Meadeblog

Revere `09, a mini-photo essay

noreply@blogger.com (djm) — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 03:19:00 +0000

Camera shows him from behind, not moving, simply taking in the shoreline. It's the first beach he's seen in months. He likes it, but feels completely shitty. Not thinking, he takes in the scene.

Slowly audio comes in. Fragments of things being seethed at his companion. Threats of death upon photography. -- Journal, dated 4/5/9

Revere Beach -- "Severe" -- is one of the yearly trips, an April tradition, a strip of beach just outside of Boston, at the end of the T. There are the clams at Santorini's, the dog track in the distance, not too many people (almost all of them local) but more importantly, sun and surf. It's like medicine and unofficially kicks off the summer photo/travel season. It's like a tonic to help ward off the winter blues and this year I needed it. Badly.

I had spent the week prior getting sick with a repository illness and attending funerals. By the time we got to Revere on Sunday, my body was approaching near total system failure with a full-on hangover from the day and night before. I didn't say much the entire trip out there, or even during our stay on the beach... I just needed to get out there, on the shore, and in the sun.

Too cold to go in, having already shot much of the location already, we meandered over the beach near the water, under the clear sky. The beach was wet from the recent rains, and the sand reflected the sun's light. Container ships in the water along the horizon while a few other groups of people walked back and forth, looking at the seaweed and other items that had been brought in by the tide.

It was almost like walking on a sheen of glass, the way the sky and earth reflected one another, and it shows in the photos. Clear, crisp lines, a few clouds... it was desolate and wonderful. A tarnished oasis at the end of the line.

After walking for an hour or so, we decamped at Santorini's, and sat in the sun. Writing, shooting, soaking in the light along with water and cups of tea. A few trips to the bathroom, and eventually my system was purged of all the liquor and illness and dire thoughts. The whole experience was a respite.

I only shot six photos, but they were all that was needed to capture the day (and about all I was capable of, my body was so in revolt). They all share the same PoV and perspective, looking out at the beach, seeing it and soaking it in. These were the last photos that I took before DS09, before everything started clicking and ramping up. Click on one to see them all.

Dan Meade, documentarian roadie

noreply@blogger.com (djm) — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 00:08:00 +0000

Post-LBRDY Ramones anecdote

noreply@blogger.com (djm) — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 03:50:00 +0000

While in the Port City Java on Front Street in Wilmington I bought a painting of a rooster by Beatriz Moreno for $20. I hadn’t hung it in QNSBOX because I was waiting for my next apartment. Along came the move and it was time to hang the painting.

It’s 11x17, making a frame a little hard to come by. I ended up in a Bed Bath & Beyond in Manhattan looking in their ART FOR SALE section for something that was the same size. Finally I see the framed retro-concert bills that are the exact size that I need: Green Day, Springsteen, Beatles, the Dead.

I’m all set to buy one of the Springsteen one when I turn around and I see they have one from the Ramones, and it’s half off ($5). Done. Sold. It's too perfect. I have no intention of hanging the Ramones bill, but if I have to buy one, I’m buying theirs – I did spend half of LBRDY quoting End of the Century after all.

I go to the check-out and hand the framed Ramones concert bill to the 40-something South American woman behind the counter. She looks at it and goes “Ah, Ramones,” pronouncing it “Ra-mo-NES.”

Had she once been a fan? Was she part of the Ramones' late-career South American success (where they were known as Los Ramones)? Would she have reacted to any of the other bands had I brought one of their bills up?

Oh, and “I Wanna Be Sedated” just came on the radio as was I finishing typing this.

Everything flows, and everything is related - from LBRDY to Manhattan and beyond. It’s all part of the ManicStream.

INFRASTRUCTURE in Philly this weekend,
Austin 2009 in three weeks.
More and more.

Relocation: Astoria

noreply@blogger.com (djm) — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 03:30:00 +0000

I left QNSBOX, my former apartment which was my outpost in the middle of a social wasteland, this past weekend and moved to Astoria. Everything is different, and everything is better.

The biggest difference? The commute. No longer do my days begin and end with a miserable ride on the E-Train, speeding underground, crammed on a train full of people looking miserable and hating every moment of their commute, jammed together and often delayed. Now I ride the elevated N/W line and watch the sunrise with the Manhattan skyline and the Triborough Bridge in the distance as Astoria and Long Island City wake up below me.

It’s a completely different mindset when your day doesn’t begin by having its soul crushed while speeding underground. Much, much more on this, and Astoria on a whole, to come.

The move is also very likely going to be the final straw in my buying a digital camera, because moments like this are all around me here:

Getting ready for Christmas #4

Dan Meade - Strike skunk

noreply@blogger.com (djm) — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 21:03:00 +0000

Strike skunk by Dan Meade

ManicAir Flight 110809

noreply@blogger.com (djm) — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 03:45:00 +0000

NPR interviews George Romero

noreply@blogger.com (djm) — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 12:25:00 +0000

{link}

Clusterfuck City

noreply@blogger.com (djm) — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 03:56:00 +0000

I was trying to get around the barricade to get a better vantage point, got turned back by the cops and was headed to MacDougal when the entire throng screamed, all at once. I though the Michael Jackson float had exploded or the Cloverfield monster had attacked. No, it was the rain turning from a steady drop to a flash-downpour and the crowd reacting with surprise, joy and disappointment all in one scream.

Downtown New York on Halloween, at the Parade, is like being in a giant Clusterfuck City. Streets are blocked off at every corner, everyone is dressed up and stopping in the street to take pictures, people are darting around trying to dodge rain bullets all while the Jagermeister float blares its German-techno theme song with giant Day-of-the-Dead skeletons marching to the beat.

It was fantastic. Cars dividing streets of people, security guards outside of apartment buildings, people hanging out the windows of their 6^th Avenue apartments and everyone in costume, everyone in a good mood behind their masks and makeup, enjoying the night and the frenzy.

I tried to tell the Smurfette from D.C. all this at the bar afterward, but she wasn’t digging the idea of the Parade, saying she saw enough of that type of thing everyday while living in Chelsea these past six months. It was similar to the doctor a few weeks ago who couldn’t understand why I’ve been Kansas and Mississippi. It must be hard to enjoy things when you can’t even imagine doing them.

In the time it takes film to develop…

noreply@blogger.com (djm) — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 00:26:00 +0000

New York was warm and sunny today. I took advantage of it. Here’s how:

· Drop of film for developing at 86^th Street Photo

· Head down to Ground Support

o Chai and a PBJ-scone thing

o Photo review of DS09 rolls K through O

o Enjoy the open-air coffee bar

· Walk around without a plan

o End up walking from SoHo to Battery Park City

· Hang out by the Tom Otterness statues, write, soak in sun

· Walk along edge of Manhattan to Battery Park

o Get idea for future video projects

o Call RB, discuss multiple projects, including 11/7 INFRASTRUCTURE show

· Head back to 86^th to pick up next 4 rolls of DS09 photos

· Finish Lewis’ Main Street

Total time? About 5 hours. Day well spent.

Keeping flim alive

noreply@blogger.com (djm) — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 15:56:00 +0000

http://www.the-impossible-project.com/

via the good folks at Ilford

"Impossible b.v. has been founded with the concrete aim to re-invent and re-start production of analog INTEGRAL FILM for vintage Polaroid cameras."

INFRAshoot: Ertegun

noreply@blogger.com (djm) — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 02:08:00 +0000

INFRAshoot_Ertegun by Dan Meade

I’m sitting here in Queens, looking at the posted photos that I shot this weekend, listening to the tracks that were recorded as I was shooting 500+ photos of INFRASTRUCTURE in my first formal photoshoot, and it’s giving me just enough space to step back and think about what I’m looking at and hearing.

Rob and the others kept asking how I would describe the band, the sound. I knew, and when I told Rob this he totally got it, that I wouldn’t know how I though they sounded until a day or two later, when I was writing about it. That’s just how my brain works: it needs to ponder and mull until it clicks. It just did:

In one of the tunnel shots, I said “they look like the Beach Boys on heroin,” but that’s not how they sound. “Punk blues” doesn’t quite hit the mark. They sound like survivors of Queens. All the influences of this giant cultural conglomeration, all the compounded internal pressures that build up from being born here, growing up here, then leaving… but not. It’s in your roots and in your brain.

They take the Platonic approach, the Manic approach – brining the world back to those still in the shadows. Everything that is in life, focused through the lens of Queens, fermented and squeezed out into music.

They’re good. And getting better.

The second part of Day 1 of the shoot, after a couple beers and dinner, they came back into the Dungeon charged and fired up, and played tight. Roaming through that space, camera(s) in one hand, camcorder in the other and shit just clicked. For them, for me – it was in the air and they put it there.

I’m probably not going to make the show tomorrow (10/13) at Harper’s Ferry @ 8:30, but I’ll be at the Nov. 7 show. You should go if you can.

Birth of Austin `09

noreply@blogger.com (djm) — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 02:00:00 +0000

9:58 AM to Rob: TIX BOUGHT!

10:02 AM from Rob: This is becoming a monthly occurrence.

With that we were booked (or at least I was). Austin `09, a.k.a. ABBQII, is on.

On September 21^st Rob had emailed the manager of the Broken Spoke to find out when Dale Watson would be playing in December and within two hours Rob had sent out the date announcement email.

Seven days later, I called up the Austin Motel and re-booked our suite from last year. Seven days after that I booked my flights while the others are checking their flight options and letting us know their availabilities.

We’re becoming pros at this, and can feel it becoming our full-time jobs. Search, find, book, fly, experience. America. The intervals are becoming shorter and the trips are becoming better.

This year? We may need a van and INFRASTRUCTURE may book a gig.

Last year? A refresher.

DS09: Prelude to Near-murder

noreply@blogger.com (djm) — Sun, 04 Oct 2009 16:15:00 +0000

This week's flickr uploads include coffee advertising, making art out of NOT ART and this photo from DS09's SWAMPVENTURE.

Prelude to Near-murder by Dan Meade

SO MUCH IS HAPPENING

noreply@blogger.com (djm) — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 02:42:00 +0000

Including the 2009 versions of:

CPC
Austin

and much, MUCH more. Stay Tuned.

Bitch Off Wheels

noreply@blogger.com (djm) — Sat, 26 Sep 2009 01:44:00 +0000

PABT, 6:24 PM - The people on the line behind me were still talking about her even after she boarded. As the Geryhound lifers put it, "the young lady has priority seating." Perhaps tellingly, when the Young Respectible Collegiate Republican was put next to her, in his khakis, blue button-down and blank/scared expression, no invective was overheard. But her... no one liked her.

Perhaps it was the way she strutted to the front of the line, saying to no one yet to everyone "it's OK - I have priorty seating" as she fiddeling with her BlackBerry and worried about scuffing her suede half-calf boots, talking down to everyone as if her $5 priorty ticket gave her lordship of the line. Maybe it was simply becuase at PABT, your place in line fully determines how horrible your bus ride will be. It could have been veilly-disguised class conflict, or she may trully have been a bitch down to the core of where her soul ought to be. Any way you slice it, these ladies from Baltimore and beyond did NOT like her, or her attitude.

A pouty, impatient face, slight frame and an air of I-can't-believe-I-have-to-take-this-fucking-bus is no way to ride Greyhound, which can be like riding steerage with the cast of The Wire. Hell, you may even get killed on one of these buses if things go South. It's a low, cheap(ish) and semi-dependable way to get from City A to City B. If you're going to act like the teacher told you that you can cut the line, you're not going to get treated well. It's not about the piece of paper that you have, it's about respecting the people who don't have it.
Posted via Peter Pan WiFi

Just another U.N. lunch break

noreply@blogger.com (djm) — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 01:43:00 +0000

During my lunch break today I managed to see:

Rudy Giuliani give a speech
"FREE IRAN" shirts on sale for $10
Jews protesting Israel
Multiple anti-Iran/Ahmadinejad groups
A South Cameroon freedom demonstration
Lots of cops earning overtime

Overtime by Dan Meade

Discovering America one town at a time

noreply@blogger.com (djm) — Sun, 20 Sep 2009 21:41:00 +0000

You need to search for America sometimes. It’s not always easy to find, and more often than not, you don’t even know when you’ll find it until you’re smack dab in the middle of it. And then there you are, right in the middle of America, the concept and the dream made tangible. You can sense it, feel it around you, when all the pretense and politics and day-to-day garbage has been pared away and all that’s left is Americans enjoying America.

Holiday weekends tend to make America easier to find, either out of celebration and patriotism or just because people get to shuck their worries for three or four days. Or maybe they just put America more into focus.
During the Near South Tour, Rob and I were on our way to D.C. for the 4^th of July and we made a pit stop in Charleston West Virginia. The town was getting ready for their celebration: people were on their boats in the river while the local radio station, WQBE, was setting up it’s concert and vendors and army recruiters were getting their booth ready for the downtown celebration.

Charleston before the 4th
Originally uploaded by Dan Meade

The only people working were the those manning the booths and it felt as if the whole town was either in the river or getting to the band-shell early for seats. It was America’s birthday, and Charleston was just going to relax and enjoy the party and the long weekend.

D.C. had it’s Concert on the Mall and giant fireworks display, but Charleston just felt more like America – no big show, no flash and dash, just an honest celebration shared by the whole community. It was simply and pure and the caramel apples were as red as the new fire engine on display. Norman Rockwell would have been proud.

Flash forward four years. On Labor Day Saturday, the peak of the long holiday weekend, Rob and I found ourselves on the pier in Surf City, NC just before midnight. The entire pier was packed. Rob counted over 180 fisherman, fisherwomen and fisherchildren. Families, teenage couples, good old boys, immigrants and loners… no one seemed concerned with bedtimes or deadlines, it was just their night to go fishing.

Each group had its own setup: coolers, portable chopping blocks, radios, chairs… one group even had a tent setup for their pre-teen kids to hang out in. No one was drinking, carrying on or causing a ruckus – the loudest conversation was a couple of people talking about the name changes that John Mellencamp has gone through after “Jack and Diane” came on from the small radio one of them had at his feet. (They though he should have stayed with Johnny Cougar.)

Out on the Surf City Pier
Originally uploaded by Dan Meade

At another part of the pier, a father caught a small fish, and as his wife chimed, he reeled it in, placed it flopping down onto the pier and stepped on its tail so that he could hold it still while taking the lure out of it. He then had his son pick it up and bring it to their cooler, where the night’s other catches were. Family bonding 101.

There was almost a hushed silence out there. It was calming and soothing to be on that pier. Had we had our camera, RB and I would have been intruding on the fishermen (as we had done earlier that week). Instead we walked among the Carolinians and took mental notes and a couple photos with our phones.

In Charleston and Surf City, each town was able to set aside all that didn’t matter and just enjoy themselves and their towns. I’m sitting here writing about all this in a SoHo coffee shop (Ground Support) on a sunny fall Sunday, and yes, New York is full of opportunities and promise and potential, but it’s very hard to find simple days and nights. It’s hard to let everything drop, gather a group of friends, and just relax for hours. Someone’s Blackberry will go off, or someone will have a train to catch or another person will have to leave because they’re triple booked… there’s always something.

Seeing whole towns able to put everything aside and just enjoy the moment and those around them, to take advantage of the opportunities before them... that feels like America, and it feels good to witness it.

A BBQ lesson from Keith Allen, of Allen and Son Bar-B-Q

noreply@blogger.com (djm) — Sat, 12 Sep 2009 13:45:00 +0000

Thig’s BBQ House (Jackson, NC) is not on any of the maps, and there’s good reason for it.

Located just off a military base on the back road of a back road, Thig’s came to our attention through some BBQ message board that Rob had found and, to be honest, out interest came largely because of its name. A place called Thing’s located off the map in the backwoods of North Carolina? C’mon! THAT’s a draw!

We get there and there’s a sizable crowd, they’re out of the Friday-Special ribs, and we start thinking that we’re in for a treat. In retrospect, the dry-erase board crammed with menu items behind us should have alerted us to what was about to happen. Our BBQ plates arrived, we tasted it, and… nothing. It was moist and flavorless, the surest sign of gas-cooked pork there is.

The man himself, Keith Allen
Originally uploaded by danmeade

Less than 36 hours earlier we had been at Allen and Son Bar-B-Q in Chapel Hill. After eating their chunkier-chopped and smokey-flavored BBQ sandwiches we had gone around behind the restaurant to look for photo ops. While back there, I ran into Keith Allen, the founder of the place, and had gotten a lesson in chopping wood from him (a story for another time).

After Rob joined us, the three of us started talking BBQ and Allen went into a fairly in-depth discourse into how they cook using the wood there. He explained how the wood is heated through the chimney and then the heat and smoke is piped into the pits. He emphasized to us that you need "that interaction" between the wood and coal and the meat. Allen cooks his pork about a foot above the charcoal, and the juices from the pigs drip down onto the coal and then smokes back up into the meat (similar to the process at the Skylight Inn), making for multiple levels of “interaction.”

Allen talked about how you can taste the difference that “that interaction” provides, alluding that meat cooked over gas or electric has no taste, and that it was the same as cooking a piece of meat on an outdoor grill versus indoors in the stove. We agreed. We knew. There was a reason we had
been out there looking at the wood.

For some reason, as much as we knew exactly what Allen was saying, it took the gas-cooked pork of Thig’s for his lesson to fully embed itself into our heads.

After we left Thig’s, Rob told me to drive around the back first, and there it was: a propane tank. He said this would be a new qualifying test for any new BBQ places we find – a drive around back to make sure that they cook with wood, and not gas.

Meadeblog 3.0

noreply@blogger.com (djm) — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 23:57:00 +0000

The blog's been redesigned again. Look for improvements in content to match the improvements in ~~ascetics~~ aesthetics.

The Greatness. Again. (24 hours of LBRDY)

noreply@blogger.com (djm) — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 12:16:00 +0000

DS09 Phase V – LBRDY WKND!

Coming out of the ocean at dusk last night, we entered the beach house and raised out glasses of Maker’s in salute to an excellent day’s work. Here is a bullet-ed point recap of the last 24 hours (LBRDY Day 6 into 7), as I am still working on the A+-level post from yesterday, which may not be ready for another week or so:

Morning swim at 8 AM, just as the day begins turning warm
I only almost kill us twice on the drive up I-40 to Raleigh-Durham
Backyard BBQ, very good, and spicy, plate of BBQ
Allen and Son BBQ

BBQ sandwich: good, with a chunkier cut
{Events of aforementioned A+-level post}

Tour of Sandy & Michael’s house
Drive down I-40

Mega-Judgmental Jesus Billboard
Watermelon shack
Flaming bog (video below! or here)
Vacation Like ~~Horror Movie~~… Princess Bride?!

Back to the house and into the ocean
Maker’s toast
Shower
Sandy & Michael return and we immediately begin telling stories about the day's events
Dinner at local Mexican place, where the wait staff played games in between serving us
Two hour long night photoshoot of the near-full Moon (me, RB, and Michael of foglesfotos.com)
Half a beer at local townie bar
Drive around the area, only car on the road
5 hours of sleep
Up at 6:50

Sunrise Photoshoot III : dashed down the beach to the pier to catch the sunrise and surfers through the pylons… a morning version of what RB got the other night
Morning swim until 8 AM (give or take)

Breakfast and blog posting

LBRDY: Day 3 Plan: 5 Lunches

noreply@blogger.com (djm) — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 11:19:00 +0000

LBRDY: Day 3 Plan: 5 Lunches
Originally uploaded by danmeade

The Meade Wafel

noreply@blogger.com (djm) — Sun, 30 Aug 2009 13:38:00 +0000

So I was talking about my job with Sandy and Sarah, and then we came to the topic of the Wafel Truck. I’m explaining its amazingness to Sarah and then Sandy tells how she was at the Wafel Truck in Park Slope and she told the guys that her friend always tells her to get the Bacon Wafel with Strawberries. The guys ask if her friend works around Midtown East. Sandy says yeah, he does and the guy tells her how a bunch of people around there always order those on Fridays.

So yeah, the Meade Wafel is not only making it’s way through the boroughs, but it can be used to track my location in time and space.

LBRDY: Day 2: Dawn, Perfection

noreply@blogger.com (djm) — Sun, 30 Aug 2009 11:55:00 +0000

I woke up at 6:42 after dreaming of shape-shifting aliens from Red China who had infiltrated my circle of friends. The bad one was killed, but everyone had been infected by the end.

Then, I went out to the sliding deck-doors to take a look: sunrise, directly over the ocean. Maybe twenty minutes old.

I went back into the house, grabbed some clothes and cameras, and came outside to take a few shots. Beautiful. Sun’s reflection over the water, a few Pipers, a couple of people dotting the shell-encrusted shoreline…. and then I couldn’t take it anymore. I had to go in. THIS is what I had been thinking of for weeks and talking about all last night: waking up early, going directly into the ocean.

And that’s what I did. Ran back into the house, cameras down, clothes off, swim trunks on, and before I was even fully awake and aware of what was going on, I was in the ocean.

Fucking beautiful. Perfection. All I could ask for or want. The rolling surf, the sun rising to my left, quiet, solitude… I really can’t think of a better way to wake up. If yesterday’s first manic dive into the ocean had been all Stooges , this morning’s dawn swim was much more Ben Harper – softer, mellower, a gentle confirmation of how awesome the moment was.

I stayed in for maybe 20-30 minutes total, including a trip back for the Vivitar to take a few shots from the ocean, and now I am sitting on the deck, writing, with a mini-breakfast of toast, kiwi, and OJ (I couldn’t find the teapot and didn’t want to make eggs and wake the others. Besides, the oven is convection and I don’t really like those, and didn’t want to try it before I was fully awake).

And now? I have seven more days of this to look forward to.

LBRDY: The Arrival

noreply@blogger.com (djm) — Sat, 29 Aug 2009 21:53:00 +0000

LBRDY: The Arrival
Originally uploaded by danmeade

LBRDY trailers are go!

noreply@blogger.com (djm) — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 02:39:00 +0000