Hard Up in Gay Paris

I woke up about four AM yesterday morning backstage at the Paris Paris club in Paris a little out of sorts, and rightfully so. For one, I was backstage at the Paris Paris club in Paris, instead of in bed at our hotel. And then there was all this other shit: Yiannis, our Grecian Sound Technician, was repeatedly putting-on and peeling-off a sticker from my right cheek, a creepy tall French dude was pinching my left hand black and blue, and one of the club's DJs plopped herself on my lap and had, according to Nathaniel, been making out with my corpse for some time before I began to stir.

One's morning-after instinct when this sort of thing happens--and it happens more than we of the Blood Arm Posse would like to admit--is to blame it all on whatever township we happened to be in the night before. Oh, those Parisians/Londoners/Dusseldorfians/Orange Countians are just CRAZY, we say, pouring ourselves a third eye-opener. How they rejoice in forcing us to party all night, inject goofballs and have unprotected sex with farm animals! The monsters!

Then we go off in Paris/London/Dusseldorf/Orange County/whatever city we happen to be in and cross our fingers that its citizens will attempt to outparty wherever we were the previous evening. Funny thing, it seems that everyone we meet in every city is crazy.

But especially in Paris.

Upon entering the Paris Paris club, partygoers are greeted by a pink Mickey Mouse with a giant boner:


Then they walk downstairs, and there we are with bigger boners:





It was a good night, basically.

I love you so much it's making me crazy,

Ben Lee Handler

Some Festival Pics...

From the Glastonbury and South Side Festivals, courtesy of our lovable Grecian Sound Technician, Yiannis:

Innsbruck is Alive with the Sound of the Blood Arm...

Innsbruck in Austria is hands down the most beautiful city we have ever visited. Sandwiched between the Nordkette, Patscherkofel, and Serles Mountains, this federal state capitol is an international hub for winter sports. In the summer, however, the city doesn't have much to do besides sit around and look pretty. This is where we come in. If rock and roll has taught us anything, it's that 'pretty' is pretty boring if it's not shaking its ass and throwing its hands in the air like it just don't care.






Consider Innsbruck rocked.

I love you to pieces,

Benjamin Lee Handler

Oh yes, I would be forever angry with myself if I forgot to mention that the Weekender Club in Innsbruck is one of the best venues ever.

Q: How awesome is it?

A: Well, awesome enough to have Rolling Stones inspired urinals.

We saw the Brementown Musicians and...

Oh, travel days. After approximately 15,000,000 hours in the bus, one can laugh at just about anything.




Not photographed: About 100 ausfahrts, Bum Bum ice cream bars, the billboard with the sexy lady eating a sausage...

I love you,

Ben Lee Handler

How We Roll: The Hurricane Festival

I should probably say something about the surreal backstage Southside and Hurricane festival scene. This is how we roll*: We check-in, load our equipment onto the stage, then make our way to catering. We rub elbows with what is destine to become the cast of some 'Remember the Nineties' reality show on VH1--Eddie Vedder, Juliette Lewis, Perry Farrell, Thurston Moore, Kim Gordon, Mark Ibold--over squid ink pasta and Alaskan Sea Bass. After lunch, we perform, then it's time to hit up the Artist Bar, where we pick up bottles of champagne--one each--to keep us company on the walk to take in the Sonic Youth set. (Their live show is amazing.) We're kind of tired and very drunk by this point, so we head to the on-site masseuse to work out the kinks in our backs, then drink with Art Brut until we can't remember our names. It's a rough life.






We love Germany so much we want to take it behind the middle school and get it pregnant.

Other things we love: You.

More than this there is nothing,

Benjamin Lee Handler

*The collective 'we' on this post does not include Zachary. Zachary's festival activities consist only of sleeping face-down on the dressing room floor and playing the drums for forty-five minutes.

Intentional Accidentalism; Glastonbury, Southside Festival

We make a lot of mistakes on the road. We say 'whoops' a lot. But after about the 30,000,000th 'whoops,' one starts to wonder if all these mistakes are really mistakes. Like, every time we say, "okay, no more service station sandwiches," we get drunk and eat a service station sandwich. Or every time we say, "okay no more adopting pet rodents at venues and keeping them in our suitcases," we get drunk and do just that. Or every time we say, "okay, no more throwing dead identical twins boys into the river after we lure them into the van with candy and have our way with them," we get drunk and lure identical twin boys into the van with candy, have our way with them, throttle them in their sleep and throw them into the river. Whoops.

It says a lot about us, I think, that we always wind up doing the things we say we don't want to do. Three things, specifically: First, we are ashamed of a good portion of our desires. Second, we use alcohol as an excuse to do the things we are ashamed to do. Third, we get away with doing the shit we would be ashamed to do at home on the road. And this is just one of the reasons why touring is totally awesome.

Some shit we are definitely NOT ashamed of:

- Nathaniel, Zachary, Zebastian and I taking three different airlines and stopping in two different countries before we are finally reunited with Dyan, Tour Manager Chalkie, and Sound Tech Yiannis in London.

- Performing in front of perhaps the biggest crowd the Blood Arm has ever performed before at the Glastonbury Festival.

- Nathaniel forgetting half of the lyrics to his songs at the Southside Festival in Germany.


- Our love of the chunnel.


- Zebastian's newfound love for girlie ice cream bars.


Now Chalkie is in the middle of our 500 mile drive to Bremen, and the others are working on some identical twin boys they lured into the van at the last service station... time for me to get drunk and join in!

I love you madly,

Ben Lee Handler

Dyan Writes From London

Dyan has been in London for a little bit. Look! She is sending us a letter!


What does it say?

Let's open it and find out!

Dear Rest of The Blood Arm,

Come here! Hurry! Our SECOND HELPING DESIRED, REQUIRED tour begins on Thursday!

Love,

Dyan

How can we forget! The Blood Arm's SECOND HELPING DESIRED, REQUIRED 2007 UK and European festival and headlining tour starts Thusday! We'll be kissing all of you with tongue very soon!

I love you with a vengeance,

Benjamin Lee Handler

Davey Dance Blog vs Harvey Danger: A Challenge to Blood Arm Fans Everywhere

Check this out:



Q: Pretty awesome, right?

A: Yes, Ben Lee. This is totally awesome.

An impromptu dance party to one of your favorite favourite pop songs in front of a place of historical interest (that I can't recognize, that I can't recognise for the life of me). It's genius, really: This way everyone knows how worldly these kids are, that they dress snappy wherever they go, that they're swell dancers, and that--most importantly--they like the Blood Arm. Davey does this everywhere he goes; he is a sharp dressing jet-setter who dances brilliantly and loves the Blood Arm. Check out Davey's other dance blogs to almost-as-good pop songs HERE. We're sort of completely in love with him.

But then I saw this:



Granted, these kids aren't in front of a place of historical interest that I can't recognize/recognise, they're not nearly as handsome or as sharply dressed as Davey and his dance posse, and Harvey Danger? Come on!

Really, though, their video is all kinds of badass. I mean, it's four minutes of well-choreographed fun in one single take. That's some Scorsese shit right there.

Upon viewing it, I found myself a little dumbstruck, a little threatened. Aren't we of the Blood Arm Posse, we of the Davey Dance Blog Posse, we of the Worldwide Blood Army... aren't we supposed to be better than everyone else, or at least not as dumb? So now I'm challenging you, Blood Arm fans, to come up with a TBA lip dub more cleverer than the Harvey Danger one embedded above. This challenge will extend into the year 3000, and our favorite/favourite responses will be posted on BLOOD AMBITION and rewarded in the best way we deem fit. (The best reward we deem fit = the Best Reward Ever = one hour in the hot tub with Zachary and Zebastian.)

So have fun and get back to us on this one.

I love you so much it hurts,

Ben Lee Handler

Coming soon: A salute to TBA Poet Laureate Lawrence Durrell.

Normal Adolescent Behavior

A promo clip for the film 'Normal Adolescent Behavior,' shown recently at the TriBeCa film festival.

A One Act in German with Terrible Spelling

Jodie Foster: Baldwin! Ich will dine freunen zine! Willst du liebe mir?

Alec Baldwin: Nein! Ich liebe meine arbeit, und mein arebit nur!

Jodie Foster: Scheiße! Du bist mein liebe, du bist mein kampf!