I’m leaving for a bit. Minneapolis or bust. The IOTD is updated through the fifth and I’ll be back on the sixth.

So I decided since I’ll have an absence for awhile, I’d drop some hints as to what’s to come here at Distorted Perspective Productions. First, I’ve alluded to new books and paintings and all that. Well, here’s what it all really is about:

I’ve not done anything personal in a long time that I’ve completed. I’ve started parts of this project already, and will continue to develop it over the fall. Sort of an offspring of The Bolshevik Child life project I have going on, it will conceptually revolve around the various experiences I’ve had in 2010 that lead me to believe certain things. The title might signify what you can expect of this project tonally and visually. I don’t know if something can be sparse, dense, heavy, and detailed at the same time, but it’s something I’m going for and thinking of.

So yeah. This won’t just be paintings. It will be book(s), zine(s), painting(s), t-shirt(s), poster(s), maybe website(s), who knows. I want to make a complete art collection out of all this, as I did a painting series with Knife In A Gunfight and want to push those boundaries into places I’ve not yet experimented.

In other work news, the posters I did recently are going up around San Francisco starting on the sixth. So if you’re in the city, this map tells you which posters will be at what locations. Some are only doing a two-week run, some are three, and some might end up being more. But yeah. There will also be an exhibition at SF Camerawork in January which will possibly have some of the posters there.

Also, here’s a new mix tape. Haven’t posted one in awhile, and I’ll eventually get to posting those from the past couple months. These are tunes that have no real thread other than the fact I can relate to them all in different ways; I guess the theme would be being pulled in a lot of different directions mentally and still not having the sort of foundation that once grounded you. Nothing super abrasive but a good ‘build up and be tense’ sort of mix.

• Sleeping In The Aviary – Everybody’s Different, Everybody Dies (2:43)
• Okkervil River – A Girl In Port (6:37)
• Grouper – Heavy Water / I’d Rather Be Sleeping (2:53)
• The Lawrence Arms – The Disaster March (3:52)
• Arcade Fire – City With No Children (3:12)
• Mogwai – I Know You Are But What Am I? (5:18)
• Lucero – It Gets Worst At Night (5:20)
• Green Day – Westbound Sign (2:13)
• Frontier(s) – Dirty Pets (4:17)
• Stars Of The Lid – Evil That Never Arrived (5:05)

Download the mix here.

Also, this, because every time I go to SFO I listen to it:

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Choking on the thought of leaving, drinking to keep from sobbing. 4pm, 4 dollar pints – SFO – the time and price. With all my happiness aborted, the PA painfully starts boarding. I sink deep, thirty thousand feet into my window seat / electric chair.

And I was drinking you goodbye. A heart floats in the bay. From sour home Chicago, I hear it beating far away. There’s no telling what I’ll do If I don’t return to you.

Hopeful thoughts of soon returning can’t put out my stomach burning. Plastic wings and plastic smiles. Unsalted peanuts stretch my miles. Choking on the thought of leaving. Drinking to keep from heaving. 5pm 5 dollar pints, Hellbound Airlines, time and price.

And I was drinking you goodbye. A heart floats in the bay. From sour home Chicago, I hear it beating far away.And there’s no telling what I’ll do If I don’t return to you.

And that’s that. New things are underway, in addition to these crazy trips, to try and clear my head, or just at least maybe not have as many panic attacks (or perhaps do something constructive with them, in some abstract sense of that term).

Some more from the early hours. Fog is awesome.

By Kevin Smith, 2006.

This was surprising. I mean if you dislike Clerks, there’s no reason you’d like this. But for those of us who loved the Jersey trilogy, the prospect of a sequel to Clerks in a post-Jersey Girl world of Kevin Smith was kind of terrifying. But this was pretty much a perfect sequel.

Also the entire theme of “live your own life, not the one they expect of you” is particularly resonant for me right now.

Morning in the Haight.

The whole Fog of Doom in the Morning thing that part of town has going on rules.

Saturday, on top of being all that crazy Levi’s Workshop jazz, was Rob’s birthday.

I made my mom agree to let me get a cat when we moved from Massachusetts to Alaska the year I was going in to 7th grade. Shady has been back and forth across the country many times and lived with her after I went to college. I got to see him when they were in town en route to Alaska a few months back.

And now I’ll never get to see him again. Rest in peace, buddy.

One of those records that cost me more money than I wish it did, and I don’t listen to it much just because of how much of a punch in the gut it is, but nights like tonight it’s worth every penny.

One of these days I’m going to feel better about things, or not miss certain people as much as I do, or make something make some sense. But it’s certainly not today and tomorrow isn’t looking that good either.

If this is the future of marketing, count me in.

At the party last night I was talking to Anne Marie, the girl who ran the workshop I attended earlier in the day, because both of us thought we’d met before and couldn’t figure out where (our best bet was in Boston, but still couldn’t figure it out totally). Regardless, we were talking about how the workshop came about, as I wasn’t sure if it was initially part of W+K’s strategy for the brand. (Turns out, it wasn’t, but rather something that Levi’s got pitched).

But we both did agree that no matter what sort of corporate sponsorship there was, and even though it was a huge PR stunt, it was the absolute best kind possible. As she put it, “it’s PR, but it’s fucking awesome.”

The photocopier was free for anyone to come in and use, with zines hanging all around and a bit about the how all great zines start with a photocopier, and a note to “Print your f&*#ing life.” A silkscreen studio, darkroom, exposing machine, not to mention two giant letterpress machines and a ton of wood type. All for the public to come in and learn and use. Computers sat in the back with Adobe CS5, but who really gives a shit about computers in a setting like this.

Levi’s campaign right now (all about work) is kind of great, but in this setting, it’s fantastic and inspiring. This was nothing but encouragement for people to learn, to be creative, to take some time from their lives to realize maybe what printing is or at least have some fun.

If there’s any type of advertising that will work on me, it’s this kind of advertising. Nothing about this appealed to anything negative stereotype or lowered the bar on visual culture. If anything, it raised the bar about 400%. This was pro-active, and from the beginning (when Mission locals had vandalized it due to its corporate nature) I felt that it was such a bold statement that anti-corporate sentiment falls short of realizing that if there is anything good about corporations, it’s this right here.

I’m not going to go out and re-stock my wardrobe filled with shit from Levi’s, but chances are next time I want a t-shirt, I’ll probably pick it up from them. Because there aren’t many other major companies I see right now doing things like this. Clothing companies can talk all they want about being made in America (or at least sweatshop free), but this is the difference between a company and a brand. But as far as I’m concerned, if it keeps Levi’s interested in doing things like this, I’ll certainly support them over anywhere else.

Levi’s elevated their brand with this, and I’m trying to find an excuse to fly to New York to get to experience the photography workshop opening up in October and running through December. If nothing else, this entire place was, somewhat ironically, about DIY. Sure, there were a couple shirts and jeans for sale in the middle of the floor, but it took up a minimum amount of space. I’d imagine you’d be allowed to screenprint on them if you bought one.

There are many aspects of the world that are inspiring. Just living in the Tenderloin here in San Francisco inspires me on a daily basis, but that’s more in a way to push myself to never give up. It’s also visually enamoring in many ways. But seldom have I ever seen something a corporation does and thought, “Man, that is just spectacular. That makes me want to go do something with my life.”

So kudos to Levi’s, and the print shop, and the however many people it managed to get to make their first zine or poster, explore the idea of sentiment on paper and see what all designers would do with their life if the medium allowed for such time to be granted to the craft. I wish it was a permanent fixture in the Mission (or anywhere), but for now I’m just glad I got to see it once, on the last day.

Due to scheduling (aka my weekends being taken up by freelance work), I wasn’t able to spend the massive amount of time I wished to spend at The Levi’s Workshop (AKA: missed Sagmeister, Bob Mould, and doing a bunch of awesome free print work). I’d walked by it before, but until yesterday wasn’t able to hang out there. 826 had set up a special mini-workshop for the volunteer designers, and five of us got to go and hand set some wood type and make some prints and take home a poster.

I went back for the closing party and got put on the list at the last second and all the work that had been produced over the two months (some by famous artists and designers, some just by people who came in) was up on the walls. There was an open bar, and so then it turned into a dance party for about an hour. I’m not fond of dance parties, except when the view is of all this crazy good print work.