SOME RAIN, SOME THUNDER

Bit of relief today with the rain. Decided to take a trip down to SoHo to see Sunshine, which I have to say I liked quite a bit. Went and visited the Chinese ladies for a nice massage which I’d been craving for about a week, especially about the time I left the Paris subway station. Strange to be back in the city still.

THE PALEO MUSIC FEST EXPERIENCE

My friend Maria has been telling me for years about all the music festivals in Switzerland during the summer. I really had no idea until I saw one of the half-dozen beautifully designed and free brochures they have all over the city. She mentioned my visit coincided with the Paleo Music Festival in Nyon, about 15 minutes from Geneva. It was sold out but they were releasing tickets the day of show, and with !!! and the Artic Monkeys on the bill it sound liked a great way to spend Tuesday evening since I’m somewhat in this festival mode right now, going to Maryland in August to see The Police and all.

I spent the day goofing off and checking out the local contemporary art museum before my swim. Located in an old garage it was a bit chaotic and haphazard, but seeing art is always like nourishment for me regardless of the venue and as long as it’s challenging, which some of it actually was.

Ended up she scored tix and we left after she got off work, taking the train where I had a brief conversation with some guy commuting who thought I’d come all the way from NYC to see the show.

It was raining when we left and the hopes were that it’d stop by the time we got there around 6:30, but it was pretty much pouring when we got there it time for the second half of !!!’s set. We had a pretty good view since the crowd wasn’t too bad, the band had a back up singer with them this time and she was showing tits and ass in this really lewd interplay with the crowd that was somewhat poking fun at the number of white people filling the joint. Fucking great set all the way and though I was getting soaked in the rain I was pretty fired up. We left after to go the merch tent where I thought they’d have some nice shirts, but the collars were huge so I settled on a red raincoat, which they seemed to be selling hand over fist by this point.

By now the grounds—farm land the rest of the year—were a total mess and as we walked around it became more and more like the front lines trenches during the Great War, with this thick chocolaty mud that was slippery and difficult to navigate without falling on your ass. My shoes were caked and a fucking mess and I was glad I wore shorts since pants would have been almost pointless even if it was a bit chilly.

We cruised a seemingly endless amount of fair food stalls that sold everything from fresh fruit to crepes and this strange Swiss concoction of potatoes, bacon and cheese that was like potatoes au gratin with a sausage on top that when I cut it up looked a whole lot like a dick with a foreskin. It was delicious, and along with that there was a coffee tent serving espresso right next to a Marlboro cigarette booth with sexy women selling fags like candy.

The drinking age is 16 for beer and wine and it was bizarre to see people walking around all over with open containers given that they’ve learned crowd control in the states by keeping the imbibers corralled in special pens during shows. Lots of people were fucked up and it seemed like everyone was smoking. We walked around to the section called North Africa but were too early for a show there, so we sloshed our way back to the main stage for the Artic Monkey set, stopping for iced milk and a scrumptious chocolate waffle.

The crowd was huge when they took the stage and we watched most if from a safe distance leaving afterwards to skip the headliners Muse (which are huge here but I’ve never listened to) to see this Cambodian circus that was a bit sloppy and was only saved from mediocrity by some amazing balancing, contortionism acrobatics. By this time, soaked and not getting any drier we headed back. It wasn’t even raining in Geneva and I was thought it was rather amazing to get the chance in this lifetime to actually go see something like this out of the states. The kind of real experience I was craving when I got here.

MONSOON

Even though it was sunny and hot (generally miserable) when I left the home studio this afternoon for a swim in SoHo, I had this hunch I should bring my umbrella. Four interesting things happened after I left the gym.

1. Whilst standing under an awning in front of a bookstore staying out of the torrential downpour, simultaneously looking at bookcovers in the window display and talking on the phone, I heard a strange mumbling behind me. The content was never clear but it sounded salacious and I turned around to see this huge black man standing behind me making what I assumed was some kind of fucked-up sexual propositions to me. I moved away and he wandered over and just when I was about to tell him to fuck off he walked away, muttering some more weird shit.

2. A block or two later, rain still coming down in buckets and my cheapo umbrella doing the best it can, i’m standing on a corner and turn to see this skinny young thing so totally drenched I can see her breasts and she smiles and laughs. I share my umbrella with her half a block having this brief flirty little conversation until I have to duck into the Mac store to get a power converter for my trip to Switzerland, so we say goodbye.

3. I leave the Mac store—which is filled with iPhone freakoids—emptyhanded and block or two later decide to get a pedicure and end up having the shop owner make all sorts of weird passes at me, which was a whole lot of butter my customer muffin since I was the only one there.

4. I head over to Thompson to get some delicious chicken at Pluck U and this woman is standing in front of her apartment looking at this little sparrow hanging out on the ground in front of her building:

Her: What’s wrong with this bird?

Me: Maybe it’s sick, birds don’t live all that long, I’ve seen this before. If you want to be compassionate put it in a towel and in a box and put it in your freezer to put it out of it’s misery, otherwise a cat will get it (though I’ve never even seen a cat running around in the city) or something will run over it.

Her: You want to do this?

Me: Sounds like your project for the evening.

Her: I can’t, I have friends coming in from Antwerp.

Me: Then it seems like you’ll all have a project for the evening.

And I split to get some delicious chicken.