LOVE + BULLSHIT

(photos from in and around Venice)

Venice and living on floating art-islands:

- "It's that moment of: We're going to regret this... let's go."
- On our first night in Venice a group of the crew heads into town in the little skiff boat. On the way back late at night they sink due to too much weight and have to swim for it. Soon after sinking a fishing boat comes to help them, and Orien (the captain of the skiff) promptly yells out to them "Take our women to shore!" And somehow in all of this, Tony Bones is able to keep his bag (with his digital camera) dry.
- After Robyn Hasty made it back from the unexpected swim, she went to take a shower, only to find that there is only cold water. After that she came back to the boats to find that someone had "appropriated" her sleeping bag for the night and she had to tough it out with some garbage bags.
- Cold showers, you get used to them.
- Infected eyes, again.
- Ending up docking on the beautiful island of Certosa just across from Venice. It's full of overgrown abandoned buildings and feral goats. Venice's version of Governor's Island, but with a boat building school, design school, and a cafe/restaurant + hotel. Really a nice place to spend a couple weeks.
- Dark Dark Dark playing in a field on the island of Certosa, just in front of a giant abandoned building with trees and vines growing in/out of it.
- Crashing the Icelandic Biennale party with the full crew.
- Wolf falling thirty-five feet off a building while checking out some B&Eing after the Biennale parties. He landed flat on his face. We got him to the hospital and he was out a week later in neck and knee braces.
- Going to bed as the sun came up, again.
- Due to language issues, I drew pictures of all the items I needed for the lighting for the performance at the electrical store. The guy was obviously annoyed as hell, but patient nonetheless. I never did figure out how to draw a fuse though.
- The worst food of the entire trip = a cafe in Venice. And that's being compared to thrice-used leftovers.
- So many mosquito bites on my face from sleeping on the rafts.
- One morning Orien wakes up to find that the skiff has disappeared while parked near an apartment we were staying at in Venice. The cops tell us it is most likely stolen. We start to notice that everyone locks up their boats.
- Chicken John decides he needs a break from the project. I end up taking over as the engineer on Maria for a while.



MP3:

• Beck - Lost Cause

A band's place in myspace.

BAD KIDS HAVE MORE FUN

(photos from the Adriatic and entering Venice)

And the rafts keep movin' on:

- Gluing + duct-taping my shoes together for the third time this trip. Eventually I work out a combination of zip-ties and copper wire retainers.
- Finding some amazing old weapons charts in an abandoned customs station.
- Fried pizza. Yes it's that good.
- Napping and I do not get along.
- A snake set up home on Old Hickory for a bit in all the nooks and crannies.
- Waking up one morning to a giant sword fish head hanging on the shore next to the rafts.
- Having a Venetian lecture series on board, where every night someone can present info on any topic related to Italy. Conrad's lecture on Italian disco turns out to be a trick to have a DJ Dirtyfinger dance party on Alice. Complete with crowd surfing, climbing the structure, and propane-balloon-fireballs.
- Making up dances corresponding to parts of the trip: "Whip a shitty" = turn in a circle, "Do the Robin" = hold your hand up in the air as if you were protecting your injured thumb from getting bumped on the dance floor, "Pickles" = bite people around you like a rabid swan, "Kill the cat" = act like your pounding something with a paddle.
- The warning whenever someone is climbing something sketchy = "Built by clowns!"
- Moving from "Torre di Fine" (The Final Tower) to "Laguna di Morte" (Lagoon of Death).
- "There are some things you just can't unsee." (referring to a crew member taking a shit off the raft)
- Homemade hot chocolate, fireballs, and medical repairs.
- One of the crew had found a dead cat and brought it to the boats for the Cabinet of Curiosities. Before heading to Venice, there was some dead-stuff house-cleaning and the cat end up over the side of the boat. It floated around between the rafts for a bit, until Paul the Plumber tried to sink it by pounding it with a paddle repeatedly. When that didn't work, Orien took over and repeatedly backed the skiff over it, trying to cut it up with the prop.
- Connie ramming into the coast guard boat while driving our safety boat during our first entrance into Venice. She was trying to tell them to chill out.
- We arrive in Venice, all in one piece, for the most part.



MP3:

• Mayyors - Ghost Punch

A band's place is no longer myspace.

HIDE YOUR HAIRY BUBBLEGUM

(photos from the first leg of our junk raft adventure)

Selections from traveling on the Adriatic toward Venice:

- Constant problems with the Coast Guard every step of the way. Apparently it's standard operating procedure here to halt any vessel you don't recognize, boldface lie to them about what papers/clearance they need, drag your feet making copies of all their paperwork, including passports (even though your buddies 10 km away just did the same thing the day before), and then finally (hours later) smile and say everything is fine, have a nice day.
- Being stopped by a closed drawbridge right after leaving Marano. The next day being grounded just past the bridge by high winds.
- Patience and negotiation skills are the key to anything in Italy, it seems.
- Exploring an abandoned farm with tons of air-born cotton-fluff.
- Paying a visit to Gulliverlandia.
- Doubling Franny on the handlebars with a giant stuffed caterpillar on the back, riding down pitch-black country roads with no brakes.
- Bone fish stew = equal parts bone to stew.
- Scary mutant ice cream man.
- Ben Wolf joining us, and Callie being so excited she ran and jumped on him - splitting her chin open on his face. . . requiring stitches.
- Little kids bringing us a six-pack of beer in Caorle.
- Sleeping on the roof of an abandoned school on the beach.
- A lot more abandoned buildings.
- Little old ladies fixing our sewing machine.
- Having a bike break down while on a grocery run. When they return to fix it, they find someone had gone through the groceries and stolen just some of them.
- Dark Dark Dark comes for a visit and performs for us on the rafts at night.
- Having a moment that is actually TOO utopian.
- Traveling on the sea in large swells = a few crew get seasick.
- The Coast Guard stopping us out on the sea and ordering us to stay there while they took out Italian-speaking crew member back to headquarters to explain everything. They take so long that the sea goes from calm to large swells, so much so that when we do say screw it and head in, we have a very hard time navigating in the waves. Thanks for looking out for boater's safety, Coast Guard.
- The Bora lands while we are in the small canal town of Torre di Fine ("The Final Tower"). It is dramatic and powerful, with sweeping clouds and rain clusters. I was out in a field hiking to an abandoned farm house, and was having trouble keeping my tripod and camera from getting blown over.
- More abandoned buildings.
- Children in Torre di Fine bringing us rum, making it the third time kids have brought us booze.
- Someone brought us a kite as a gift. While flying it next to the rafts it gets hit by a car, and then a bus. All while about twenty school kids are watching while singing to us with their teachers. The kite flyer promptly jumped into a tent to hide when the car stopped.
- The restaurant Luigi in Torre di Fine randomly bringing us a giant pan of "Frutta di Mar" (fruit of the sea) pasta, with mini-lobsters, calamari and mussels. All they asked was that we return the pan.
- A night of music by Harrison is followed by kidnapping a bartender to go on a late-night cruise on Old Hickory to an abandoned farm house, which ends with two crew members heading to the hospital.
- Cereal with no milk = not so bad if it's good cereal.
- Some minor issues develop when a language barrier results in mixing up antibiotic cream with psoriasis cream.
- Heading out into the sea at dawn one morning, only to be warned frantically by some fishermen to go back because a Bora was coming. Sure enough, before we could even retrace our short path the seas had doubled in size and the rafts were taking a lot of water across their decks. Maria was even towed in to help her get out of it faster.
- The next time we tried to head out, our rafts had collected a massive amount of flotsam underneath them. While dragging it all out, one of the gems we found under there was a dead hedgehog (which was promptly gutted and salted for future transformation into a nail pouch).
- The Cabinet of Curiosities had officially become the cabinet of dead things.



MP3:

• Luminescent Orchestrii - Amaritsi

A band's place in myspace.

RIGID ANTITHESIS TO POSSIBILITY

(photos from a day-n-night on the build)

Goodbye Slovenia, hello open water:

- Returning to camp in Slovenia to be greeted by a film crew shooting on the build site.
- Breaking down camp and moving everything to the end of a jetty where the boats were docked.
- Having the boast inspected by a serious but friendly guy from the Slovenian Harbor Master.
- Then having to delay our departure by an extra day because the head Harbor Master lost our papers.
- Setting sail for the first time.
- Meeting some street musicians in Trieste and inviting them to come visit the rafts. Six of them show up later that night and play traditional Italian folk songs for us on the pier.
- Leaving Trieste at dawn to make the 21 mile sea crossing.
- Crossing the rolling Adriatic Sea for over eight hours, and having two rafts (out of three) break down during the trip.
- Crapping off the side of a rocking moving raft isn't as hard as you would think. Although it does lack for dignity.
- Having some nervous moments tying two rafts together to exchange tools in 2.5' high swells.
- The waves getting bigger throughout the day, causing some seasickness.
- Landing on a muddy beach with tons of little crabs everywhere, which turns out to be nesting grounds for some endangered birds.
- Exploring the beach in the rain.
- Passing out in the afternoon, waking up the next morning at 9am.
- Overheard from a crew member: "I was so drunk I did the dishes!"
- Riding a bike on a small road alongside a canal, scattering wild pheasants on the way.
- Exploring some abandoned buildings, one of which was full of swallows that kept buzzing your head.
- Spider and Dead Eye Dave joining us for a couple of days on their European bike tour, and then taking Ben Mortimer with them.
- Some of my friends trying to send a very drunk n' rowdy Spider over into my tent one night. He shows up on the rafts the next morning rowing over to them standing up in the canoe wearing nothing but a t-shirt and pink leg warmers.
- Entering the canals on a Sunday = lots of pleasure boat gawkers.
- Meeting some friendly Italians on the water who invite us to their island in the lagoon for champagne and fresh-picked cherries.
- While traveling in the afternoon, the wind picks up enough to slow us to walking-speed.
- Tying up to a channel marker for the night. The only thing around is an old family-run restaurant on an island, where the Austrian film crew's money buys us all a dinner of grilled fish and fried calamari/whole shrimp/grass fish/hermit crabs/tiny starfish.
- Later we explore some abandoned buildings (that some crew had been considering sleeping in) and find scorpions and mating millipedes and bring them back to the rafts with us.
- The next morning we receive a visit from the Carabineri (Italian Military Police).
- Tobacco-scented air freshener in the bathrooms.
- While navigating some tight channels, our lead raft got stuck in the mud. The next two rafts followed suit exactly and duplicated the first raft's mistake. The debacle culminated with an attempt to throw a line around a channel marker, only to discover that the other end of it was not attached to anything.
- No love lost among some crew members: "If he was on fire, I MIGHT piss on him."
- Making stand-up-female-piss-assist devices out of coke bottles.
- Bouncing around from handling lines and poles, to driving, to manning the engines, to trying to photograph everything definitely keeps it from getting monotonous.
- Seeing adult comics sitting on a bottom shelf next to Yu-gi-oh and other kid comics in a stationary store.
- The nice mayor of Marano opening up the soccer field locker room showers for us.
- A bunch of little kids coming to visit the rafts and sing a song to us on a field trip. They then went back and drew pictures of us and the boats which they gave us.
- Camping on the outside grounds of a graveyard.
- Riding bicycles down a dark road lined on either sides with open fields full of fireflies.

Learn Itialian
"Mi kazzo è un razzo pazzo." = My cock is a crazy rocket.



MP3:

• Doo-Rag - Bullhorn

A band's place in myspace.

INTO THE ASSHOLE OF THE WHALE

(photos from days of traveling by dinghy along the coast)

From Slovenia to scouting our route to Venice along the Adriatic coast:

- Italy is winning for the cutest old people.
- When using your shirt as a pillow, make sure you take all the drywall screws out of your pocket first.
- Gelato and big moustaches don't go well together. Neither do moustaches and puking.
- Gianni the friendly fisherman in Grato tipping us off to great spots to go in the lagoon.
- Overheard from one of the crew: "It can't sink, it's a boat!"
- When campgrounds sound luxurious.
- Squat toilets and I just don't get along.
- Puking and driving a skiff at the same time is difficult.
- The friendly brothers of the Da Mira restaurant letting me sleep in their parking lot during the day while recovering from my attack of sun-sickness.
- Almost sleeping at the end of a pier with a lighthouse, but opting for some cement behind a shed at a kayak place because it was a lot closer.
- Vacation beaches completely covered with umbrella tables and lawn chairs.
- The guy walking all the way down a dock with a dog biting him in the ankle.
- An old man in a campground teaching us how to cook and eat the flowers from a tree he was picking.
- Climbing all over an old bridge and lock with our tape measure.
- Navigating the canals after nightfall in our tiny boat by searchlight.
- Sleeping on some raw scrubby beach and being awoken by a guy on a dirt bike who took off with Arielle's ID.
- Meeting an old man living in an old traditional thatched fisherman's hut on the canal. His family had built the shack and had lived there for 100 years. He fed us fish, bread, wine and coffee and told us stories of WWII.
- Meeting the nice manager of a campsite in Caorle (who is in the hard rock band Wonder) and talking Italian politics.
- Being mistaken for the pony-tailed gardener at the campground (if you know what I look like, you'll understand why this is funny).
- After scouting in a bathtub-sized boat for days along the canals and Adriatic shores of the Friuli and Veneto regoins of Italy, our ride back to Slovenia and the rafts cancels after they put diesel fuel in a van that only runs on benzine.
- Showering and changing some clothes for the first time in seven days really does make you feel like a new man.

You can follow our progress on our spankin' new Flickr account that I have been managing/contributing to.

Learn some Italian:
Ciao (chow) = Hello/goodbye
Grazi = Thanks
Scuzi = Excuse me
Prego = Please/you're welcome
Non parlo Italiano = I don't speak Itialian
Perfecto = Perfect
Dove il negozio di ferramenti? = Where is the hardware store?
Barca = Boat
Zatera = Raft
Bagnolo = Tiny bathtub
Orrmeggiare = To dock
Vietato = Not allowed
Pescatore = Fisherman
Isola = Island
Spiaggia = Beach
Oro = Gold
Ponte = Bridge
Acqua = Water
Marea = Tide
Benzine = Gas
Bambini = Baby
Bellisima = Most pretty



MP3:

• Liquid Drip - I'm That Type Of Guy (LL Cool J)

Buried in the halls of the interweb.

YOU'D LOOK GOOD WITH FACE TATTOOS

(photos from the May 1st celebration in Slovenia and raft-in-progress)

Slovenia continues. . .

- Breathing fireballs of "grappa" (homemade liquor) into the fire drum.
- Snails in your tent.
- Shark steak, black wine and elderberry tea.
- "Crowd Control" = chocolate wafer cookies dipped in grappa, lit on fire, then consumed as dessert.
- Almost stepping on a leaking squid lying on the dock at night.
- Tony Bones making a flying dive off of his moving bike to capture a hedgehog in his hat.
- May 1st is big a national holiday in Slovenia, marked by giant bonfires the night before. It apparently has something to do with warding off bad spirits and the end of winter.
- Hanging out at a giant bonfire on the edge of the sea, meeting friendly locals and talking about black metal.
- Trying to sneak in to shower at the nearby campground with Doyle on a tall bike. His chain pops off just as we are passing in front of the guards at the main gate, who look at this six+ foot guy riding the six foot tall bike. . . and choose to say nothing.
- A friendly Italian gentleman stopping by on his bike tour to Greece and making turkish coffee and asparagus omelets for us.
- Planning our future Slovenian presentation.
- Booty-bass dancing on the soccer bleachers.
- The soccer field clubhouse next to us BLASTING cheezy dance music till early in the morning. Who knew the town of Ankaran had it's own theme song?
- Our little inflatable dinghy is named "Regardless."
- Spiders in your tent.
- Frannie of the Cutthroats dropping by on her European bike tour.
- Exploring the gypsy dump and finding some new clothes along with a female torso cast.
- Getting 30 liters of wine in a giant glass bottle from a gas pump dispenser.
- Having dinner in the middle of Old Hickory under red light.



MP3:

• 13th Floor Elevators - Baby Blue

A band's place in myspace.

WITH A LITTLE BIT OF THE STINK-EYE

(a partially-completed Alice sits quietly on the Slovenian coast)

Raft building in Slovenia:

- Being stopped trying to carry-on small silk screens on to the plane, "You could hit someone with them."
- Long ride in an overloaded hot-wired van with many pee stops.
- Hanging out with "Pusher" cooking shark and sardines over a fire drum.
- Power tools in the rain.
- Red pepper & ? "muck" sauce is popular.
- Who knew ginger in fruit salad could taste so good?
- Some great finds from the local flea market.
- Shipping containers make great workshops/sheds, but are kind of cold to sleep in.
- Clogging/breaking the squat-style toilet at the marina. Not even the professional plumber in the crew could fix it.
- Graduating down to a shit-bucket, even before we are on the water.
- A lot of locals wandering by to see what we are up to.
- The new raft, "Old Hickory," is kind of huge.
- The scrapping crew running into a lady calling the cops on them, accusing them of trying to steal the scrap wood in her garbage. Conrad explains the project to her as best he can (language barrier) and shows her photos of the rafts. After questioning their sanity, she sends them on with "You are good boys. You go."

Learn some Slovenian:
Hello = "Dobradon"
Thank you (very much) = "Hvalla (liepa)"
Hello, I think I love you = "Pozdravljeni, mislim, da te ljubim"



MP3:

• Moby - Sailin' On

A band's place in myspace.

LIVE LIKE THERE ARE NO WRONG TURNS

(photos from the abandoned beach town, full gallery of our adventures here)

Well that's it folks. I'm off to join the Swimming Cities of Serenissima in Slovenia. I will try to post updates and photos if I can, but without a computer your guess is as good as mine if/when that will happen.

Ever wonder what Matt & Kim look like naked? Well now you know (and in Times Square, no less). So awesome.

Lessons Learned






MP3:

• We March - Ethnic Electric

A band's place in myspace.

SLIPPIN' AWAY AGAIN

(photos from IRT: A Tragedy In Three Stations, a play that took place in the NYC Subway this past Spring, full documentation here)

Just more of why you love living in the city.



MP3:

• Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Skeletons (Acoustic Version)

A band's place in myspace.

NOT SO SERIOUS

(promo photo shot for Matt & Kim's new album Grand, logo designed by Erik Kowalski)

I leave in less than a week for the Swimming Cities of Serenissima, to traverse the Adriatic Sea from Slovenia to Venice on three junk rafts. After two months there, I head to Indonesia and Japan to travel by bicycle with a couple friends for another two months (only catch is that so far I don't really have a bike for the trip yet). So updates around here might go from sporadic to sparse, but I'll try to do my best.

In conjunction with the above-mentioned junk raft trip, Ad Hoc is hosting another fundraiser art show for us that opens this Thursday (tomorrow!). Please do drop by, there's some handsome art on the walls at great prices.

:::

SWIMMING CITIES OF SERENISSIMA ART SHOW FUNDRAISER
Opening this THURSDAY, APRIL 16, 7-10PM at Ad Hoc Art: 49 Bogart St. Brooklyn NY

See several brand new works by SWOON as well as an abundance of other visionary comrades' artistic marvels as we raise funds for their latest naval plan, SWIMMING CITIES OF SERENISSIMA, which has already begun! The list of work is deep, and there are many gems in the mix.

Some of the people in the house are:

DAVID ELLIS

DENNIS MCNETT

ELISABETH TIMPONE

ESPO

FAILE

GAIA

IMMINENT DISASTER

JOSH MACPHEE

KRISTINE VIRSIS

LEE QUINONEZ

MARTHA COOPER

MARTIN MAZORRA

MIKE HOUSTON

MONICA CANILAO

RYAN DOYLE

STEVE POWERS

TOD SEELIE

& MANY MORE!

See the work here:
http://adhocart.org/index.php?option=com_rsgallery2&Itemid=70&gid=102



* IN THE PROJECT ROOM - TheDirtyFabulous - New Works

TheDirtyFabulous was born in the year of the Dragon and travels the windblown highway of Interstate 40. TDF's work's defy standard human comprehension, as they are from the windblown highways of the interstellar consciousness. Not to be missed!

This body of work actually began in 1997 – in a small, run-down house on some wooded land. The place has since been deserted. Working in that place helped bring into focus the narratives TDF would continue to work with. Over the years, the work has been slowly accumulating. TDF sees this as an ongoing project – a book of fables, with large paper drawings as pages. These drawings have no set sequence of images or reading. The word fable is derived from the Latin word fabula, meaning “story”.

TDF repeatedly explores themes such as myth, psychology, philosophy, apparition of beauty, eroticism, machines of fate, human folly, nostalgia, mortality, history, consumer culture, industrialization, loss and regret. Imagery is used from many sources and typically a work is generated in response to readings or in reference to life experiences. TDF uses nineteenth century mechanical relics, sequences from dreams, vintage pin-ups, scientific historical images, anatomy and nostalgic panoramas as symbolic references. Combined in the work, they allow for commentary, connection, and invention on many topics and ideas.

In short, these works are super divine!

See them here: http://adhocart.org/index.php?option=com_rsgallery2&gid=96&Itemid=70

Props of TDF's work in Juxtapoz:
http://www.juxtapoz.com/index.php?option=content&task=view&id=5383
http://www.juxtapoz.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=5587&Itemid=1



* IN THE ALCOVE - Elisabeth Timpone -"Tails from the North"

After studying communication design at Parson's in NYC, Elisabeth Timpone unexpectedly began an extensive endeavor into a world of fine art. Her whimsically obsessive lines, and delicate but ferocious images capture moments in nature that may otherwise go unseen. Her drawings create a portal to the unscathed forest where animals live to play and fight to survive. Since her start, she has shown at galleries in New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco. Elisabeth is currently working on a letter pressed children’s book called “Baby Bestiary”.

http://adhocart.org/index.php?option=com_rsgallery2&gid=97&Itemid=70

Come see amazing art by some of the most fun, positive, and creative people we know!

If you would like to volunteer your expertise and skills to help us in our creative experience, please drop us a line via http://adhocart.org/index.php?option=com_performs&formid=1&Itemid=57

Thanks for all the love and support. We can't do it without you.

Our best to you and yours,

Ad Hoc Art

:::



MP3:

The Whites Stripes? What?

• Band Of Skulls - I Know What I Am

A band's place in myspace.