Fuck UMD

Fuck UMD, fuck UMD, fuck UMD.  This doesn't mean I hate Duluth, or that I'm having a shitty time.  I am having a shitty time when I visit UMD. So far, I have gotten 3 parking meter tickets (8 dollars each) and have been kicked out of not only the painting department and the photo department but the art department as a whole.  Now, granted, I am not a student.  But shit! It has really debauched all my plans.

I finally completed my what will end up being probably 60 pages graphic BOOK (entitled, "Life in a Northern Town") and now need to do some major scanning and reorganizing/assembling but there is no such scanner available to me.  Of course UMD has the perfect scanner for what I am doing and but not only can I not use it but y prints wouldn't be able to be scanned anyway seeing as it was not photographic material..... Kinkos charges probably somewhere around 40,000 dollars per square foot to use their oversized scanner so I'm stuck.  I started the project in August of 2007 and the illustrations were completely as of February this year.  Now I'm stuck.  

Plus, I have this gigantic canvas sitting in the foyer of the house half painted and stinking of paint thinner.  I know it's pissing the roommates off but what am I suppose to do without of a fucking room (Noble move out)?  2. more. days.

Madi comes over everyday and with Austin about 75% of the time.  They showed me the drive that is Highway 61.  I drove it today by myself for almost 20 miles.  I listened to the Queen is Dead on repeat and started to think about stinky things.  I didn't like it. Volleybonk was cancelled because Kate got another job at Perkins.  Aside from Corey coming to visit today bummed me 

out and tomorrow will too if Corey decides not to come.

Started to size up the road trip this summer with Malin.  I realized that I have to drive from the Grand Canyon to Florida.  There's no way out of it.  The trip makes a perfect loop this way but theres 26 hours of pure south in between the orange valley and Lloyd.  The last stretch is New Orleans, Southern Mississippi and Mobile to Tallahassee.  The mother fucking Bayou. We know noone in Albuquerque, W. Texas, Dallas, Baton Rogue, Mississippi or Mobile so this will be interesting. Fuuuuuuuuuuck.

The Manix CD Release

February seventh marked the date of the release of Minneapolis pop punk's own the Manix full length album. Nick and I drove down from Duluth to celebrate the occasion with a show/party at the Getthefuckoutofmy House off E. Franklin.

First we went to Brenson's so we could give a ride to the house and he could pick up the THREE PBR kegs for the show. The bands were charging 5 dollars for a cup and the new album. The kegs were a big success after the first tap broke halfway through the first keg. Luckily, majority of the Amen and the Hell Yeahs plus more party guests work at Haskell's. Coco booked over to the downtown liquor store to grab us a new one. Saving the motherfucking day.

The release also marked Whiskey Jeff of Amen and the Hell Yeahs 24th birthday. 

Which led to a rousing re-written rendition of , D4=Putting the F back in Art. Where the lyrics "Walk Away" became "Happy Birthday".

Tyler, Steve, Mike and Corey (the Manix) are fucking rockstars. Their pop-punk beats had no problem making the crowd (who had just finished their 3rd PBR keg) to smash into each other causing many a mic to the mouth. At the end of the night, I guess, they ended up making around 800 dollars. Bad, fucking, ass.

From Florida to Duluth

Last week I traveled the whatever 1,436 miles to Tallahassee, Florida. When I arrived at noon Thursday I was greeted by a very punch drunk, half baked, completely exhausted Lloyd. He works the overnight shift at the diner as a fry cook or dishes. It's a mostly monotonous job. When went to Quincy and took a nap.

Later Thursday, I was in round 2 of Volleybonk. Volleybonk is a favorite pastime of Tallahassee, Florida. Its a combination of volleyball and tennis played in a tennis court in forms of doubles. In the game you use large plastic ball purchased in large bins at places like Walmart. Mostly it looks like a giant game of Ping-Pong. When I'm not in Tallahassee Lloyd calls me bi-weekly updating me about the latest Volleybonk matches. My first day in Duluth (last Thursday) Kate and I went to Target and bought our own Volleybonk ball and proceeded to have the first ever Duluth match right there in the parking lot. The weather in Duluth recently has been in the 30's (!!!) and Kate, who has been pinned up living in a hallway shaped house full of the Sam Ginsbergs and David Hottmans of the world was more than happy to try new things like the schoolyard game of Volleybonk. I'm assuming that, this, my Duluth blog will become a place to track the games of Volleybonk to come.

We went to the Tallahassee Natural History and Science Museum, Saturday. More like an outdoor zoo with weird period displays of old time southern farming just as after the abolishment of slavery. One, with a black migrant farmer and the plantation owner in a contract signing agreement was paritcularly racist. Mostly walked around and goggled at the animals like a owl, two cugars and sea otters. There was, however, an old train compartment where an excitable young boy ran back and fourth giggling and laughing at us as Lloyd carved LH+AS in the

passenger bench. Katy apparently once broke her arm there when Lloyd and her were young kids. In the gift shop I got a stretched penny and a mood ring.

Friday night we went to an Old Timey Banjo Show at the VFW. The star being the man who taught Bela Fleck how to play banjo. I don't know exactly what this means but I'm assuming it's that he's a studio banjo player. Drew works at the local folk instrument store and invited us. The VFW was interesting place. The signs that hung on the wall were mostly miss-spelled and there was a gigantic photo from Pearl Harbor (2001, starring Ben Affleck and Josh Hartnett) behind the stage. Drew bought 3 shots of straight Whiskey. I was drunk, high and at a VFW in Tallahassee. ..

Every Sunday Lloyd's mother, Beth, his aunt, Kiki, and grandmother, Nanny, go to church and BBQ lunch where Lloyd usually goes and meets them. He is a mommas boy. We went and joined and then headed over to Evan's before the flee market. The flee market is where one goes to buy things like airsoft

guns and butterfly knives, apparently. But, no that is not the real reason to go to the Flee Market. The real reason is the people watching and the best people we saw were the ones you had to knock a secret code on a trailer to make come out. These were the fine glassware sellers of Tallahassee. Infact there was one piece that I now have been having repeated dreams about. Which is bizarre.

As I move to Duluth the idea of moving to Florida becomes more appealing. Even if it is FLORIDA for god sakes but I just can't bring myself to do it.