tour 7

mcsorley's buzzed with excitement, and the place had an old-world charm and wooden creaky floors covered with sawdust and crazy bustling excitement, lots of laughs and drinks and it really could've been any period in all of human beer-drinking history... places must've felt like this in egypt way back when. but the egyptian beer drinkers probably weren't wearing abercrombie shirts, which reminded you of time and place and seemed incongruous with the old-dark-wood room. we ordered cheese and crackers and light beer, drank several beers (they come in 2's) and a whole package of saltines with white cheese and the strongest mustard ever yet to cross these lips.

headed further on, hit up an amazing chinese grocery and bought laura some chopsticks for 99 cents and back towards fulton fish market and tyler's apartment. that evening, me, will, both michaels, and willis headed over to times square to take in the massive insane cultural nexus, the epicenter of "branding" and freakishly bright and loud place. i took some super8 film there, took some photos, and dug the scale of the place. that's what's always amazed me about times square... jumbotron signs so large that zooming in even slightly creates a fantastic pixellation effect and the closer one zooms, the more divorced the image becomes from the larger whole, and the crazier and more pixellated it becomes. to take something really gaudy and loud and completely remove its context.

--------------
quick aside here: i am typing at a computer terminal in the middle of rhode island somewhere, at a public library and it's really kind of strange because literally every person in the library is sitting in front of an internet terminal and i not see a single person reading a book.
--------------------

our train had stopped running so we walked all the way back down, took a couple of horus, stopped by some raging apartment party, dug the scene for a moment or two, but ditched quickly as the hour ahd grown late (4am) and people were falling asleep standing up.

next day... will's birthday. a walk through battery park and then will, michael bain and i split off to hit up the russian and turkish baths again. another fantastic few hours and we walked through the east village, eating falafel and trying on cheap plastic shades.

next day headed to nyu for radio taping... a fantastic building, the tisch school for the arts, our home for the next few hours... we set up and raged through out set, starting things off with some ebow and a sampler and ambient-ness for a few minutes leading into our cover of woddy guthrie's "this land is your land." we'd been rehearsing in the van and whole group really belted through it... that song is my national anthem... runs much deeper for me than the "star spangled banner." the best of what america is... hope for something better, but not blind optimism. we sang a version of the tune with lyrics hitting deep... some of these verses have been cut because they seemed too "socialist." we left them in and you can hear another version we recorded on our myspace.com page.

afterwards kayla (radio dj) bought us some falafels from mamoun's, so cheap and so good. then off to piano's for the night's gig.