Another one

Now that I got this over with, next up is wedding invitations.



Which is 100% inspired by these covers:

Some Sketches and Photos

Since I been down here, here's some stuff. A few sketches, quickly colored.

Well, well, well

Looks like I haven't made a post in over a year. Might be because nothing really happened last year. Just smooth sailin' all around.
Which brings us to right now, which is not so smooth. I'm currently in New Orleans, been here for a month and half and have, with the charity of good friends, been living freely and burning my money away on nothing but beer, good food, and adventure. Mardi Gras was a mess, by the time Fat Tuesday rolled around I was speaking monosyllabically as in:
Larence: "What do you want to do tonight?"
Me: "FUN."
Lawrence: "How you feeling?"
Me: "GREAT."
Sometimes delving into strange, antediluvian remembrances of weird, esoteric Lovecraft verses best left unquoted.
And at one point was so foggy I panicked at a bar yelling "Where's my bike? I lost my bike!" Only to find upon leaving that I locked it not two posts beyond the doors of Kajun's Pub and karaoke lounge. But the parades were great, I've met a lot of people, some of them actually interesting, caught a lot of useless shit thrown from men and women in masks that I will probably throw away, spent a lot of time in the Tree House, spent every night at Kajun's, lost my voice, got sick, restored my voice, got better. Then realized I hadn't heard from my boss in two weeks.
So the job I came down here to do no longer exists. The man doesn't answer his phone and his website is down. Gone like the shitty wind. Out of an asshole. But! I got one more month or so here and plenty more to do. I just got a job making pizzas (HELL YES) but its remarkably strict as far as New Orleans establishments go, so I think I might look for something a little more lenient, like where they let you drink at work like every other place here. Because I won't be able to see those little graces unless I decide to move back here. And that won't be unless I find an actually good job here. And so on, and so forth.
In other news, I've been sketching a bit. I'll post something tomorrow. My roommate Ava is teaching me piano, I've had one lesson. I visited the New Orleans Museum of Art with her the other day. It was alright I guess. Although there is this one spot on the second floor, where if you look across the atrium to the room beyond the angle and lighting are perfect so that this portrait just makes it seem like there's a giant lady waiting for you. It's far enough away that it gets blurry and looks real. SO REAL.
Oh yeah, I went to SXSW, but it was kind of a frenzy and I wound up not being able to see a lot of the bands I would have liked to like Gayngs or Anamanaguchi, but I did see a face-off between Pteradactyl and Parts & Labor which was excellent. With dollar High Lifes (High Lives?). Which was breakfast. Man Man were ok, as were the Strokes, but it was just good to see them. At one point we crawled over a fence with barbed wire and onto someone's roof so we could see MSTRKRFT after we got turned down at the door. We couldn't see them and had to run away when we saw shadows in the yard below because it was, you know, illegal. I was really happy that I remembered the layout of Austin after not visiting for three years. Drove by my old house, went to the donut shop where you ask for one and they give you five and charge you less than a dollar. Saw the bats. Swam in the Springs. Hung out in a millionaire's house. It was good.
So that's it for now. More tomorrow, hopefully updates on the reg.

Been busy

Last few months have been pretty excellent. Landed a decent job, had a solo show at a cafe (oh my!) and moved twice, first to Lynn, then back to the Motherland, JP. The band is still going alright, but I broke two drumheads the other day because our practice space was an abandoned apartment with no heat. I'm going to get prints made of my new work soon, but I've decided to post some drawings since I haven't done that and I don't feel like updating the website until I get my massive scans done. Big update to that bitch soon, plus a few more project pages.

Pet List

So there's been a lot of discussion lately as to the exact amount of pets to have come and gone in the Giuffre household throughout the years. So here's a chronological list as best as I can remember:

1980's
Merlin & Monroe - before my time, but I've heard about them
Sherlock - Horrifying dog who destroyed fences, got hit by many cars and refused to die
Lightning - Cat who in her waining years scared builders shitless
A couple rabbits - There's debate as to who actually left the hutch open

1990's
Patches - Annie's cat that ran away (ha)
Tiger - Adam's cat
Stripe - My cat who was almost always pregnant
Bigfoot - One of Stripe's kittens who stayed with mom during her recovery from surgery, then stayed with us until last year. Had seven toes and brain damage.
Five - The last remaining cat of the Old pack, found in a dumpster in Westfield by Annie
Peanut - Annie's cat. Doesn't really count, but she lived here for a while
Jack - The wonderful dog who when we were both 14 (he in dog years) we were the same height and weight (5'3", 110 lbs)

2000's (the age of strays)
Ahab - Real name Oscar, moved from down the street to here, then to my house in Mission Hill, then back home
Buster Brown - Walked into mom and dad's window and refused to leave, lived with me in JP for a few months where he was named by my roommate Marion
Puerto Rico - The stray who hung around my house in Austin
Dave - True name still undecided, found by Annie in Somerville. I call him Leto II after the Emperor of the Universe in Dune.

Grand total of my 25 year stay at this house is 12 cats, 2 dogs, plus one Puerto Rico. I have a vague memory of there being fish at one point and Lightning knocking the bowl over and eating them. Annie still has Peanut in San Fransisco, Adam's thinking about getting a dog, and Five, Buster Brown, and Dave still live here. I'm moving in a week to a house with two cats so those three are staying here.

I'm saving the good stuff. But you can have these.

So I guess I'll write a little on what's been going on. Things are progressing wonderfully with the Auntie Lee project, its just a matter of time. In the meanwhile I've been successfully scoring great interviews for the past few weeks. Still no bites and I'm waiting to hear from this one place on Friday, which would be not only a decent job but actually exciting and stimulating and could put me in a direction I've been meaning to lean myself. I had a great interview at a Candy Factory last Sunday and although the interview went well, when I went in to work the next day, the inner turmoil of a Father-Son operation presented itself. I never like when you have two bosses and neither can agree and both will occasionally come in to where you're working and tell you to work in a manner that completely negtates what the previous one had said, rising to the contradictory crescendo of me not getting hired. Tim raised the cute question of "Do you think anyone could have done that job?"

Saturday was lovely. Rolled into JP around the 3, got coffees at Miami Restaurant, which I'm convinced is the best and cheapest coffee in Boston or anywhere near it. Hung out with Keanne for a while then went over to Tim's and beat him at the version of dominoes Matt learned from the Domicans at his work. Then Tim beat me by not too much in the version his grandfather tought him. I think its the Cuban. After that we went to Same Old Place which is no longer the same old place because it now serves wicked cheap beer. We got pitchers and slices and they told us if we were to drink we'd have to do so in the back room which as it turned out was occupied with a six year old's birthday party. So we drank with a bunch of six year olds and were loud and vulgar and saw a Cabbage Patch Kid sticking ass-end out of a trash can. The party wrapped up and the moms assured us that if the kids had any more sugar they'd never go to sleep, so they gave us the rest of the birthday cake. We brought it home, ate it and played Mario Kart. We then went over to Chico's and found that we were the first to arrive at his basement show party. Chico's parties are usually really fun, but this one was totally busted. No one there, awful bands that I couldn't pretend to be interested in and a pay bar in the basement. We lost Harry and sang and drank all the way back to Tim's to get my car so we could go to All Asia where Aslhey was working the bar and could give us free drinks.

By the time we actually got to All Asia there was a line out front, I couldn't find parking, and I'd lost my voice singing along to Nick Cave so I just kicked Haggerty and Tim out of the car and went over to Amanda's. Woke up the next day to Karen christening me yet another nickname: Mini Gun. This is derived from a few weeks ago when I was talking about my noise band BCMG and said that rather than standing for Brian.Calderelli.Matthew.Giuffre, it stood for Big Cold Mini Gun. We drove to Swampscott, got scones and coffees, sat on a bench and looked at dogs and the ocean. At one point a jogging lady stopped to stretch and aimed her butt right at us, after which some wierdo said "Now I'm gonna stretch just like that" then gave us a bunch of seaglass in an oyster shell wrapped in painter's tape. "I'm saving the good stuff," he said. "But you can have these."

I then went over JD's and rearranged the shit out of his apartment and helped his downstairs neighbor move a washer and dryer from the basement to his second floor apt. He gave us ten bucks so we went to Kappy's and got some nice beer: Weihenstephaner Weissbeer Dark and Unibroue Seigneuriale (did I have to do a google search for spelling on those? Yes). We're waiting until another round of Resident Evil to crack them open.

So I've been keeping busy. I've finished four paintings since the new year, got a call from a freelance agency today, saw Watchmen and was pleased, started a band with two more hypothetical bands in the mix, and have just been doing well. The final piece is landing a job. Tomorrow I begin learning Javascript in an effort to learn ActionScript. And hopefully Friday I'm in love.

So I now know the basics of PHP and this shit is mad boring. Its the type of stuff that made me disinterested in web design in the first place. Oh well. Its good to know. I guess I'll move on to Java now. I'm going to start recording the jam seshes and maybe set up a youtube channel for it. We'll see.

Oh my. So I've been a creative tornado lately. I'm learning perl this week, and I'm moving on the php next week and I think I'm just going to code up some pages to show what I'm capable of, which is something I can't find a reason for not doing yet. I've been jamming constantly, typically with Brian at the metal shop in Lynn which is always fun and interesting. We pulled Marat in one week to play guitar and Tim the week before to play banjo with excellent results. Last Monday I had a wonderful jam with me playing drums, Tyler on upright bass, Marat on guitar, Evan on sax, and Tim from upstairs on trombone. Epic. Brian brought his set up but it was too loud and he just kind of sat out for most, but we're going to play again tomorrow night.

I've sold out of comics again and need to get to the shops to collect. I'm going to put this money towards printing my next comic once it gets finished, then from there sending shit to publishers. One of these days. I've begun drawing again. Large scale. Check out the work in progress as well as the two old boys that got finished. I only made two drawings last year in addition to other things. Although I did make two comics and started writing an intensive series of scripts. It was a good year kind of. Regardless, I aim to improve on this. Crummy pics, I know but I'm working on it.





And one of these days I swear to god I'll get a job. Until then, I'm still pretty happy. Its nice having a place to live.

Oh me, oh my. So. The JP experiement failed and I'm back in Wakefield, but not dreading it as much as I did last time. Last winter I was all over the place, but this time I think I can use this stability to get some work that I've been neglecting done. I bent another keyboard the other day and used it last night playing music with Brian at his metal shop in Lynn and it was really good. Brian said it made him think of soldiers. I'm currently cat-sitting and watching Ghost Hunters. The problem with this show that makes it total bullshit is that the cameras are on them, not where they're looking, so all the show is is them talking to nothing then going "Oh shit!" and the camera shooting over to where nothing is. Its happened like ninety god damn times so far. The should have head mounts, whatever.

Oh here's some sketches from the past few months. I'm going to start to try to do this at least a couple times a week. We'll see. I'm still plagued by the fact that after drawing for twenty years, I still can't draw cars.

God Damn It

I just made a huge post about how wonderful tonight is, my current wonderful thoughts, wonderful things that are going on and a whole bunch of wonderful shit then accidentally hit "back" and lost it. But to Sum Up:

-Tonight's the type of night where you feel bad for anyone that's asleep because there's few nights like this in a year and they're missing it. Like every night in Austin in October. You also feel bad for yourself because you're experiencing it alone. Like every night in Boston in September.

-I need to stop. I'm starting to seriously miss having a home. I'm too transient. I haven't lived anywhere for more than three months in the last two years.

-I might move in with Tyler, Tim, and Mel into this great place in JP. I also might move back to Texas. I'm an idiot, now and forever.

-I'm in the process of acquiring bands for a show on October 12 at the Midway. Currently enlisted are Big Blue Octopus and Peace & Quiet. Eat Cloud is very probable, I just haven't heard back from Andy, but that's in no way unusual behavior. Andy's the type of person where you're crossing the street in Ohio and he happens to be on the other side waving and saying "woah." I emailed Neptune to headline because if they do the place'll be packed and the aforementioned bands would get a lot of exposure with the right type of audience.

-I had a roll of film in my camera for the last four or five months. It starts in Montreal and ends on Lamartine St. Visual catalogue of my pesonal lack of direction in the last few months. Here's some winners:


Man Man at the Paradise. Wierd night for me.


Jess at her senior show. Wierd night for me.


Keanne and Mel in the back of my car. Good day for me.


Garce got in a car crash in LA and that scar is from his bones leaving his arm. He had to move home. Wierd.


Horror Movies and 40's and Asheville all over.


Remember that bug I was talking about?


Queechee Gorge. Great day for me.


Me in Queechee Gorge. Great day for me.


You thought you knew what sweet was.


Lamartine.

So yeah. The original post was all sappy and poetic and whatever. I got work to do.

I got Bless This Mess tattooed on my chest

Not really. So August barely happened. I think it's because I never really stopped moving the entire month. Since my triumphant return from a month of leisure and splendor in Asheville I wasn't ready to stop. I hit up New York, got pissed at it (thought I did shoot a video with Casey which turned out pretty good), went to Providence, loved it again, then got home. I spent a lot of time in Salem, met some new people, hung with the old and classic.

I spent three beautiful days in Vermont visiting my friend Becca and was constantly reminded about what's actually nice in life and what isn't. We camped every night in the rain, one night running for our lives from some hidden (imaginary) terror. Woke up to fog and sun and walked around tiny, lovely towns.

I came home wishing I didn't have to and started work on a new comic, a scathing review of my life in the spring. Its a reflection on how I basically did nothing but mope and drink from February til May when I finally realised that it was bogus and that I had been doing nothing for no reason, not for some person. It was my own decision to be shitty and being that way isn't going to fix anything that's wrong. Its called "Unproductive -or- My Sorry State In Spring 2008" and should be on shelves in Cambridge and Somerville in a week or two. 30p. Not bad. My most straight forward story ever since there's no monsters or blood or fights. Its good to look at the bad you and remember why you weren't like that before. I remember one night I was talking to Jess about something, maybe some fight I got into, and she said to me "What ever happened to going to the beach? Or flying kites?" And that helped me to get where I am now.

I drove to New York again to help a friend and left feeling horrible and alienated. I had a long, loud talk with myself for the six hours it took me to get home for some reason. I felt better when I got back.

I worked for a week and a half as a sculptor's assistant (helmicksculpture.com) and I can easily say it was the best job ever. Free coffee twice a day, free lunch, needless bonus pay and I landed free tickets to see Grizzly Bear at the MFA. And there were two cats in the studio. Dreamy. I saw Black Dice as well at MassArt and was terribly disappointed. I've seen them twice before and it was great, but this time... not so much.

The following week I spent three days at Alan's parents' beach house on Prudence Island and suddenly everything was great again. I felt like nothing was horrible and it was just good to hang with my friends like it was old times at Meatland. We grilled and watched cartoons and swam and I got pretty good at piloting a corical (a tiny circular boat). Lots of sunsets, lots of drawing, lots of writing, lots of reading. Just good times.

I got back too late to go to a wake I wanted to attend, but went to the fund-raiser the next day. The thing felt wierd and I left early. If you heard about a girl dying in Salem that was this girl I knew. No one should die yet. The Gulu, however, managed to raise 10k that night for her parents which is nothing short of amazing. Place was so packed I couldn't get JD's attention to pay my bill...

I spent the next day until sunday in Maine, bringing Lawrence back to the farm he'd been working on and to bring Mel home. It, too, was pretty wonderful, though I had hoped to score some cheap boots and found none. We had a nice surprise when we got there that Homefries and her friend Andrew were also coming back with us, with their bikes, but they had abandoned their bike rack in Bar Harbor. We played Apples to Apples and I managed to offend everyone somehow. There was lots of stars.

I slept that night with Lawrence and Mel in The Marshmallow, a tiny trailor the likes of which I hope to own one day. It was great except that I had a needlessly savage nightmare. One of those where you wake up and all you can think is what the fuck was that? I won't get into it. But I stumbled out of the trailor and into the most beautiful morning I can remember and felt intantly wierd. Still quivering from the nightmare but smothered in wonderful 7 am northern Maine on a farm. The Farm Mom had made blueberry muffins which I used to wake everyone else up so we could get to organizing the incredible ten pounds of shit we had to fit in a five pound car. Everything Mel owned, everything Lawrenced owned, a surfboard and two bikes. It took about 5 tries and the dog kept trying to get in. Such a good dog. But we did it and then went to Harrington? Beach in Scarborough. There were no waves and Tyler almost cried. I think we just came at the wrong time. The tide was going out, but the waves were breaking in the same spot, so if we came at high tide it would have been awesome. There actually were waves but at the time they were breaking about three feet from the shore.

I drove from there to Salem and got free Italian Ices from some new place that opened on Essex. Hung with JD and Brian, made a fire then went to JP when I got word Tim and Keanne had been baking pies. I got there and it was Corey's birthday so we drank a whole mess of mead but Tyler wouldn't sumo me. Piaxao fell asleep at some point, I got upset at some point (maybe aftershocks from the nightmare mixed with other things) and decided to just drive back to Wakefield for no reason.

I spent today applying for jobs in Boston, East Hampton, Asheville, Austin and Redrock and fixing my guitar. I've been working on it for six months and like most projects I put off, when I got back to it the solution was incredibly simple. It still needs a new 1/4" jack, but that's nothing. I'm starting a new band with myself and hopefully other people once I get it going called Human Hogan. Be on the lookout.

Speaking of bands I may be booking shows at The Midway in JP and Great Scott in Allston. That last one I might've imagined, but I think Natalie said that Ben said I could. So, if you need a show in a small place, I'm your man.

I'm reprinting DadMan Be Damned (this time with color covers!) and reapplying for the Xeric. The deadline is in 30 days. I got to mosey.

Tonight I began shading Unproductive then took a break and went to the beach. I sat down saw a shooting star and went home. Made some tea and started writing this.

I guess that's it. I'd say that's a pretty good month. Lets hope the next is >than or =to.

I feel like I'm in Jurassic Park. My screens aren't actually attached to the windows, so all manner of horrors creep in when the lights on. A beetle flew into my face twice until I decided to hit him with my guitar, then he stopped and rested on the wall. I can't just crush him. I noticed it looked like he was taking a shit on the wall and oh my god he's molting. Have you watched a beetle molt? Its horrible. Just pumping his new body out of his awful shell.

Then I got back to work modifying a poster I made for Steve's band Talk Modern (up now on matthewgiuffre.com) and I looked at a different part of the wall to notice a daddy long legs hanging out there. Then the shitty beetle fell off the wall and near my shoes so I said "keep away" and kicked them across the room where they landed next to another beetle.

Nothing beats the horror of a week or so ago. We were watching that awful horror movie and noticed this buzzing in the room. When the movie was over, on went the lights and there he was. Tim thought it was a "spider cricket" except that it had terrifyingly long antennae and MANDIBLES. Which it gnashed at us. We caught it in a cup and threw it into the yard.

I think the beetle died giving birth to itself.

Good night.

Its been a while and I've done a lot and I'm really tired, so I'm not sure how much I'll write. Why am I tired? Well. Saturday I drove 150 miles to Columbia where we stayed at an abandoned apartment that one of Tim's friends stopped paying for, but the landlord was ok with him still using. I don't know. That night we went to a great bar called The Whig. It itself was allright, $2 pbr's, etc, but the thing about it is it used to be the basement of a bank, so there's one room that's a converted vault and it just feels like a victorian hunter's lodge. There was a deer head (for some reason painted black), a stuffed fox and an entire wall of antelope scull caps with antlers, those of which Tim's friend Will was convinced were fake for no reason. There were end tables with glass tops and beyond that glass were cow skulls surrounded by fake flowers. It was a strange, great place. The owner apparently worked as a chemist (no shit?) for three years to save up money to open it. It sounds like a good plan. It's what I'd like to do at least.

The next day we didn't do jack shit. It was something like 100 degrees in Columbia so we got Keanne got on her bus to Raleigh (I forgot to mention I had to stay up all night to bring her to the Greyhound, only to sit there from 4-6 while she missed two buses since the workers were entirely unable to tell her which bus to catch) went to breakfast, checked a record store (I didn't find anything worth getting, but Tim got some old George Thoroughgood records) then just sat in the air conditioned vagrant's lounge of an apartment and watched Cowboy Bebop. 7 episodes. That's a lot. That night, though Will invited us over and made some insane pasta and cream sauce and afterwards we stopped at The Whig again since the paper said it was soul night, but when we got there there was no soul. That's every other sunday, but they advertise every sunday just because. So we had a few drinks and rolled another 100 miles to Charleston. The next day it was 102 out and Tim's parents had some friends over who developed marital issues while they were visiting, which made everything go very smoothly. They were nice, just, separately. We went to the beach then sat around, Machaela's flight got cancelled so she'd have to come in the morning at like 8, so we went to the water and shot off a shitload of fireworks. The most surprising was a sweet little fellow called the Colorful Wheel. not so interesting on his own, he's just one of those fools you nail to a post and he spins, but we kicked it into the water and it spun and smoked and screamed. Awesome.

Today we woke up and went to the beach. I'd aparently been laughing in my sleep again. Oh well. The waves were a lot stronger than the last three times I'd been there and the ocean finally stole the sunglasses I stole off the front porch off of my face.

Then I headed back to Asheville. I lost one of the lenses to the pair of shades I stole from Dad a few years ago but I wore them anyway. What happened is that my eyes sort of evened themselves out and when I took them off, my left eye saw fine and right eye saw brown. They're fine now. Also it was unkindly hot in South Carolina so I drove with my shirt off like a winner and I now am the proud owner of a seatbelt tanline. Could be worse. Could be lace.

Last Friday I got shamefully drunk and wound up puking, but felt instantly better. I still slept on the couch in shame. What I had was another 32oz beer at that place, then another beer, then three white russians. That's enough for anyone.

Earlier last week I spent on a mountain. I'll go more into that later, but there's not much to tell, really, so I might not bother.

Good night.

Yesterday was great. I wound up going to a derby game. The teams were relatively new, less than a year old, I think, but they were brutal. it was a lot different than games in Boston. For one thing it seemed more of a novelty than the actual sport the dames up north treat it as. For example, the anouncers kept saying things like "Don't they look great, folks?" That shit would never fly. It was like a throwback to the staged games in the 70's, when it was more about cute girls getting in fights (which happened) than actual serious competition. The first game kind of sucked, it was I guess the Asheville B-team, and the final score was like 50-40, but there was plenty of spills and injuries and two girls got ejected for starting a fight after two pig piles brought both teams entirely to the ground, I just don't think they've realised the full intent of the sport yet. The second game however, was the Asheville allstars vs Charlotte and that was great. It was close the whole time, yet again there was lots of spills, but the Asheville jammers were really good, definitely on par with the pros. We left with ten minutes left and apparently during that ten minutes Charlotte caught up to pass Asheville by 3 points, but then Asheville made an insane 20 point comeback.

We talked about it after and if they get sponsored, they could be great. I guess they only have each other to play right now, since they don't have the funding to travel anywhere. Greg, who's house we had the q at the other day, said he'd build them a bank track. Awesome.

After that we went to the Frog again and it was awesome again. Eric caught me impersonating him, which was funny. I went to the bathroom and they had repaired the stall door which had been ripped off the other night. Eugene was right.

Then we went to a marvelous party. It was luau themed, which didn't really mean anything, but there was a trash can filled with ice and pbr's and a percussion jam going on in the basement. For a while we sat and drank in an old VW minibus parked in the back, which was surreal. The beers were wearing little Hawaiian shirts. The best part, other than getting hit on which is always nice, was upstairs. In the living room this guy and girl were playing old timey hits on banjos. We sat around and sang along, they played all those southern songs you know some of the lyrics to somehow. "I was born in east Virginia, North Carolina, I did roam..." Then out of nowhere, this guy showed up with hard face, goatee, ripped carharts and fiddle and made everything perfect. He knew so many songs and was so amazing he could have been born during the civil war. Then someone kicked over a lantern and the whole place caught on fire and we had to run home.

Just kidding.

I caught a white moth and threw it at Tim.

Afterwards we had gin and tonics at Tim's, Keanne went to bed and Tim and I investigated a 24-h coffee shop on Merriman. There was almost no one there, except for some nerds upfront arguing about which class is best in Neverwinter Nights. Obviously its rogue, since rogue is the best class in any game. I can't stand nerds who can't also be cool. Its so easy. In a lot of ways I'm a lot nerdier than any nerd I've met, I just do a lot more. Oh well.

Then I went to bed.

So thursday was spent at a BBQ at Tim's brother's friend Greg's house. Ha. It was great. We sat around, drank, ate, played with the pitbulls, played Hot Dice and listened to the Pogues and The Dirtbombs. You can't picture anything more appropriate and neither can I.

Yesterday we drove around West Asheville, I got my car looked at and rather than being totally screwed with a transmission problem, the rattling was just a rusted heat shield that the guy at The Organic Mechanic would later grind off. No more problem other than that I can't park on dry grass or it'll set on fire and blow up my car, like, as Dad told me, on the Sopranos. Keanne found me the perfect job here working for the city as exhibit Curator at all the museums, so i'd basically go from museum to museum see if anythings broken, take it, and fix it. Also, I'd get to design the exhibits as they happen, all in all a great job. The description was exactly what I am. They were looking for someone with experience in exhibit design, sculpture, photo, web design, carpentry, pretty much everything I know and am good at. Only problem is the deadline was last week, but I submitted a cover letter anyway, you never know. I might call next week to check the possibility.

Then I got really drunk. We went to this place that had 32oz Dos Equis for 3.50. So we all got on and Keanne only had half her's so Tim and I split it. Then I came home and passed out on the porchcouch for two hours, woke up, Tim brought me a 40, drank that, then we all split another. That was fun though, we just hung out on the porch with a couple of the people who live in the house that I hadn't met yet. Then we went to the bar. Tim bought me a glass of whiskey but I couldn't finish it. I dropped them off at another bar and went home.

Then today I got my hair cut! At this great place where they gave me a free beer with the cut. I talked to the chick about Asheville, how its better than Raleigh (no way!). Not much happened since. Tonight we're going to see a band comprised of three cute girls, so that should be fun. Everyone's at the Falls right now, but I didn't feel like going. When I'm new to a place I don't really like doing doubles, as we already went like two weeks ago.

Oh yeah. Yesterday we watched a horrible movie. The DVD said it was called Burial Ground, but when the title came up it was called The Nights of Terror. Either way it was stupid. And this horrible thing is in it:



But this also happens:



And that's all I'll say. Don't watch it. We didn't mean to.

I wish I had kept a more attentive record of what I've done this past week of travelling, but I didn't. We started out Sunday morning and met up with Jess in Providence for breakfast which was great. Moved on to New York. Keeping with tradition we saw a horrible accident on route 15. First there was traffic, which I thought I had avoided by opting to take 15 instead of 95, then I saw the dead dog on the side of the road. A real cutie too, little fox. Then I saw the car that tried to avoid it, still killed it, then drove istelf through the guard rail and almost down a hill, but got caught by some trees. Comepletely destroyed. I love animals of all shapes and intellects, but I tell you, I will kill a dog if it keeps you alive. I'd feel bad, but not as bad as if I'd killed you. I love you.

After that it was pretty easy and by driving slow I got beautiful mileage. We got caught in Mets traffic simultaneously with the most beastly storm I've ever driven though just as we were getting into Brooklyn. Not too bad. We then met up with Alice unloaded out stuff and rolled out to meet Alan at some bogus heavy metal bar that wasn't. There was $2 pabststststs but whatever thats still like paying to drink unattractive water that also smells. After that we met up with Jack and his silent crew at a nice bar where I spent 7 bucks on a white russian but oddly didn't feel shitty about it. I talked to Alan about fantasy novels, games and relationships, talked to Jack and James about comics, basketball, and relationships and talked to Alice about everything else. My friend Mollie was there and she made a great new comic. In the morning we got up, made breakfast and Alice and I recorded a song. around 12 we hit the road.

The trip down was pretty uneventful since I just drove in a straight line for 14.5 hours. I got a horrible cough that I'm just now getting rid of. We stopped at a Hottle House in either Virginia or West Virginia where we got a brutal, greasy breakfast for 4 dollars tha I would later shit out in the morning in a swirling brown shotgun blast. Other than the retarded (literally) cook, there was the 300 lb 14 year old (why are you here at one in the morning?). Child Abuse I say!

Asheville is in the Blue Ridge Mountains, which are a beautiful. The parkway on the way in constantly goes up and down hills, with big rig brake failure ramps at every turn. I almost tried one, but they're made of sand and I was too tired to deal. We stopped at an advertised scenic outlook and for the first time in my life, I saw the Milky Way. And a shooting star. They might be old news for you guys but I didn't see one until I was 20, they're still magic. We sat there for a minute then made it into town and my car started making a horrible noise that I've yet to investigate. A few days later it all but vanished, but I'd still like to get it looked at before I go anywhere of consequence. If that transmission dies, I'll die with it.

We stayed up watching Nightmare on Elm St V at Tim's brother's house until about 5 or 6. The next was spent wandering around downtown Asheville, having Tim point things that are neat and things that no longer exist. We visited his brother's roomate Eric at the bar he works at, The Flying Frog, and he gave us about ten beers and several shots for the price of three. We got trashed by 3. We think its the altitude. We stumbled around and eventually found our was back to his brothers house and passed out on the porch couches. Around 8 I got a call from this girl Emily who told me if I still wanted, I could move here:


My room is second floor, left

The place is great with a massive old stove with a built in deep fryer (obvi), piano, guitars, ukeleleleles, garden with blackberries, nice roomates who are rarely around and sweet when they are, big old yard and no smoking, which is nice. My room is massive with enough empty space that Keanne and I can both do workouts. We've been doing lots of pushups and stretches and aerobics. I feel like I've gotten weaker lately and I need to work on myself. I think it might be my proximity to Tim since he's basically my height and build, just thicker. I think I'd look wierd if I wasn't a stick, though. We'll see.

Also, Asheville's great since its hot during the day and cold at night. Perfect. We leave the windows open and get to sleep with blankets. The closets big enough for us to change in so we don't have to keep telling each other to turn around and close our eyes.

Thursday we went to Tim's parents' giant house in Charleston, SC. It was a couple days of painful leisure. We did nothing but sit around in the AC and drink and eat and read or play video games until it got dark, then we'd go out onto the porch and play cards and listen to music or go tot the beach. The water was so warm and was made out of tiny bioluminescent buddies. When you popped out of the water you could see little sparkles on your arms. Universe Arms. Standing in the water and letting glowing waves hit your chest is something you could do forever. We pretty much did. We went at night and it took over an hour for us to get cold. Kids on the beach shot fireworks over our heads. It was so nice.

But it was unproductive which bothered both Keanne and I. We understand we're not here long, but we'd rather do something with our time than sit around our lovely house, playing lovely guitar, on the filthy, horrible porch couches. So the second we got back here today we started looking for jobs both in Asheville and Boston, just to do it. I'm not sure if I'll stay. Of course, if I get a wonderful job I'll stay for a few months but I can see this place getting tired pretty quick. Unless I meet an excellent girl or something like that, but its unlikely. But yeah, odds are I'll be back in August, ready to pick up where I left off, nowhere.

Menu for tomorrow:

Walk around looking for jobs at record stores, cafes, and galleries.

I guess that's it. Maybe record some of the songs I wrote on the porch. They're pretty cute.

Okee doke. Also, if you haven't done so, go to my website and give me feedback. OK. Goodnight.

So I guess things are going well when you live in a town for two days and you already know how to drive your friend's blackoutdrunk friend back to their house in the middle of the night from across town. And you wind up driving them to another bar first. I think I'm doing well.

More later. Asheville's great.

Hey! Major redesign to the website! Check it out!

www.matthewgiuffre.com

Feedback is greatly appreciated. Granted, if you use Internet Explorer, it won't be as neat, which is why you should take this oportunity to download Opera. Much better in every way. It actually just got ranked as the most secure browser, and its just superior. Read about it. I've been using it for four years. Do it. Do it. Oh and for you dorks, its also better than Firefox, which stinks. Although, for mac users Opera isn't as great, since a lot of its beauty comes from having two mouse buttons for navigation, but whatever.

When you go, your computer might still have the old site up, so just hit refresh. I'm very pleased with it.

In other news, zero hour is closing in. I'm moving to North Carolina for no reason in two weeks. First stop is CT to shoot guns with Clay, then to NYC to see everybody. Then NC to paint houses or bus tables for a month, then return and hopefully get an actual job. Who knows. I'm feeling good, even though I drank a lot of cheap Mexican agave liquor last night and my stomach hates me. Its not tequila... its something else.

Oh and I didn't get my grant. Looks like its back to the old ways. Small runs and submiting the comic to publishers and artists. A long-ass road ahead of me.

My problems are becomming redundant so I think that means its time to fix them.

In other news, its hard to find a place to work that you are interested in.

In other news, I'm becoming interested in things I never really thought I would. Like web design. Its really floating my boat right now. I wish it floated my boat about five months ago when I had absolutely nothing to do all the time other than sit around and mope.

I'm trying to learn a chord a day. I think a chord a week is more probable. I cannot make an F minor for the life of me. At least not on the Tiny Guitar. And the big guitar is missing two strings, one of which is integral to the construction of the F minor. F being my favorite note, minor being the mood I've been in.

Auntie Lee put me in touch with a great lady who's going to give me advice in the long hard road of becomming a real-life illustrator. You know, my dream job.

I've been teaching kids lately. Its been great. I got a few stories already. My job is basically pushing kids down and calling them stupid. Pushing them down hard. On concrete. Then ripping up chunks of concrete and putting it on top of them so they can't get up. And if they did I'd do it all again.

And now, I'm going to break out that whiskey Tim got me and code for a little while. Maybe work on the comic I scripted a month ago.

Gabby came back for no reason. I gave her her watch back. I need a new watch.

Another sleepless night. No matter how much time passes its always for the same reason. Oh well. I got a few good ideas for drawings and photos while I struggled. I think I'll start one tomorrow, but we'll see. It's hard to work in JP. The house is madness. But its getting better.

I'm realizing the Seagull is a wonderful camera and one of the greatest gifts I've ever received. I'm going to use it in staged photos and one day blow them up so they're not trapped as 3x5s.

Here's an illustration I did for the MA Family Law Quarterly. Bogus, yeah? At any rate its nice when people remember you from things you did almost a decade in the past.



Whatever. It's nice that while I mostly do the gross and vulgar now I can still pull out the cute when its called for. It was for an article about parents mooching off their successful kids. Vamparents. I'm happy I didn't have to go through that during my good times as a small, lovely boy.

In the morning I'm going to work on something for Brian's book and finally get it off to him. Its been like two months. One day at a time, dog. One day at a time. I'm grossing myself out at my increasing interest in web design. I never wanted to be that guy.

I found a watch in my car. I think it's Gabby's. I'm wearing it. I need one anyway.

The other night Tyler couldn't sleep so I lulled him to bed with guitar. I think that means I'm getting better.

I rode Mel's minicycle the other day. I want a motorcyle real bad now.

I'm done with deviance. All it took was a fight and a few ugly parties to put it past me.

Time for sketch and hopefully sleep. Good night.