sometimes you just need to shuffle

i am having a difficult time finding the words to set the stage for this story so be patient and hopefully you'll get what it is i'm trying to say.

last summer i took a short trip to pennsylvania to see some friends and a joseph arthur concert. if you missed that, you can read about it here, here, and here. it was truly one of the best weekends i've ever had and since then i've had a difficult time listening to joseph arthur. isn't that silly? it's not just that his music reminds me of that trip but his music reminds me of how fucking fantastic he is to see live and how it's been sooooo long since i've seen him. so in a sense, i've been afraid to listen to his music because i was afraid it would make me sad or too nostalgic. i even hesitated buying his new album, for cryin' out loud. something must be done about this! 

i've been watching tv pretty much all day until i decided i felt like letting itunes take the wheel for a while. i muted the baseball game (it's just the mets/braves anyway) and put itunes on shuffle. i don't remember the first couple of songs that played and i'm too lazy to go back and look but the next 3 songs were all joseph arthur songs. when the first one came on i almost skipped past it but i decided that tonight would be the night that i conquered whatever weirdness i had about listening to his music. then the next song was his, and then another, and all i felt was happiness. it was the push i needed to buy his new album, which i must say, only a few songs in, is absolutely brilliant. 

joe and me during sxsw 2008

and maybe later i'll write about a band that i can hardly stand to listen to anymore, no matter what itunes has to say about it. 

fistful of mercy

i should be sleeping but i wanted to post this because it's something i'm quite excited about.

via

what is fistful of mercy? a new musical collaboration that is going to blow all of your minds

who is in fistful of mercy? ben harper, dhani harrison, and joseph arthur

what does fistful of mercy sound like? this:

i believe it was near the end of january when these 3 got together in LA and wrote and recorded this project. i am beyond pumped to hear more songs in the future. i believe they are all genuinely excited about this project and, in turn, that makes me even more excited about it. i love hearing and watching people do stuff they are passionate about. 

day two: "quackertown", big canvasses and pancakes

i finally arrived in philadelphia around 12:30 AM on july 29. i took a cab to brynn's where the girls were still going from happy hour. ha! i felt a tad left out but i joined them for a couple of drinks before crashing. somewhere around 9:00 we all started slowly waking up and brynn went to pick up the rental car. we tweaked our plans a little so thursday was just going to be spent around quakertown and sellersville. the first stop on our way out of the city was at wawa for some hoagies. yummy! my sandwich really hit the spot. after about an hour and some traffic later, we pulled up at the spring hill suites in quakertown. jen's tomtom gps lady kept pronouncing "quakertown" as quackertown" though and that sent us into hysterics each time.

our hotel was gorgeous. it's only about a year old and the decor in the lobby and in our room was just beautiful. somehow i manged to only take a couple pictures at the hotel and neither of them really show how pretty it was. after rolling around on the beds for a few minutes and exclaiming, "this room is so cute!" a million times we decided to head out and explore quackertown. other than the small strip of what must be "historic main street" quakertown looks like anytown, usa. but that small strip of historic main street is a trip. we went into a 5 and dime, seriously, and...uhh, yeah, it was just weird. it was huge. it smelled like my grandma's basement, and it was full of creepy shit. then we grabbed some ice cream and walked down the street laughing at the weird window displays. we decided it was time to find the wine and spirits store so we headed back toward the new part of town.

bonnie and brynn lounging outside the hotel

list of emergency numbers by the pool at our hotel

the girls with their treats

a creepy taxidermied bear in the window for a cash for gold place. the bear is wearing all sorts of gold jewelry and his tongue is sitting in the window next to him...so weird!

after purchasing supplies for raspberry champagne martinis, we went to a grocery store to buy some snacks. as we were leaving the store joseph arthur's tour manager called brynn (she does merch for his shows on the east coast) and said that joe wanted a huge canvas for the show that night but they were running super late and wouldn't have time to find one. i guess if you're not at all familiar with joseph arthur, or his live shows, you don't know that he does live paintings on stage during the show. luckily, there was a joann fabric in the same shopping center so we headed over there. the largest canvas they had was just 24x36 though so i got on my iphone and found a michaels nearby. at michaels we found a 36x48 that looked like it might fit in the rental corolla. as we were waiting in line to check out, joe's manager called again to see if we had any luck finding a canvas. brynn told him what size we were getting but then she also told him that there was a larger one. he said to get both. at this point we knew we would have to tie at least one of those bitches to the roof of the car. 

i think we spent about 30 minutes trying to "secure" both canvasses to the top of the car. oh yeah, the one that looked like it might fit in the car? it didn't. as we were working on that some guy with a clipboard walked up to us and asked if we were registered to vote in bucks county. we all told him no and he walked away. a few other people walked by and looked on, curiously, but no one offered any assistance. i wasn't all that concerned about getting back to the hotel with the canvasses but in a couple of hours we were going to have to drive 15 minutes to sellersville with those things on top of the car. eek! the drive to the hotel was a little rough. if we went over 30 it felt like they were going to fly off the car! we all had to stick an arm out the window and hold on tightly to the canvasses on top of the car. what an ordeal!

we got back to the hotel and had a drink, talked, and slowly got ready to head to sellersville. the drive down there wasn't actually that bad. we had to get there quite a bit early so brynn could get the merch setup. i chatted with tania, the girl who was opening for joe, and found out she was leaving on saturday for a little vacation to austin! i gave her some recommendations and hopefully we'll get to meet up whiles she's here. she is such a doll!

me outside the theater before the show started

the actual show was probably the best joseph arthur show i've ever seen. the sound in the sellersville theater is absolutely amazing! before the show we all joked that his painting that night better be the best he's ever done because that canvas was such a pain in the ass to get to him. the painting was definitely the best one i've ever seen him do!

after the first song or two someone behind me tapped me on the shoulder. i turned around and it was bri!! i was SOOOO excited to see her! she came up to philly on wednesday but had to leave before i got there. apparently they all discussed that she was coming to the show but no one remembered to mention it to me so it was a complete surprise. it seriously made my day! 

bri and me (apparently standing right outside of the men's restroom) at the sellersville theater

after the show we helped load up the van and discovered that the giant painting barely fit in it. haha! bri headed back to the farm, joe and ehud headed back to brooklyn, and we went to a 24 hour diner for pancakes.

up next: new hope and washington crossing!

JAh

i am a fan of joseph arthur. i am. but i am starting to realize that some people really think the sun shines out of that guy's ass. he is constantly working on something, which i think is awesome, but i don't have to love everything that he does. but i'm discovering people online (message boards! eek!) that would probably buy (and love) a pile of shit if they thought it was his (especially if the order included an "art print"). i'm not necessarily saying that i think any of the music or art or poetry that he has produced should be compared to a pile of shit, but you know, not everything is the most wonderful, spectacular, mind-blowing piece of art in the world. take for example joe's new blog, bag is hot. first of all, maybe i'm missing something, but i don't understand what the fuck "bag is hot" is supposed to mean. second of all, i'm not that thrilled by the content. it's cool, but mostly i just don't get it. but i am reading things like, "I am speechless with wonderment (good word and apt) at everything Jo (and his organisation) is doing just now. It just blows me away completely and I fall down in admiration, awe and moaning pleasure noises." and i wonder why i don't feel the same way. are all these people actually seeing or hearing something that i'm not? or are they forcing themselves to connect with a piece of art because they love its creator? i guess i've never been like that. i can fully accept when an artist that i love makes something i am not wild about (see 50% of the songs on the gomez album "how we operate"). i've never blindly followed anything (except for maybe a couple of boys that had a shitload of charisma. i was young and stupid). i wish i could find the blog or interview that i read this on, but once upon a time i read that someone told joseph arthur, "i listened to your new cd once and then i threw it across the room because it was such a piece of shit." and joe's response was one of delight. he basically said, "good. i don't make my music for everyone to love. if it evokes any kind of reaction, good or bad, then i've done what i set out to do." so at least i can take comfort in knowing that if i ever voice these feelings to joseph, he won't be offended. also, these joseph arthur tour dates were just announced: 2008-07-09 Paradise Rock Club, Boston, MA 2008-07-10 World Café Live, Philadelphia, PA 2008-07-11 Bowery Ballroom, New York, NY (with band) 2008-07-12 Maxwell’s, Hoboken, NJ 2008-07-15 Troubadour, L.A., CA 2008-07-18 Great American Music Hall, S.F., CA i'm sure he'll make his way back to austin at some point but i'm going to try to hit those east coast shows. i know brynn and bri will be there and i haven't seen them in FOREVER. i hope that we can be reunited before july but who knows. now gomez just needs to announce an actual tour, not these stupid festivals and dave matthews shows.

hodge podge 2

dana finally posted pictures from the past couple of months. many of those pictures contain a high amount of ridiculousness but nothing compares to this one:


yeah, that's efren ramirez. it all seemed a whole lot funnier at the time but that was after several mojitos gratis. by the by, i know nothing about spanish and i'm not even sure if that is the correct way to say "free mojitos". also, my use of spanish has nothing to do with the subject of that photograph, i just really like the word "gratis".

here's an amusing way to waste a few seconds:


Created by OnePlusYou

as i have previously mentioned, buddy is hitting the uk opening some shows for ben ottewell. i don't know if i have the right words to express my absolute love and adoration for this graphic. if you are at all familiar with his website, you'll know why it's so fabulous!


which reminds me, buddy should totes do a black cab session while he's over there. i love those!

on friday night my sister and her husband went to see forgetting sarah marshall. i think my sister's take was that it could have been funnier, but it was good. they saw the trailer for pineapple express, which looks completely awesome.



i have disliked james franco since i saw him in whatever it takes, like, 8 years ago. i know, i know, i'm a loser. however, the only other movies i've seen him in are the spider-man series and he's not so fabulous there either. anyway, for once i am excited about a movie staring james franco!

and quickly, before i hit the hay, i will leave you with this most delicious video of joseph arthur playing "a smile that explodes" in his hotel room during sxsw. there are 7 or so videos of him "rehearsing" songs in the hotel room. hot? yes, indeed.