i'll stop acting, i'll be a carpenter (like jesus) ;(

genevieve is the love of my life.

marissa schmarissa, that's what i always say

four by kierra
4 is a magic number
kierra is a magic girl

rosstube

youtube.com selections by my good friend ross middleton

things you should know
ignorantia neminem excusat

there: in or at that point, place, time, manner, respect. put it there, next to the dead bunny.
their: possesive form of 'they'. the store was cute but their pastie selection was whack.
they're: contraction of they are. the chicks from en vogue can blow but they're all kinda busted.

NONE OF THESE WORDS ARE INTERCHANGEABLE. EVER.
please don't make me hit you

ghosts of new york
2nd ave f stop

music

circus, britney spears
so whatever, i don't care if you crack jokes on me or brit brit. she's my homegirl. if madonna is the awesome aunt that tells you what a clitoris is and has you roll cigarettes for her, britney is the awesome older stepsister who shows you how to use tampons and swallow...and happens to be related to the aunt somehow. call it incest if you like but this is britney's best work and i'm very proud of her and happy for her.

dawn at noon bup bup ya mama

tiny masters of today
i think these kids are so damned cool. i love kids that rock out. i don't have an album (still gots no job/no funds) but i've been listening to them on myspace and they make me really happy. they're getting tons of press and that's great 'cause they rock harder than people three times both their ages. if you haven't checked them out, visit their myspace page. it's good stuff.

self portrait as a bicycle

babyshambles
you know that dude that like, does all those drugs and always wears beat up awesome outfits and has the worst teeth ever and used to date kate moss and like, two years ago kept getting arrested over and over again but for dumb shit that only rich druggies do? he's like proto-amy winehouse or whatever and he makes music and it's actually good. i like it alot. go listen and tell me if i'm wrong.

detail from one of the houses inside brooklyn museum
yes, they have houses in there. big ones.

free music!!!!
make a 20 track long mixtape and download it for free!!! do it here or, you guessed it, DON'T!!

here's my mixtape:

the meat and the berries

naked roger in the light on the couch

i shot a nude model this week. i can't show you most of the shots but i find this one especially lovely. i'll be doing nudes shoots all week, if you wanna get naked (or semi-nude or just pose for a portrait), be in touch. i'm trying to flash up my portfolio.

up

box o' barbies

my flyness sometimes contradicts my homelessness. but how? i'll tell you how, guys like philly. philly sells clothes and stuff on 10th ave between 43rd and 44th, he's got awesome trifles for mad cheap: leather jackets, new balance windbreakers, a box of barbie dolls, shoes, turquoise jewelry, portraits of jesus AND he's right next door to some of the best deep dish in new york. visit and tell him jessica sent you. he'll have no idea who "jessica" is but do it anyway.

philly, the man himself

my dear sweet lovely friend genevieve sent me a little bracelet from buenos aires and a little pink note (see first image of this post). i love genevieve. i love genevieve the way i love my fingers, like i would rather lose a pinky than lose geni and not just because she's beautiful and curly haired and funny and wonderful and 'cause she sends me perfect little bracelets and little pink notes. there are lots of reasons, too many to name. she's a good friend. she's my firecracker.

the little blue one is from my genisleeve

my ceramics lab at VIDEO

i had my first day of interning at VIDEO gallery this weekend. IT WAS AWESOME. it was just me and the resident artist, justin. we started the cold ass day with earl grey from the bodega. it was nice.

justin

justin makes art, does tattoos and has a killer record collection. we had some chat; we have similar view on the evils of capitalism and the awesomes of weaponry and war. he's gonna do my next tattoo, needless to say i'm SO STOKED!!! there's gear for screen printing and a butt ton of clay at the gallery and i have access to all of it. you're jealous. i decided to dive into the clay and made a sweet little pot, i'll be making as many pinch pots as i can over the holidays. peri runs the gallery and is gonna be getting the wares fired at suny purchase. i'm stoked, i haven't done ceramics since high school. very cathartic.

my desk at VIDEO. keep if official.

i went to brooklyn museum with marissa 'cause she wanted to see the gilbert and george stuff. i think i liked it more than anyone else we came across that day, especially the video. it's weird art, big statement pieces, sex, shit, politics, car bombings, two dudes in suits looking at you funny or naked and holding their butt cheeks apart. i can see how and why someone wouldn't like it but i recommend it nonetheless, even if it's just so you can say firsthand that it's dumb, like the blair witch project.

this is vito. he can tell/show you some groovy stuff.
he's usually on 4th or 5th floor. tell him jess says hi.
he won't know who i am but do it anyway.

if you don't like gilbert&george, try standing back some...

negro

i popped into the blacklist show...honestly, i was kinda over it before i went in. maybe that's bad of me to say but this is my blog so whatever, i've always been kinda bad at being a black person. the portraits were decent enough but i was underwhelmed. that said, i learned something: SLASH IS BLACK! who knew? there are a couple of macs in the exhibit where one can make a video in response to the exhibit, here's mine:



i'm famous!! wooot...

reverend dr. j sweetness and revered al sharpton
together at last

this guy thought gilbert and george was "cold"
i dug his outfit

duh sky

on the way to the museum, marissa and i stopped off twice and both stops were totally blogworthy.

calabar imports, prospect heights

STOP ONE: calabar imports. awesome awesome spot full of jewelry, hats, sculpture, clothes, scarves, oils, you name it. marissa found amber oil that she's been looking for since i met her and they sell nubian heritage soaps, the best smelling soaps ever. go visit, CALABAR IMPORTS,
820 washington avenue between lincoln place and st. john's place. atim, who runs the shop with her mum, also produces a periodical. check it out here. but read the rest of the blog first. i'm serious.

if you're gonna decorate, DECORATE!
tom's restaurant

STOP TWO: tom's restaurant. anyone who knows jessica elaine knows that jessica elaine LOVES diner food. since high school when i used to sneak off campus with day students (lucky bastards that had cars and didn't live at school like idiots) to go the agawam diner on route 1...i dunno, i just love diners, they feel like home. i have five favorites in the new york area: daisy's in park slope, westway in hell's kitchen, mike's in clinton hill, kellog's in billysburg and tom's in prospect park. you've probably been to tom's, it's pretty well known BUT, if you haven't, GO!!!! or don't. their sweet potato pancakes are off the wallet chain, fuh rilly. and hey, if you're ever in rowley, MA, go to the agawam. it's soooo good and if you're quiet about it, they'll let you smoke inside. oh, hey, i haven't smoked in over a month. woooooooo...

makin' my tummy horny

agawam, my first diner love
stolen from betsythedevine's flickr page

stripper kitchen
foodstuff by jimmy james

jimmy james putting the finishing touches on the recipe

spicy elbow mac turkey chizzle
1 onion
a bunch of garlic
sauteé that shit in oil
a few tomatoes, diced
3 small cans of tomato sauce
small can of chipotle chilis in adobo sauce
two regular sized cans of turkey chili

ingredients, yo

onion and garlic are sautéing, toss in the other stuff
add salt to taste and some sugar too
let it bubble and boil, low heat for at least a half hour, stirring occasionally
make some elbow pasta, like a box of it
once the bubble and boil ain't soupy, mix that shit yo
top with some parmesean or romano if you're feeling fancy
serves a buncha hungry fools

so effing yum

rat tar

dawn rocks the 3/4 profile like whoa

so dawn and i called ourselves gallery hopping last thursday. funnnny, we picked a freezing cold rainy day, we started ten blocks too low and three hours too late. we started (and ended) at COHAN AND LESLIE gallery whose walls were littered with photography for their PHOTOGRAPHIC WORKS: TO BENEFIT THE FOUNDATION FOR CONTEMPORARY ARTS show. the works of established famous folks hangs next to newcomers, which i think is cool. the ladies who worked there had snotty attitudes and dumb dresses/hair/faces but other than that, the show was awesome and i reccomend it. it hangs till the 20th so go visit, 138 tenth avenue between 18th and 19th. or, you know, don't. options. people love options. there was a bunch of good stuff but way too much for this blog. i'll likely highlight some of the newer artists next post.

beauty at the laundrymat

it's funny to me when two chicks go out together wearing basically the same shit.

need some ideas for christmas shopping? well, i have a friend, miki christopherson, who makes awesome awesome awesome jewelry. miki is based out of brooklyn and has divine fashion sense and a very cute face. check her out and buy her jewelry. there's no "or don't" here, i'm telling you to do it and i expect that you will because you love me and you know that our loved is based on you doing what i tell you and spending money on things that my friends have made. ahhhh, romance.

miki's wares. you know you want.
buy her stuff here

hey do you like to dance? i do. i went out dancing twice this week, flashy trashy at le poisson rouge (158 bleeker, thursdays from 9-4) and blocbabies at rehab (formerly midway, b btwn 2nd/3rd, sat from 10-9). dawn was my awesome wingwoman for both nights (jimmy made it out for blocbabies) and though she was not helpful in the least with getting baby d to put his tongue in my mouth (grrrrr), girlfriend HELD IT DOWN ON THE DANCEFLOOR. shout out to dawn. anyway, if you like to dance and don't mind a kinda douchey crowd, make it out for one of these nights. the music is well worth the bouncer with the s-curl who gave me trouble at the door. greasy son of a sea bisquit.

baby dayliner
making noise instead of making out

in closing, there's a young man by the name of nelson who, a few years ago, decided to take up skateboarding. he makes me really happy 'cause i got to watch him go from barely being able to stay on the board to doing nollies and barrel rolls. today, he's on youtube which i think is pretty goshdarn exciting. he's got some style too, sine dubio. check nelson's skill and remember, PULLING OUT IS NOT A CONTRACEPTIVE!!!:

beautiful rat sunset

so i didn't get that job i interviewed for and i wasn't sad about it. i've been reading satre and a book on the four noble truths. i'm worried that it's making me into an asshole 'cause i've stopped caring about like, a lot of things. i care. i want to have money again so i can do things like have a place to live. but that's really the extent of it. i don't want my phone back. i don't want to go back to buying shit 'cause i obviously don't need it if i'm doing such a good job of surviving without it. it's weird. more money=more problems. no money=??? i've picked out some videos to watch, videos that make me feel nice. i got into jack kerouac 'cause i liked the cover of on the road. jack kerouac introduced me to a few things not the least of which being jazz, buddhism and being a bum. i bought the jack kerouac collection, it's three cds of jack kerouac reading his steeze and after years and years of listening to it while i fall asleep, i've come to think of him as a close personal friend, i call him a nickname, ti-jean, in my head, even though i never met the dude and i hear he became a racist in his old age. hmm.



when i want to feel nice after a long day of not having a job and doing the things that unemployed, borderline homeless people do like walking around, reading that satre i was just talking about and going through the pile of abondoned clothing at the laundry mat to see if there's anything good in there, i sit down at someone's house. mostly jimmy's for most of the time i've been back in ny except more recently where i visited geeta then jenn then kierra...in that order. i lose track. my head is all fucked up from waking up some place different every day. but i like it somehow. i keeps me limber and humble. HARD PLACE wrote back after i notified them that they were picked for the myspace bests last post, they said the blog was "humble" and i was real charmed by that. what a compliment, a compliment worth bragging about. i love that word. fuck you kayne west. this is one of my all time favorite songs by one of my all time favorite bands



satre said everything is a choice. the noble truths say that there is suffering even in joy and there is, if you think about it, which i have, 'cause it only takes a couple of hours tops to apply for every job i'm skilled at on craigslist. satre said you are only your life and the things you do in the course of you life. so i can't just be unemployed and sad, that would be cowardice. so i take lots of pictures and make ideas and think big thoughts. i have the time to think big thoughts. the rule used to be [amber will vouch for this, i never let her engage me in conversations about anything heavy or broad like "life" or some shit] nothing bigger that a breadbox. i want small thoughts like "am i hungry?" 'yes.' okay, then "what do i want to eat?", 'bacon' and so on. bacon is smaller than a breadbox and so is my stomach. i couldn't deal with big things. they freaked me out. as a child, thinking about infinity would keep me awake at night. there is no end to counting. how do you THINK about something that has no end? and i would count to myself until i cried because the numbers would keep getting bigger and the bigger the numbers got, the more i realized that there was no god. there couldn't be. god would have made a finite world for me. only an asshole would make a world where there is no end to counting. i'm freaking out. so pj harvey, because i feel like she's freaking out too



so my head is fucked but i'm kinda used to that and i'm doing what i used to do when i was a kid, thinking big thoughts. they still scare the shit out of me but now it's in a sexy way at the same time. kate moss was discovered in an airport, she had just lost her virginity abroad and was flying home. way back in the 60's when kate moss did interviews, she said she felt that her new sexy aura had contributed to her being discovered. i read that and i was like, "man, i gotta bone" and i was right. sex and infinity or whatever, they get into your brain space. so anyway, this is the mittwoch blog post, what you're reading right now. this is stream of conscious writing and music videos, two of my favorite things. i hope you enjoy. and you don't have to feel guilty if you aren't reading this right now, even though you should be. and the arms and legs of other men were scattered all around, the pogues



i have embarassing ways of getting into new music and i think sideways about shit. i just decided those two things. i don't seek music out at all, i listen to what i like over and over again and i very seldom go for first listens. i have to like it the 49th time before i get into it. new shit is for people who haven't gotten over the old shit yet and i take forever to get over things. "hey, jess, listen to this, you'll like it" yeah sure. now, if it's playing and i hear it a fews times, maybe, but even that takes a while, like a year of me asking "who is this?" everytime you play it and then finally i buckle down. i think it's mostly because i like to really really dig something. i get all the way into it, like a full body condom. but what's funny is that over the course of my life, i've decided to try new shit for like, really whack and sometimes funny reasons. for instance, i got into the red hot chili peppers in high school i was OBSESSED with this boy jeff clyde. two boys i'm still obsessed with



jeff was into jaco pastorius too, and for good reason. i like how dude gets down both on his bass and in terms of his serious dance moves. i love cats that dance. what you wanna do is skip to 1:44 on the next one unless you had a crush on jeff clyde in high school too and you wanna watch jaco turn knobs on the amp and feel like maybe that'll bring you two closer together or whatever. shut up.



i shit you not, three years of pining, intense, belaboured longing. he played the bass and he had normal brown eyes but they had little flecks of like, hazel in them. it was on some like, totally impossible hottness. absofuckinglutely to die for. basically, it's safe to say that i had feelings in my pants and in my underpants for this boy and i heard that he was into the red hot chili peppers. i didn't even know if it was true, people! 12 years later i'm spending 60 bucks to buy some ultra rare john frusciante cd on ebay. what? for a cd? bitch, are you crazy? yes, utterly. i mean, i dig them now, it's not like i'm doing it to get up on jeff clyde. sadly, i saw him like, two years after he graduated and he had crossed over into totally unfuckable which was sad 'cause i got hotter by the second once i graduated high school. eh...hotter by the year until 19 then hotter by the second. yeah. haha, once i listened to noting but portishead for WEEKS



but uh, i saw rhcp play at the colisuem, the last show before the demolished it and built the staples center. new year's 2000. it was special shit. and john frusciante is my dog, yo. his solo albums stop time, no joke. i take heat sometimes, people discredit the peppers, i've read a lot of anti stuff 'cause they're jocky and poppy and anthony kiedis is a flamboyant dude. but whatever man, he's a californian, he's a person, he's a consumate something but that's all some shit we made up. they're music is poppy and funky as hell, it's very hard not to move while it's playing, at least for me. i love his music. i love that fucking band. all because of jeff clyde though! nutty. flea wrote a blog and i read it, he wrote from on the road in 1997 and i would read that shit and whatever flea said he was listening to, i would cop it and listen to it and make myself love it. the pixies, parliament, p.j. harvery, the pogues, all those bands that start with a 'p', i got into that shit 'cause flea said he dug it. mahalia, i got into 'cause my mom would play it SO EFFING LOUD every sunday morning when we didn't go to church. we usually went to church and got the loudless live but if we didn't, she would bring church to us. fallin' and risin' all of these years.



fela...the peppers have a b-side called "fela's cock", dope dope track and for years i was like, on the super sly, trying to find out who fela was. i felt like since flea knew, i should know but i didn't want to ask. i did the same thing with che guevara [i called him 'that t-shirt guy though 'cause i didn't know his name] and "bird". i never knew who those cats were but i refused to ask 'cause it seemed like everyone else knew. my logic is totally ass-elbowed sometimes. anyway, i was thinking about ALL of that because i'm digging this mountain goats album and the only reason i bought it is 'cause a.r. drops the mountain goats and john darnielle a lot so it was like i was brainwashed when i accidently read all his interviews and spent all those hours on youtube and stuff. this is another fave, got into yaggfu 'cause of an a.r. interview mention



"hey, jessica!" 'yeah?' "you say you got into different stuff for dumb reasons, what got you into aesop rock?" 'fuck you. a brooklyn industries ad.' i was walking down...i want to say 14th? when i was like, 20, when i first moved here, and i saw this picture of this dude on a ripped looking thing and i picked it up (i pick things up off the street regularly. i probably have the plague.) and it was this dude with big eyes, a big nose, big lips and his hands in the air with his head tilted back just so so. now, for those of you that are into the figure study and its symbolism like i am, hands over head, armpits exposed is sorta like position-speak for vulnerability, sexuality, a sorta youthful devil-may-care cum come-hither type thing. it's also the pre-requisite for a rap show. people with their hands down obviously don't know where they are. basically it's my favorite pose ever. the barbarini faun or sleeping satyr, the best sculpture ever, possibly the best piece of art ever, seen here

displays the pose. dude is alseep, that's already a vulnerable state for him, the object, to be in so we get to be powerful as we watch him. he doesn't know we're here, gazing, right? okay, and then dude is naked...but that doesn't mean so much in terms of when this piece was made, lots of dudes were naked, except it DOES mean a lot 'cause this is uh, not how the naked dudes were normally portrayed. they were posing holding staffs or leaning up against a discus. homeboy is passed the eff out with his legs spread, i can practically see his children. so it was a big deal and it wasn't. and another reason why it was both those things is the arms. showing your armpits is sexy in a weird weird way just because it's not something you do in most day to day movements. i always get a little sweaty when i can see up a shirt sleeve of an attractive male of the species. it's weird, i know. al jarreau is weird too, that's why i like him. my mom is a big fan. my ex was a fan too so it was hard to listen for a while but now when i think about him he's like a mist or something. i like the past because i never have to go back to it.



so anyway, i'm not saying that i saw a picture of aesop rock sleeping spread eagle desnudo or anything like that, i'd probably have shot myself in the foot if i'd seen that (and i mean that in a good way, if that makes sense) BUT that pose and the fact that his face is like...he's got like the male equivalent of a sophia loren or a pj harvey face; every feature on his face is the main feature. most people have one large or dominating feature and the rest falls back. big eyes, a big nose and a full mouth is a rare combo. so aesthetically, i was really wowed by the image i saw. i took it home and put it on my wall. at someone point i found out that homeboy made music and i checked it out, the rest is history. i got into doom real simple though. i checked him out 'cause he's a weirdo in a mask, i figured that would lead to good sounds and it did.



so, a.r. says the mountain goats are cool, i check them out and voila, the present, where i'm listening to beautiful rat sunset and writing perhaps the most round about album review possibly in history. luckily, the editor is me, so this is going to presss. muhuhahahaha. but seriously, i saw this album at virgin back when i had like, money or whatever and i was like "huh. the mountain goats. aesop rock likes the mountain goats." and then i bought it and it took a while 'cause it was behind the queue after mingus and baby d. the mountains mingus got me over el-p, baby d got me over mingus, the mountains goats got me over baby d. this song isn't on the album i got but the video is so righteous and you can tell that homeboy is utterly insane. insanity is the best place to start if you wanna do right.



but i'm kinda cheating on the mountain goats with britney spears. what? yeah, i said it. circus is hot. britney spears is hot. i have all of her shit. i love britney spears. if you have beef with brit, i'm not the one to talk to. meanwhile, if you want to barely resist the urge to half hump/half dance down the street singing to yourself, cop britney's newest. it's a pleaser, i think it's her best yet. "how'd you get into britney spears?" 'you say that like i had a choice. britney chose me.' i saved the best for last. no video action but you can just listen and let stuff happen in your head. best rap chorus like, ever? the classic underground styles of the urban masters, okay? now watch me while i invite underground...