Whew, we made it!
It’s officially September (well, technically it was official the other day but no time for semantics right now) which means we made it through the dreaded “summer months” (Yes, the temperatures will still be in the triple digits for another month or so but we made it through the most of it.) and we’re still here.
We’ve been a little quiet the last few months, mainly because we’ve been hiding from the sun and it’s sadistic need to turn us into Shrinky Dinks. It’s been so hot that even our usual summer companions, the horseflies, have barely been seen. Still, even with these tortuous temperatures we’ve had people want to come out and commit parts of East Jesus (as well as our “gorgeous” faces) to video.
We had a few crews (including one from Telemundo) show up and want to talk to someone about what the hell we’re even doing here (They get really existentialist sometimes). Turns out they were just curious about East Jesus and not the nature of life the universe and everything (42). Keep a lookout on that ol’ world wide web for a few videos with Aaron’s beautiful bearded visage spewing out a bunch of words he probably made up.
We had a gentleman named Frank, who directed the band Hurts during the summer of 2013, return to shoot a music video for a musician named Liz Huett. Some people came out to shoot a web series called Bizarre States. Oh yeah, and we had a rather large crew come out to shoot a video for some musician called Kesha.
One of our more exciting days, a crew of somewhere around 30 or 40 production professionals showed up with several large trucks, a huge RV, and an artist of a caliber that we had not, until then, seen the like of, in East Jesus. The crew spent the better part of what was a mercifully cool day shooting Kesha in some of the best parts of EJ; including the TV Wall, the Zen Garden, and our glorious music room (Kesha played Charlie’s piano). The crew and talent were all very polite, respectful, considerate, and professional (even inviting the residents to partake of some quite delectable catering) and we were all very honored that Kesha chose EJ as a place to shoot the video to promote her return album after a very long and public legal battle kept her from recording (probably also known as the “I’m back mother fuckers” release…probably).
If you go to our Music Videos page you can watch the video (if you just now finally crawled out of your summer rock and missed it’s release).
The quieter (and hotter) months saw us all spending as much of our energies, as could be mustered, to keep us cool and also keep our batteries running (and cool). We saw that there were people actually crazy enough to drive down here and get out of their nice air conditioned cars to look at all our slightly random piles of junk. So we allowed them to do that while making sure they knew, by our absence, that there’s no earthly, sane, reason to be out in that heat. However, our heat-induced anti-social behavior didn’t stop us from enjoying the company of some of our favorite members of our EJ family.
Megan brought out out a couple of first timers, Lexi and Justine, to experience the wonders of East Jesus (In the summer? Really?) and to celebrate her birthday for the week (because you can’t contain a birthday in just ONE DAY). Dave came back for a bit but decided that, being a natural Washingtonian, he couldn’t hang in our dry-as-fuck sauna. After visiting with Kay for a few days, Rene realized her life’s ambition was to spend yet another summer here in EJ; which was great because for a minute there it was just Coco and Aaron and no good can come from that. We were graced, a couple times, with the presence of, our favorite former-firefighter, Greg Hill, who delighted us with his usual offering of beer, steak and sea creatures (our palates will never readjust), and some always genuinely great conversation. Tam came out to pay us an always enjoyable visit. The Perseids brought out a few friends, including Victoria. And the eclipse brought out, our favorite Jewish pickle-maker and chef, Alan. We’ve also had the pleasure to enjoy the company of, the always great, Sherry and Paul who, in addition to being great fun and bringing out, one of our favorite scruffle-pups, Prince, introduced us to a couple very awesome people. Brii, who came out for the eclipse, and Val, who has been hella great helping out cleaning up our slightly neglected pantry. You’re both welcome back anytime but we stress, most intensely, that y’all wait until the cooler weather. No one should endure this (he said as he went to the cool pool for the 5th time that day and heard his skin sizzle upon contact with the cool-ish water). Jenn, and Erik both paid us a long overdue visit (seriously, miss the crap out of both of you). Unfortunately, in all the random assortments of friendly visits, we had to say a tearful goodbye to our resident great cook, expert percussion maker, and grumpy-young-bastard, Coco. (Miss the hell out of you, brother. You sure-as-shit better visit before you head out on your big adventure).
Oh, and we welcomed back The Rustmaster General, The Preacher of the Junkyard, WeasEl Presidente himself, Mr. Flip Cassidy.
After a year of scouring the globe for as-yet-unheard-of caffeinated substances, developing 24 new kinds of rust, and fighting in several secret wars, Flip finally came home to East Jesus and upon settling in, immediately started several projects (some which had been sitting on an ever-increasing back-burner). He and Aaron did a long overdue 30,000 mile renovation on the music room with the intent of getting it back to the standards we had all come to expect when Charlie was here with us. And it’s looking better than ever and the various musical accoutrement that were starting to clutter it up will be moved to a new, more fitting place (Did somebody say “stage”? Yes. That was me. I said “stage”.)
And, as the weather has mercifully given us a reprieve (For how long? We can only hope. Pleeeease stay) we may just make it out of this crazy summer alive and you may start hearing a bit more from us again as the season gets closer and we start having something interesting to say (intense laughter). But, we’ll still be here. As always.
Until then…
MAKE GOOD THING – DO BIG FUN – GET MORE LAID – RISE AND INFECT
