UPDATE: Events, Job-quitting, & Wild Ambition

Oh blogs...

Everyone and their grandmother has a blog, and I have made at least 3 or 4, all in effort to try and categorize and showcase different works and thoughts. Just a manner of getting lost in the 21st century madness of self-promotion. It's hard to keep up!

In the fall, my music group "Pleasure Leftists" went on a nice little 3 week tour of the west coast. It was a great time, we took lots of great nature photos, played in some great places, saw old friends, made new ones, and even got to perform live on Seattle's radio station KEXP.

While I was gone I got to work co-planning another New Years Eve dance event at Cleveland's... or should I say Lakewood's bowling alley Mahall's 20 Lanes. It's a fabulous place, with a neat bar, insanely good fresh made pretzels, 20 pristine 1950s-60s bowling lanes, and a large concert room. Kelly Flamos, one of the owners is very supportive of a growing community of people with good ideas and the previous year she also let me plan the New Years Eve party. It was the "Enchantment Under The Sea New Years Eve Dance". I got to go hog wild and nerd out completely for it. I Dj'd with my sister who was visiting from Los Angeles, and picked out several key elements from the scenes in "Back To The Future" to recreate. The tissue fish hanging from the ceiling, the giant pink clam shell we made from paper mache' and was as tall as an SUV, tinsel curtain, and streamers galore. I like to think, we momentarily transported everyone to another time.

 I threw some ideas at Kelly and we settled on Twin Peaks & The Black Lodge as our theme this past NYE. It came to be "The Black Lodge Ball". And to hype it up we also started having Twin Peaks episode screenings every Monday that ran November until just a few weeks ago actually. A nice low-key way to get people to come out in the winter hell-scape we're going through. I want to say it's really wonderful to have someone believe in you so much that also is in a position to support you. Kelly and everyone at Mahall's gave me the okay to go even one step further with transforming their concert room space this time. My extremely patient boyfriend Terry and I painted the entire linoleum floor with the black chevron stripes (see: black lodge), and I picked one of the authentic native pacific-northwest murals from "The Great Northern Lodge" right out of the show and painted it spanning the entire western wall. I hoped the floor alone would make enough of a statement. What gave me the idea in the first place was that the concert room is separated from the lobby by these amazing red velvet curtains. So there you go... The Black Lodge.

My good friend Mark aka DJ Road Chief, joined me deejaying on NYE, and it was a freaking blast. Perhaps even more people attended then last year. Also my vhs guru pal known as "Snake Grimwood" was our Master of Ceremonies. It was a glorious night for me to collaborate with my friends, and watch friends and strangers alike enjoy the space, dance and have a good time. And on top of it, thanks to everyone for coming out I was actually able to pay everyone involved with executing the event, as if I was a professional or something! Gosh imagine that! The idea that being a complete nerd for detail could actually pay off. But the bottom line is, I would have done it for free. I really live for an opportunity to utilize all the time spent meditating on my favorite films and people. Just like making a space in a Lakewood Bowling alley look like a scene from a film. I love Djing, I love dancing, and I love a chance to bring it out of others. I applaud Kelly and everyone at Mahall's for allowing so much artistic freedom to those planning events and such things there.

It was The Black Lodge Ball at last, even after having done the "Enchantment Under The Sea" dance and also years ago co-directing WCSB, the radio station I work at's 35th anniversary party "WCSB Hacienda" (see: Factory Records), that motivated me to think of "Memorabilia" not only as this silly little button making business, or even simply products, but an entire production company. I suppose I alluded to that in the very beginning, but I usually tend to think big with few results. I do have big plans, and ideas for the Memorabilia outfit, but one thing at a time. This was just an amazing way to start the year, with so much positive energy! I hope if any of you made it out for NYE you had a smashing good time!

I used to co-run events with my best friend and room mate Shannon in a shabby house on W.45th st. in Ohio City, called "The Boo Box". Our bedrooms on the first floor, book-ending two large living rooms where we had concerts, plays, movie nights, dances. It was an incredible 3 years experience I wouldn't trade for anything. Mostly I think we'd just get lumped in with any crusty college-aged-DIY-punk house venue. But hey... that's a loss to anyone who let that deter them. The events were always tasteful, never violent, welcoming of anyone, and we always made dinner! I like to think that the years spent in there are a large inspiration to me now. I like to think of them as a study.

I hear my parents, and other people who grew up pre-1990s/1980s talk about all of the neat things that were available for them to do, being young. Whether it was local canteens, dance halls, roller rinks, ice rinks, arcades, drive-in theatres, cheap movie theatres, carnivals, or whatever! Those things aren't completely extinct, but even so ... there aren't enough left per community to allow them to really thrive like they once did. People have their netflix, facebook, computers, video games, any thing to keep people from being around each other. By the time I was a teenager, even video arcades were mostly gone. Instead we enjoyed kazaa music downloading, teen chat, and AOL instant messenger. My junior high was decent enough to throw bi-monthly casual canteen dances. That was nice. This is also highly drives me to think of event ideas, and dances especially!  Even now, as an adult, I feel like there aren't even "clubs" I want to go to. The fantasies I had about being an adult as a kid growing up in the 90s are pretty much doomed unless I create these "dreamscapes". That statement also being amplified living in a small-ish metropolitan city.

Basically what I'm saying is that, what might be overstated by now, I am throwing/planning events under the moniker "Memorabilia". And as I slowly get more organized in my planning and executing that may for now only be represented by the triangle emblem being present on the fliers I make as a sort of signature. My etsy button store has sat on the back burner the last few months as the band had some heavy activity, and as I was busy planning some events.

Coming up I have planned a clothing swap at Mahall's bowling alley on Wednesday, March 11th in the same Black Lodgey room. I've attended many clothing swaps thrown by friends in the past years, and it's always a nice opportunity to make new friends and find a nice new piece or two. It's a laid back opportunity to chat with people without being drowned out by a PA blasting music too! I'll probably create a fun playlist of bouncy tunes for people to shuffle about to as they sort through each others piles of "gently-used-unwanted clothes".

Also with some excitement for any local Cleveland folks interested, I will have a retail outlet for my buttons and any other products I'm working on starting in April. Location to be announced shortly. It's going to be a really fun space that I'll be apart of featuring many neat products made or curated by other local vendors/artists, including my mother! She's been collecting mid-century and kitschy items all of my life. She has impeccable taste in my opinion and I can't wait to see how she fits her things in!

Finally, the most recent development in my "professional" existence is that, through a long time of simmering on the idea, I am quitting my current day job. It's hard to break out of the routine that supports you financially. I'm by no means in the place to survive off of button-making, but I can say that I have felt pretty unhealthy in a number of ways working in this particular industry with sorts of people. And whereas people say with starting your own business, or hobbies, or whatever they say ... "Don't quit your day job", I really think that if your psychological/emotional health is suffering at the hands of it, you might just be setting yourself up to fail. I've thought long and hard about these decisions, and I've tried to play it smart by picking the appropriate time to go through with it. I already like an enormous weight has been lifted off of my shoulders as I put it out of my mind. I can focus on creating stock, and allowing new ideas to seed in my head.  And I'm excited as well to be starting a new job part-time at another local business with lots of integrity. It's a place where I can acquire some new skills and also lend a hand and some input. Full steam ahead! I feel very positive about these decisions. It's risky. Making big changes and sacrifices like this is always risky. But I'd say in times like these, pressure is a good motivator. It's really important to believe in yourself and your ideas, your vision. That being said, it's important to know when to back off too! Maybe that's what I'm saying here. I'm backing off, or bowing out, knowing when enough is enough. I hope you all have confidence.

Well that's it, I'm off like a dirty shirt!