First, I read this life-changing article in the NY times that made me pack three boxes of shit for the Salvation Army. Then I overhead someone call Schenectady “The Hamptons of Upstate.” He, no doubt, never meant that as a vile and pejorative; rather, he meant a bourge mecca of magic but that’s precisely the problem.  I’ve never been to Schenectady so I leave room for error in my thoughts.  I do, however, go to the countryside of Upstate, NY to get the fuck away from anything like the Hamptons. So when raw charm gets tamed, polished and fixed up to suit city sensibilities and their high-class, plugged-in demands, it becomes precisely that: the Hamptons of Upstate.  It’s sad that money fixes things, like massive plastic surgery.  You become such a seemingly perfect conception of your ideal self that your actual face is lost in the stretched, plump, smooth alternative of something that once resembled you.  I’m still trying to keep it pure. Until I'm 30.

Last night, my dear friend Sara called with news of free passes to the Vice party at Milk.  Three floors of free vodka, MIA, Interpol, this deranged Afrikaaner called Die Antwoord, a random Kirsten Dunst sighting and the very best part: my t-shirt twin.

This amazing clothwork, purchased in 1991 one day after school, across the street from PS 69, at my favorite (and Jackson Height's only) record shop (read: tape shop).  That shirt, besides serving as a killer Halloween costume in '91 and '98, a default look in '99-'02, a puke bib and a mop, also facilitated one of my cooler nights back in the summer of '01 when I hung out with Brian Bell (who attended, as it turns out, the concert on the t-shirt) at a bar on top of the World Trade Center with Jay Moore, after Weezer had played Conan.  Ask me about that later.

Dear T-shirt twin,

I saw you at the Creator's Project June 26th at Milk Studios. Your were pushing your way to the front at the MIA performance. I was about a foot below you getting trampled.  Hit me up on the FB and let's swap t-tales!

Love,

your t-shirt twin

I've been away from you, my bus, because I decided to change careers and go back to school.  When faced with life's changes, one has decisions to make.  But sometimes the choice is already made for you.

The first time I ever won anything was in college. It was an ebay auction of a fake Christian Dior saddlebag. My ineffable joy knew no limits.  Alas, undeserved victory trailed me over the years to another slope of sadness, this time, in the form of a letter, a love letter of sorts.  I cried the way I always do when the big “R” pokes its head into my modest potato sack of false victories.  An old professor who wrote me my rec letter made the point that maybe I’m simply overeducated.  Thanks for that. I’m sure he meant “too good for those mofos” but what I read was “mediocre, baby.”  Here’s to keggers with kids all next year.

Wouldn’t it be awesome if Black Acid were a drug that let you peek into a forbidden or hidden zone, space, cult or subgroup, one that you already know exists but will never ever infiltrate. What Black Acid would do is give you bionic insight, not just vision, but a prescience and knowledge of everything this group does, but only in the aftermath. In fact, you’d be forced to quote Faith No More probably more than once:
You will never understand it 'cause it happens too fast
And it feels so good, it's like walking on glass
It's so cool, it's so hip, it's alright…
If this terrifying yet palpably gratifying drug is an imagined work of art from a diabolical mind, so is Black Acid Co-op, the current exhibition at Deitch Projects where Jonah Freeman and Justin Lowe have laboriously erected the ultimate assemblage of anarchy where we can explore the (probably) imagined substrata of sects in a fantastic labyrinth of rooms replete with smells, gnarly artifacts, ripped, moldy books that nod to Gondry’s rental shop in “Be Kind Rewind,” a sterile museum space with molding and a drop ceiling, and other areas of methodical ingenuity.
Just when I was starting to lose my bearings, I saw Jeffrey’s satisfied face, slowly examining the work, smiling coyly, somehow knowing that he can penetrate the undercurrent of any tribe, club, congregation, what have you, smoothly, like a cheese stick in butter.

Image courtesy of Black Acid Co-op