weekend revue
29 Aug 2007So, this weekend I had a long Saturday, but it was fun. I don’t normally recap random shit from my semblance of a social life, but there are some notable things:
- I went to the monthly GNARAS meetup. What is GNARAS, you ask? It’s the Greater Nashville Area Robotic Arts Society, of course. They had robots. And, I am going to build a robot. No, really! It’s going to do household chores, such as following a line of tape – continuing to follow the line of tape when it turns, and perhaps the ultimate test – continuing to follow the line when it goes grey and choppy. What did we do before we had robots? Starved to death, probably.
- I then went to go see the mayoral debate, which I’ve already written about. This was fun for me, though, cus I had a press pass, so I had all sorts of sekr1t access to awesome places like … uh, a hallway. And a chair that says “media” on it. It was totally better than the non-media chair right next to me.
- After the debate, I went Noshville’s and then to Mirror for a few drinks.
- Theeeeen, I went to see Here Come the Mummies. They’re this band, right, and they dress up like mummies. I figured it’d be a dumb gimmick. Well, it is a gimmick of course, but it’s pretty fun. But, they are also an amazing funk band. I’m not 100% sure, but I’m pretty sure I recognized one of the horn players from the Dynamites. The funny thing I realized at this concert is that if you have a fancy-looking DSLR, people will assume you’re there in some official capacity. I walked right up to the front of the stage, and people literally made way for me. I felt kinda bad, but .. not that bad. Mummies are pretty fun to take pictures of.
- THEN, I went back downtown (without my credit card, oops) to hit up some crappy bars that were still open, where we ran into some friends at a bar, who invited us to a party
- AND STILL FURTHER, we then drove out to this house party at my old friend Aram’s house.. at 4AM. I expected it to be some crazy house party full of people I didn’t know. No, I knew literally every single person there. Wait, sorry, there was one girl at the party I didn’t know. Friends from middle school, friends from high school. Guys I knew from Boston. This is such a small city, I swear.
- THEN, I came home and passed the fuck out … for 5 hours before I remembered I was supposed to be helping setup a windows network at the NHPP.
- then I died.
In conclusion, I declare any day that involves robots, mayoral candidates AND mummies to be a success.
That’s true. Some people will even ask you to take their picture so it will come out in the newspaper. Uh, yeah, sure. This is one thing photographers who are nervous about getting out onto the street don’t take into account: if you carry a camera that has more than one button and you have a look of purpose on your face, most people will let you take pictures of them without complaint. You know, for the newspaper.
On the other hand, I once almost got kicked out of a nightclub by a bouncer because I was taking pictures of the huge party of people I came with. He asked for my press credentials (What, this hole is newsworthy? Headline: “Dank Barcelona Club Smells Like Ass Smoking a Cigarette”). I pointed out that at that very moment there were about fifty flashes going off in the rest of the club, and the smart guy replied, “Yeah, but you got the big camera.”
I’m convinced that if you took a few minutes to design some official-looking pass in Photoshop, laminated it and wore it around one of those shoelace necklaces they give you at conventions, you’d probably be able to go just about anywhere unhindered.
I once read an article written by a guy who had gone around cataloging all the things a 20 dollar bribe could get him. It would be funny to see how far “the big camera” and a shoelace press pass could get you into the inner sanctum of – stuff.