It’s 2009, and I am coming out of my East Coast midwinter depression to begin again. Here is my first new skill of the new year.  Or, let’s call it my first baby try at painting.

I kind of look like I have liver disease — my color mixing is not so hot yet. My neice Caralie is very good at this skill and tried to teach me a few things. I’m going to learn!

How the Loop looks this morning

Ginko leaves near the loop

Right now in central park it’s a lovely fall scene. Only the yellow leaves are still hanging on. Another couple days and fall will be OH-VER.

I am posting this unseasonal Spring video to get me through. Winter is coming fast. Hold on to your hats.

Instead of working from home I’ve been going into the office to do my work for Yabla.com this week. It’s been fun to be around the hubub of Chinatown — it’s a buzzing hive! Near the office are mostly fruit/vegetable stands with a few fish markets to throw off your sniffer. It’s weird to pick up a basket of strawberries and smell fish.

PHOTO  BY JULIE

I just got photos from our early October tour-ette (not to be confused with Tourette’s Syndrome). Look how bright and awake we look at 5am! Actually, I don’t quite remember what time it was — just that it was really early. We are about to set off from Phoenix to San Diego to set up the installation and play at UCSD.

A new crew on this trip — from left to right Jalen (drums), me, Jordan (guitar) and Caralie (bass).  I was really impressed by them. It’s hard to find a crew that you can stand on the road…very hard. And to have so much fun is even nicer. Also they play well, which is important, but not as important as being able to stand someone in a van for 24 hours.

One thing that sucks on the road with AQ: if you join my band, you have to be totally okay with assembling trees, laying sod, washing teacups and generally working your ass off on stage and off. They did very nicely.

A note: Jalen (far left) is the youngest drummer I’ve ever played with. I’m really impressed with his musician smarts as well as the speed at which he learns parts. I can’t think of another drummer I’ve played with who learns faster.  And believe me, I’ve played with plenty — plenty of really experienced, and even some high profile dudes who ain’t any faster. Really inspiring.

OK, so one of my films made it into this cool film festival in Indianapolis, and because of that I was invited to their opening gala event. All the supporters of the fest were there as well as the film makers. It was very high-brow in a way I’m not used to. I was seriously under dressed.

A great thing about this party was that they had an awesome cover band and a huge dance floor. That’s wonderful, except that NO ONE WAS DANCING.

{vidavee id=”15571″ w=”320″ }

..and this was before I had any free booze. I love my friend Ray (on camera phone) giggling.

Heartland Film Festival was great — I got free tickets to all the films I wanted to see, met a bunch of filmmakers with actual budgets and great films, and I got to see my film on a big screen and talk about it with the audience. One awesome thing was meeting the film makers who were on my Shorts program. They made documentaries about children in Uganda and Thailand.  They were very gripping and well made films. You can check them out here:

Sold

Go

It was kind of embarrassing to be in between these two very serious films. It was sorta like “Hey, I know childhood prostitution sucks, but let’s talk about cupcakes!” At the Q and A I felt a bit like I was wearing a clown costume standing while standing between Mother Theresa and Ghandi.  But people were interested and asked questions very nicely. The project is going to be in Indianapolis (at Harrison Center for the Arts) on May 1st, so it was a nice way to let everyone know.

Hey kids. It’s really fun and highly surprising that I am an official selection ™ of the Heartland Film Festival in Indianapolis, IN. HERE’S A LINK to the blurb for it (my very own blurb!) and the schedule. Moi! A filmmaker!

My one cause for agita is this: the other two shorts playing with mine are about very serious subjects like the child prostitution trade and how the war in Northern Uganda affects children.

And now….cupcakes and ziplines!

I’m not complaining mind you. Just knowing that I’ll feel a little silly.

This is the new T Shirt design. There is also a black background one. I wanted to do it without my name on it, but I was talked out of it by the people who help me with business. I know they’re right, but it’s much cooler without text. When I have enough scratch to do two runs I’ll make some without.

Getting ready to leave town again — picking up band and installation in Phoenix. Looking forward to a break from NYC (even though I love you, Metropolis). One of my stops is in San Diego. Ocean! Woo!

This is where your toilet paper comes from

My 40 mile walk was all in New Jersey and if that sounds awful to you, you’d be partially right. Sure, there’s Patterson to get through, and hundreds of mini malls to scurry by, but once you get onto the country roads NJ is really an interesting and often beautiful state.

I was happy that my journey took me right past the Marcal paper plant, on ground level (I’ve passed it on the interstate a million times). It’s such a cute old factory. At night the MARCAL part of the sign is hot pink neon, and the PAPER PRODUCTS part is bright green.  At ground level the old road is overgrown with Ailanthus and other weeds — the whole thing looks deserted, but it’s not. It’s churning out toilet paper, roll after roll. I buy it once a week at the deli on the corner.

Here’s another thing about New Jersey: the woods are lovely. They are cool and inviting by the side of every road (except for those in Patterson). Whenever I tired out I just went into the woods about 20 feet, laid my head on a fallen log and took a nap. It was so peaceful and so private. The woods are very dense and forgotten. They dull the sound of the road to a murmur. They have a canopy that cools you off even on a humid 90 degree day. You could be there forever and no one would ever know.

One other thing I’d like to mention about NJ is this: There are lots of surprises. A handful of times I would come around the corner of a country road and see something totally out of place. I’m just going to give you one example.

I was stumping along wondering about lunch when I came upon this nice little bridge.

La la la — I stopped to take a sip of water and looked to my right.

There was nothing to do but keep walking.

I crossed the GWB to leave Manhattan. My last sight of NYC.

Last Thursday I decided on a whim to walk to my cabin, which is just about 100 miles away in the Poconos mountain range in Pennsylvania. I have been talking about doing this for a couple years now, ever since we bought the cabin. For some reason I got a bee in my bonnet about it Wednesday night and I set off on Thursday morning without special shoes or training or a single clue about long distance walking. I was hoping to take 3 days to get there.

I’ve since found out that there are a few things I should keep in mind when walking on roads in a long-distance sort of a way.

1. Thin-soled shoes are not going to cut it when you’re walking on asphalt and concrete. You need some cushioning so that the balls of your feet don’t end up totally bruised.

2. It’s very, very hard to walk in the afternoon when you are in New Jersey crappy-ass towns with no trees, low buildings, and sans shade of any kind.

3. A very fit person can cover 20 miles in a day reasonably well if they intend to walk more miles the next day. In my excitement I covered around 30 miles on day one, and 10 on day two. Then I crawled into the woods to lay down. Then I called Jad  to come pick me up. When he got there an hour later I tried to stand and couldn’t. The muscles in my calves and hips burned with a (righteously) angry fire. They were understandably pissed off, as I am not at all fit and have not done much of anything but lay down and sit in front of my computer since January 16 when I had back surgery.

4. I found out I am not too proud to use one of those motorized carts at the grocery store. When faced with the choice of walking down the LONG aisle in a country grocery (post pick-up), my heart sang at the sight of those carts that the 500 pound women use.  It was SO worth the humiliation.

5. Aside from my body’s mutiny, I absolutely adored my day-and-a-half of walking. If my legs would let me I could have kept going till Seattle.  There’s nothing better than putting some miles under your feet. If I had the time I would always travel this way. I can’t wait to do it again.