Trashball 120306: Ethiopian Joe

Recovered in the parking lot of the former Ethiopian Cultural Center on Georgia Ave., NW, in DC. Howdy, fella!

Trashball 120306: Jiminy, R.I.P.

Found near the dryer. Completely dessicated, poor old Jiminy likely expired quite some time ago. Question is, will he fit inside a Trashball?

Womb with a View

Stunning. Be sure to click on the gallery for more amazing pictures.

Trashball 112206: Some Fucked-Up Cents

Gathered from my pockets.

Trashball 112206: Passbook Savings, A Fine Example

Some of us are old enough to remember savings passbooks, where every deposit, withdrawal, or interest payment was duly and carefully typed into small passbooks the customer kept. The passbooks were a bit smaller than passports but had the same important feel to them. I come across old passbooks every so often and am frequently impressed by the diligence with which people put money into their savings accounts. Apparently the U.S. now has a negative savings rate (heaven knows I do), but this wasn't always so. Here's one from 1977-78.

Trashball 112206: Dignity, or, Alcohol Porn

Recovered from 80s-era photo album found among abandoned items in a storage unit.
And by the way, no, "recovered" does not mean "stolen".

Trashball 112206: What to See This Weekend, if This Weekend Were in 1973

Recovered from house on North Carolina Ave., SE, in DC.

Trashball 112206: Delicious Earrings

Recovered from 2334 Massachusetts Ave., NW, in DC. There's something about these old clip-on earrings—I can't quite put my finger on it—that makes me want to put them in my mouth and roll them around on my tongue.

Trashball 111906: Notgeld

Notgeld was emergency money locally issued by towns, businesses, and municipalities primarily in Germany between the two world wars. The graphics and lettering are often quite beautiful (if difficult to read). These, and about a hundred other examples, were part of a fascinating collection of odds and ends I recovered from a house in Arlington, VA. Presumably the previous owner was one of the gentlemen shown in the old photo-booth snapshot I found among the lot. Most of the collection, which included coins, music boxes, South American carvings, and vintage keychains, seems to have been built in the 1950s.

Trashball 111906: Hotel Raleigh

Recovered from a crackhouse on Morton St., NW, in Washington, DC. Image of the original hotel interior posted also.

Still a Chump

The company where I work part-time recently had an IPO. A $15.00 dividend was given for each share an employee owned prior to the IPO. Checks arrived last week.

I'm dimly aware as I track through the drab officeplace that many of the people I dully interact with are now fantastically flush with cash. The prematurely gray AA who's been here for decades, the hyper-focused project coordinator with her ridiculous shawls, the avuncular suburban dad whose work is a mystery to me, the homely Focus-on-the-Family member who writes copy (it's your lucky day, Mr. Dobson)—all these people just got many, many thousands of dollars in the mail, many into the six figures.

Me? I had squirrelled away 12 shares, thank you. $180.

Serenity or Serendipity

Dear old Nicola, my brilliant friend in Cardiff, has started an utterly charming new blog. Please visit it often.

Christopher+Phung+Italy+Wedding=Why Did We Have to Return?

Pictures here.

Trashball 101906: The Teacher's Edition

1. Where does a fella find a bottle like that. Note the old slot machines.
2. This drawing kinda makes me uncomfortable.
3. Those Quaker oatmeal packets are to me what madeleines were to Proust.
4. Did Freddie lose his eye?
5. What did Victor do? (dated 1/26/1972)

All the preceding items were recovered from a large old file cabinet that once belonged to a Washington, DC, schoolteacher who taught in the 1960s and 70s. Among all the teaching guides (most having to do with Negro history, from back when "negro" was the preferred term) were treasure troves of ephemera that the teacher, Mrs. Turner, had saved, presumably to use in teaching. There were old food labels, newspaper clippings, notes from students and faculty, and drawings.

Crafty Bastards and the Perfect Number

Yesterday was the Crafty Bastards art/craft festival in Adams Morgan. Joy of Charming Vices was kind enough to host one of my Trashball! machines at her booth. I'd spent much of Saturday making Trashballs, 158 of them to be exact. When the show ended at 5pm, there was one Trashball left, which I happily gave to Joy. My take: $39.50 in quarters. Oh, yeah...

Phung, looking absolutely superb, was in a fashion show for Unsung Designers during the festival. Lordy, this girl has got it.

Trashball 100206: Mean Mom

Recovered from discarded box of papers. This page was torn from a young girl's diary written in 1975 (I think). Most of it is very pedestrian stuff, but the May 2 entry stopped me cold.

Trashball 092606: A "Big" Desire

Old calling card recovered from discarded ephemera. A terribly suggestive bit of paper, I can't help but wonder what this card was once tied to, to whom it was given, and what happened afterward. Note how "Miss" was effaced—loss of virginity, maybe? Or is that just me and my dirty mind?

Trashball 092606: The Outline of Martha

Recovered from discarded ephemera. This is the label from Book I (of four) of a painstakingly written outline of "Montgomery's English History", done in fountain pen in September 1920 by Miss Martha. A sample from page 5 is above.

Trashball 092406: 1968 Riots

Washington, DC, like many other cities, was very hard hit by riots following MLK's assassination in 1968. The photos show some of the aftermath and were recovered from a discarded photo album. Each was labeled on back with the location.

1st photo: 14th St. and Park Rd., NW
2nd photo: 14th St., NW
3rd photo: 8th St. and H St., NW - Kay Jewelers
4th photo: 7th St. and Florida Ave., NW

Trashball 091906: A Common Disregard

1969 penny found in damp grass in College Park, MD. Few people care for pennies anymore, and there is pending legislation to stop minting them altogether. But people would do well to save their pre-1982 copper pennies (since 1982, they're made of zinc with copper plating).
According to this website, a copper penny's melt value is now $0.0224392, or 224.3900% of its face value. So if you've got too much time on your hands, get thee to a bankery and buy a lot of pennies and get to sortin'!

Trashball 091906: "The Whole Fraternity Clap"

Lovely bit of writing I found in the basement of a University of Maryland frat house today while struggling to remove a gargantuan industrial stove. This was actually in the oven. The writing has a stutter but then maybe this was the work of an emerging playwright...

Must...Go...to....Art Opening... Thursday, 9/21, from 6-9pm

Nice group show I'm in at Senate Realty, located at 909 U St., NW. Several other accomplished artists are in the show. Click here to view the e-vite.

One Down, Three to Go: Andy Rourke Is a Lovely Fellow

Just 4 weeks after getting "Still Ill" [title of a Smiths song] tattooed on my forearm, the stars aligned in such a way that I got to meet a former Smith, the Smiths being a band I unabashedly revere.
Andy Rourke was in town to DJ at Rock n' Roll Hotel, a new venue on H St., NE, here in DC. As luck would have it, Phung and I have become friends with Coby, who's married to RnR's co-owner. These felicitous circumstances led to a very relaxed 30 minutes visiting with the superb former Smiths bassist.
I labored to avoid discussing his history with the band, a topic that I would imagine he gets a bit tired of discussing with wide-eyed acolytes, though I confess it came up a couple of times, with only one elliptical reference to Morrissey. Mostly, though, we talked politics, marriage, the molecular structure of Balian sand, the emerging dialectic in the great Hobo Debate (tip of the hat to John Hodgeman), and our favorite Peruvian porn stars.
Anyhow, thanks Andy. You are a very nice old bean and Phung and I had a dilly of a time.

Fastow

After nearly one year of not painting, I finally started again. Here's the first result. Fastow is the title, no need to ask why.

Now all I need to do is finish three more by Sunday morning because I committed to doing a group show here in DC. Details on that are forthcoming.

Jesus Christ

This girl is marrying me.

She just returned from a hairstyle brainstorming for our wedding day (October 9, 2006, in Positano, Italy, chumps) and this particular look is knee-weakeningly gorgeous. Go with it, baby!

Goddamn, I Got to List Some Shit

This is but a tiny fraction of all the crap I need to list on eBay. Recently I got a huge cache of gun accessories, mostly holsters and belts, on one of my junk-removal jobs. I don't really care for guns at all, but I'm staggered at how well crafted these holsters and belts are; they're like expensive handmade Italian shoes, except you slip your revolvers into them.

I'm also surprised at what people throw away. Certainly these things are worth something. Indeed, people are already bidding.

Trashball 091306: Word Up

Couldn't have said it better myself. Recovered near River Terrace Elementary School in NE DC.

Trashball 091306: Class War? Lifestyles of the Poor and Not-So-Poor

Found within 2 feet of each other in a Capitol Hill park.

Trashball 091306: Chinatown After Dark

Something terrifically lurid about these circa 1930s ticket stubs. Recovered from discarded travel ephemera.

He Was a Perfectly Nice Taxi Driver

Putting the "Fun" in Funeral Home

Coveted Hysong's Funeral Home shirts available at last. Other styles and colors available, too. Get your funeral on!

Ellen's East Village Deck...

...and the buzz of a day well spent brought out this lovely moment between Phung and me.

Trashball 091206: Doldrums

Recovered from a circa 1974 box of discarded papers.

Olympus Fashion Week NYC: In My Element

Anyone who knows me knows that I would not miss Atil Kutoglu's runway show this past Saturday during Fashion Week at New York's Bryant Park. This, of course, is an insupportable lie. Nevertheless, there I was, three rows back from the runway—trod by none other than Victoria's Secret model Karolina Kurkova, though I didn't realize it until Phung told me later—with the rather disappointing goodie bag that awaited me on my seat.

Phung was the reason I was there. She is herself a fashion talent to be reckoned with, both in appearance and design, and going to Fashion Week was a long-nursed dream of hers. And it was a very good opportunity for me to be steeped in her world of interests. I had a blast.

Thanks to Ca$$idy for securing our tickets.

I Drive a Dump Truck. This Is My Story

Here's a small Flickr set of pix from a typical day.

Trashball 090506: Glossy with Borders

Recovered from a pile of construction debris on Norwood Drive in Chevy Chase, Maryland, on a very wet day. This envelope was dropped off at Penn Camera in DC on April 18, 1974. Sadly, no photos were inside.

Trashball 090406: One Less Thing to Worry About

If a Wheaton terrier named Boo bites you, you can probably avoid the rabies shots. Found near 11th and C Streets, SE, in Washington, DC.

I pick up trash all the time, both for fun and profit (I drive a dump truck for Junk in the Trunk 2-3 days a week). Much of it I set aside for my Trashball! machines, particularly found objects and ephemera. I will occasionally highlight pieces of found trash here on Ex-Communicated.

Salmonella and the American Dream

Several years ago, my friend Tim and I were looking for a place to have a quick breakfast before he hit the road back to Massachusetts. We chose the decidedly louche Steak n'Egg Kitchen on Wisconsin Ave. in DC, where our final moments together were passed marveling at the number of health-code violations committed before our eyes. Our appetites waned but we developed a sort of admiration for the fry-cook's brazenness in using our toast as a convenient place to wipe yolk off of his ungloved and unwashed hand. Turns out there's a very nice story behind this greasy spoon, as highlighted on the front page of today's Washington Post.