Thursday, October 29, 2009

dia de los muertos!

halloween is this weekend, but that also means it's almost time for my other favorite holiday: dia de los muertos! i love day of the dead in part because it indulges my skeleton fetish -- i just think they're so damn cute! but i also really enjoy the concept of celebrating life and death and our loved ones who have passed on, rather than mourning. i love that day of the dead is a huge PARTY while at the same time a way to show love and respect for our dearly departed! that's a theme i really dig.

see? here's my day of the dead tattoo, done a few years ago by my friend ezra:

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so this year, cleveland's 5th annual dia de los muertos festival begins on saturday (halloween). i went last year with josh and my brother and we loved it so much we will be returning this year before heading over to the radio station masquerade ball. it's going to be an awesome weekend! here are some photos from last years festivities:

outside there was a little area set up as a graveyard. you could write a message to someone special on a card they provided, then leave it on any of the graves. neat!

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inside, there were shrines made by local artists and they were AMAZING!

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inside there was also an area to leave notes, which were going to be burned and offered up at the end of the day. i hope grandma got my message!

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then there is a parade, which everyone is welcome to join in. i don't know if you've ever experienced being in a parade before, but this was my first time. and let me tell you, it's SOO COOL! everybody is just having fun dancing around in skeleton masks and people are banging on drums and it really makes you feel like you're taking part in something SPECIAL! not to mention how neat it is to ignore traffic patterns and march down several city blocks while everyone stops their cars to watch and point at you :)

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that's me and josh in the last picture, walking in the parade :)
i heard that the procession starts at 3pm this year and i think it leaves from parish hall. everyone is welcome, so come on down!

when we got back from the parade, there was a mariachi band waiting to play for everyone :)

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soo much fun! can't wait to go again this weekend. you can find info about it at diadelosmuertosohio.com.

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here are a few of my favorite dia de los muertos things i found on etsy. I WANT THEM ALL! if you wanted to buy them for me, i'm sure you would have some good karma coming your way just because you were so nice ; )

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giant skull button by miss butler

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"dog walker calavera" print by mis nopales art (i LOVE his prints and want to collect all the skeletons! i already own two and they are gorgeous!)

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day of the dead beauty by illustrated ink

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day of the dead couple print by friendly made

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elvis day of the dead bust by mrs. lucky hellcat

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sugar skull and rose necklace by wicked minky

Tuesday, October 27, 2009

news

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i have some news!

as most of you know, i quit my awful job a few months ago thinking it would make me a happier person. and while leaving that place took a lot of bad feelings with it, it brought a whole slew of NEW bad feelings along to keep me company. ones that i never bargained for such as guilt and depression over being unemployed. well, i got some news the other day that is mostly FABULOUS, although it has its pros and cons. more pros than cons, though. alright alright i'll just spill already: my cousin amy asked me if i wanted to be charlotte's "nanny" on the days she and matt both work. how exciting!

here are the pros:

-i get to hang out with cute little charlotte all the time
-matt and amy don't have to leave their baby with a stranger
-matt and amy will save money since they don't have to pay for daycare
-i will finally have some money coming in!
-this will only be 3 days a week (usually)
-i will have a job where i don't have to wear a uniform and could show up in my pajamas if i wanted. i can also read a book or play on the internet or do whatever if she is asleep.
-i can keep doing all my side stuff (etsy, blogspot, etc) without feeling overwhelmed because this won't be a full time job
-it will be practice for the future and hopefully ease josh into the idea of having kids someday ; )

the cons:

-i won't be making much money, at least not like i would at a normal job
-i will probably be seeing a little less of josh, since a few hours are on his day off that we normally spend together (unless i can talk him into going! ha)
-i'm scared of continuing to stress josh out, since i still probably won't be able to contribute equally to our expenses. we talked about this before i accepted and he told me to take the job but to let my cousin know that if a serious job opportunity were to come up for me, i would have to take it. in a way, i'm hoping it doesn't because i'm really excited to do this. but i also don't want josh to get fed up.

so i guess that's it. there is more to be excited about than not...but the few worries i do have are still pretty serious ones. i guess all i can do is go into this hoping for the best. maybe the shops (swamprat and frenzy) will pick up a little with the holidays coming and that would help ease my mind. i dunno. it's going to be an interesting new chapter for me, i can tell you that much!

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here is little charlotte taking a nap, about 3 and a half weeks old. i borrowed this from amy so i hope she doesn't mind!


here is some more news that i'm happy about. i am currently included in THEE most fabulous treasury with a "dark carnival" theme!! it was made by the lovely creepling, who makes tentacle accessories. awesome! please check out the treasury and click away! i would love to see this thing make it to the front page. isn't it amazing??!?


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i also got the pendant i won from agonys decay in the mail the other day. it was even better in person!! and not only did i unwrap the necklace but my envelope was filled with all sorts of goodies and samples. it was like spooky, bloody christmas came early! thanks so much jenny! please take a minute to check out her shop and all the wonderful things she has to offer. i'm drooling over those seahorse cameo pendants! sigh.

Monday, October 26, 2009

musical monday: the wcsb halloween masquerade ball

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i'm so excited because halloween is finally almost here! this weekend the radio station where i volunteer is throwing a HUGE party on halloween and everyone is invited. one of my favorite 80s punk bands, the zero boys, are headlining the show! they still sound just as good today. here is a video from the 80s (when they were sooo young!):



and here is some more recent video, still KILLIN' IT!:





besides getting to see the zero boys, my dude mr. california is also playing. god, he's hilarious. we went out to lunch together a few weeks ago and i learned that he actually CAN be serious sometimes, haha! make sure you watch the end of the video where he dances:



AND i get to dj at the show! a few select djs from WCSB were chosen to spin records between bands and i'm honored to be one of them.

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i'm also on the decorating committee for the party along with my friend billie, and we can't WAIT to see all our hard work pay off when we get to do the fun part and finally put up all the decorations!

josh and i have our awesome costumes all ready and i'm really expecting an amazing time. like i said, ITS FREE, so come on out and have a party with your friends at WCSB 89.3fm! costume contests, prizes, food and beer, djs, LIVE BANDS!!

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Friday, October 23, 2009

RADIOTHON 2009 -- featuring EXCLUSIVE HOT TRASH PREMIUMS!!

yes, it's almost that time again. WAH. almost time to beg and grovel in the hopes that WCSB fans and listeners will find it in their hearts to donate a little somethin' somethin' to the cause.

THAT'S RIGHT! our nonprofit, volunteer-run radio station needs your dollars and cents. this is the one time a year we ask for donations to keep our station up and running. this is the only way we pay for new/upgraded equipment, make new music purchases, and pay our bills throughout the year. all djs donate their time and resources to make WCSB what it is, and we ask that our listeners show their support and gratitude by donating whatever is possible during radiothon.

this year, radiothon is taking place from SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 8th through SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 15th. you can make a donation, however big or small, at any time throughout that week. when doing so, you are able to choose a premium as a sort of "thank you" gift from WCSB. a list of various premiums and their donation amounts will be posted shortly on our website, www.wcsb.org. we always have cds, vinyl records, books, movies, gift certificates, official WCSB t-shirts and merchandise, and other cool stuff.

if you donate during hot trash on tuesday, november 10th between 11pm and 1am eastern standard time, here is the list of exclusive HOT TRASH ONLY premiums you can choose from:

$15 donation: sloppy slices and greasy greats: songs to stuff your face by [unlimited copies]
$15 donation: rowdy chug-a-luggers and sloshin' slammers: songs to pound beers by [unlimited copies]


$5 donation: one man band compilation cd [last year's premium - unlimited copies]
$5 donation: dance craze compilation cd [last year's premium - unlimited copies]

$7 donation: set of two (2) cassette singles by BEAT BEAT (austria) and THE SWEET SIXTEENS (indiana) [1 copy of set]

$10 donation: LORDS OF THE HIGHWAY "die, monster, die" cd [1 copy]
$10 donation: THE BLOWTOPS "deep thrust" cd [2 copies]

$8 donation: BEAT BEAT 7" (taco show/washing machine/get out of my life/lock the door) [1 copy]
$8 donation: THE ROMANCE NOVELS 7" (another summer/quarter to four) [2 copies]
$8 donation: FIRST BASE 7" (i've got a girl/nobody makes my girl cry but me) [3 copies]
$8 donation: SHOOT IT UP 7" (pop/we know you know we know/broadway glass/bringing me down/black bars/high up in the sky) [1 copy]
$8 donation: THE JOHNS 7" (in tune/crapped out/wanna die) [1 copy]


new this year are the hot trash FOOD and BOOZE mix cds, guaranteed to get the party started...or finished! you can also get last year's ONE MAN BAND compilation filled with 30+ one man bands from all over the globe (and even a one WOMAN band!) or if dancin' is your thing, grab last year's DANCE CRAZE comp and learn how to do the watusi, the bug, and the mope! don't know what i'm talking about? donate and get your copy so you can impress all your friends and be the belle of the ball! (you sweet little thang, you!)

there's also a bunch of records, cds and tapes that you can ONLY get during radiothon by donating during hot trash. once they're gone, they're gone. call in early!! support college radio!! donate generously!! get yourself a hot trash exclusive premium AND some cool WCSB swag by increasing your donation amount! not only will you get some neat stuff in return for your support, but you will be keeping college radio WILD and FREE on the airwaves and that's PRICELESS!

FIND ALL THE DETAILS AT www.wcsb.org. start saving your pennies, radiothon is just around the corner!!!!


xoxo erin
myspace.com/hot_trash

Tuesday, October 20, 2009

for being named erin, where's all the luck of the irish i've been promised?!

just wanted to pop in today real quick like. i'm glad to say that life has not been as crazy bananas as it was a few weeks ago. josh and i have spent a lot of time together enjoying fall and getting ready for halloween. we have been preparing our costumes (i can't wait to show you the result on halloween, but let me assure you i get to be BLOODY!) and watching all the spooky stuff that comes on tv. yesterday we took a walk through our neighborhood and went to explore riverside cemetery, where some of the earliest residents of cleveland are buried. but i'll save that for another post when i can unload all the cool photos we took.

one thing i've got on my mind is that I FINALLY WON SOMETHING and ITS'S AWESOME! ha. you don't understand what this is like for someone who isn't normally lucky. apparently all those genes went to my brother, who seems to luck out all the time (finding $100 bills on the ground, winning trips to cancun, etc!)
so this is the first blog giveaway that i've come away from victorious and i'm happy to say it was from the lovely agonys decay. pretty soon i'll be sporting a custom pendant featuring the well-known "eternal embrace" image. TOO COOL!

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speaking of giveaways, i also entered the fall giveaway over at octoberfarm's blog. among the goodies are some cranberry soap and cranberry taffy...that was all it took and i was SOLD! you can become a blog follower and enter too, but hurry! :) and this one over at jammer designz is for a cool creepy hairclip that you KNOW i would just love to rock. cross your fingers for me!

finally, my good pal MAB tagged me for a fun game of 20 questions. except there aren't 20 questions and i'm allowed to make up as many as i want in addition to the ones she already has. i don't know who to tag because last time no one really followed through, so just go ahead and consider yourself TAGGED if you so desire!

1. Hair color? normally boring brown, dyed "brown black"
2. Eye color? hazel
3. Height? 5'0 :(
4. Last book you read? the executioner's song (finally finished, thanks MAB!)
5. Last movie you watched? friday the 13th part 3
6. Last song you heard? mean old man by wolfboy slim and his dirty feets. (josh's secret one man band) :D
7. Last food you ate? fresh mozarella and artichoke hearts
8. Favorite color? red
9. Favorite ice cream flavor? ben and jerry's phish food
10. Birthday? valentine's day, feb 14th
11. Biggest star crush? besides wolfboy slim? billie joe armstrong.
12. Lucky number? 12
13. Best childhood memory? sleepovers with my cousins beth and amy
14. Side sleeper, back sleeper, belly sleeper? right side sleeper
15. If there is a heaven, when you get there, what do you hope God says to you? i don't want him to say anything, i just hope he gives me a thumbs up or the surfer "radical" sign or something.

i'm adding on!

16. What's your theme song? 'rock'n'roll girl' by paul collins beat
17. Coolest thing you've ever found at the thrift store/flea market/garage sale? i guess it's pretty morbid of me to say some guy's suicide note, isn't it? there was mail and photos donated along with it, so knowing his name i was able to check the recent obituaries and confirm it. sad. but besides that, i guess it would be vintage 45 cases still filled with 45 records. sometimes i miss working at the thrift store :(
18. If you could have anything as a pet, what would it be? besides collecting 235858 more cute kittens, i would want an otter. or five!
19. Name a movie you can quote every line from? 'wet hot american summer' or stephen king's 'IT'
20. 5 things you want RIGHT NOW (if money were not an issue): jukebox, classic car with fins and lots of chrome, the bronze bigfoot garden statue i saw in a magazine, a job in a bookstore, a proposal of sorts :D

Monday, October 19, 2009

musical mondays

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i decided i wanted to participate in musical mondays over at good mourning glory's blog. big surprise, since i can't shut up about rock'n'roll, eh?

hopefully i'll make this a regular installment on mondays, so to start things off i would like to repost something i wrote a while back. it's appropriate for the halloween season because he's a little bit creepy...plus, since i didn't get any comments on the original post, maybe no one saw it in the first place. :D

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"everybody see i got the devil in me..."


that's a line from one of joe buck's songs. and at first glance, or the first time you hear his music, one might be very inclined to believe this to be true.

the first time i ever saw joe buck, he was playing guitar with the band th' legendary shack shakers. even from the back of the room where i was standing, and even though he did not have a microphone in front of him, i could see him screaming the words "FUCK!" and "MOTHERFUCKER!" throughout the entire show. combine that with his skeleton face and i was READY TO PEE MY PANTS.

but don't let that fool you. his lyrics (and stage banter) might be violent and hate-filled. and he might make the angriest faces you have ever seen. and he might say "fuck" and "motherfucker" more times than you have ever heard any human being within one 45-minute period. despite all this, if you actually have a conversation with the man, he is one of the nicest, most humble people you will ever meet. and you will also quickly realize that he throws the word "motherfucker" around like it's his favorite greeting/term of endearment/insult all rolled into one. for example, following every song that he plays live when people are clapping to show their appreciation, he will exclain, "well, thank ya, motherfuckers!" and you can tell he means it. oh yes. he means it...from the bottom of his black, smoldering heart.

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joe buck is a one man band, but he has played with other well-known bands such as th' legendary shack shakers, assjack, and hank III (who, as the name would suggest, is hank williams' grandson). he also just finished a tour with the singer of throw rag where captain sean sang and joe buck played all the music. joe buck one man band is a mix of hillbilly country, punk, rockabilly and garage, with a touch of EVIL thrown in for good measure.



my favorite pictures to take of him are with the "night mode" setting on my camera, or just in complete darkness. OOOOOOOH MAAAAAAAN.

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here is my favorite song being performed live. it's called "are you my enemy?" it's very angry and totally not suitable for work, small children, or delicate flowers.



but like i already said, his "thing" is to be your nightmare. don't let his scary stage persona frighten you off! in fact, just so you don't get the wrong idea, here is something beautiful from him. whoa, did i just use the words "beautiful" and "joe buck" in the same entry? i present to you "bitter is the day":



i have seen joe buck several times live, and it never gets boring. i strongly urge you to check him out if he passes through your town! you can visit him on myspace for a list of tour dates and other cool stuff. but if you go see him, just promise me that you won't go up to him and say, "erin told me you aren't really as creepy as you pretend to be!" because that would probably just bum him out.


i hope to have a photo of joe buck available in the swamp rat photography store soon, but i'm pretty broke at the moment. i need to sell some art before i can make any new stuff, which sucks.


**i didn't take any of the videos in this entry, i found all those on youtube and they are credited to their youtube usernames. i did, however, take all of the photos that you see here.

Sunday, October 18, 2009

WCSB 89.3fm in cleveland: a virtual tour

i've been meaning to do this for a while now. WCSB is the student/staff volunteer run radio station out of cleveland state university. the station has been running for over 30 years, and by next november i will have been a member of it for 5 of those years. within the past year we moved to a bigger (nicer!) studio, so here is a virtual tour of where i spend 2 hours every tuesday nite :)

i forgot to take pictures of the outside of the building. we share a spot with the college's newspaper. once you walk through the computer lab, you come to this:

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you need a special little id card to scan yourself in and then the door will open for you. when you step inside, you enter this hallway:

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on the left side you see all our fliers and posters for upcoming events:

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beyond that, you are in our music library. we are lucky enough to have a really big library! this comes in handy when people make requests, or when you are tired of everything in your own personal collection. some people program their show entirely out of our library! personally i like to bring my own things and only pull stuff from the library when i get a request for it or when it's something i want to hear that i don't have or didn't bring.

everything is organized by genre and is in alphabetical order. we have walls and walls of cds for every genre imaginable!:

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we also have a huge collection of vinyl. a lot of the vinyl library is old, original pressings, out of print, rare and/or hard to find. we're super fortunate to have such a cool collection! every shelf you see with one of those black handles (they look sorta like giant filing cabinets in the photo) is filled from floor to ceiling (and front to back) with records. i can only dream about having a personal collection this big some day!:

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if you take a right off the main hallway, the first room is our production studio. i don't have any pictures of that because someone was in there working on something when i was up there. it looks just like our main air anyway, and i have some pictures of that.

next is our lounge/live band room.

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this room acts as a live studio where bands can come play and be broadcast over the air with amazing sound quality. usually, i just punk rock it and have bands set up in the main air studio with me, but this is our other (higher quality) option. when there are no bands playing here, it is where you can sit and chill til you have to go on the air. there are computers with internet access and chairs to lounge around. and now we apparently have an arcade game in there, although i don't think it works at the moment.

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here is josh hanging out until hot trash begins:

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you see that black foam stuff on the walls above josh's head? that's to soundproof the room when bands are playing live. apparently it is also very expensive and it's a huge no-no to even touch it. good to know!

here's our mailboxes. sometimes i get penpal letters from an inmate in prison. i don't know him, but he used to pick up the station when he was in prison around here and i guess he loved hot trash. he started writing me letters with lists of request from the other inmates that he would go around and collect when they were out on the yard. he is into punk and garage stuff. ha. eventually he got moved somewhere farther out and couldn't pick up our signal anymore, but he still sends me letters and calls me funny nicknames like "queen of the airwaves" and stuff.

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this is out in the hallway. it's a working grid of all the shows currently on the air:

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the executive staff members have some offices, but it's nothing interesting to photograph. so that leaves main air. this is where all the magic happens! or something.

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featured in this picture of the main air studio is a shot of the ever-elusive DRICORE, who takes over on tuesday nites when hot trash is done. getting evidence of him on film is like catching a rare glimpse of an endangered species of exotic bird. he is standing right in the middle of all the action -- right by the main microphone where i broadcast the show and surrounded by all the equipment like turntables, cd players, and the board.

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here are two of our three turntables. i love playing records:

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and here are the 3 cd players. we also have tape players that i use on occasion, but in general my show is about 50% vinyl and 50% cd:

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and this is the main board that i use to run the show. it looks a lot more intimidating than it actually is to work:

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we still dj the oldskool way. THIS IS THE BEAUTY OF COLLEGE RADIO! we don't use computerized playlists or have assistants and interns. we don't have to play a required "top 40" list, we get to choose whatever we want to go over the airwaves. we can choose to talk a little, or not at all. if we start playing a song and it's awful, we can just stop it right in the middle because we want to! we can let our personalities shine through the show we create and execute. remember when they used to call them "dj personalities"?! those of us who have a nite time spot are able to play words over the air that most commercial stations would be banned from playing. we do everything ourselves to run our own shows. and there are so many different shows/genres/formats on one single station that it has the potential to blow minds. seriously people, college radio is a GODSEND.

at any given time throughout my 2-hour show, i can be found:
-picking out what song i want to play off a cd/record/tape
-programming the chosen song on the specific player
-paying attention to time and starting/stopping each song by pushing buttons on the board (bonus points for smooth transitions!)
-answering the phones and taking requests
-running into the record library room, finding requests, pulling them out, and refiling them back into place
-playing station IDs every hour on the hour (or reading them when the computer isn't working)
-playing content disclaimers every 30 minutes (or reading..)
-playing at least two PSAs every hour (or reading..)
-filling out a legal log
-keeping my own setlist of songs to read back on the air
-checking any internet requests (email, myspace, facebook, etsy, etc!)

PHEW! sometimes it's a miracle the show runs as smoothly as it does. you definitely have to be able to multi-task to run a radio show like this. a lot is going on behind the scenes and those people tuning in have no idea how lucky they are that all they hear is the rock'n'roll coming out of the speakers and not me swearing and huffing when something isn't working or i drop all my cds or i can't find someone's request. ; )

i'm really lucky to have an opportunity like this and i love being a part of the station. if you ever tune in, be sure to let me know so i know YOU'RE the one responsible for making me run around like a maniac getting everything done. if it weren't for you, being a dj on college radio wouldn't be nearly as fun. ; )

HOT TRASH
tuesday nites
11pm-1am est
89.3fm or www.wcsb.org
http://myspace.com/hot_trash