Abandoniers! is a new column about breakin’ and enterin,’ tresspassin’ and trangressin’ — and all the cool shit you find. Wanna share your urban explorations? Click here.
by M. Tekel
Because it was a Tuesday night and we were bored, we decided the most entertaining activity of the evening would be to slip beneath the fence of an abandoned retirement home. I’d driven by the place multiple times, even went to school down the street from this shady little hideaway, but never really noticed it until it was closed, surrounded by a janky construction fence, which was easy enough to crawl through. Many others had trespassed here before, the place riddled with busted windows, kicked in doors and the copper wiring torn out.
Later, while doing a little research, I learned that this place, aptly named Fiesta Village, was closed because the owner was mistreating the elderly folks residing there. The Arizona Republic reported that Melissa Pacheco, who owned two other homes in addition to Fiesta Village, was letting patients stew in their own shit and piss, some had open sores and broken bones that weren’t properly treated, not to mention the many patients that were dehydrated and had lice.
Usually, listening to a “Best of” album is cheating and means you don’t really like music, but Squeeze is an exception*. You’ll know them for their song “Tempted” which I used to hear on repeat when I worked at Sears. I would look around at all the recently divorced loners shopping for gray socks and feel sort of bad and weird, until the anonymous Sears P.A. djs changed the song to something even more depressing. Here’s a video for that song acted out by some idiots who rooted in their step-father’s closet, after the break. Laws like SOPA will make things like this illegal one day — maybe it’s not so bad.
Just an FYI: Squeeze is a band from the ’70s and ’80s that are sort of New Wave, but without making you gag nearly as much. Like 95.23% of bands from that era, they’ve broken up and reunited seventy times and toured the world enough times to create small fuel shortages around the globe and most people don’t even remember who they are. Read More
What can I say? More indie stuff you’ve probably heard a thousand times before but that opening line kills me, especially the way it builds like a “confetti-burst” and blows “through the balls of my eyes.”
‘Wormery is a column about songs I’ve been playing over and over again. They are songs I like or keep hearing. Discuss?
Our intrepid music writer thumbs his way to and from the legendary music fest
By Troy Farah
Published on 04/07/2011
Hitchhiking is easy; getting into certain shows at South by Southwest—not so much.
I got 11 free rides from good ol’ Flagstaff to Austin, Texas, for one of the biggest interactive, film and music festivals in the country, with well over 2,000 performers in more than 90 venues. It took four days on the road and along the way I met, among many others, a chatty truck driver from Poland who used to trade alcohol to Soviet soldiers for gasoline; a judge who saved me when I got kicked out of a truck stop; a survivalist who drove from Spokane to San Antonio without stopping or sleeping; and a chill lighting director who smokes pot, yet still strongly believes in Jesus and who dropped me off in the midst of downtown Austin.
“…as beautiful as the chance meeting on a dissecting table of a sewing machine and an umbrella…”
Made a visit to Rotterdam with Jaleh today to see Kuntshal’s Edvard Munch exhibit. To kill time before the opening, I went to a museum I didn’t plan on ever going to called Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen.
The first exhibit we saw was called “Let Down Your Hair,” which was a net suspended precariously three stories above the ground. Read More
His laugh is ominous. It’s pathetic and sad and it will creep into my dreams for years.
My mother dragged me to this thing, this convention, this seminar to learn about a way to make money. I told her I wasn’t interested, but she said, “C’mon you need a summer job. Just check it out.” Collecting aluminum cans was earning me a nickel a day, so next thing I know, I’m at an “information study” with a circle of my mother’s church friends, all of whom are drinking bottled water and laughing with this guy about luxurious vacations, prostate cancer (I’m not kidding) and finance. Lots of finance. Read More
At the first of the year, I took a little crazy adventure to the south of California and tripped over the border to Tijuana. When relating this story to people, most are surprised or confused, so I’m cementing this tale in writing for anyone wanting to know how bizarre and terrifying Mexico’s streets are during the hours of darkness.
One of the weirdest pitfalls of consumerism is collectivism. Nearly everyone I know who owns a house has a room for junk filling. In some cases, an extra room just for storage is a huge plus when shopping for a new home. Those that aren’t so lucky rent one of those dozens of Armored Storage cells, surrounded by barbed wire and guarded 24-7 by rent-a-cops and surveillance cameras. Read More
I saw Math the Band and mc chris this past weekend at Tempe’s Clubhouse. I didn’t know who either of them were a half-hour before the show, but I had an extraordinarily good time. I took videos too, which came out sucky, but I decided to upload them anyway because I have a weird hobby of saturating YouToob with crap. Read More
Do not fuck around with anti-depressants. You’ll end up in a crippling tear-drenched sadness coma, curled up in a ball under your desk, one inch away from suicide. Yet, someone gave me a box of Prozac and Lithium to “sell” to kids at school. Um, yeah, anyway.
Originally published in Phoenix New Times’ Up On The Sun
It’s hard to tell your friends “I’m going to the Donkeys show” with a straight face. No, not some perverted freak-show in Mexico. I mean the psychedelic San Diegan blues rockers The Donkeys, who tore the Yucca Tap Room apart with their ’60s-inspired pop and ’70s-era jams, a blend that’s earned praise from indie contemporaries like The Mountain Goats and The Hold Steady. The Donkeys treated the bar and lounge like they were regulars, which is pretty close to the truth — this is hardly their first rodeo in Tempe. . . . → Read More: Last Night: The Donkeys at Yucca Tap Room 5/14/12
This isn’t some Oprah bullshit. We read kickass books and at the end of it, have a swag party with cocktails, cigars and coke. Most of all, we talk all posh about literature. It’s an incentive to read and discuss ideas rather than what’s on TV or who’s sleeping with who.
Tekel’s Book of the Month Club existed in some form as a weird Facebook group, but now it’s public. Anyone can (and should) join!
San Francisco-based photographer, Natacha Merritt, made waves in 2000 with her book Digital-Diaries, an erotic exploration of her excellent sex life as she toured the underground S&M and slut-sex scenes. The book moved over 300,000 copies, featured in everything from The Wall Street Journal to Playboy to Rolling Stone.
So what do you after your pornographic diary becomes a best-seller? Well, for Merritt, she went back to school to study biology. Perhaps that’s an odd choice, but between photographing Cirque du Soleil performers and amateur models, she was getting close and personal with arachnid genitalia. Her passion for sex . . . → Read More: The Filthfiller Interview: Jerking-off, spider dongs and BDSM photographer Natacha Merritt
(Author’s note: This article was the blood and sweat of over eight months, where it was post-poned and delayed repeatedly. I feel like I became really close with the band in that time and I’m finally glad to see it in print. Enjoy it uncensored after the break.)
By Troy Farah Mon., Mar. 19 2012 at 7:00 AM in Phoenix New Times
Released last year, Coming of Age is an appropriate title for Knesset’s first album, as the band is only now starting to step up locally. Pronounced KA-NESS-ET and named after the legislative branch of the Israeli government, these locals have played in the background of Phoenix since 2007.
Usually, listening to a “Best of” album is cheating and means you don’t really like music, but Squeeze is an exception*. You’ll know them for their song “Tempted” which I used to hear on repeat when I worked at Sears. I would look around at all the recently divorced loners shopping for gray socks and feel sort of bad and weird, until the anonymous Sears P.A. djs changed the song to something even more depressing. Here’s a video for that song acted out by some idiots who rooted in their step-father’s closet, after the break. Laws like SOPA will make things like this illegal one day — maybe it’s not so bad.
“…as beautiful as the chance meeting on a dissecting table of a sewing machine and an umbrella…”
