Me and Vincent Gallo, baby. We are taking it all the way. He will play the bass and the keyboards and sing...I'll play guitar and the drums and sing. We are going to release 170 copies of our only album (100 on black vinyl, 50 on dark red, and 20 on bright brown) and then break up. We will play one (1) live show at the legendary _______ venue in New York City and then break up. There will be celebrities stampeding to try to get in the door. There will punk kids beating up the celebrities and trying to get in the door. Murderers and drug pushers will stop what they are doing and look for us. The rest of the scum is going to shield their eyes and look...but they won't see.

Future Boy and the Mysterious Man lightin' up the world, brilliant to the end.

Another picture of my cousin Cole (that's Lance Cpls. Cole Gibbens to you) in Iraq. Doing the war/fighting for the country thing. This was in a Biloxi, MS newspaper this morning. Not the best picture (I grabbed it from this web page), but it so strange to see him there. He is the one with the dark camo bandana on his head.

I am proud and angry and sad when I look at him. I hate to think that he is in danger. I hate to think that he has to live by the credo of "anything that moves, dies." Honestly, the war has had as much emotional impact on me as stock market fluctiations did a couple months ago. That changed after I saw this photo.

He likes to tell this story. I went deer hunting with Cole a couple years ago. I've only been hunting a few times, but we always go to the larger stands together and talk and smoke and take naps. One person would watch for deer and the other would lay on the floor in the 20 degree cold and try to sleep. Well the first time I ever went hunting (we were both about 14), he decided to take one of these naps, and I was supposed to watch. About 10 minutes into the nap, he had just dozed off, and he feel something crawling on his chest...he realizes that it is a big ole rat, and he starts flailing around and screaming. He practically falls out of the tree. After his little fit he asks me, "What the hell was that?" Turns out, I had spotted some deer, and having never shot anything before, I decided to wake him up. Well, instead of shaking his shoulder, or smacking his head, I had started to kinda scratch his chest (?), well more nudge his chest...and he though it was a rodent. He always says the funny part was the dumbfounded look on my face.

He tells that pretty much every Thanksgiving.

Some pictures from the 2003 Zulu Parade, Mardi Gras day.

I also took some good pictures of Godspeed You! Black Emperor and Bardo Pond at Twiropa this past Tuesday, including a cool panorama of the entire stage. I was able to fit all ten members of the band into just three pictures. I will put these up later this weekend. Apparently there was some controversy within the New Orleans DIY community regarding the contents of a "two-page rider" that was sent out to venues that were trying to get the show. Rumors of requests for exotic fruit platters, a wide selection of micro-brewed beer, ultra-expensive Kobe beef, brand new 17" Apple Powerbooks for each band member, and other ridiculous demands have surfaced, but I don't take much stock in that. The performance was exciting and moving and extremely loud. They played for over 2 hours and finished with a resounding BANG!

I took the Chia Head and planted (?) it. It is just now starting to flush out what will surely be a full head of Chia Hair. I could take a picture of that, but I doubt anyone cares.

There's been some strange psychological warfare waged between my father and his siblings (and their spouses) for the last five years or so. It all started when my father (always a classy fellow) purchased a Chia© Head for my uncle for Christmas. Now you may think that things would have ended there, but a Chia Head is no ordinary joke gift. It stays with you. Much like the effluence of sprouts that grow on it's corn-rowed ceramic scalp feed on nutritious brown slime, so does the Chia Head feeds on the evil intentions of the mind, sapping any good humor the givee may harbor for the giver. The Chia Head will sit in a closet for months, or maybe even a year before it springs forth. Any holiday is a good excuse for the Passing of the Head.

In fact, this past Christmas my father was looking at a high-probability of receiving head. My youngest uncle has the head in his court, as my other uncle on my dad's side had passed it to him for his birthday. Sure enough, an 8" square package loomed underneath the tree on Christmas morning. My dad tried to avoid looking at it, but everyone knew what was on his mind. The giver's wife made the move and surreptitiously handed him the gift. "Gus, aren't you forgetting to open your present?" Beads of sweat formed on his furrowed brow as he went through the motions of thanking the family, slowly removing the wrapping, and trying to pretend that this was a good-natured joke between brothers. The smiles and laughs were there, but the eyes told the real story. "Take that, bitch," my uncle seemed to be smirking. "Who's got the Chia now, motherfucker?"

My father looked defeated as he retreated to his office space. I followed him and quietly hid behind a mound of newly printed receipts; I watched. As he unlocked his filing cabinet and slowly cracked open the drawer, he did not see ordinary documents. A legion of mindless terra cotta stared back up at him, waiting to be given their orders. As he added the veteran to the top of his mindless ranks, I heard him whisper, "Soon. Soon, my pets. They'll be sorry. Don't you worry your pretty little..."

I couldn't take anymore. This had to be stopped. To be continued...