Today, Rob and I went back to his
old studio space to pick up the last of his stuff there. In addition to some large file drawers, he had a stack of
paintings that needed to be moved/removed.
I mentioned yesterday that he's incredibly prolific, and went through some earlier rounds getting rid of some
of his artwork. Well... you're going to see a glimpse of that, below. Today, we looked through a final pile
and he ended up throwing away a good 10-12 pieces. I found one that I liked, and we chanced across the owner of the
whole building (Gary, I think his name was), who took another. The rest of them, we pitched into a big dumpster.
As you may know, the whole building is massive. And while
Rob has access to many parts of it, he doesn't have full access
to everything. We ended up having to transport a bunch of paintings from one side to the other... and had to
get from one loading dock to another.
At one point, we tried to open a garage door... but ended up triggering a pretty loud alarm. I waited around
for the police to show, as Rob ran in to look for the owner, Gary.
After a bit, Gary came down to shut off the alarm, and opened up a pathway so that we could easily transport
the art over to the dumpster area.
Moving in between the areas, I spotted this guy. Not sure what he's dressed as or why, but it seemed like
it necessitated a picture.
We were able to get all the paintings to the second loading dock, and took them outside so we could snap a few
pics before throwing them away (see below).
This is Everything Rob Threw Away
Making Art Fly
Final Move
After everything was said and done, this is what our load looked like (with the addition of a few paintings
that Rob ended up keeping.
Driving back over to the new space, we saw the sky
getting pretty dark. Half the sky was dark and threatening, and behind us the sky was still pretty bright and open.
It seemed like we were trying to race the rain.
On pulling up, we happened to see Gretchen walking by. She ended up detouring from her grocery run and helped us
move a few things up, from the van to the studio. And afterwards, we all went across the street to a place called
Moonshine for some iced tea and water.
I ended up snacking on quesedillas and a salad with Gretchen, while Rob
ended up getting pork chops, some mashed potatoes and a beer. He was working on a full-on supernap, and apparently
wanted to make absolutely goddamn sure he fell asleep.
Spotted a thin jet trail in the sky, and liked how it seemed to disappear into the sky. Even though the
direction is wrong, I thought of a book that I used to love as a kid - Arrow to the Sun.
Cookout at Justin's
I had planned on doing some grocery shopping with Justin, but ended up
getting home too late (I think he and Dave went out
food gathering on their own). I had high plans for a nap myself, but it turns out I had just enough time to
IM with Chelsea for a bit, hop
in the shower, and head right back to Ukranian Village.
I got treated to a great salad, along with grilled salmon, mushrooms and asparagus. Great stuff all around, and
ended up hanging out with Dave, Justin,
his neighbors Howard and Greg, as well as Kari and Doug (who I don't think I've seen since
Michael's birthday party).
Some fun conversations tonight. We hit a wide range of topics including Indian Tech Support centers, motorcycle
safety, and our various brushes with hazing rituals. Doug ended up talking about a particularly crazy 24-hour-plus
scavenger hunt he had go on, as part of his fraternity pledge. He and a bunch of friends ended up renting a
U-Haul, ran across about three states, bought a crack pipe, and got their pictures taken with Nancy Kerrigan, among
other antics. Great stories there.
Doug and Kari are getting married in about a year, and they talked about how they were kicking around an
"island" theme for the whole thing. Of course, Dave,
Justin and I began to rave about how the two of them
needed to go to Hala Kahiki and do some serious research.
Justin also showed us a few pictures he had taken from
his trip out west, last month. Whenever there's some official unveiling, I'll see if he'll let me link to those pics
from here. From what I saw - some great public graffiti and sculptures, as well as some really cool portraits
of the folks he visited.
We all ended up calling it a night around 9:30 or so. Everyone seemed to be a little slow from all the food,
and it felt like a good ending to a nice, relaxing Sunday meal outside.
As I'm writing this, it's about 12:21 AM - almost exactly twelve hours since
Rob picked up me to help him with his move. I've been
pretty much in constant motion since then. Today was a really full, rich day - tons of friends, a lot of
activity, and some good conversations.
For someone who's as much of a homebody as me... it's been a busy couple of days.
I can only hope the rest of the summer is like this.
