Weekend warriors, bro. We left on Thursday for Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, another country, our northernly neighbors, "cooltown, USA" (but in Canada), etc., etc.

Khaela, Claire, and I were invited to go up to Vancouver with Slow Dance Recyttal for their Cartune Xprez show at a small gallery space called Blim. The show was really awesome; the Hooliganship boys make really awesome stuff and Cassandra showed her video "Eventide" and really floored me... check out this small clip of it. The three of them also curated a couple hours of some of their favorite animations.

Hooliganship Jamz

Slow Dance Recyttal Blow-Up Gems

Khaela made a stop-frame animation and talked about making songs, then I played a couple of songs and animations in progress including a Nirvana Op Art jam I made and a fake MySpace.com called WeedSpace.bong that gets you virtually high when you delete your friends, which are plants... of course. Claire did a radical presentation on Unarius. You can read some Unarius writing she did here and here.

On our way back into the United States we ran into a little trouble. I dropped my license--my only identification--into the crack between the window and door of the car. They asked us to pull over and see immigration. The border officer that we were waiting in line to see was incredibly short with us and just plain mean. On top of that he was a trainee and in between making us feel rotten he had to keep asking his superiors how to handle our situation (this also included instructions on how to operate a date-stamp). Claire isn't a US citizen. She was born in England and has dual-citizenship in England and France (her father is British and her mom is French). She has a green card that she's supposed to carry with her "at all times," but since we both forgot our proper citizenship documentation the trainee decided to fuck with us... well, Claire. After I told him that I dropped my ID in the car door he sent me off to try and pry the door open and retrieve it. I spent 15 minutes trying to do so with a borrowed Leatherman tool and failed. I went back into the office and the trainee was telling Claire that she could either stay in Canada and have her documents mailed to her, or pay an arbitrary waiver fee of $265 to get back into the US. What is this? Why?! I know that we should have remembered our stuff, but why $265? Where does that come from? Why couldn't we get a warning? Claire and I aren't the kind of people that have $265 to spare, especially right now. If you have a day job, an extra buck or two, and would like to contribute to the "NO BORDERS, NO ARBITRARY FEES" campaign that I'm starting right this second; click on this button:

Here's the kicker... the trainee totally forgot about me! I didn't have a single piece of identification and I made it in to the United States. Good job, guy. It seems like the border is more interested in taking our money than actually protecting us from those cave-dwelling weevil evildoers or whatever.

Claire doesn't know I'm doing this and could very well reject your donation. I thought I'd try though. We need to share more of our money on this earth, homies. My brother just showed me a television program where a new movie star buys his friends motorcycles on a whim. That's what I'm talking about! Motorcycles for your friends, guys. The internet is our motorcycle and the friends are all of us.

Moving on... The Blow played in Seattle after we made it through the border. Khaela made a giant boombox out of a roll of butcher-style paper, some black tape, and a couple markers. We named it "BOOMIE" and taped it to two microphone stands on the stage. It looked awesome. Speaking of The Blow, here is a teaser MP3 for you. It's one of my favorite moments on the new record and probably sounds totally weird out of context... and in context.

I had some movies on my broken iBook that I just transferred over and edited together. Half of this is some "making of" style junk for the new album, and the other half is from our night in Chicago. The weird camera/effects software in the video is this thing called ToySight.

I'm excited about the artwork that we made for Paper Television. Guys, it's really killing me that we have to wait until October to share this stuff with you! Well, here's what the Paper Television CD back looks like. You'll see. All of it fits together. I'm stoked.

Lastly I want to cordially invite you to a string of shows coming up in California and Arizona. First off, We Two (Claire and I), are going on a 3-day tour with the Clear Cut Press family and Mount Eerie from the 21st to the 24th. Dates here. After that Khaela joins up with us and we start the PEACE HANDS TOUR, with The Blow, YACHT, & Claire's band Thunder Sundress. We made special Peace Hands shirts just for Tucson, Phoenix, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Oakland, and Santa Cruz. THEY ARE AWESOME. I can't wait to play these new Blow songs for you, guys! Print out our flyer and put it up all over!

PS- If Ye is looking to go deep and/or are bored, travel yonder. Thanks to Cassandra for this story and link!

PPS- I made a new website for Vetiver.

PPPS- The Blow played on top of a boathouse.

PPPPS- Thanks to Claire for getting my license out of the car door in Seattle.

Truly,
Jona

Name:

Email Address:

URL:
Remember Me? YesNo

Comments: