a wetsuit and hoodie rolled up in the parking lot on a bike and Zane was like “I bet THAT guy knows where the Convention Hall is!” I protested that we should just try to find it on our own because it would be more of a fun adventure and started to walk away. But the guy was walking towards us and we realized the wetsuit guy was Greg. I'm pretty sure I started laughing immediately.
Turns out he was about to try and go surfing before the show. Hence the wetsuit. Also he gave us directions to the Convention Hall, which was just a ways down the boardwalk. The sun was low in the sky and the waves crashing on the shore had sort of a pinkish hue, so it was a really pleasant walk. Seemed like there were a lot of people there for the bout and the show so I was getting excited. We plopped our butts in a couple of seats close to the action and yelled and clapped and booed our way through the bout. The Wall Street Traitors ANNIHILATED the Jersey Shore Rollergirls, but they put up a really impressive fight. Their downfall was mostly getting a TON of penalties. If they had played a cleaner game they might have had a better shot, because they definitely had some strong skaters. However, the Gotham Girls have Surly Temple blocking for them, and she is pretty hard to get past. Either way, the derby was fun as hell and after they cleared the floor, the first band (Kissy Kamikaze) came on. They were okay, I wasn't really that into them but they had a lot of energy, which I always commend. It's tough to keep up when the crowd just isn't that into you, and the crowd wasn't moving much (I watched from the seats with Zane).
Right after they ended I handed my stuff off to Zane and bounced on over to the front of the stage behind the shortest people I could find. Which, it turns out, was in the same spot as the night before. Writing this now, I just realized why that is. The shortest people are usually women, and in every case this weekend they were young women, and the left side of the stage is where Bryan is… you do the math. Let's just say this is a dude with some pretty serious teenage girl marriage proposals going on.
In any case, I was happy because Bryan is probably the most energetic member of the band and always interacts with the audience a lot, so he's pretty fun to be in front of anyway. The crowd was kind of weird though because it was such a huge venue, there was actually a lot of breathing room, which is really odd to me. I was pretty much right behind the people who were directly in front of the stage, and yet I had enough room to comfortably dance and bop around and jump up and down without infringing on anyone else's personal space too much. I was especially surprised since Jersey is their home turf, I thought the crowd would be both more plentiful and more energetic.
Either way, I didn't give a shit because I was determined to rock out and have a good time. Being that we were in Asbury Park, they played Moon Over Asbury, which is a rare treat since it's an instrumental and I hear they don't play it live too often. Other highlights were hearing the new song again (even sicker the second time around), and watching security try to thwart the kids trying to climb up on the stage to stage-dive (most were thwarted but at some points they were overwhelmed and couldn't stop everyone). One low-light was the first guy who stagedived – he was a really BIG guy and came from the back of the stage (he must have been standing on the stage) running and leapt into the crowd… and before security could even see him he had already done a full faceplant into the concrete floor because the crowd was too thinned out to really support his weight. Most people moved out of the way when he came flying overhead, because he was just HUGE and came from fucking NOWHERE. For a second it was kind of scary because he wasn't getting up, but a minute later he sort of stumbled up and was okay. It was freaky though.
To give you some idea of how the crowd looked, here's a photo I found on Flickr:
Come on, you can TOTALLY tell that NONE of those people are sweating!
After that, security was REALLY serious about preventing people from stagediving, which was good because that guy really did not look good after he took a nosedive into the cement. It just seemed weird to stagedive and crowd surf on such a sparse crowd, but whatevs. I think the big guy just didn't realize how sparse the crowd was, because he came from backstage and ran so fast he probably couldn't stop himself in time.
Once the show ended, I gallivanted over back to where Zane was and we talked about the show. We decided to walk back to the train station because the show ended pretty early, giving us enough time to walk rather than call a cab. The last train was at midnight so that was certainly a concern, luckily one we didn't have to think about because the show ended around eleven. He was a little concerned about the sketchy neighborhood but I really didn't think there would be any problems. The streets were deserted but come on, people get shot, stabbed and mugged in our neighborhood all the time and we're okay. We stayed close to another group of show-goers also on their way to the train so I thought that was safe enough.
We got home around 3am and I got caught up in the internet for a little while before crashing into the bed around 3:30.
The next day I got up way too early and Zane and I both got ready for our respective responsibilities for the day. He had some family obligations to attend to, and I had to get my stuff packed up and ready to hit the Chinatown bus to Philly that afternoon.
I've never taken any of the Chinatown buses before this weekend but I had heard plenty of stories, including tales of drug trafficking and buses on fire. However, it was $20 round-trip and the bus supposedly had Wi-Fi so how could I say no? When you don't have a lot of money, beggars can't really be choosers. Luckily, with many aspects of my life, I have incredibly low standards. Travel accommodations are thankfully on the list.
En route to the bus, I stumbled upon the Feast of San Gennaro in Little Italy and had myself two of the most delicious slices of pizza I've ever eaten. I was a little early for the bus so I wandered around a bit and thought about having some good Italian ice or gelato but instead just ended up wandering for a block or so and then back again.
Once I got deeper into Chinatown, the insane crowds on the sidewalk started slowing me down significantly and I started to worry that I wouldn't make it in time. Luckily I got to the address on my ticket about ten minutes before two… but since I'd never taken this bus before I didn't know how it worked and there seemed to be no one with a sign and no storefront or any other way to figure it out. Just as I turned the corner, a tiny Chinese woman (smaller than me, even) got right up in my grill and yelled, “WHERE YOU GOING???” I was confused and thought maybe she was trying to sell me a ticket for a rival company so I said I already had a ticket. But she asked again so I said “Phillly.” She asked which company, I said “Apex.” I was directed down the street and to the left, into a super sketchy alley where the bus was idling.
The bus was pretty much just as dirty and busted looking as I thought it would be – some old food garbage lying around, piping on the windows coming off, little roaches crawling on the wall every now and again. I wondered how they managed to get Wi-Fi on the bus but somehow couldn't manage to set a single sponge to the place. I didn't really care that much though, because I was getting to Philly on $20 round-trip in just over two hours. I heard a young woman arguing with her father under her breath in front of me about how she wanted to take AmTrak, and why did they have to take this nasty bus, etc. She even got on the phone with her mother to complain about it and demand AmTrak. I wanted to tap her on the shoulder and be like “Do you even KNOW how much AmTrak costs? And do you know how much THIS costs? And you don't even get free Wi-Fi on AmTrak!” So what if it means getting yelled at by tiny Chinese ladies – it's worth it.
The ride was pretty smooth and we were even hustled off the bus for a quick rest stop (“FIVE MINUTE ONLY!!!”). I managed to take advantage of the free internet and it was actually decent, though I still can't understand for the life of me how they do it.
When we were almost in Philly, I texted Sarah to let her know I was almost there. I then went and waited across from a WaWa for a while until she came and picked me up. We stopped off at her studio to drop off my HUGE bag and went to some weird fancy home-cookin' place so I could have a sandwich. Then we walked over to this awesome fancy Victorian ice cream place called the Franklin Fountain where the theme is all olde-timey and stuff and the servers all look very fancy. I got something called the Franklin Mint, which was a huge metal bowl of mint chip ice cream covered in a marshmallow sauce, chocolate sauce, and crème de menthe along with whipped cream along the edges. I ate about half of it before I started to feel ill and we left so she could take me to the show. Oh and we also passed by wherever the Liberty Bell is, but there was something going on so it was all blocked off and there were a lot of people on the street. Oh AND while we were at the fancy ice cream parlour, Sarah showed me the most awesome prostitute in all of Philadelphia (according to her). We were lucky enough to witness her in the passenger side of a john's car, driving off. I also got to play a very fun game of Which Ice Cream Server Just Got Out of the Mental Hospital? I won that game, btw.
After that, Sarah dropped me off at the Starlight Ballroom and waved goodbye for the time being. I felt like I was being dropped off by my mom, it was kind of funny. Especially since she is younger than me. As soon as I entered the premises I immediately regretted eating all that ice cream as I made a run to the bathroom before exploding. It was then, too late, that I remembered why I generally steer clear of very rich dairy foods. At least it tasted heavenly going down.
Fortunately I recovered fairly quickly and meandered on over to where Grey Area was just about finishing up their set. I'm not all that familiar with Grey Area but the crowd was so pumped I couldn't help but get into it. I came in on their last two songs, thankfully not any later. I had anticipated since there were three opening bands that the Souls would go on much later, so good thing I got there when I did. But yeah, Grey Area. Good stuff. A lot of beautiful pile-ons going .. Grey Area ended, I nudged my way into the seemingly sparse crowd to just about the same spot I'd had the last two nights. Just like on Friday and Saturday, the first layer of people by the stage on that side were young females short in stature, like myself. I held tight to my spot until the Souls came on and I was glad I did, because the crowd went BERZERKER. It was GREAT. No contest, hands-down, the Philly crowd was the most awesome of all three nights. Everyone was totally pumped and into it, the stage was very low so it was easy for people to climb up and stage dive, and there was not really any security to keep anyone from getting on the stage to dance around or just dive into the crowd.
Hey, look, another YouTube video from that very night! I'm so good at finding things on the internet so let's all have a look:
I'm not really a touchy-feely person. I am not someone who is constantly touching other people (though I do sometimes hug my friends hello or goodbye). I'm really just kind of a rigid, awkward person in that respect. The exception to this, I would even say it's a total 180, is at a show. It's the only time I LOVE being squished by strange bodies and covered in other people's sweat while the bodies of perfect strangers fly over my head, a boot landing on my neck, hands grabbing at my pants to pull themselves back up when they fall behind me. I love the chaotic intimacy of it all. It makes me feel alive in a way that I never feel in any other situation. It makes me reconsider why I pretty much stopped going to shows for so many years.The Philly show had all I could ever ask for in that respect. I even saw my old friend Kettner (who I haven't seen in years, but I knew lived in Philly) fly over my head a few times.
Hey, I like that phrase: "chaotic intimacy"
Some highlights included of course, the new song, as well as Lay ‘Em Down and Smack ‘Em Yack ‘Em (which I really don't think they EVER play live, from the Good, the Bad and the Argyle, and which I was actually really hoping they'd play but never in a million years thought they would), and even though they played it all three nights, Gone (simply BECAUSE they played it all three nights, and because Greg said something before he played it that I thought might have been a veiled reference to something I wrote inside the cover of his copy of Sing Along Forever. Either way, I actually got a little teary during the song and if I was less self-conscious I would have shed a tear or two.). Oh and Michael pulled off a SUPER SICK DRUM SOLO at one point that made me want to tear my hair out it was so awesome.
Like I said, Philly was definitely the motherfucking highlight of the motherfucking weekend. MOTHERFUCK!
After the show I gave Sarah a call and since neither of us were expecting it to let out so early, she wasn't quite ready to pick me up yet as she was about half an hour away. I figured I'd be fine to wait for her outside the club so I stood across the street against a chainlink fence and did my best impression of a naïve young prostitute. The crowd dispersed within about fifteen minutes and I was just standing out there on my own pretty much, feeling awkward. The Souls' drummer, Michael, appeared and it turned out I was standing in front of his car. I wasn't sure if he remembered me since we really only met the one time over the summer so I kind of avoided his gaze because I'm an awkward motherfucker. Also I thought he might think I was trying to stalk him or something and I felt really really weird about standing there all of a sudden, even though I had no idea it was his car until he walked up to it. But there I go, overthinking things.
Eventually Sarah rolled up blasting Pretty Woman on the stereo, thereby cementing my already slowly more believable impression of a naïve young prostitute. I got in the car and we rocked out to some sweet Roy Orbison tunes on the way back to her house. Once we got there, I downed a nice amount of orange juice with seltzer and we feasted upon some shortbread she had just made. She showed me around her house a bit, and I must say it was pretty amazing.
Apparently she lives alone in a 3 bedroom house that used to belong to her grandparents before they died, and she is kind of watching the place until the family decides what to do with it (correct me if I'm wrong, Sarah). But that's not even the most awesome part, which is the fact that she has not redecorated the place in any way so it's very much an old people house still. The greatest items in the house are the three realistically painted oil portraits framed and hanging about the couch of her father and his brothers at their barmitzvahs. This was when I REALLY wished I had brought my camera because you really have to see it to understand how amazing it is. There's also cool stuff like really old National Geographics from the 70's and ancient encyclopedia sets.
Having lived with my grandma for a long time in junior high I have a strong fondness for the accoutrements of old people. When my grandma died most of the stuff I took from her house was like, a box of staples that must have been over 50 years old (I still have it), a HUGE calculator, a sewing box, a framed drawing of hamsters, and a wonderfully hideous lime green easy chair (my prized possession until my mom threw it out when I moved out). In my many moves, I've regrettably lost most of this stuff, so it's always cool to see other people's old grandparent stuff.
Oh and that's not even the BEST part. Every surface of the house pretty much has a pile of comic books on it, so no matter where you are, you can just reach over and you'll probably grab something really incredibly rad to read (I did this more than a few times). But you know what's even better than THAT?
KITTENS!!!!!
She has two cats, one of whom has had kittens. Five fluffy adorable kittens living in basically their own bedroom upstairs. It was difficult to tear myself away from them to go to bed.
The next morning, Sarah (who is pretty much the greatest host a couch surfing scumbag like me could have asked for) made PANCAKES! With fruits INSIDE THEM! And COFFEE! Pretty much the best breakfast I've had in months (I'm incredibly lazy so breakfast for me is either cereal with soy milk or like a single yogurt with a granola bar). She even packed me a baggie with leftover shortbread in it.
Sarah is basically awesome, just so you know. Do you people even REALIZE that we barely knew each other before this weekend? We traded comics at conventions and chit chatted on LiveJournal and whatnot but really, how awesome was it that she not only let me stay with her, but was basically my field guide to Philly and my personal foot and car chauffeur for the day? Obviously we are now bosom buddies after this weekend, but I thought I'd just throw that out there because it is just more proof that the people I've met through comics are the kindest, most awesome people I've ever known. JUST SAYIN'.
So yeah, she dropped me off at the Chinatown bus place and I attempted to figure out which bus was mine. There was a big line of people seemingly all waiting for one bus but it didn't look like anyone was actually getting on the bus. I saw a guy throwing luggage underneath but no one getting on the bus. So I figured it couldn't be the New York bus because that one was supposed to leave at 9am and no one was getting on. Then the bus drove away and I decided that would be a good time ask which bus was the New York bus.
Oh, it was THE ONE THAT JUST DROVE AWAY HOW AWESOME IS THAT.
I knew they had another bus in an hour though so it wasn't a huge deal. The next bus that pulled up, I was told by another passenger, was to DC. I decided to go inside and ask to make sure. The lady inside said it was a New York bus and it was leaving at 9:15. Wait, what?
I walked up to the guy standing outside the bus, and sure enough, it WAS a NYC bound bus, so I got on. However, when the guy started taking tickets it turned out to be a DIFFERENT COMPANY (thanks for nothing, lady in the office!) so my ticket was not valid and I had to pay them another $12 to stay on the bus. Motherfuckers. But still, cheaper than Greyhound or anything else for that matter.
This time the ride was a breezy two hours even, and they let me off on Varick Street right by where Zane works! So I gave Zane a call and sure enough, he was just about to finish something up before heading over to Bubby's for lunch, so I met up with him and we had a nice lunch together. Pretty great timing!
All in all, I am SO glad I decided to do this Bouncing Souls crazy mini-tour thing. Every single day was a brand new awesome adventure and totally worth every minute and every dollar spent. I'm kind of sad it's over, but what can I do? They'll be playing again soon enough, I'm sure.
Currently
listening
:
Anchors Aweigh
By
The Bouncing Souls
Release date: 2003-08-26
Monday 9/15 - last day to pre-order Sing Along Forever!
Category: Art and Photography
Click the pic for a 5 page preview and to place your pre-order!
Sing Along Forever is 44 pages of comic book love for the Bouncing Souls. If you preorder by September 15th, I will include a free sketch on the inside front cover for you and I will send your copy of the comic out to you when I leave for SPX (October 3rd). This means you will get your copy before I even put it up for sale on my website the following week. Quite the bargain for a mere $4 (plus $1 for shipping/PayPal fees).
As of Tuesday September 16th I will be taking down all the "add to cart" buttons for the pre-order so if you want to get yours in, be sure and do it before midnight on Monday September 15th.
A BIG thank you to everyone who has put in their pre-orders already! Every little bit helps me pay for the print costs this week and your contributions have been super-appreciated.
Currently
listening
:
Tom Tom Club
By
Tom Tom Club
Release date: 1990-10-25
stoked
devious
