So it is really beautiful today, the clouds are rolling in on the horizon. Cold winds blew us around all day yesterday. The installation is really coming together. It’s huge. We are doing these amazing towers of pallets, this 30 ft. aerial rig,  two stages, giant vegetables. It’s inspiring to be able to work on this kind of project again. 

It got very cold last night, after a long and humid day. When I first landed around 11, by the time I had finished setting up my tent I was drenched in sweat. At around midnight I had to quit work because I was too cold. So, coachella comers, keep in mind your warmth when you arrive during the hot day. 

I should have some panoramics up tonight!

Just so you know, this is the event to be at this weekend. It’s going to be incredible. It looks like we are getting a clear night, too!  I’m heading to set up now.

The light of love has you now.

Okay, I am going to admit it. I’m a little bummed out. 

It has been months and months since I committed myself to not drinking for a year. Eight months.  I feel healthier and happier than ever. I haven’t really struggled with it at all. It’s been great. Really great. 

Until Burning Man. Black Rock City is a party town. And really there has been nothing I liked better than sitting around with my friends and a bottle of fine scotch and drinking together there. I love the bars there. I love the world. So I struggled this year. I felt tempted quite a bit. 

And now I am working with the Do Lab in another city. Josh and Jesse and I have partied together for years, and with them, I have always been up for a beer or whisky.  It should be also noted that Josh is one of the world’s most talented peer pressurers.  I left this fun party where they all swiped some booze and went nuts in this hotel room.  There were my friends from the Do Lab, there were the beautiful girls of Lucent Dossier, there were new and old friends going wild. And, while I wasn’t the only one not drinking, I certainly felt it.  After a while, and the group was getting drunker and more extreme, my energy really didn’t match that of the party and I left. 

But oh how I yearned to just have a shot or five to help me feel like one f the cool kids. I was suddenly fifteen again, wanting so badly to be part of the group. I kept wondering if I was drinking, would I blend in somehow? Was I standing out because I was so sober?  I felt like such a loser (and truly, I know it’s not “true,” it’s just how I felt when I left the party.).

But I gave my word.  And while nobody here would have faulted me for having “just one drink,” and no one at home needed to have known.  But I would have known.  Wether or not my reasons for quitting booze for a year was a reaction to some kind of alcoholism or not, I am clear it has been a solid choice.  I’m committed to it not being some kind of sentence that I have to carry out.  But ultimately, it is on me to do what I said I was going to do. 

Of course now, I am hooking up with my friends Earth and Robin to go to the Tour de Fat at the New Belgium Brewery. It’s a big costumed bike ride and beer party up in Ft Collins. But, I am not really too concerned about that.

We rolled out of the hotel around noon to go for a scenic drive into the wilderness. We headed west though beautiful mountains and streams, through strange abandoned towns and massive empty casinos. We stopped for lunch in the black forest, a surreal german-esqe ski lodge. Our crowd of mostly vegatarians was hard pressed for options. The waiter was an awesome character. Tonight lucent is preforming with the doobie brothers. I can’t think of a single one of their songs.

It should be interesting.

http://www.new.facebook.com/album.php?aid=56075&l=1c6fb&id=678692537

so I posted a few photos! we are all feeling great. We completed a great project and it looks amazing. I’m heading to the convention one last time to button things up, then I plan to explore Denver for a little bit.

How many convention booths can you look at in a day? They all are dsplaying such amazing products as in wall speakers, household lighting dimmers, and flat screen TV integration. They all look the same. Little boxes on a huge convention center floor.  I have no idea what Cedia even stands for. 

And then there is Speakercraft. The owner of Speakercraft went to Coachella and was impressed by the Do Lab’s installation.  Now the Do Lab has never done a convention instalation before. They just do what they do. “Go Big or Go Home” has been the motto of the Do Lab since before there even was a Do Lab. So they designed something extreme. The Denver Convention Center has never seen anything like it. 

Four raised, carpeted lounge pods, filled with recylced furniture.

Lucent Dossier doing an aerial performance. 

More truss and lights than any booth by far. 

A 22′ x 40′ bamboo wall supported by the truss (they made us take it down because it was too tall, so we made it BIGGER, BETTER, and CRAZIER!)

Hanging Lumi chandeliers. 

Booming sound. 

A three tiered stage.

Tentacles everywhere! Speaker stalks growing up from the ground.

Nobody has known what to make of it and us. Some of the local union labor calls us the nightmare booth (The lazy bastards). We don’t fit with their picture of how a booth should be assembled and how the assemblers should look. We are so far out of the box, we hurt their heads.  Others don’t mind bending the rules just a bit if it means we make some cool art. I guess that’s at the heart of it. We are making Art, and most of the convention center people have never seen anything like that when trying to sell speakers.  We’re going to blow their minds. 

I think I should tell you. I love wrap. 

1. First, when you are wrapping a project, gravity is working with you. You are no longer trying to get things up, you are bringing them to the ground, where they naturally want to be.  This makes work much easier. 
2. you aren’t measuring or figuring out stuff when wrapping. You must’ve had it figured out when you put the dang thing up. You know what to do. 
3. Wrapping always takes less time. 
4. you never are searching for things when wrapping. You are putting them back where they belong. 
5. People all smile during wrap, mainly because we all know it is almost over. 
6. Unscrewing out is easier than screwing in. Just is. 
7. It’s an attitude thing. You have done the job (hopefully well) and now you are pulling down your good work. 
8. There is a clear end in sight. This becomes truer as the day goes on. 
9. I love loading the truck. I have been planning this the whole time. ABW (always be wrapping) is my mantra. 
10. When that door on that truck closes. You are really done. There is nothing more to move. You head to your car and go home. Bliss. 

Whatever. I haven’t been writing. It annoys me and I always feel less myself, (and less a man) when I am A.W.O.B. (Absent without blog). 

Done apologizing. 

I flew into Baltimore on the top of a huge thunderstorm. Who’d have thought that flying to work for the Do Lab would be a break from work in LA. As I got onto the plane, I breathed a sigh of relief. The UR Votes Count thing that I was working on for the weeks before this job had been really stressing me out. Once I got on that plane, there really was nothing I could do about that (and to Adam, Art and Eric H’s credit, they haven’t called me once about the project). I was on a red eye. Two hours of fitful sleep. Tops. 

I arrived and dickered with the schmarmbag rental car agent. Of course, i got put in the phattest ride they had. A Town and Country minivan. A godsdamned bimbobox. It was pretty banged up and a powder blue that was sure to pull the soccer moms of the Maryland suburbs. First things I do when I get out of that rental car lot is get lost. I lead myself on a tour of the roughest neighborhoods of Baltimore.  But you know how it is when you haven’t slept. It’s not even me driving. It an autopilot. Some other guy. I miss the hotel, when I turn around I find a whole foods and a starfucks. Civilization. Baltimore suddenly aint so bad when I have a grande triple soy latte in my hands. I even have time for a shower. 

I meet up with Jedi and Tristan in the lobby and we go to work.  We measure three, four times. We lay out giant squash and onions. I spend the day pounding metal into earth. I feel like a blacksmith. I find my rhythm. I hit my toes with the hammer.  We work until 10pm, when the Hulk Hogan biker clone locks us in. But the hardest work, the figuring out part, is done. It’s gonna be great. 

I return to the Raddison. And my huge hotel room. My bed is a king and either side has it’s own control for softness. It’s epic. Free Internets, a plus. USA Today at the door when I wake up. A great AC. I decide pretty quick that I am going to skip All Points West in NJ. I may as well kick it here. It’s pretty cool. 

The next day we are in at 10 am, right when they will let us in, after they have run the horses on the Pimlico racetrack. Today we finish the onion frames. We have the right tools. We have the right lift. It’s going really well. Then we realize that we are missing the key part of the Lumies that make them look so cool! So I am off to meet Y2 halfway between the other crew and us. The Do Lab has another team doing a much bigger installation at the All Points West festival. I have an opportunity to drive some more across the great state of Maryland. And then Delaware, to visit where my debt us kept. It’s a fun trip. I get back after nine and we decide to do one last day. There’s not much left. 

The last day we get up the Lumies, without having to pound in a ton of stakes or lay down guy wires, which is the hardest part of that. They go up instantly and they look perfect. Everything goes so smoothly. And just as we are wrapping up our day, the storm comes. We go and catch a movie. The Mummy 3. It was terrible. Painful terrible. 

The next day we go down to check the structures in the wind and end up going to the Inner Harbor, we mix with the tourists and anime cosplayers. It’s a surreal day. Strangely, the day among the toursts exhausts me more than working at full speed! We go back and check the lighting of the site. It looks amazing. 

Today was the first day of the Virgin Mobile Festival. I gotta say, it was a just okay kind of festival. The festivals we go to back in LA are so much better. Coachella, so much bigger and brighter. LIB, a dreamland compared to this. I am spoiled. But I am going to honest when I stumbled upon The Swell Season from the movie Once. I was so pleasantly surprised! They were so charming and cute! As an encore the two of them jumped down into the audience and did a little irish sing-a-long. It was so wonderful. I’ve been listening to that Once sountrack so much I knew the words to every song. Its been a while since that happened. Duffy and Underworld were also pretty amazing. I got some pretty cool pictures of the Foo Fighters. I also gotto hang out with some east coasters! My friend Kathy who I never get to see came out for the show with a couple of friends. And I got to hang out with Stryk, a great guy who I met through Wolfie. Overall it was a great day. 

Tomorrow is the last day of the festival and we will start breaking down as soon as Trent Reznor lays down his blood soaked guitar. I still don’t know the details of my return flight. I should probably figure that out soon.

I also need to meet Richard Branson and find out where he is camping at Burning Man.

So, apologies are in order. I got freaked out, I got sick and I got tired. That is what has happened to me for the last week. I apologize. I got lifed, pretty bad. 

But I am back! 

So here’s what’s up, in a nutshell. No, here’s what’s up in a top ten things I love about my life. 

1. Love and openness to it. It’s pretty sweet. I’m just in this really cool space about it. It’s the no attachment thing. Earlier in the week, I was a little down on myself, but a dinner with Wolfie gave me a good place to stand, and I am back in love with love.  

2. I got a Trogdor for my bike.  

Yeah. Pretty awesome. Now to get a red wrestling mask and boxing gloves. Oh, and a beefy arm or two for the side. 

3. Burning Man shopping is on. The consumining! What do I need now? Well for one, I need a good drag outfit for Ladies Night on the Playa. I’ve never gone drag, I’m a little intimidated and scared. So suggestions (real suggestions, paynie, you are not invited to contribute) are welcome.  Wow. I can’t believe I just invited that one in. 

4. I went to Clockwork Orange last weekend at the Cemetery Screenings.  I was deeply affected by it. More upset by it than the countless times I saw it in film school. It turns out, I have been desensitized to violence. And now, seeing that desensitization, I am disturbed. Also, just the fear and violence in that movie. Wow. An amazing piece of scifi, it read more like a poem than a movie. And like really good scifi, it wasn’t about the future at all. It was about the now of 1971 when it came out. The tragedy is that we still haven’t gotten it. 

The movie also inspired me. I want to write a contemporary scifi novel. Right away. I’d love to get a rough draft complete at the end of this crazy month. Maybe a longhand manuscript. It’s crazy, right? But I am compelled. 

5. I just took a job with The Do Lab for right after Burning Man. In fact, I am flying off of the Playa on Thursday before the Man Burns. I’ve never been out there that early and I have never left that early. But I will have been out there for two weeks. I also get to spend ten days in Denver! That is super exciting! I have some dear friends out in Denver! It’s a good choice. I think I have already found a ride out of BM, a subletter for my sweet canvas space tent, a ride home for some of my stuff and a possible driver for my car back to LA (although I am taking volunteers). 

6. Adventure. It seems like I am having adventures solid through september. My new mantra: I am answering The Call.

7.  My Element is getting fixed. I’m now driving a Jeep Liberty. At least it has utility. I was cruising in my parent’s Lexus for a few days. It’s a sweet car, but delicate. There is an adage in the film business. “It’s a rental, don’t be gentle.” My car should be ready by Tuesday. 

8.  The Burning Man Screen Saver! Get it. It’s getting me really excited. 

9. I’m going to the Circus Tomorrow! I can’t wait! I haven’t been this excited about the circus since my ninth birthday! 

10. New bedspread and sheets. It’s the simple things in life that give me the most joy.  Oh yes, and Scotty taught me how to use a surger the other day. We made my fur blanket. It matches my coat, and it will keep me warm on the playa!