Comrade's: How low can YOU go?

Have you ever wondered how low your standards are? Are you a bartender with low self-esteem, or able swallow your dignity in order to keep your electricity from being shut off? If so, Comrades Sports Bar and Grill may be looking for you! Streetwalking is hard work – come sit on your ass 35 hours a week for less than minimum wage (remember: health insurance is for pansies) at our idyllic location in a once-glorious shopping center, conveniently located next to the interstate!

1-2 years of bartending experience is required so we can cast you aside like a soiled sock once we find someone who can eat more shit than you. Brown-nosers will briefly be given preferential treatment.

Prepare for an “open” interview where you can catch up with other unemployed bartenders in front of our locked door while waiting indefinitely in our bracing Colorado winter weather. Comrade's is always looking for hard-working employees to shitcan due to our revolving-door policy.

Send email to d.bagg@comrades.com. Free-thinkers need not apply.

What's all the Cacophony?

The Anti-Reeding Prohtest

I found a stash of old posts touting events I ran in Los Angeles under the auspices of the dead-but-not-gone Cacophony Society in 2008-2009.

From the "official" source: "The Cacophony Society is a randomly gathered network of individuals united in the pursuit of experiences beyond the pale of mainstream society through subversion, pranks, art, fringe explorations and meaningless madness. You may already be a member!"

The CS had been unofficially disbanded years before, but a small group of us decided to ignore that particular detail. I personally never heard a peep of neither support nor disgust from old LA Caco members, but sometimes I got the feeling we were those damned whippersnappers on the old man's lawn. It was probably more fun that way.

These events spanned from the well-attended to the cheese stands alone. Their actual success is of limited importance; what's important is that they happened! Or at least that's what I'll keep telling myself. Here they are, complete with high-class fliers created in MS Paint.

Read-Aloud-Along!

We came. We saw. We literated.

Come and join us Sunday, April 13 at the Barnes & Noble at The Grove in Los Angeles as we reinvent the art of sharing. The public wants to consume culture, and we aim to feed it to ‘em! Here’s the story (no pun intended):

At 1pm we’ll wander casually into B&N, and pick out a book of our own choosing – the Bible, bodice-rippers, C++ programming, French poetry, whatever floats one’s boat. At 1:10, the public readings shall begin, as we all walk the store sharing aloud passages from our chosen books. The reading shall continue until 1:25, or until security throws us out.

EXTRA CREDIT! Participants are encouraged to create at least three bookmarks bearing a special message to consumers to place into random books around the store before the reading begins. Easily done while browsing for your favorite title to titillate the public with!

Please join us afterwards at the Buzz coffee shop 7623 Beverly Blvd, LA 90036 (at the corners of Beverly Blvd and The Grove Dr.).

GETTING THERE:

Parking at The Grove is terrible and costs $$. By public transport, you can take the Metro to the Hollywood and Highland station, then hop on the 217 bus at the northwest corner of Hollywood and Highland Blvds (westbound). Get off at Fairfax and 3th St. The Grove is behind the Farmer’s Market. Or you can find your own route at the handy Los Angeles Metro Authority site: www.metro.net/default.asp

Any questions? Contact Reecy via Tribe or email.

The Anti-Reeding Prohtest

2 balunce owt th blatuntlee pro-literrate stanse uf th Cuhcawfunny Sowsiyeti’s resent “Read-Aloud-Along”, plees joyn us in frunt uf th Loss Angeles Centrul Libary on Saturday, May 17, n show th publik how u reely fell. Bulhorns n anti-reedin siyns n/or pamflets, mispelled or – SCREW WURDS! – in drarwings, r encuraged.

Wher:

630 W. 5th Street

Los Angeles, CA 90071

(S Grand Ave side, 2 blocs frum th Pershing Square metro stopp on th

Wred Line)

"Can I give you a pamphlet not to read?"

Wen:

4pm Satourday, May 17 2008

Afterwurds we will conveen at Bar 107, locatted at 107 W 4th St (crner

of 4th and Main).

Emale Reesee if u havve anee qwestuns.

I'm sure this next one wasn't the first event of its kind, but my ego feels compelled to note that this was years before the "Occupy" movement.

Los Angeles CEOs (beg) for CHANGE!

CEOs For Change

Sunday, 16 November 2008, 1:30pm

Hollywood

CEOs, COOs, high-level business executives, lend me your ears!

In these tough economic times, we hear nothing but blah-blah-blah “Main Street” this, blah-blah-blah, “middle class” that. But what about us, the executives of America? Do we not bleed blue blood?! Do we not require caviar and prompt tee-off times?! These Rolexes and BMWs DO NOT pay for themselves, as I’m sure your CPA has already informed you.

If you’re worried your golden parachute may fail to fully deploy, please join us in Hollywood at 1:30pm on Sunday, November 16 wearing your business best. We will convene at Starbucks in the Hollywood and Highland complex, where we shall drink double-decaf-extra-dry cappuccinos and speak loudly to our assistants over our Blueberries. At 1:45, we shall take to Hollywood Blvd with signs and engraved silver alms cups to demand pocket change from the gullible working class citizens that save up all year to take their families on vacation to Los Angeles. Seriously, those suckers kill me. Your secretaries, trophy wives and boy toys are encouraged to come along and fetch refills for us.

My last hurrah:

The Red Line Pub Crawl

In their infinite wisdom, the Los Angeles MTA has decided to keep the Red Line running until 3am on the weekends until the end of the year. We, the Party People of Los Angeles, will celebrate this sage decision while showing our support for public transportation AND the local economy on the day after Thanksgiving. Because we all know the best way to give thanks is by getting plowed.

Here’s the deal:

We will meet at the Traxx bar at Union Station at 8pm (near the front entrance), to swill cocktails and stare upward in amazement at the beautiful Art Deco ceilings. Around 9pm we shall get ourselves hence to the Metro. Reecy recommends buying a day pass for $5 beforehand. A flask is recommended for subtle on-board consumption.

The full details of stop number two will be posted soon.

Our evening will conclude (or just really get started) on the Cahuenga strip, that bastion of shitty, shitty parking, and home to such fabulous bars as rock’n’roll favorites Tiny’s KO and the Burgundy Room, the electro stylings of the Beauty Bar and the perpetual Dia de los Muertos that is the Velvet Margarita.

When we’ve all been thrown out of Hollywood’s finest watering holes at 2am, we shall bask in the joy that is Not Driving One’s Drunk Ass Home as we return to the Hollywood and Vine metro stop. Bonus points for walking to a diner near your stop for some late-night chow.

UPDATE!

Our second stop of the night will be the Wilshire/Western station, where our excursion shall lead us to Frank and Hanks, and the amazing LED kitsch that is Beertown for our Post-Thanksgiving pleasure.

In other news, the managers at Beauty Bar and The Burgundy Room on Cahuenga have agreed to hook our pub crawl up with some drink specials. $2 Beauty Bar shots and a free shot with any drink at the Burgundy. Hooray!

See you tonight at the Traxx bar at Union Station, 8pm!

Feelin' San Franfrisky

Orin & Lynae

My recent trip to San Francisco was so good I had a hard time condensing it into one post.

Photo-bombing bridge. Photo by Orin Zebest

In past trips to SF I've stayed at the Chez Poulet, a warehouse converted into a community performance space by showman, activist and bullshit impresario Chicken John in the Latino/hipster Mission district. He's been something of a mentor to me in my journey through the weird, and kind enough to offer up his teardrop trailer nested in a loft above the stage at the warehouse when I've been in town. When I first staying there years ago Chez Poulet was also inhabited by a number of artists, some of whom are still dear friends to this day, but recently Chicken has cycled out the artists to renovate the place. I crashed there when I visited this January, but it was cold and lonely in that big drafty warehouse, so I was very pleased that my bonkers friends Orin and Lynae volunteered to host me on this trip. Lynae actually orchestrated my visit, really.

Most Likely to Cause an Argument

I first met these crazy kids at Camp Tipsy -- where we build boats out of rubbish and dreams – in the summer of 2012. I showed up on Monday to help set up for the weekend event and Orin was the only other person on-site apart from Chicken, who was running back and forth from SF to our lakeside location somewhere outside of Sacramento. This Orin guy, he was *weird*, and that's saying something coming from me. But I'm a social gal, and he seemed harmless enough, so I strung my camping hammock up near Orin's tent and we spent the next few days sorting through all manner of dumpster-dived materials. It was a bonding experience, and by Thursday Orin and I commandeered a leaky old dingy from the pile, flipped it upside-down, filled it with empty milk cartons and screwed plastic seats to the top. (“The Crafty Oarsman” was a delightfully ineffectual vessel.) Orin's a pretty laid-back guy, and apparently I spent a fair amount of time shouting at him during this process. After observing our construction antics from the shore, our weekend neighbors made up an award just for us: “Boat Most Likely to Cause an Argument.”

Lynae, with her purple hair and “adora-troll” ways, came along later that weekend, but I didn't really get to know her until my last trip to SF. I was going through a pretty tough time. She and Orin (among others) were instrumental in my sanity maintenance.

No, we always dress like this.

On my first full day in SF this time around – the day before Halloween – we piled into their pickup truck and cruised around town. When we showed up for a by-donationwalking tour of Chinatown the retiree guide asked us if we were gearing up for “the holiday”. Nope, we informed him, we always dress like this. Afterwards they took me where the buffalo roam in Golden Gate Park, got photo-bombed by some famous bridge outside the Legion of Honor museum, ate Japanese ice cream crepes, visited an aquarium shop run by the mafia and saw the Yoda fountain at the Industrial Lights and Magic campus.

Crimebo & Lynae

After a year in the Montana wilderness I was ready to get my Halloween freak on San Francisco style. When I found out that our Halloween plans were to help some friends out with their family-friendly block party across the bay in Richmond, I was initially a little disappointed. Upon our arrival my disappointment soon dissipated, and I had a wonderful time manning the face-painting booth with Lynae et al. Richmond is not known as the best of neighborhoods, but there was no trouble at all and the families that attended seemed grateful and excited for the karaoke, ring-toss, balloon animals by L.A.'s Crimebo the Clown, Lego Jeep, temporary tattoo booth and prizes galore. It was great to be a part of the freaky cavalcade that came out from SF to put this on. It's never every day you get to see Sasquatch, Hera, Dracula and
a giant chicken belt out 80s classics. The afterparty was terrific too – it was a bunch of the cool kids from SF that I'd have wanted to hang with, except there was no “doof-doof” music to shout over. I finally donned my “GroucHo Marx” costume and somehow managed not to get any greasepaint in the hot tub. Selah.

Christopher rocks the accordion

I feel like I crammed a month of experience into a week on this visit. Along the way I also got a personal accordion performance in Oakland, shopped for skis with Chicken John, picnicked in Dolores Park, got repeatedly creeped out by life-like sculptures lurking in alleyways, was complimented in the Tenderloin, ate plenty of super-delicious international food and took a ride in the TARDIS while in a hypnotic trance. 

Could it really be that good all the time if I lived there?

The Six Stages of Lasagna

When I'm not on the road, occasionally I like to fix up some fancy bachelor-style meals. These mainly consist of breakfast five ways and dishes that involve noodles and plenty of leftovers. One of my favorite things to cook up is my mother's lasagna recipe, with cottage cheese instead of ricotta and extra sauce for sopping up with garlic bread. It's so hearty that meat is not required – I've tried and with 3 lbs of cheese I've found it's not worth the extra effort or cost.

I love lasagna. It's a large dish with plenty of leftovers, and as a “single” woman, making it is like summoning a genie in a fairy tale. Be careful what you wish for, Pontiff.

Leftovers: a double-edged sword.

Day One: “Oooooooh, fresh lasagna hot out of the oven! I'll have TWO helpings, please!”

Day Two: “Oh my goodness gracious me, there are lasagna leftovers for dinner, how exciting!”

Day Three: “Well, I guess I better eat some of that lasagna.”

Day Four: “Oh, god. That lasagna really needs to get eaten.”

Day Five: “Aw crap, lasagna again?”

Day Six “NO MORE!! NO MORE!!! PLEASE NO MORE!!!”

And then I either force myself to finish it or fob it off on a friend. I guess that's what I get for not inviting more people over for dinner on L-Day.

Belgium to Berlin on a Thumbnail

Waterloo, Belgium to Berlin, Germany -- August 2011

I'd caught the European equivalent of a Craigslist ride from Berlin to Brussels to meet the effervescent Heather Vescent who was in town on business from Los Angeles. She'd just been hired by a large Belgian firm to help predict the future of tech and the economy (yes, that's right, she's a professional Futurist!). It was fun to watch her leave for the day in her sassy tailored suits and purple hair*. After a few days touring Brussels – go see the Atomium when you're there! – it was time to hitchhike back to Berlin.

In delightful contrast to our posh hotel in the suburb of Waterloo**, I hefted my beat-up backpack over my shoulder around check-out time and hoofed it a mile to the highway. Soon I hopped in the car with an elven middle-aged lady on her way to work in Brussels. She listened to Europop with English lyrics on the radio and at a stoplight handed a bag of cookies to an old Turkish beggar woman on the side of the road, as was her daily custom. She took me to the fancy organic food store she worked at and set me up with a care package of granola and trail mix, as well as a reusable black laminated card with an erasable white marker. On it she wrote: “Berlin – Merci! Dank U! Thank You!” and drew a smiley face giving a thumbs up. I used the back side of that card many times on my European hitchhiking journeys. It still travels with me in the trunk of my car, her happy message emblazoned upon it.

It was shift change at her shop, and my second ride was from her co-worker, a sweet gentleman in his late 20s from Côte d'Ivoire. He spoke no English, and I speak very little French, so communication was tricky. Fortunately the international language of reggae pumped through the stereo. This fellow must have driven 20 minutes out of his way to get me to a serviceable service station outside of the city.

The next ride was from a Moroccan chauffeur-by-day, rockstar-by-night. He explained to me a number of times in excited, broken English that his Moroccan reggae-funk band features the guitarist from Blondie, and he invited me to stay with him in Liege if I wanted to come back in September for their next show. We exchanged albums, and when he dropped me off he told me to give him a call if I had trouble catching another ride.

I was stuck at that service station in Liege for a couple of hours, eating a sandwich made from ingredients pilfered from the hotel's buffet and wrapped up in a bag from the room provided for “sanitary reasons." My last ride for the day finally came from a Congolese fellow who taught underprivileged Belgian youth to rap in French. He'd just dropped his Rwandan-Canadian girlfriend off at the airport after her two-month visit and had picked me up on his way to Cologne to take his mind off the fact that he wouldn't see her again until December. 

I'd never been to Cologne, and the weather that day was so nice that I was loathe to spend it wasting away in automobiles. When I said I might spend the night there, the Congolese fellow was nice enough to drop me in the city center. A lot of my rides have gone out of their way for me, and I sincerely appreciated it every time, especially while toting 40+ lbs of gear. Boots back on the ground, I got a bead on a couple of hostels from a hotel concierge. Before I checked in I sat gazing at an ancient cathedral from a pub patio in the old town, soaking up the sunshine over a Kolsch, listening to an Irishman speak German with an Irish accent and a German speak English with an Irish accent, too.

The next day, with a raging hangover, I successfully – if painfully – hitched the remaining 350 miles back to Berlin in twelve hours with five trucks, two cars and one hell of a headache. I holed up in my spartan Kreuzberg room the day after that, listening to the din of Goelitzer Park that wafted through my open window as I recovered.

*The crazy loon then flew into Reno for the last two days of Burning Man. Jet-setters, us.

**Yes, that Waterloo. And yes, I did have Abba stuck in my head for the duration of our stay.

Creepy-Crawly Concerns

Esmerelda outside of Hydrangea

Here on Cherrymont Farm in southern Pennsylvania I'm currently residing in a cabin known as Hydrangea House – named for the flowers that surround it – a wooden structure roughly 10x10 feet built in the early 1900s. There's a loft for sleeping, so the floorspace of the cabin feels pretty roomy. A small round table covered by an patterned Indian cloth sits in front of large windows where I procrastinate from working on the second draft of my novel by looking out at the lush green grass and autumn fireworks. This morning I woke to a lovely romantic mist creating chiaroscuro haze in the treetops visible from the high window of Hydrangea that ventilates the loft.

But it is awfully rustic here, which is saying something after a year on an off-grid homestead in Montana. While I have electricity in the cabin – supplied by a power strip plugged into a heavy-duty extension cord that runs from the main house – the bathroom facilities are in the big house or the outhouse, both a mere 20 second walk away. Last time I was here I didn't recall being quite so entrenched in nature, but that was in the dead of winter, when buggies go dormant. I'm no longer super squeamish about insects and vermin, but I do have a few creepy-crawly concerns.

My workspace. Pity me.

Yesterday there were three hornets inside the cabin. I let them be because I don't like to interact with stinging-things if I don't have to. Especially in a magazine-wielding capacity – if I miss my target, things could get ugly. That was probably not a great idea though, as they were poking around the joint like prospective real estate buyers. One hornet made the mistake of landing in my bed last night though, so I killed it. That's the deal I have with the bugs in Hydrangea – stay away from my bed and I'll most likely leave you alone. Come near my bed and you forfeit your life. I think it's a reasonable request.

The stink bugs are just irritating. I don't remember them ever being this prolific in my southern childhood. They stink differently too, a mix between cheap cologne and musty farts. They're beginning to look for cozy places to spend the winter, which they often believe is my bed – and they'd be right if it weren't for me. Every night before I go to sleep I have to sift through three layers of covers and flick the stinkers away. The other night I had to evict ten from their blanket fort. They're harder to kill because I don't want to squash them in the bedding, so they generally escape with what is essentially a good spanking. Last night I didn't find any, so maybe they're learning.

I'm also certain I have at least one rodent friend in the cabin. Sometimes the scratching around in the ceiling wakes me from a dead sleep at night, and I've found mutilated pieces of tissue on the built-in counter top. As long as I don't die of the Hanta virus, I suppose it'll be okay.

The view from the loft

I don't really mind the spiders – they eat other bugs and tend to keep to themselves. For a while I had an orb weaver (non-poisonous, I looked it up) the size of a 50 cent piece who built her large, luxurious web just off the loft. She freaked me out at first, but the night she moved in there were so many mosquitoes in the cabin that I let her do her thing. I named her Edwina and told her that as long as she stayed away from my bed we could live in harmony. Edwina hung out for a week and then disappeared one day. I was sad to see her go, I'd become quite fond of her company and bug-disposal services.

I believe Edwina's departure marks the beginning of the bug hibernation sequence. So while I'm enjoying this bit of Indian summer, it will be nice when the chilly weather drives all the winged creatures dormant. The mice, well, I might just have to accept them as my cabin companions through the colder months. But it's worth it for the tranquility and regular impromptu dinner parties Cherrymont is famous for.

The Places at the End of the Spaces in Between -- a musical tribute

I'm feeling the incessant grasp of gravity that holds land masses in place. I long for continents collided. I know the charm of it all lies in that ruthless distance, the spaces in between where I am and where I've been. Mostly I am absent, so my heart of full of fondness.

For now my Pangean heartbreak will maintain those oceanic fissures. The continents collide inside my fantasies--but remain far and wide thanks to necessity.

-R. Pontiff

Please enjoy the following musical tribute to a small sampling of the places I long for. (After the jump)