Ranting Details

Picture of the Day: 5/05/10

(This is the second image in my ongoing "Men Hugging" series.  For this setup I enlisted Michael Lowney and Nick McCarvel, and took the streets of SoHo for a little mid-afternoon love.  Special thanks for the close contact in the 80 degree heat...couldn't have been easy.)

Picture of the Day: 11/29/09

(Nick ate so much on Thanksgiving that he turned into a Francis Bacon painting.)

My Friends Are Pretty

I have been shooting non-stop ever since I began A Photo A Day For A Year, and this week I just happened to shoot a lot of pictures of extremely attractive friends. Thought I'd share them with the Rant.  In other news: I'm now shooting headshots.  If you'd like to schedule a session (or talk about any other photo possibilities) please contact me at rantingdetails@me.com. 

(Sam Rogers of Broadway's West Side Story.)

(Nick McCarvel)

(Benton Whitley)

(Darren Biggart)

Bumping Pillows

By my highly scientific calculations (meaning not even remotely scientific), KMart sold more pillows on Saturday than they ever have before.  Hipsters, children, married couples, and everybody in between seemed to be flocking to the aisles of Martha Stewart's downy goodness for the chance to buy a cheap pillow to put to use during the annual New York City Pillow Fight, an event I didn't even know existed until I was about to photograph it.  And despite my fear of huge crowds packed into tiny areas, I'm glad I went.  

As Nick, Meg, Jes and I made our way down to the financial district--a rather poetic place to bludgeon people with feathers, given our current financial crisis--we found ourselves surrounded by people carrying pillows on the subway, which contrary to the name of a certain musical, is not usually for sleeping.  By the time we climbed up the stairs and let our eyes adjust to daylight, it was clear we'd have to adjust to much more.  The streets were filled with people funneling into the single entrance that led to the fight's location: a blocked off section of pavement directly in front of the stock exchange. 

I put my scientific calculation skills to use again and determined that roughly half of the crowd was carrying cameras.  Fortunately, if faced with a fight, I felt confident my camera could beat a pillow any day.  Not that anyone had much room for swinging.  The packed crowd meant that the pillow fight was more of a pillow bump, but that didn't stop the throngs of participants from wailing their weapons with as much force as their arms would allow.  Despite lingering on the periphery, I still managed to get hit several times.  And despite the collision of pillow to camera lens, I also managed to get a few decent shots in the process. 

Triptych: Street Style

I was happy to find that Nick McCarvel and Amos Wolff had no objections when I asked if I could flash them.  As in use my new flash to take some pictures.  Pervert. 

Guest Post: Green Identity Crisis

JUST WANT TO SHARE THIS FANTASTIC PIECE MY ROOMMATE NICK MCCARVEL WROTE RECENTLY FOR GREEN FOR GOOD!  ENJOY!!!

Lately, I’ve been having an identity crisis. It’s a crisis that I could see coming for a while now, but I’m still unsure of how to respond to it; there seems to be no clear answer. Everything just looks, well, green.

There are two things that I think of constantly each day: money (green) and the environment (also green). I wake up in the morning and think about the money that will come into or leave my pocket and how my actions will impact Mother Earth. The two thoughts swirl in my head like a green smoothie, but it becomes too thick to pour out of the blender: a Green Identity Crisis stuck in my head.

I say “Green Identity Crisis” because of this: our economy is in a violent downward spiral, joining our environment. But while the economists and talking heads tell us to spend, spend, spend in order to encourage the reboot of the economy, I can’t help but think of my mantra: “Reduce, Reuse, Recycle.”

It’s green versus Green, and I’m not sure who’s winning.

My generation – characterized as The Complacent Generation or Generation Facebook – is left to wonder: what do we prioritize? How do we become Generation Green? Do we prioritize the business page, telling us to keep up our consumer spending? Or do we prioritize the Sunday section on Green Living, telling us to rummage through second-hand stores and trash bins to find furniture for our new apartments.

Because that’s what this crisis is all about, in a way: consuming. Sure, there’s all that credit crap and the housing conundrum and stocks and bonds and Wall Street and Main Street. But for the babies of the ‘80s and ‘90s, it all comes down to Green Street: how will we paint the walls of our future? Dollar Bill Green or Rain Forest Green? It seems easier to stick with beige, but then we ask: do we use a fresh-coat of Wal-Mart-cheap paint, or just let the paint job our parents did in the ‘70s live on for a few more decades?

I for one could never stop consuming completely. I need my groceries; I need my occasional meal out and I need clothes on my back and materials to fill my too-small apartment. But there’s a fundamental difference between the kind of consuming I like to do (think “second-hand” or “organic” or “rummaging”) compared to the kind of consuming that most are akin to (think “K Mart” or “Pottery Barn” or “Radio Shack”).

The fundamental difference is rooted here: my kind of consuming doesn’t encourage new production for new products. It encourages a recycling society, a society that shares, and a society that gets high off the phrase, “One man’s trash is another man's treasure.”

This kind of consuming isn’t what the business page wants us to do. I feel as though I need to walk the Yellow Brick Road and face the great Green Oz himself and ask: “Can you solve my Green Identity Crisis, Your Ozness?”

There has to be a fundamental (read “life-altering”) change in the way we live. If there is not, the very planet we live on will cease to – dare I say it? – live. It will die a slow, Green death of paper-dollar cuts, bleeding glowing Green goo off the bottom of the South Pole. There won’t be any green plants to decorate the funeral hall. No water to drink at the reception. Not even Oz can solve that.

My identity crisis often makes me feel like a monster when I look in the mirror. I look a shade of green for some reason, with a lush forest for hair and dollar bills for ears. But which to keep: The hair that keeps my head warm? Or the ears that help me hear?

I’d like to keep both, thank you very much – I’m just not sure how. Nor is Washington, DC, or the rest of the world for that matter. Weeks ago our government shook its head “no” at the automakers, calling their plea for a bailout ridiculous. Now they’re handing over the cash likes it is grass they’ve absent-mindedly torn from the front lawn with sticky, little-kid fingers.

But, as mom and dad always say, if you tear out enough green grass, the lawn will eventually become brown, empty and barren. It seems that is exactly the way both our economy and our environment are headed. It’s just that I don’t want to solve my Green Identity Crisis by covering it in brown – but what else can I do? How else can we live?

-Nick McCarvel

Triptych: Tree Hugger

Lazy Post of the Day: I Want A Christmas Tree

Everyone's favorite Seattlitte Nicholas has delivered a dose of holiday cheer  to Ranting Details!  Anyone familiar with the Britney Spears disaster song "Piece of Me," will recognize the tune, but who knew that Nick had such songwriting skills inside of him?!   He and his roommate Lauren spent lots of (possibly ridiculous amounts of) time reworking the lyrics to Spears' latest single and even choreographed some dance moves to go along with the festivities.  In need of a holiday laugh?  Look no further than Nick's committed performance of "I Want A Christmas Tree," which just may beat out Mariah Carey's "All I Want For Christmas" on the pop charts this season. 

GUEST POST TIME! Third Time Around: Kelly's "My December" An Icy-Hot Experience

Unless you are just coming to the blog, you are well aware of the presence of the fantastic Nick McCarvel in my life.  Friends for almost four years now, our relationship was solidified this summer as he spent a few months in the city working for Tennis Magazine.  Nick is a journalism major at Seattle University and he is an absolutely fantastic writer.  When he emailed me about posting a review of the Kelly Clarkson concert he attended this past Monday, I jumped at the chance.  Regardless of what you think of Clarkson, take a minute to read Nick's wonderfully written review!  Enjoy! 

Third Time Around: Kelly’s My December an Icy-Hot Experience
Nick McCarvel

Junior year in high school was when I finally hit my stride: I left the pimples behind (mostly), started thinking about college (constantly) and finally came out to my family (gradually).

It was the same year in college that I felt like I knew what I was about: a journalism student (read “writer”), advocate of communal living (read “cheap”) and lover of poppy beats (read “Kelly Clarkson”).

So last night, when I attended my third Kelly concert – my junior experience in the School of Kelly – it was no surprise that I finally felt at home with the pop diva.

For those of you who have never experienced a Kelly Clarkson concert, they are a sight to be seen. Forget the screaming teenagers who you see on TRL, or the gay queens that indulge in the techno re-mixes of Kelly’s stuff; Kelly attracts a fan base diverse in sex, age, race, scene and style.

Though Clarkson has taken a recent beating in the media for her not-so-successful junior album, My December, the petite Texan was stunning as usual in her live on-stage performance at the comfy Paramount Theatre in Seattle.

Her opening number “One Minute,” with its elementary, but angry lyrics certainly got me hooked. I was partly expecting a half-full auditorium full of the Kelly crazies, people like Stefani, who liken Kelly to a goddess.

Much the contrary: the Kelly Trains were out in force. The packed place stood the entire concert, waving cell phone, glow sticks and cameras toward the original American Idol. Here’s a sample of the Kelly Trains of the night:

“We Made Shirts With Numbers on the Back!” Kelly Train

"My Girlfriend Made Me Come...I Don't Even Know Who Kelly Clarkson Is" Kelly Train

"I Can't Wait to Tell My Homeroom Friends About the Concert!" Kelly Train

"Kelly Is Therapeutic for My Unborn Baby" Kelly Train

The Paramount crowd jammed with Kelly from the first beat, and though the rocker got louder and larger cheers for her hits like “Since You Been Gone” and “Behind These Hazel Eyes,” Clarkson showed her voice hasn’t slipped a step with incredible acoustic ballads like “Sober” and “Maybe.”

Perhaps it was the two rum and cokes in my system, or the fact that I just was loving my Kelly too much, but Clarkson seemed more on her game than I had ever seen her. Perhaps she feels more at home in the smaller, more intimate venues like the Paramount than she did when she performed to crowds of over 10,000 on her last nationwide tour.

My friend and I Cassie took turns providing the microphone for one another as the couple to the right of us (think “Yuppie Suburban Couple Kelly Train”) rolled their eyes at our antics. I rotated between taking pictures, recording video, sending “OMG I’M AT KELLY!” texts and leaving obnoxious I-know-you-can’t-actually-hear-this-but-I-called-anyway voicemails for the entire set. While Kelly bounced around every inch of the stage in a shiny, purple top, Cassie and I couldn’t help but wonder a little: has our girl gained weight?

Regardless of any weight gain – Kelly always looks good – the concert was a smashing success. Though Kelly was on stage for only an hour or so, the crowd left energized and upbeat. There’s no doubt that the various Kelly Trains look forward to Kelly’s fourth album, rumored to be due out sometime in 2008. I, however, might argue that like me, Kelly’s third effort was just as good as any – especially live.

Room For Roomies: A Goodbye to Seattle

(A delicious treat from a Seattle coffee shop.)

Until my week in Seattle, I had forgotten the pleasure of having roommates.  From the time I was sixteen, until I moved into my current apartment when I was nineteen, I dealt with my fair share of characters.  High school was my first test, living in a small room with a sink, bunk beds, and enough drama to fill a few seasons of an MTV reality show.  Then came the year I lived in an East Village apartment with six teenage boys.  The mice outnumbered the humans, nachos were the closest we ever got to a balanced meal, and scheduling shower time was as difficult as getting into the posh bars that surrounded us. 

When I got my contract to join the main company, I thought I was finally free to have a normal apartment with only one roommate.  Little did I know it was to be the worst experience yet.  Between a dog that mistook my furniture for the sidewalk, mice that decided our kitchen was the hottest nesting spot in town, and a roommate that in the end was schizophrenic (not a joke) it left a bad taste in my mouth.  By the time my roommate threatened me, I skipped work, hauled my stuff piece by piece to the storage facility and swore off roommates for good.

(A plus side of having roommates?  They can tell you if you stink.)

Over the past seven months I’ve had extreme moments of loneliness.  My apartment is filled with incredible memories from the past two years, but also many bad ones that seem peskier than the mice of my previous experiences.  It’s hard for me to be seven months into an illness and look over to my bed where I remember sitting and reading a book when I first got diagnosed with EBV.  At that time, as the summer sun beat down on my back through the window, the worst-case scenario was that I would be out for a month.  Unfortunately, and thankfully at other times, life is unpredictable and I’ve taken a few steps forward and a few steps back in my journey so far. 

It wasn’t until I got sick that I had ever wished for a roommate again.  Privacy in New York is more cherished than a summer house in the Hamptons.  I’ve enjoyed having my own den to dance around in my boxers whenever I care to.  Over the past week in Seattle, I was reminded of the joys that come with having roommates.  Rachel, Lauren, Steve, and Natalie showed me that the bonds created by living in close quarters are much like being family.  Even in my four days there I felt like an adopted member of the clan.

(Nick and Lauren mid "Catch Phrase" on my final night.  This game is a workout.)

(Rachel shows off her gorgeous engagement ring.  No, she's not Nick's fiance.)

(Nick pours some celebratory sparkling cider.)

After my previous debacles with roomies, it’s a testament to their personalities that at this moment I’m craving a roommate of my own.  Then again, I’m sure the minute one moved in I would be setting up roommate traps just like I tried to catch the mice in my previous adventures.

(We roll with gaaaaaaaaaaangs.)