DEARRAINDROP INSTALL SHOT
JOE GRILLO (DEARRAINDROP)
JOE GRILLO UNDERCOVER (DEARRAINDROP)

Unreal City:

Life keeps trying to fake me out. This past weekend was filled with delirious half waking dreams. I’m left with vivid memories of things that I know couldn’t have happened and a pair of very real socks that had disappeared over a night’s journey through Brooklyn. Somewhere in there was a super well-done stage dive during SSS-Spectre’s set at Don Pedro’s.

By Sunday, I was a wreck. What made it all better was the art of reality television: shows like Giada in Paradise on the Food Network and the new season of The Simple Life with Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie on E!. I followed Giada on a trip to Crete where she bathed in sulfur, stomped on wine grapes with her bare feet, and picked pretty flowers with which she made fried flower dumplings. As she bites down, you wait expectantly through the three seconds of suspenseful silence, then she smiles that perfected smile and says “mmm; delicious!” What else is she gonna say? Predictable is not always a bad thing. I wish life were more so. Then Paris and Nicole go crazy as camp councilors at Camp Shawnee: turning boys to men, teaching six year old girls to say, “hey bitch” and seducing 60 year old men. What’s real and not real is pretty different between the rich and the poor, the smart and the dumb, the strong, the weak, the beautiful, the foul… it’s fucked. I don’t know where I stand and I don’t know how it’s all supposed to work but I guess I’m glad that, you know, there are these fairies out there kicking ass doing their things. But hold. That isn’t the moral of the story. The moral of the story, I think, is that the art of reality is a game everyone can play.

So, I’m about six months late on this, but…

A trip to downtown LA’s Chinatown. Two of LA’s finest galleries for emerging artists. Kim Fisher’s Geometric abstraction (Whitney 2004) and Jennifer Rochlin’s first solo show. Terrific paintings – her inner tapestry painted beautifully on wood board. A fresh show without the customary cynicism. Well worth a visit.

This is neither a rant nor a praise. All the vodka ads on the 14th street subway station, both the 8th ave and the 6th ave ones are freaking me out. Stolichnaya has replaced every ad in those stations with their ads, ranging in 3 or 4 different colors. It is beautiful but it is weird. It evokes both the fear of Big Brother and Communism as well as capitalist in your face advertising brainwashing… its as if the two sides are secretly buddies… I mean in a way they are and in a way we are tiny and helpless.

Let’s just get drunk and forget about it….

NEW YORK, June 20, one of the days here at the office the question of what is art? was brought up. I had a dream. It was pouring words. Torrents gush forth from all directions and I Rihanna-like had to fend and deflect with kung fu strokes of Taichi grace to pick out the words that mattered the most like “buoyancy” and “chrysanthemum.” Art is my umberella, ela, ela, a.

NEW YORK, June 16th, after a hard afternoon of drinking at the Astoria Beer Garden, I headed drunkenly with other drunk dudes to the Central Park Summerstage show featuring the legendary Television. Apples in Stereo played before them and during the Apple’s set, it rained and thousands of fans got drenched. Just as the set was coming to an end though the rain stopped and by the time Television was ready it was all dry. By the time Tom Verlaine started doing his bad ass guitar solo/melodies it was a sunny and perfect day. Marquee Moon and Venus de Milo were played. People were happy. Not sure what else to say, movin on.

Apples in Stereo:

Television:

NEW YORK, June 17th. On that island between Manhattan and Queens called Roosevelt Island where there is a hospital and an abandoned smallpox hospital i.e. castle-ruin, there was an all after noon DIY BBQ.

Amongst dozens of happy souls lying peacefully in the sun to the tunes of 20 some bands playing acousticly whether they liked it or not was one unmanned barbeque grill. It had buns and meat and condiments all around it and you would just go and make yourself something all DIY like. Some interesting moments were when Dave from Dirty Projectors sang in a hearty freaky falsetto with the two female members of the band in an accompanying chorus about: not enough girls. I only think that’s funny because I’m like that too I think. The three voices permeated the grassy landscape and resonated with the East River watersss. It was pretty. Then later on Big A Little A, better known as Aa played with 3 drum setups, a dude with a loud speaker, a dude with an alto sax, a baritone sax, a violin plugged into a mini speakers, lots of maracas, 2 “school is out” bells, a guy with a sampler or a drum machine or something plugged into a mini speaker, a guy with a tape player, and a boombox. It sounds like an army but I think it was 6 people in all. The coolest part I thought was when, in order to be heard, the vocalist / baritone sax player ran around on the outside of the drum circle pointing the “phone” portion of the saxaphone at the audience so that you could hear the bass line only once every revolution. Other really cool bands that played were Woods, Necking, I forget what else but I missed a lot of it because I was busy frolicking.

Moral of the story: do it yourself asshole, make your own fun via ingenuity AND WE AT SELFPORTRAIT ARE HERE TO HELP YOU ORGANIZE!! …

P.S. I know my posts aren’t very comment-worthy but if you were at these and want to reminisce, that would be awesome, maybe comments and suggestions to DIY entrapeneurs or to the bosses in the central park towers for future reference. Accounts of epiphanous moments would be great too. Thanks!