My studio is a mess. I am currently in the process of sorting through and discarding 90% of my belongings in order to start fresh on the west coast with minimal baggage, literally and metaphorically. At the moment, I am in that awkward stage where you have to pull everything out in order to sort it. Basically, shit is everywhere.

No biggie, it’s just me and Raphael occupying this space. Nobody has to see this atrocity until it’s all sorted and cleaned up.

Until today, when I receive a mid-afternoon knock on the door.

It’s Russ, the man of the land. Landlord, if you will. He wants to check out the place really quick, since he knows I will be moving at the end of the month and needs to see if there are any repairs to be made. He is explaining this to me through a 2-inch crack in the door, as I refuse to open it any further. I tell him my room is a bit messy, and perhaps he would rather come back later today when I’ve tidied up a bit. He says he really doesn’t mind at all and it will just take a second. I reluctantly comply and allow him to enter.

“Wow, this really is a wreck.”

Yes, Russ. Thank you. Thank god I have someone on hand to confirm the blatantly obvious.

He took a quick painful look around, bonded with Raphael for a bit, discussed my promising future in San Fran, and then headed on his way.

So that was the first bit of inspiration to get this project-sort finished up. That and an invitation from Kelly, a fellow Raleigh dweller who happens to be moving to San Fran at the same time as I am, to participate in her giant yard sale. I complied with haste… now I just have to get everything sorted and ready to go by 7:00 Saturday morning. No pressure.

For all of you triangle dwellers, the yard sale will be THIS SATURDAY (6/13) at 2410 Clark Avenue in Raleigh. It’ll start around 7:30, and end around noonish, or whenever the heat gets overwhelming and I want to go inside. I suppose it could continue past that point though. Regardless, COME BUY MY JUNK!!!

Moving on.  I spent some time on the RBC Building balcony this weekend.  So enamored with everything about it…  the altitude, the colors… it changes my perception of Raleigh as a city.  All I want is to sit on a porch much like the one in the last scene in Babel, the downtown Tokyo skyline scene… minus the naked teenage girl.  I suppose the RBC will suffice for now.

Also – While I was on the RBC patio, I was introduced to a guy by the name of Scott. Pleased to make his acquaintance.

Five minutes later:
S: “Wait… what is your last name?”
H: “Price.”
S: “I think I know you.”
H: “Yeah, I was thinking that too. You look very familiar.”
S: “Yeah… I think we met in the La Guardia airport in NYC.”

Yeah. At this point let me insert a passage from my travel logs from NYC last fall:

Around 9:00, we arrive at La Guardia Airport. Let me take a moment now and mention that I have planned almost nothing in regard to this trip. I knew that I had a guaranteed place to stay every night, and that was apparently enough security for me to completely disregard any further planning. So once Erika and I arrived at the airport, we had absolutely no idea where to go from there. We knew we were headed to Brooklyn, and the Erika’s-acquaintance-guy, who I shall refer to from this point forward as Guy, was also headed to Brooklyn, so we decided to try and follow his vague print-out directions until we get somewhat close to our destination and feel that we can wing it.

The first step was to take the M60 bus. It arrives as we come to this consensus. Awesome. It only takes change. Two dollars in quarters. We have no quarters. We watch the bus leave.

We go inside to look for a change machine. There is one located immediately inside. Awesome. It happens to be broken. There are no other change machines in this terminal. The pretzel stand lady refuses to exchange our dollars for quarters. We quickly develop quite a distaste for this airport. Erika and I decide to grab some free maps from the wall stand and study them while brainstorming ways to get the hell out of the terminal.

Guy comes back from wandering outside with a heaping handful of quarters. I’m not sure how he got them, but I will forever love him for it. We wait, and wait, and wait… and the next M60 finally arrives. We have ample quarter supply. We are admitted graciously.

The M60 was a wild ride. It felt like an old roller coaster, minus the safety harnesses plus an overload of obese folk, each with an individual Ipod blasting hip hop tune of choice. Welcome to New York.

We are not exactly sure where to get off, and the bus is in no way announcing what stop is which, so Guy tells us at one point that he thinks we should get off. So we do. Luckily, it happens to be at the train station specified on his list of directions. We have succeeded. With a bit of help from Hannah, we manage to navigate the train system, parting ways with Guy midway, down to Brooklyn within an hour and a half.

And here is “guy,” standing before me on the RBC Building patio. Small freaking world.

Also – I’ve had the chance to see two great people this week, the first of which being Brett Harris, a singer/songwriter hailing from Durham, NC. He is booking his first cross-country solo tour (a progression from his previous east-coast regional tours) and wanted to get my feedback, as I’ve had the chance to see a lot of venues and meet a lot of good musically-inclined folk in around the states. It was great to see the progress he’d made, and good to catch up. He gave me a book to work on before I leave, though he said I seem to have a grasp of most of the concepts already – “Never Eat Alone,” by Keith Ferrazzi. Basically a networking bible. I’m excited to dig into it. After I clean my studio, of course.

Check out Brett here.
Follow Brett on twitter here.

Great person #2: Michael Casey.

A mind-blowing magician, king of the southeast whiskey-driven music scene (without playing music himself), and generally one of the best people I know on the planet. Our goal for the day, other than catching up on life, was to take some promo shots for him. This was only my second photoshoot ever. In other words, I still have no clue what the hell i’m doing. To make things better, I did almost no planning for the shoot whatsoever. But I suppose it’s hard to actually to plan a shoot when you “have no clue what the hell you’re doing.”

We basically ended up walking through some of the desolate wasteland surrounding downtown Raleigh’s warehouse district… looking for the rustiest and crustiest things we could find. We got yelled at by some elderly folk who either worked at or owned the property we were apparently trespassing on (I now notice most of my photos laden with “no trespassing” signs in the background), but, knowing this normally works, I just told them that I was an art student who was doing an assignment. It worked moderately well, but the elders continued to watch us as we continued on to the train tracks adjacent to their property.

All in all, it was a great day, and great catching up with a good friend. And we got a pretty good photo or two out of it!

Webstalk Magic Mike here.
Follow Magic Mike on twitter here.

Also – My cross-country trip has encountered some obstacles which prevent me from being sure of the phototour’s final structure, and therefore, I’m not going to write about it for a while. I’ll keep you guys posted once the plans are resolved and concrete. PS – It could maybe probably be really exciting and better than I could have possibly imagined. But yes, I’ll keep you posted at some point in the near future. You should probably continue to donate money regardless. I’ve gotta get across somehow.

That said, if you haven’t been to see the Tim + Logan + Helena photo collective on display at the Busy Bee, go do so! The photos are up for the rest of June, and they are priced to sell. Please let the bar know if you are interested in purchasing! I would blog many thanks, and hug you hard if I saw you.

Ok, time to put this headache to sleep. Don’t forget, YARDSALE SATURDAY!!!! See you there, yeah?

hp