The Poverty Jet Set

And much to my chagrin, she still doesn’t have a blog! So I’m reposting this great story she emailed her friends last night. By the way, she lives in the Mission in San Francisco, for geographical context.

today was also the day of crazy homeless and/or cracked-out people being nice to me. i crossed the street on a red today, because it was a one-way, and i could clearly see that there were no cars coming, for blocks and blocks, and HOLY SHIT! flava flav was totally also doing the same thing, coming toward me. so flava stopped, frantically spread out his arms, looked both ways and he stood in the road and pretended he was stopping traffic for me. pantomime. hugely hammed up.

i gave him that point-the-finger-at-you-cause-i-represent coolness, and nodded with a smirk, and he was all “AH HA HA! you have a nice day!!!”

i was like, you too, buddy.

you think i am making this up, but there is a cracky homeless guy who patrols our neighborhood looking EXACTLY like flav, and he must know it, because not only does he look just like him in the face area and body area, but he appropriates his style of dress by wearing the humongous clock around his neck and generally wearing oversized jackets and stupid sunglasses. (sans the spendy gold grill, of course,) the resemblance is kind of eerie, but then you think, well, how many times have i thought that the ACTUAL flava flav looks just like some crackhead in my neighborhood? and then it all makes sense.

yes. that special street person chose me today, out of thousands. and i was damn glad.

i don’t know what it was about me today, but even the cops who stand at the top of the escalator in the light rail system, checking for people who don’t have transfers, in order to give them $150 fines (because it is ridiculously easy to hop on the trains through the back door and get a free ride – until!), but even they were, “i hope you have a transfer, cause we don’t wanna give you a ticket, little lady. that’s a nice smile you got.”

then the small policeperson complimented my purple plastic seashell belt. the one my brother says looks like a stick-em-up-on-the-wall air freshener, which, in fact, when we were children were indeed called “stick-ups.” i remember the commercial, and it must have affected me deeply. (I just checked with google, and they’re still called that.)

[me, Audrey, David Wilson & Scott Beibin]

Audrey and I spent the weekend in good ol’ Columbia, Missouri to hole up in a dark theater and watch excellent indie documentaries. It was my third (and her second) time to the fest in their five-year history. We hope to be there every year until their twenty-fifth and beyond! It’s truly one of the best doc festivals in the country - relaxed vibe, great parties, wonderful films all held in a super rad town. If you’d like to know more about True/False, check out this great podcast interview with my friends and festival founders Paul Sturtz and David Wilson on Joel Heller’s blog “Docs that Inspire“.

Some of the highlight films for me were Joy Division, the new documentary hot on the heals of the fantastic biopic Control that came out in theaters late last year - The Order of Myths, a subtle story about race and the Mardi Gras traditions in Mobile, Alabama - and Gonzo, the Alex Gibney portrait of Hunter S. Thompson.

Echoes of Home, though, was by far my favorite film of the festival. It’s the story of a few musicians who are pushing the art of yodeling to new and powerful forms, but also reaching back into the history of this ancient skill. One of those kinds of movies that makes you tear up because it’s so beautiful. Okay, at least I did.

We saw some old friends and made some new ones, too. Like seeing our old buddy Chris here sitting and rappin’ with ramblin’ musician ‘Gramps’ on 10th Street.

True/False also does a crazy parade every year:

And those folks sure know how to throw a jammin’ party:

My friend Pearl just started blogging. It’s pretty entertaining stuff, you should check it out. She tells great stories about living in Philly - like going to see Rambo with her parents at the Riverview or having crazy rides on SEPTA. Plus, she loves drawing cartoons. That lil’ fella above, for example. He’s Lonely Zombie, and he can’t get a good date ‘cuz he keeps eating their brains! Poor guy. Click through to read the whole strip.

One of my best friends from college, Steve Kurutz, has been an arts and entertainment writer since we both joined up the Daily Collegian Arts Staff at Penn State (wanna see my funny bio from back then? {click here} I guess Steve never wrote his.). Since those glory days, he’s gone on to bigger things in New York City, writing for Details, W, Playboy and Spin and doing a stint as a staff writer for the New York Times.

Steve’s just finished his first book, an exploration of the strange phenomenon of ‘tribute bands‘. In it, he follows around a couple of Rolling Stones tribute bands from bar to bar, club to club and reveals the strange culture surrounding them. I haven’t read it yet, though ‘cuz it’s coming out in a couple months (on Broadway Books, part of Random House).

He just set up a blog to help publicize the book, so head over there and give him some friendly comments. I’ll let you know when you can buy a copy for yourself.

My sister Anneke, the cutie that she is, just scored the cover of Lehigh Valley Style Magazine. How cool is that? It’s not every day you get to have yr face on the cover of a old media mag. Sa-weet!

(more…)

Audrey and I have been lucky enough to be invited to a couple recent Philly Food Blogger meetups, an extravegant delight from the epicurian minds of some wickedly good cooks, wine lovers and foodies who like to write, eat and well, cook. Audrey and I don’t blog about food, per se, but we do have a video series about cool date spots in Philly called Illadates (in case you haven’t seen it!).

This time, the Philly Food Blogger meetup was hosted graciously by Taylor of Mac & Cheese. Her blog, IMHO, is one of the best-written, most beautifully photographed, and frequently updated restaurant/gardening/foodie blogs in the area. Plus, she’s one cool gal. Thanks for a great night, Taylor!

A quick shout out to some of our new fun foodie friends from the meetup (read their blogs!): the Two Fat Als, E of Foodaphilia fame, McDuff and his wine, David the PhilaFoodie, the lovely Urban Vegan, the wonderful Fork You! couple, and of course, the lovable duo Philly Food Guys. Cheers, all! Until next time.

My buddies Andy, Chetana and Darshana have been playing music together for a while in an outfit they call ravens:and:vultures. They’ve got a new EP out you should check out if you’re partial to pretty, trippy, folky, experimental dream pop like I am. Unfortunately, I missed their show at Johnny Brenda’s last Saturday after I said I’d try be there… oh the guilt!… but I’m sure they’ll be playing again soon!

Here, have a listen:

Oh, and don’t forget to friend ‘em up!

Great party at Jeff Carpineta’s hacienda in lovely Kenso, New Years ‘08. I’ll let the photos do the talking. Here’s me, Maggie and Adam first thing in 2008:

Last night was First Friday here in Philly, and we went out to see my friends David Kessler and Candace Karch’s show at the Babmi Gallery in Fishtown. His show is “Shadow World” doing a multi-media instillation of his excellent art-video blog of the same name. If you haven’t watched any episodes, do yourself a favor and check ‘em out. Her show is “Lost and Found” and is showing absolutely amazing prints of surreal-looking x-rays with pen and ink drawing. Show is up until January 20, 2008. Go buy some art! Have a look at the short vid I shot there:

Our friends Lord Whimsy and his wife Lady Pinkwater joined us recently for a soiree chez nous (at which those photos above were taken, making our big, drafty loft look all warm and cozy!). Whimsy and I got into a discussion about ‘microcelebrity‘ and what it means to us as media makers. After further reflection, he’s written a great post about it on his blog, and I encourage you to check it out if you’re interested in such matters.

A snippet:

The timing of this more recent article on microcelebrity seems a bit odd; this technology-fueled social phenomenon has been around for quite some time now, although it has certainly grown and intensified in recent years. We are all becoming more adept as self-mediators: It has become one of those necessary twenty-first century life skills, right up there with knowing a few key phrases of HTML or knowing how to put one’s cell phone on vibrate mode. To quote Clive Thompson: “The truth is that people are developing interesting social skills to adapt to microfame. We’re learning how to live in front of a crowd.” In the words of Quentin Crisp, we’ve learned to “urinate with style”.

On a side note, Whimsy’s amazing book “The Affected Provincial’s Companion, Vol. I” is going out of print soon, and I highly recommend you pick yourself up a copy before they disappear (or before they have the Johnny-Depp-Based-on-the-Book print run).

Every so often we here at The Poverty Jet Set get pinged by a cool new blog, and I wanted to send a shout out and a word of thanks from Lara Dunston at Cool Travel Guide. She was kind enough to add us to her short and highly reputable blogroll, so of course I checked it out and was pleasantly surprised, so I subscribed! Check out, for example, one of her posts on traffic hazards in Thailand. Having traveled extensively through South East Asia myself a few times, I can relate! In fact, that reminds me of an amazing post I’m going to write about an insane bus ride in Vietnam…

And for you foodies out there, she’s got lots of great posts on the joys of eating and travel like this one.

So, thanks, Lara. Looking forward to more!

My good friend Jeff Carpineta brought his super great vintage polaroid camera (don’t know the exact model UPDATE: it was a Polaroid Land Camera circa 1970). Want to see more photos? Check out my Flickr set or our wedding photo group on Flickr. If you were there, make sure to add you photos to the group pool! Thx!

Since I recently blogged about my sister Rebecca and mentioned her eco-friendly, fairly traded maternity clothing line, Schone Maternity, I called her to see how she was doing. Things were not looking good. She was overloaded with work being a one-woman operation, fearing the debt her business was racking up, and stressed out about screwed up orders from her factories. It ain’t easy running your own business, that’s for sure.

But then this morning, she sent out a wonderful email that I just had to share and write about! First of all, her line is being featured in next month’s O (for Oprah) Magazine! WoWza! Check page 170 in the upcoming October issue! And see photos above - the new photos from her Spring ‘08 line. Hot!

And then she got some uplifting encouragement from one of her clients. She says, “I met a customer (buyer for a store in Hawaii) yesterday who actually hunted me down- she only visited the showroom because she wanted to find my line! She asked me when I’m going to start a regular fit line because as she said, ‘obviously you’ve got natural style, I’m sure any line you do would be amazing.’ Nice to hear, I need a little ego boost every once in a while ”

Sometimes, when things look so hard and futile, those little nuggets of encouragement make all the difference. My sappy note for the day: go out encourage someone you know. They’ll appreciate it.

Last weekend, at a very chill backyard hangout party, I made some hilarious and excellent new friends. Beth and Maureen are two super cool women, lifelong friends, who create an art comic called The 3:00 Book. It’s all based on notes that the two wrote back and forth to each other in high school. Raw, funny and flamboyant. They saved the notes and channeled their energies into this killer, tongue-in-cheek retrospective of the life of girls on the fringe. Them against the world. Believe me, these girls make you laugh.

Word has it, too, that they’re starting a video blog of their antics and adventures with one Pumpkinhead Head (a scary character from the comic). Can’t wait to see more!

If you’re nearby on Friday (Sept 7th) at 5pm, head over to their book signing to meet them and grab your own awesome signed copy! From the invitation:

Come see and purchase your very own 3:00 book! This is the first edition photocopied and bound with love for you! All the piss, blood and hair dye is hand colored by the artists, Maureen Cummings and Beth Heinly. A very special deification will take place at 7 p.m. with the 3:00 book’s own Pumpkinhead! I’m sorry I meant defication. Come and play and see!

Vagabond Boutique / 37 N. 3rd St. / Philadelphia, PA 19106

My dear friend Catie posted this awesome photo of me shooting video at the Catalpa Music Festival that she and her awesome husband Nat put on a couple weeks ago. Thought I’d share it with y’all.

This weekend, a bunch of my friends and I drove up to the mountains outside of State College, PA (home to my alma mater, Penn State) and had a music festival freak out hosted by dear folk Nathaniel, Catie and Kevin. Good times! I’m uploading some video to my Live Music Journal as I get time to do so, but do watch these to get the summation.

One of my favorite performances (see video above) of the day was Enumclaw who played as the hot summer sun started dipping down onto the horizon. It was truly magical. Also, the projector art (see video below) these fellas were throwing was inspired. This clip during the Evening Fires set. Also, one might say, magical.

Technorati Tags: art, projections, parties, psychedelic, catalpa music festival, avant garde, folk, travel, video, adventure, festival, artists, music

While driving leisurely down Spring Garden Street the other day, we spotted our friend Ryan, lead singer of the band Man Man riding his bike. He came over and said hi while we were stopped at the light when we noticed there was a shady car following him around pointing large cameras in his directions.

He didn’t mention them to us, but it turns out it was a Pitchfork video crew dialing in a new show about the good fellas. Sweet! Can’t wait to see it!

Man Man is recording their third, as-of-yet-untitled album. Stay tuned for that.

And don’t forget, if you’re itchin’ for some good music, head over to my new video blog Live Music Journal to catch some vids of some great bands performing in Philly. I got some amazing Pissed Jeans vids. Those dOOdz kill it.

Technorati Tags: man man, Philly, pitchfork, music

My good buddy Luigi lives a truly awesome Poverty Jet Set lifestyle up in the mountains of Telluride. And he’s just started blogging about it!

Luigi is a ski instructor by winter and a Jeep tour guide by summer. And on the off-season, he’s off traveling to exotic locales with his camera in tow. Thailand, Mexico, you name it. He’s also a DJ on the local radio station in Telluride, KOTO-FM - a show he calls The Spaghetti Cowboy which he’s also started podcasting! So swing on by and check his site out. I’m sure you’ll dig it.

Technorati Tags: travel, telluride, adventure, blogging, povertyjetset, luigichiarani