one million adventures of jared and pablo

Or, what I've been doing for the last month.
In October I lived in "The Northeast Kingdom" a.k.a upper Vermont, village of Johnson: Vermont Studio Center. Having driven through Vermont once during "Trip Around America 2002" I had high expectations of natural beauty. My landscape expectations were gratified (proven by my smile wrinkles).

My friendship expectations were overwhelmed. In this post I focus on the adventures had with my dorm neighbor, Pablo Rasgado.

Meet Pablo and Win from Mexico and Thailand, respectively.

Adventure #1: Ghion River. Named after the biblical one running through the garden of Eden. Yes, the town upriver is named Eden. We discovered a junkpile uphill from the river which supplied Pablo and Win with studio materials. I noticed the natural water holes in the rock which later became "Deathmask for Andy Goldsworthy" using receipts from the same junkpile.

Adventure #2: [unpictured but crucial] Local St. Johns church hosts a huge rummage sale. Pablo and I buy one million items for a total of $18. One of the most awesome was this volcano.


Adventure #3: Pablo and I build a volcano.
Pablo had some good ideas about using rocks in the plaster.
I had previously borrowed a shopping cart to collect river rocks.
The roundest rocks ever.

Pablo also had great ideas about the placement of army guys climbing the structure.




The science of volcanic plaster.







Man, look at what a great time we're having!





Then we invited people over for the explosion.



A blast!



Some of the plastic animals suffered from snowy lava coverage.

It was such a success that the public insisted upon a second eruption

[will insert video(s) by Becky and/or Camila here]
Yes! Becky Yazdan just posted this video.


We scientifically made a new colour of lava as you can see in these aftermath photos.


After careful analysis Pablo solemly declares eruption #2 an even greater success than the first.
That awesome vermont-appropriate sweater? Rummage sale.

Light Bright Bomb. You guessed it: rummage sale.
I think the best description without photos of a volcanic eruption in ones studio is that a moose came over, crashed around, and urinated.

Can you see the army camp at the base of the mountain? It sustained some serious injuries.

Kami and Nathanial pay their last respects to the fallen dead animals (notice the smurfs sheet? rummage sale).
El Studio de Pablo Rasgado
You really need to see the video of this stool sculpture floating down the river - maybe Pablo will email it.
Adventure #4: Pablo gets another major thrift deal: really tall boots for ten bucks!

I am masking my jealousy with pleasant approval.

Sooooo jealous.

Adventure #5: Rainy hike.

Jorge and Jeroan talk about how awesome we look in photos.Nathanial and Jorge: Rummage sale.
Pablo has declared this his favourite image of himself ever.
Win was in the car ride up the mountain. He points with his tongue.
Kami drove. We insisted that looking away from the road not be repeated after this photo.
The payoff after a wet, muddy, cold, all uphill hike.


Adventure #6: Vermont outing. Still can't believe these jared and pablo sized matching sweaters were just waiting there for us. Pablo kept singing "I'm a lumberjack and I'm o.k. (monty python) when I wore mine.

Now you get to see our complete rummage sale outfits and performance.

Our Vermont-appropriate/Ben & Jerrys-appropriate outfits.
Pablo coreographed a dance for the occasion: "ice-cream, ice cream, ice-CREAM. ice-cream, ice-cream, ice-CREAM..." with sweater shimmying.

My welcome back since "Trip Around America 2002". Then my outfit included rainbow suspenders on shorts.

No photography was allowed in the factory. Pedro, a writer, joined us for this adventure. The new ice-cream they gave us was Banana on the Rum. I also bought some pumpkin cheesecake. (Pablo hated everything pumpkin - I let him know that this was very un-north american of him).
A respectful visit to the flavour graveyard.

Pablo and I took a leisurly moment to ponder the deceased flavours and how popcorn was never a good idea.

adventure sadly without Pablo: kareoke.

My first attempt: "You Be Illin'" failed to arouse the crowd despite my dancing and emphatic lyricyzing.

So for my next performance I dug into my bag of tricks and found a clincher: four hot girls. Fellow resident artists and writers Kami, Reba, Emily, and Johanna agreed to stand behind me as back-up dancers.
Then I poured my soul into that of Mick Jagger and performed "Beast of Burden" as if my life depended on it. (dance move for "my back is broken")

Red shirt guy is the d.j. He immediately called me a show-off and accused me of stealing all the girls.

I seem to remember my eyes being open a lot more than is recorded in these pictures.
There was a table of middle aged and old ladies sitting directly in front of me with no emotion.




The bar was called Brewskies and located up the mountain. The locals stopped the kareoke, conferred, and then got on the mic to give me a prize for best kareoke in Brewskies ever. It was a Bud Light t-shirt. I had the dancers wipe the sweat off me with it. This incited much jealous whooping from the dudes of the bar. On my way out one woman offered to pay me to be a performer at two parties coming up. They all insisted I return for the Brewskies Halloween party as Jagger. Too bad I would be gone by then. Thus happened the best possible kareoke ever. I fear I must lay down my mic.


I wish we had recorded more video - it cuts off at my favourite part, right before "aint i tough enough....oooo!"


Thanks to Jason Healy for the photos and video!

Adventure #7: Halloween Dance Party.

This might be my favourite picture of Pablo as robo-mex-andy warhol.
Plus Kami!


Camila insisted upon stealing my ears.
Very scary moment!
Pablo's flamingo neck with afro. Genius.
Aurora (friend of Nate Grover) wearing wigs that would be passed around the rest of the dance.

Adventure #8: accidental meeting after working with outdoor sculpture.


I know this looks staged, but it was really unplanned. Pablo had removed these tire looking sculptures from a pond and I was headed to the river with my cart of rocks and tree limbs.

I still need to load the photos of the adventurous part where we run around town with the cart.

Then we went fishing with my yarned branches.

Adventure #8 (unpictured) Pablo and I ditched our plane tickets and roadtripped with Emily from Vermont to White Plains. We took the train into the city, dropped off our stuff, and went into

Adventure #9: New York City!
p.s. I accidentally had a moustache by then.

I needed Pablo's approval on my favourite mexican place known to us as 'west side tacos' known to them as Taqueria La Fonda. Usually we trick people into ordering the giant burrito. But Pablo beat me to the punch. He saw the burrito and ordered it despite its hugeness, and finished it! This has only recorded to be done before by Jefferey Butler on his birthday.

Adventure #10: Help Jefferey Butler move his stuff to Yonkers.

I know: Where is Pablo? There's me, Collin and Jeff.

We stored him in back on a comfy chair:

Despite not eating all day and doing hard work we were glad to help.
But by the end I couldn't think, let alone have a happy face, with the degree of cold, wet, tired, and hungry we were.
That was cured by Burger King!
Adventure #11: ispired by Pablo and the giant burrito, I actually take down a triple whopper with cheese.
Adventure #12: P.S.1 and tall drinks in Long Island City




Adventure #13: Fat Cat. A bar with millions of games in the basement. We came for ping pong (another unrecorded adventure in Vermont) but the line was so long we settled for pool and foosball.



James Peterson joined us and we said goodbye over pizza. Once again, I am unable to fake smiling due to the impending separation from Pablo "Picasso" "El Guapo" Rasgado.
I have decided I must go to Mexico City.