Xeni was here last night; Scott got this great pic of us together; Eddie got this one, too.

I finally got all the SRL Chinatown show pics together and posted; half are mine, half are pulled from other (credited) sources. If you click the photos from start to finish you’ll get my off-the-cuff narrative about the whole weekend. About how there were only four women on the crew. How we were terrorized by a child who screamed that we had poo in our pants as we wrangled lethal machines. Special poetic and surreal things like figuring out the mythology of Fishboy; birds’ nests made of trash; my most amazing tour of Coop’s studio (great if you’re following his paintblogging); how I made a mental list at showtime to avoid the stink, fire and explosions and ended up in all the wrong places at all the right times to get blasted by fire, covered in snot, and had to hit the deck when the water cans went off. We did the show at the end of Chung King alley just past the gallery (a mere hundred feet or so from where Jack Nicholson wailed impotently in Polanski’s masterpiece).

This show was the ten year anniversary of my getting involved in SRL, to the day (I got extra hugs and kisses at showtime). I got into SRL by accident, and had never picked up a tool in my life before Mark walked up to me at that show ten years ago, told me he needed some things drilled, and then showed me how to use a drill. He’s taught me how to use almost every tool I’ve picked up or operated since then, and he’s done that for probably a hundred people. Having no family, it’s no wonder I was (then) the youngest member adopted by these amazing people. (Now there are *real* kids coming around and helping out. Fire photo: admurder.)

I’ve been at the shop a lot; the mood is a bit somber. As many readers know, we’re being kicked out after almost 25 years so the property owner can knock all the artists’ buildings down and build condos. We don’t have a place to move to, we’re in debt from the last show, we’re all working class people with day jobs that love our volunteer organization more than anything, and we’re running out of options. We have to be out by April. And so now, all of the machines are for sale.

I weep. I wish I could buy them all. Except the Sneaky Soldiers, I fucking hate those machines. I’ve tried to destroy them three times now, and just know I’ll have to fix them *again* for the next one…