Meow House Theatre

First off, I have really seriously been overtaken by Twitter and this site has suffered the abandonment of me from it. What’s happening is that I keep thinking of all this interesting stuff to write about but then I condense it down to exactly 140 characters (I am SO good at that, I mean EXACTLY 140) and post it on Twitter instead. I have to stop doing that so much. Anyway so this is something I tweeted yesterday but instead of being the below collection of paragraphs, it was one sentence. Hmmm that doesn’t say much for me, does it, that both of them end up saying the exact same thing, only one is so incredibly much shorter. Maybe brevity *is* all it’s cracked up to be.

Anyhoo:

I was at the doctor’s office yesterday and you know what everyone does there, besides telling little fibs to the doctor like “Why no I only have maybe one drink a month” or “Yes of course I make my partners use condoms every time”: they read the trashy magazines that they don’t get at home or are too embarrassed to admit reading and thus won’t even let the checkout girl at the Stop & Shop see them. I don’t mind buying The Economist at the grocery store but that high-school kid with the ring in his nose is never gonna see me buying some of the low-brow stuff I read when nobody is looking. Sometimes it’s nice to just chill and read mindless shit. I can’t be thinking deep thoughts all of the time, you know? Although I sincerely and truly state that I despise “women’s” magazines with a vile passion. I’d rather read Hustler than Cosmo; at least they’re honest about what they are. Cosmo tries to disguise itself as “female empowerment.” Yeah, right.

Anyhoo:

So I was there and I was reading People and it was their “Style” issue (uh-huh) and there was a layout about Heidi Klum and her latest venture, now that she’s probably getting too old to be a model (nothing against her, she’s gorgeous, but she’s also older than 15 and is thus getting “too old” for modeling). She has designed a clothing line it seems, and People quoted her as saying, regarding her line of jeans:

“Good jeans have to hug your curves and fit in all the right places” … “My initials are placed on the butt pockets in the perfect place to flatter your figure!”

Now please, is that not the most narcissistic quote EVER in the history of the world? Her initials are supposed to flatter MY butt? I. don’t. think. so.

I can only hope she was either joking and said that with an enormous twinkle in her eye; or People made it up; or they quoted out of context. I’m leaning toward the first since I’ve read some other stuff she’s said and she seems rather witty sometimes. And not an airhead. And People is not exactly The New York Times when it comes to “journalism.”

I actually didn’t even know who Heidi Klum was until she was in the episode of Sex and the City, the one where Carrie (all 4′10″ of her) is invited to be “a model” for some New York Glitterati fashion show event and she’s all excited and happy and thinking she’s the bee’s knees (but why? she must know she’s a neurotic alcoholic who writes a column for a really bad newspaper) until she sees that the other “Glitterati” who were invited consisted of Fran Leibowitz and Ed Koch. She then realizes in one shattering instant that it was less a case of “New York Glitterati” and more a “Who will say yes to doing free work for us?” event. Then she proceeds to have her hair done in a hideous Barbarella ‘do, put on some spangled underwear, and fall flat on her face while walking down the runway in shoes that really only bring her up to about 5′2″ even though they are essentially stilts with patent leather straps. But in between all that she goes ga-ga over standing next to Heidi Klum, who is one of the actual models invited to disguise the fact that people are going to be forced to look at Fran & Ed parading around in their standard manly suits. Well that’s the first time I ever figured out who Heidi Klum was. I believe I had previously confused her with Gisele Bündchen, who is another one I couldn’t keep straight until she started going out with Leo D. and then her picture was all over the place. I think they’ve broken up now.

I have a good memory for trashy gossip snippets in trashy magazines, obviously. Even though I only read them at the doctor’s office. I SWEAR.

So because all publicity is good publicity, here are the links to some pictures I have taken recently. I know I have another site where I usually put my photography work but what the hell, might as well put something here too.

A lot of you know that I have been to several Nine Inch Nails concerts in the past couple of months and I was able to get a photo pass for two of those. The first show I shot was in Worcester, MA, on 9 November, and that was supposed to be it. (For passes, I mean, not for concerts.) I had gotten that pass the regular way, by putting a request into Trent’s PR firm. However, while I was out in South Dakota for another show on 28 November I serendipitously met someone who knew my previous work and got me another pass directly, without having to go through the PR people, for the show they were playing the next day. This was pretty unusual, because most people are lucky to get ONE pass for NIN. That was definitely a happy day. Right place at the right time.

Anyhoo the pictures I shot on the passes turned out really well, plus the pictures I took just using my point-and-shoot cameras for the other shows I attended. I’ve put them all up so far on Flickr and they’ve been feeding through to the nin.com image galleries, and I have some of them linked over on my other site and once I finish writing up my story about the Las Vegas show I’ll have something there too specifically on that.

So if you are totally bored one day feel free to go visit.

meowhousemedia.com

NIN Flickr set

My gallery page on nin.com

If you have a Flickr account, it is probably best to click on the picture and choose to view “All Sizes” so you can see the original upload. Otherwise you only get the smaller picture that Flickr puts on the main page of the account.

And now a series of random thoughts that would make good Twitter posts except they’re about three times too long, if not more.

I saw this woman today in the caf, who works for one of our other companies in the building, and she said, “Hey have you lost some weight?” Why yes I have! I am not sure what’s going on and it could be that I have a dread disease but in any case I’ve had to buy three new sets of clothes in the past few months because they keep falling off me. But I don’t feel sick so I’ll just stick with it until something seems wrong. Oh stop worrying, nothing is wrong, I just changed my eating habits.

Also, a couple of weeks ago I went to visit a friend who is moving overseas and the first thing she said was “What have you done to yourself?! You look fantastic!” I don’t know what I had done but it was nice to hear. Although I guess I must have looked like shit in the past. Hmmm.

^^^now don’t think I’m all vain and shit, even though I am. It’s nice to be told one looks nice. I also enjoy hearing “Wow you are smartest wittiest most interesting most intriguing and definitely the most incredibly talented person at X *and* Y *and* Z that I have ever met in my entire life!!!!!! It’s amazing! And my life is changed since we met!!!! ZOMG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” But usually people just stop with “Wow you look nice.”

A photographer contact sent me a message asking if I could give him the name of the PR firm that handles a very big band I am shooting soon, because he couldn’t find their contact info online anywhere; and I had to reply by telling him that I didn’t know the PR rep, that someone in the band had set it up for me directly without having to go through the PR or management, which is how the usual process goes. That was a sweet moment and the second time it has happened recently. If only it were always as easy as those two were.

Speaking of photographs: I got an email asking if some online magazine thing could use some of my Nine Inch Nails photographs in an article about “Trent’s retirement from music.” One, he’s not retiring, he’s just not doing some huge enormous tour next year on the same scale as this one that is just ending. (Or so he says. He says after every tour that he’s never touring again and yet he always tours again.) And two, they picked out two curiously bad pictures. I mean of all the Trent Reznor photographs I have done, and there are some GOOD ones, they picked out two that were not that great. I declined their “offer” (they weren’t paying either, and it’s a commercial site, so um NO), for one reason that I wouldn’t have wanted them to use those particular pictures when I shot others that were so much better; and also I’d have to get NIN’s authorization and permission to assign syndication rights and I just didn’t feel like it for this particular magazine. But still, they sent me an offer. Which kind of made me happy until I found out they have sent “an offer” to probably every single person on Flickr with a Trent Reznor photograph, including some TERRIBLE shots taken by crazy people. So my 5 minutes of pride thinking I was all special went away, fast.

Heard recently via Twitter from Demonbaby: if you have an iPhone you know that it has an annoying way of “correcting” your swear words for you in text messages. A helpful little gesture Apple has put in there, NOT. So if you type “fucking” all the time, like I do, the dictionary changes it to “ducking” and if you want to make it “fucking” you have to backspace the whole thing and retype, usually three times, before it accepts that you really, REALLY mean to say “fucking” and not “ducking.” Well, it turns out if you make an entry in your Contacts called “fucking fucking” then in the future when you type “fucking” it stays as “fucking.” This will save me long minutes of retyping, because I type “fucking” a fucking awful lot. I also need to do it for “shit” because the iPhone thinks I really mean “shot.” Apparently the iPhone is meant for the G-rated crowd.

Speaking of text messages, I have a new fondness and respect for them. I had a 200 messages per month plan originally and used that up in about a week, so I had to change to the 1,500 per month. So far that seems sufficient although I’ve used about 200 just since 12/1. I never used to like texting but it’s SO EASY with the iPhone that I am running through them all the time. Plus I have friends who don’t have Internet access at work and so texting is the only way to exchange our extremely important information about what clothes to buy and where is the best place to have an enormous poster printed. Very important stuff.

Am leaving for Las Vegas tonight. Suite at Planet Hollywood, presale GA tickets to what is probably the smallest concert pit in the country–fifty or a hundred people, I’ve heard–and a host of glorious things to do and people to see while there. I got my cameras ready, my new business cards that came out quite well (gotprint.com, check them out), and my secret Operation Huge Red Underpants in full swing (no they are not *mine*! Do you think I’d tell the entire world that I wear huge underwear? Let’s call them part of an art installation to be revealed at a more appropriate time.) Meeting up with my two friends sometime tomorrow night and then let the festivities begin.  It’s Vegas, baby!

I went to Trader Joe’s a couple of days ago.  It was a wholly unsatisfying experience.  They have a real quality-control problem.  Some days everything they have for sale is really good and some days you just get shit. I don’t mean the fresh stuff, I’m talking the frozen or pre-made foods.  Some are good and some are not worthy of being fed to dogs as their last meal before getting that final IV in the back of the city pound.

I bought the following:

1.  Vegetable shu mai.  Terrible.  Rubbery, looked raw even though it was cooked, unappetizing all around.  The picture on the box was great, but THEY LIE.  Grade:  D-

2.  Hummus.  It’s okay but I’ve had better.  Grade:  C

3.  Gingerbread cookies covered with chocolate.  Sounds like they’d be REALLY good but these have a layer of what I assume is technically marzipan but which in reality looks and tastes like cardboard.  That thin white cardboard that comes in a package of stockings.  I hate marzipan anyway but when it cannot be immediately identified as “not cardboard,” then you know there’s a real problem with it.  Grade:  D-

4.  Sushi.  I never should have gotten this.  We have a lot of good sushi places here in Boston and I don’t know what possessed me to buy pre-made sushi from a grocery store.  I thought, how bad could it be?  WELL IT COULD BE WORSE THAN YOU MIGHT EVER THINK.  It’s not that it was rotten, but sushi is not meant to be bought and made and put in a plastic box for later.  You’re supposed to watch the guy cut it, roll it, chop it, arrange it prettily on your plate, and then you eat it.  Immediately.  No saving for later.  Grade:  A Big Fat Fucking Capital F.

Actually I wrote the above about 3 hours ago and the thought of that terrible sushi I had made me want good sushi so I went to an actual Japanese restaurant for lunch and had some and it was magnificent.  So the painful memory of Trader Joe’s substandard product has somewhat been eradicated.