Great in 08!

This has been quite the different ending to the long year.
In multiple years past I have spent my XXXma$ in some fabulous paradise city on the Mexican coastline. This year it was just West Oakland and me. No jugo fresco or tacos pescado. No Malecon with spanish clowns and native beaded power bracelets. I still feel like I'm in paradise. As I slowly twist awake I peer out the window and see the palm tree exploding in the blue sky, and my omnipotent lemon tree bursting with offspring. The air is comforting and moist, with a slight sea chill. "I'm on vacation, I'm sure of it." I lay my head between the folds of the down comforter and my pillows and drift into perfect happiness. For the next ten minutes, that is, until I hear the techno galloping of my ascending alarm, not nearly threatening enough to actually get my ass out of bed. I squeeze my phone until it allows me back in through the gates of slumber. I run through instantly. I can spend hours of good dream time in this ten minute state. This week I was immensely tardy for my duties at work because I spent each day sleeping for three hours in 600 second chunks. I should figure out a way to use the ten minute intervals to program my mind to lucid dream. Or get my butt out of bed so I can be on time for my dear, understanding job.

Around the solstice I bid farewell to my dear friend Shannon. The Great Shanzini and Agent Pulse were leaving for their sexy single world tour. We held a marvelous dinner with wheat-free chocolate cake with pomegranite sourcream frosting. It was absolutely the best cake I have ever eaten. Hands down.



The fine lady in the picture is the creator. She is Hollis, and that fateful night our roomate, Rev. Pasteurized (see also,
lil' B) married Hollis, Shannon, and myself to eachother. It was raining and we had two witnesses hold umbrellas over us. We vowed to be non-sexual life partners and always have each other's backs. We didn't make up this cultural ceremony. Many of my female friends down here in the Bay have female NSLP's. There is a whole Wifey network down here, where the lines between marriages are severely blurred.

The weeks before actual XXXma$ day were spent galloping like a young reindeer through the Christmas spirit circuit. Many a new friend out here happens to work for Burning Man, so I was invited along to the Department of Works Holiday shindig. Many people were dressed like santas, plenty of booze, some dusty, playafied bottles from the clean-up shenanigan's. This was so exciting to me. I felt like a detective, piecing together the story of this "Burning Man" phenomena. An outlaw city in uninhabitable space, filled to the brim with artists and craziness. These were the garbagemen and the problem solvers and the gate inspectors for this semipermanent autonomous zone. I am virgin to the "playa" experience, but with the successful artistic and social experiment now unavoidable, I start thinking about how the thing works. Who does what. I feel especially intrigued due to this years history making chapter involving the "bostonia tea party-esque burning of the man early" thing. That's not a light thing to bring up at a DPW party. In my excitedness towards the anarchist offering, I forgot that these were the people who had to work around the clock for 72 hours to restore something that was destined to burn. They weren't so stoked on Paul Addis and his antics. While walking to the party, I was trying to imagine what BMHQ would look like. Fuzzy walls, metal revolving zoetropes? Witchy fire pit performances or double loud techno? There weren't any crazy fire spider glow in the dark shit, just offices, festive trees and garlands, and a lot of beautiful freaks scattered among norms. It was raining and all the smokers huddled under an exhibition awning atop pallets to avoid the mud. I finally met thee mister Johnny Payphone, which was very pleasant. He is an historian that has been delving in to mutant bike culture and is now in Australia scooping things out. He hails from the Rat Patrol on Chicago and has seen the rise and fall of

A few days later I went to Cellspace for a party. I got in free because I vowed to help make cookies. Cellspace has been a model for creative space for my chronies and I when we were working to set up our own art village. Last year the founder died in a car accident and I think the space is sailing through rough waters. Anyhoo, it was really, really, really fun to spend a big ol' DJ dance party baking cookies looking over the crowd, sending wafts of delicious holiday cheer throughout the sweaty night.




On Christmas eve I found myself alone at the house and I was feelin' Hyphy.
So I decided to document it.


"HYPHY HOLIDAZE from West Oakland"







For New Years I went to Slab City. It was nice to have the solitude of the desert. I was there for threeish days, drove down on the bus. Played in an impromptu band at a stage some folks set up. Soaked in the questionable hot springs. Did whatever I wanted. Helped some stupid kid who sat in the fire while consumed by a psilocybin demon. That moment, the first few long moments of '08, I decided I need to know more about nurse style activities. Here's to the challenge of knowledge!







What a breath of fresh air.
This year shall be a good one.