UPDATE (06.11.06)--DJs at the Park, Dunwell Women, “I heard the news today..."

IT FELT LIKE a long, long time, indeed. I finally found myself in downtown Asheville again—for yesterday’s “Bonfires for Peace at Pritchard Park.” It’s the third event (or month) of the program’s third year in this city. Chris “Kri” Johnson and Touch Samadhi’s family of trance Goa DJs were back. They will do it again on July 1.
With DJs featured at the Bonfires for Peace at the park would also mean that, (1) we don’t have to spend money on PA/sound (they come equipped with their own gears and equipment), (2) I don’t have to stress myself out with added supervision worries (ie timeslot lookout, rowdy “homeless” distraction etc), (3) a good crowd attendance is assured and sustained from first beat to closing bars, (4) we earn more by way of tips, (5) more methodical, systematic, coordinated program flow (since Touch Samadhi performs as a solid/dynamic “collective” – a concise, disciplined bunch of mixing board techies with a tight community of followers, friends, family members).
[Thanks to Mellow Mushroom for the “Bonfires” pizzas, by the way.]
Despite the very heart-warming crowd turnout though, for some reason I still felt kinda “lost” or “indisposed” out there after a brief “isolation/respite.” I feel that I’m not yet ready to come out of my shell. In fact, I had to cut short my “long-overdue break” in a friend’s house in Hickory to be present at Pritchard Park yesterday (with Marta The Nicer). I had to be there...
I don’t intend to stop this, what I call Traveling Bonfires’ centerpiece community project, but I would readily welcome a reliever staff so I could “disappear” once in a while. I don’t know if I am burning out, just exasperated with downtown’s new “cosmeticized” girth (punctuated by my most recent misfortune in Lex Av) or I am just tired and weary and been struggling to focus on more “personal” brainstorms (eg Loved by the Buffalo Publications magazines and books).

I’D LIKE TO reiterate that, for now, Traveling Bonfires programs are confined to just the “Bonfires for Peace at Pritchard Park.” We may continue this monthly event till the Oct/Nov “Bonfires for Vampires” season closer... That’s how I feel at this moment but that may change, depends on significant developments that may crop up this summer. For the meantime, no filmshows, open mics, coffeeshop shows, Wander lectures etc.
We may, however, organize a poetry reading again at Malaprop’s but I am not sure yet (like, if I could convince Glenis Redmond to read for The Bonfires, we’ll do it). I may read in some community invites though (like the Asheville Arts Council gig a month ago). On Thurs (June 15, 9:30pm), I might be at Bobo Gallery (on invite from local poetry impresario, Graham Hackett).
Bottomline is, I’d like to continue the relatively low-profile tact these past few weeks or months (as opposed to the weekly/monthly local “madness” gigs and “crazy” up-north Vagrant Wind trips a year or two ago). I am not too motivated to organize a club show or fundraise event soon—unless, as I just mentioned, a nice (co-organizer) soul comes forward and offer, “Okay, I’ll work on it—manage, coordinate and market it, chill somewhere.”
[I have just decided on whom to accommodate/sign in as housemate/s and/or sublet roomies—after almost two months of frantic, painstaking search—so I expect to go on short beyond-Asheville trips (like seaside jaunts or mountain treks) in the coming weeks.

Meantime, I’d like to be more quietly “business-like” or entrepreneur-minded while I continue writing personal work, bask on The Indie/Wander/Blue Sky, and wallow at 61 Dunwell Avenue, West Ashe.
A week ago, Matt Mulder dropped by here for an early afternoon coffee chat, to—I reckoned—check how things are doing, so far. Late afternoon yesterday, Vanessa Boyd left me a phone message, asking if the Bonfires at Pritchard Park is happening—of course, it was or it did happen (she was there to say hello, by the way). Dale Hoffman will be back tomorrow to help work on the wireless (internet) hook-up all over the house and yard/periphery. I hope to see Linda Brown on Wed to continue our midweek one-on-one editorial sessions. I have asked/invited close friends and families to come visit the house and have dinner. I like it this way, these days... All those that read my postings/updates are very much welcome to chill and hang out in my house. Meantime, my yahoo and hotmail inboxes had been filled with sweet and concerned “How are you doing?” in the past two or three weeks. Some, I guess, got tired asking for updates—so they stopped emailing. (I thought I sent out an Update two or three weeks ago. But, yes, it was blurry and dazed.)

SO LET’S TALK BUSINESS and organization. The Indie will be out this month—with the tag, “Special 4th Anniversary Issue” (of course, I will announce that following pickup at Iwanna, whenever that is.) Wander and Blue Sky will have their first summer issue/s a week or two after The Indie/4th year gets delivered.
On Tuesday (June 13), I am meeting with Lindsay Hardin, a web designer based in Hickory, here in the house – to discuss the long-stalled, oft-aborted Indie/Bonfires website, plus book layouts/graphics. I need to get this accomplished soon. I am currently on the negotiating table (with at least three prospects) in regards investments and business feasibilities so I need these tools. Long time coming, I know...
The yard sale isn’t happening yet. We are still accumulating things and stuff to sell. Maybe on the last weekend of this month, we might be ready. Fancy that, I have been the one who’s visiting neighborhood yard sales lately (plus Habitat, Goodwill, Family Dollar, Big Lots, Amazing Savings for secondhand, bargain implements and cheaper groceries).

MY CHOICE of a new housemate and sublet/roomies could also be interpreted (like how my NY homey, Kate O’Haley, puts it) as “business moves.” Oh yeah, this housemate/roomie situation wasn’t a breeze as I expected it.
Our “permanent” housemate turned out to be Karen H, not Karen P. The “first” Karen (from Massachusetts) scared me—but, uhh, I don’t want to discuss here the reasons why... I pulled out of that deal, or we mutually voided our previous arrangement. The “second” Karen—Karen H—already writes for The Indie, and offered to help Marta with marketing/advertising.
Then we have a two-week (starts June 15) roomie in Suzette M, visiting from San Francisco. Says she, “I'm not the long-term-be-it-only-the-full-summer roomie. I'm the goddamn-gotta-find-a-place-to-move-to-man interested spirit who is looking for a place to live where the air is warm and sweet and stands still long enough for me to smell things.”
From June 21 to Aug 21, a fiddler from Chicago—Jessica Z—occupies the other room. So I expect fiddlin’ vibes in the mornings of my summer life... Then, from July 2 to maybe Sept, Gayle S. from San Diego CA, takes over the other room. She’s moving here in Asheville so she needed a few months to check things out, like a house to buy... Which means, I will be surrounded by women at 61 Dunwell all throughout summertime (that is, if I’m not on the road).

THERE’S NOT MUCH to update really other than what I just mentioned. Oh, a new advertiser is Orbit Video (our second in West Asheville). Apart from writing/reading (revisiting “The Power Shift” by Alvin Toffler and Daphne du Maurier’s fiction), watching DVD movies, sifting through cable “bad” news (more kidnappings and rapes, more deaths in Iraq, increased percentage of obesity in the US, Shaq’s messed-up foul line gigs, ah! Maria Sharapova and Martina Hingis lost! World Cup soccer, Food Channel...) I am basically quiet and peaceful at The Bonfires Abode.
Meantime, the words of wisdom for the week or month – from Michael Berg, the father of Nicholas Berg, a U.S. contractor believed to have been beheaded by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in Iraq: “"I think al-Zarqawi's death is a double tragedy. His death will incite a new wave of revenge. George Bush and al-Zarqawi are two men who believe in revenge. Zarqawi felt my son's breath on his hand as held the knife against his throat. Zarqawi had to look in his eyes when he did it. George Bush sits there glassy-eyed in his office with pieces of paper and condemns people to death. That to me is a real terrorist."
So that’s it. In case you’re an insomniac and desperately needs a good sleep... get Terrence Malick’s newest cinematic exercise of perfumed ennui, “A New World” – it’s so freakin’ meditatively neat, it equals seven shots of cheap tequila.
Kampai!

--Pasckie