May 30, 2003

Follow Ups
After my post about Terrorist Alert Orange and the harassment I received for taking public domain snaps on public property, I received a ton of helpful links from peeps about my rights as a photographer. The best one comes via kottke.org and explains "Your Rights When Stopped or Confronted for Photography". Unfortunately, I'm not the only one who is being confronted and shook down for their public use of digital photography. Know your rights kids. The thing that gets me about the whole debacle is that the cop in the bank had obviously seen me outside through some sort of surveillance camera. So while it is alright for me to be video taped on public property by the bank it is NOT alright for me to turn my camera on the bank. That don't sit right.

A few days a ago I took an unharassed snap of a a soldier stencil. Brian has tracked the origins of this public art to a guy who runs a little site called WithRemote. Cool stencils. Check out his epic senior thesis on street art.

May 29, 2003

God Hates Dangling Modifiers
This morning while watching the second round of the French Open on ESPN2, I feasted on some Limited Edition Incredible Hulk Cereal. It's basically like Corn Pops cereal punctuated with Hulk inspired marshmallow combinations. There's a beaker shaped marshmallow that is supposedly half filled with the mystery chemical that turns Bruce Banner into the Hulk. There's a eight pointed bright yellow star marshmallow that represents the exploding of Bruce's laboratory and then there's a salmon colored cube that represents the all bricks the Hulk likes to smash. Then the Incredible mellow bouillabaisse is toped off with an Hulk signature green marshmallow that is vaguely human in design. The whole effect is magical. When the cereal is gone your left with iridescent green colored milk that could very well be radioactive.

Fueled on Hulk cereal, I took to my bike. I rode by this church near my apartment that advertised a sermon for June 1st called God Hates Dangling Modifiers. That's odd enough to almost make me want to go check it out. Also on the sign was an anti-gun notice that all public places need to display in order to tell its patrons that carrying a gun ain't cool. Jeez, people, the Hulk don't need no gun.

May 28, 2003

Terrorist Alert Orange!
Things are getting a little nutz people. Let's all just take a deep breath and calm down. This slippery slope towards loosing all our civil liberties is getting way to slick. I just got arrested and detained inside a Wells Fargo bank for suspicion of being a terrorist. Yup, me - a terrorist! Can you believe that crap? The idea is absurd.

For lunch today my buddy A-Dawg and I had to make a stop at the Wells Fargo bank before heading on to gather foodstuffs for our bellies. He went into the bank to make a transaction and I stayed outside, determined to soak up a little summer sun and take a few snaps. I strolled around but nothing caught my eye. Suddenly, out of the bank comes one of Minnesota's finest running towards me screaming a laundry list of commands. He jumps me. With his hands on me he starts in about, "Do you have any guns on you - do you have any knives on you that I need to know about".

"What the fuck is going on" is about all I could think.

He starts asking me what it is I think I'm doing out here. Before I can answer anything he's dragging me into the bank asking me one question after another without giving any kind of pause so that I can answer his stupid and relentless questions.

I get dragged into the bank managers office for a full scale Tuesday afternoon interrogation. I try and mutter stupid things about architecture and the fact that I hadn't even taken any pictures. Which I can prove. The asshole cop is ferious. We hate each other. He starts in about how he caught me taking pictures of employee's cars. He's yelling at me about Terrorist Alert Orange and don't you know what that means? I tell him frankly I don't know what that fucking means, do you? Does it mean you have the right to take over any human you wish and ruin their entire fucking day. If that's what it means, than I'd like to take a big shit on top of Terrorist Alert Orange, cause I think it's just a cleaver little euphemism for Police State.

Whoa. Sorry about that. I had to get that out of my system. That's just not cool. And it makes me very afraid of what's going on with this country. Anyway, I was eventually released and I steamed about the incident all during lunch. Then I took some snaps of radiators. The radiators didn't care that I was taking their picture. I felt better.

How The West Was Won
Dancing days are here again. The sun is still shining and I've got Led Zepplin III on the Hi-Fi thanks to a high impact shipment from the west. I've got the White Rock Itch. Yesterday I played The Replacements, Hootenanny, back to back for about three hours. What great music. The Zeppelin has a new triple threat set of live shows out called How The West Was Won. Read a review of it in the Times. [update: holy shit - Opeth!]

May 27, 2003

Sunny Day Real Estate
I had to change things up here at Afrojet to properly reflect the beautiful summer weather we are having. Luckily the flexibility of CSS makes doing this as easy as putting on a new pair of sneakers. Refresh those screens people.

New Day Rising
Boy, it could not be any more beautiful outside today. What a great memorial day weekend. Tons of sun, tons of fun. There must be thousands of students pleading with their teachers to hold class outside today. So good to unplug for a few days. I went to my first ever traditional Jewish wedding (congratulations Jill and John). They had perfect weather for their wedding.