B to the arter...

I haven't quite kicked this off in the big way I one day hope to, but so far in the past three weeks I have bartered for bicycle repair.

The first was upon my return from Seattle, when I exchanged a bike tube for a sandwich (from Bossa Nova) with Lee from East Side Peddle Pushers.

The second was with a man named Kansas who has lived in town for 3-4 years. He lives out at bio-squat and has been working on bikes for 30 years. My roommate, Grant, bought a bike from him with a particularly crazy paint-job but a particularly cherry ride. Kansas makes/refurbishes/repairs his own bikes, trailers and all kinds of stuff, including his own design for a recumbent bike. Since the bike Grant bought malfunctioned, he picked-up, fixed and re-delivered the busted wheel. Since he was around, I talked about outfitting my new bike (single-speed) with gears. He trued my wheels, and tuned my brakes. In return, I offered a great okra soup I made the night before.

sooo....

058. barter (3)

p.s. Kansas is new to the internet, and is trying to get the word out about his work. If you need a bike or bike repair, I will do my best to contact him for you. Also, he is looking for a new habitat. He is extremely low maintenance and would love a garage to work in, a yard to pitch a tent in, or any other alternative living situation. He is also more than willing to pay rent, but would love to be an in-house bike mechanic for a co-op. Hook a brother up. The man is 60, with a rock-solid work ethic.

Also! Check out Austin Time Exchange. I recently found out that it is legal to print your own money, to be used locally. Barter it up, ya'll!

Back from Seattle, SXSW, and Installing Cult of Color.

So, at the beginning of the month, I took a road trip with my friend Stephanie to Seattle that took almost a week and covered 5,300 miles of driving. While I had great ambition for the trip, planning to get a short haircut (#014), give haircuts (#23), get in a hot spring (#025), visit an apiary (#028)and pick fruit (#031) none of which I did. However, there has been far more success than failure in the last week. So here goes!... :

On the way to Seattle, we stopped through Denver, and I got to see my friend/tower climbing boss/beat generation incarnate, Jeronimo, Matt Case, Macon Terry, Fei Wu, Jamie Jack, Macon's girlfriend Brynn and her friend Jenn(y). We tore the roof off the sucker. And Matt decided to come with us. We left Denver after a good hour of piano playing and wrestlin' which ended some time around midnight. Then we had to drive through a snow storm in Wyoming all night at 30 mph.

021. visit a new state (2)

Idaho on the way, where Stephanie punted an ice cream cone (!)
Montana on the way back, where we ate a cholesterol-fest of a breakfast at "The Hanging 5" diner.

015. make bets for things that aren't money (1)

Stephanie was convinced her legs were longer, so we made a bet for shoelaces. Yeah, I won. She bought me some sweet red plaid fatlaces at Archie McPhee's, but we have reason to believe that Matt stole them when unloading his stuff. Punk. (Archie's is kind of like Toy Joy, but way better because of their incredibly random stock of industrial parts, lenses, machines, buttons, wheels, containers, and all around weird stuff that can only be a toy through the right pair of eyes.)

036. footrace

I raced Matt from the cupcake store where our friend Darin works. I won, but it wasn't a very good race. Unfortunately my best races have been prior to the conception of this blog... wanna race? let me know...

045. go to the beach

In Seattle, Stephanie, Ian, Matt and I visited the Olympic Sculpture Park, right on the Puget Sound. There are some pretty sweet sculptures, but best of all, it is right on the water.
At the very bottom left of this picture, you can see the rocky beach where I jumped in. It was definitely as cold as I expected (perhaps even slightly less), but for some reason the salt caught me totally off guard. Then I went and watched Be Kind Rewind with no underwear (it was wet).

027. listen to an new album in it's entirety each week (4/143)

I know I listened to a gang of new music on this trip, but the only things I know were knew to me were two bands from Seattle - Girth's "Living In Truth" and Sean's "Singers Ruin Perfectly Good Bands". Both are circulated through Brutal Prog, and are mostly precision-metalish in their sound. Sean is an incredible Piano and Drums duo that is simply unprecedented. Ah yes, and Estradasphere's "Palace of Mirrors".

029. meet 3 people who have had strong influence on me through their work (2/3)

On the way back to Austin, Stephanie was kind enough to oblige my potent desire to see Secret Chiefs 3 in Houston. Little did I know that Estradasphere was supposed to open, a special reward for the extra effort. After the show, I talked to Trey Spruance- the brains behind Secret Chiefs, Guitar player for Mr. Bungle, and truly an inspiration musically and philosophically.

Back in Austin, SXSW, blah blah blah... THIS WEEK, I worked installing the work of Trenton Doyle Hancock. I randomly went to his talk at UT about 3-4 years ago where he mentioned he was working on putting together a project with the Austin Ballet. After the long anticipation, the event is finally happening. The show is called Cult of Color, and Arthouse is hosting an installation about the collaboration between TDH, Graham Reynolds (musician), and Steven Mills (choreographer) that brought this baby to fruition. So...

004. be involved in a theater production

And I got on a fabulous roof in downtown Austin last night. So...

011. get on roofs (2)