There's an event planner in New Orleans with a passion for burlesque. He hires showgirls to bartend and host at galas, and costumes them. Last December a friend of my girlfriend had to guide guests through the slave quarters of a historic mansion while dressed as a sexy reindeer in a nightie.

Woolly mammoths still lived on Wrangel Island when this was carved.

I'm scared to listen to any other songs by this band, because this one is so good. youtu.be/7RyKgvq5Kro

I found fourteen beers in this trashcan on Tuesday, and today I sold an Hermès shawl which I found in a free pile in LA on ebay, for eight hundred dollars. But last week I got a root canal, and next week I'm getting two wisdom teeth removed.

Just saw Obsession half drunk in a packed theater and loved it. It has two morals: men are evil cowards, and the love of a woman is the most terrifying thing in the world. I would not have expected a minor feminist masterpiece from that guy's youtube skits

Finished Parallel Lives by Phyllis Rose this morning. Incisive critical feminist narrative history of five Victorian literary marriages, with excellent portraits of the subjects. Made me want to reread Disch and Naylor's Neighboring Lives. And the turns of phrase!

I am fully vindicated by the fantastic new Slayyyter album. youtube.com/playlist?lis...

Last week I tried to ride my bike up Grizzly Peak Road and failed. Today I took the bus up Grizzly Peak Road

In Minneapolis for May Day. I have Chariots of Silk by Tyrannosaurus Rex stuck in my head. Trying to comprehend this omen

Been A Long Time Cousin - Hella Incineration - Dog Faced Hermans Tube Disaster - Flux of Pink Indians King of the Fall - The Weeknd Skin I'm In - Sly and the Family Stone Violet - Hole Jesse - Scott Walker Back To Nature - Magazine Kiss From A Rose - Seal Forward To Death - Dead Kennedys

You couldn't name a band The Homosexuals anymore. You'd have to name it The Homophobes.

Cleaned out the used parts shed from the closed-down bike shop last week. A dilapidated cardboard box labeled "POSITRON - GRIP SHIFT - DISC BRAKE" says so much.

My girlfriend is fed up with how much I like The Weeknd. "You have the emotional intelligence of a spatula," she said.

Twelve years ago I was talking to my friend about riding my touring bike around Lake Pontchartrain. "140 miles? You could do that on a beach cruiser!" he said. Yesterday I rode a beach cruiser from New Orleans to Ponchatoula, and today I'll ride into Slidell.

Yesterday in a pile of books on the sidewalk I found an insurrectionist text, beautifully printed and bound, both authored and translated (from French) anonymously, titled "Destroy Civilization". No copyright page but there was a URL in the back; I was delighted to find it was released in 2021!

I'm a little late with my new year's prediction, but I think in 2026 electroclash will come back. Give a listen to Kap Bambino or Miss Kittin and you will feel them hitting in a way they wouldn't have two years ago. Yelle is still making music! The time is ripe.

Rode my Bianchi to the lake this morning. It cries out for a silver headset

My friend was hit by a car on Saturday night and broke his arm. He got to his housesit but his keys were gone so he crashed in the abandoned squat. In the morning I brought snacks and found the copy of Conflict Is Not Abuse one former inhabitant gave to another early in the process of abandonment.

Recovering from five hours of sleep followed by fourteen hours of manual labor followed by five hours of sleep by drinking coffee

I've been working manual labor gigs after approaching destitution. Spent two days painting walls white, and today I loaded large potted crepe myrtles into the art museum at 7 am, and back out at 10 pm. In between I had to go play a show with my band. My thighs are jelly. Forty is fun so far.

Last week I coined the portmanteau 'barp'. It refers to the oral equivalent of a shart.

Hanging out in the parking lot of the gas station on Rampart and Governor Nicholls and guessed the wifi password of the Jazz and Heritage Center on the first try. "CongoSquare". Same thing happened in Jackson Square last spring, the password was Pontalba.

Oh! Kai Ashante Wilson fans, some news: www.patreon.com/posts/138033...

I wanted to get day drunk today, but didn't start drinking until 5 and got sidetracked for an hour trying to buy cigarettes in the quarter after a Saints game. Might just go home and read Montaigne's essays while listening to the contemporary classical radio show, my usual Sunday night routine.

I'm forty years old now and I rode a freight train and I'm stuck in Chicago!

Just saw Architecton. Some good shots of industrial processes ruined by a Dune-ass score, interspersed with a luxury goods designer hassling the workmen installing a stone circle on the grounds of his villa. Opens with hashtag stand with Ukraine, closes with bloviation. Nothing interesting to say.

The yard is a jungle and there's a broken truck and airstream back there that I need to get rid of. My neighbor brought her goats over for an hour today and they barely dented it. I'm gonna have to learn to use a weedwhacker

I'm so happy to be back in New Orleans.

Biked from Berkeley to San Rafael this morning. Only 20 miles but maybe the longest ride I've done in the bay.

I often think of this hobo's monologue. youtu.be/XdPD015Bu4w?...

I'm on a roll with finding old, out of print books by Thomas Disch. The other day it was Fun With Your New Head and today it's Getting Into Death, another great collection. I hate that Disch seems so forgotten these days, but it makes me eager to preserve these ancient hardbacks.

Struck up a conversation with a lady on the train yesterday and we talked for hours. We were not flirting and she bought me three beers. Connecting with strangers is a survival skill that I worked very hard on in my 20s, and on this trip I've been alarmed to feel that I've let it atrophy.

Drank coffee and bought four books at Bridge Thrift in Highland Park even though I'm living out of two bicycle panniers this month. Really excited for the Fisher and the Lara.

Found a beat-to-hell Long Haul Trucker abandoned in a park last night. This morning I told my crustlord friend that I was going to flip the frame and they said "That's bastard." I said it was a come-up. They think I should just give it to someone. More as the situation develops.

Leaving for a month on the amtrak this afternoon! I haven't packed yet and am sitting outside a coffee shop on my phone. Aah!

Last night my band got to open for a zoomer hardcore band from Florida at an all-ages show. The youths flipped their shit when I went plblblblbl with my finger between my lips at the end of our last song. It was a beautiful night and made me so excited about playing music :)

It's a travesty that Mister Fred's home on the greenway has been demolished. Ornamental hermits have a long history and New Orleans may have been the last city in the US to carry on this tradition.

All power to King Rat

It's raining right now

Really enjoyed The Croning by Laird Barron. Pushes Lovecraftian misogyny and xenophobia to absurd heights while playing completely straight, to arrive at a completely isolated, hopeless, and horrifying position. Shades of Disch and Ari Aster, without their authorial sneering. A romp.

When I was sixteen my only access to Dog Faced Hermans was realmedia files of Mental Blocks for All Ages which I downloaded from a french fansite, and whatever I could find on limewire. Now they have a bandcamp!

In the silver-mining region of Bolivia you can buy dynamite at the store. I was there, then traveled overland back to the US (boat hopped across the Darien gap), without my pack being searched once. Really made me think

Visited a woodshop closing sale and scored some fantastic unused caulks. All this for ten dollars!

My band played our first show last month. Was supposed to be in a tunnel under a bridge but the harbor police got excited so we played in a local parking lot instead. We're playing our next show in three weeks and should have a full five songs :)

Read the first page of Love in the Ruins by Walker Percy tonight. Wish I had been a literary critic in the 70s so I could have said something like "his self-excoriating obsequies will revolt anyone who has been acquainted with an alcoholic."

Didn't ride my cruiser around Lake Pontchartrain today because I wasn't in the mood. Instead I rebuilt both an old Craftsman 1/4" ratchet and my tub faucet diverter valve. Water will not come from the shower head now. I also day drank, and bought a dremel and amethyst geode bookends at a yard sale.

Next week I'm riding my beach cruiser around Lake Pontchartrain. Planning to take three days but might do it in two. The cruiser is a Huffy Nel Lusso with Rambler Bags's april fools day milk crate bag and a front basket. After the ride I'm going to retire the cruiser. Nothing gold can stay.

Finally finished Shoat Rumblin: His Sensations and Ideas last night and loved it. Second-tier Samuel Delany is still better than anyone else alive. Definitely a transitional work between Mad Man and Through the Valley of the Nest of Spiders, and made me want to return to both.

I hate using magic.