Tag Archives: Buffalo Central Terminal

so excited, the movie premier tonight at the terminal was great. we had way more people than expected. the informal head count for the first screening was 500, a bit less for the 2nd. sold out of pizza in an hour and had to get more. sold 2 kegs of beer, half the dvds, lots of other merch. yay! so glad it worked out, especially since the last few days were a bit crazy.

i got my boots today. wore them a bit at the terminal, but i definitely need socks with them haha. now i know. still waiting for my set of different gauge earrings tho. grr. trent tomorrow. 🙂

i met my new ue/myspace friend after the movie today. he’s shorter than me so i know he won’t kill me and leave me in a silo now hahaha. ian came to the movie too, made plans for next sunday. should be a fun time.

Progress Statue in one of our shots. It is
on the album “Tomb of the Mutilated”, on the back cover of the CD. All the
shots for that album were done at the old central train terminal. Anyway,
thank you very much for getting in touch with us about that, we never knew
anything about that sculpture, so this info is really great! If you need
anything else, please let us know. Always great hearing from somebody from
Buffalo!
Thanks,
Alex Webster, Cannibal Corpse”

last year a canadian documentary crew did a film at the terminal. we recieved the final version and are still deciding what to do about it. it was a good project, even if i do look bad with orange hair in it :). anyway. one of the stellar things in the film is the conversation that they had with tom telesco, the 2nd post 1979 owner of the building, and the one responsible for selling off all the decorative items inside the building.

i mention this, cuz his apparent story is that he went down to florida after hurricane andrew and made tons of money rebuilding down there. cnn has a report on right now about bogus scam artist contractors and i’d laugh my ass off if he was one of them.

that is all.

the cable went out friday afternoon. it made me realize just how addicted to cnn i am. no cable, huge storm about to hit, and i have no means of communication. i was stressin. seriously. i’m sick. today the tv was back but no internet, spent an hour on the phone with adelphia after getting home from oktoberfest in order to get it working again.

today was the first, hopefully now annual, oktoberfest at buffalo central terminal. i think it’s safe to say it was a big success and we were all a bit worried, because we have an advertising problem. aka we have no money to PAY for advertising. but we had a really good turnout. ran out of food. nearly ran out of beer. the band, the frankfurters, were awesome for a german oompa band. so this was really good for us. made some of us jaded members more optimistic again.

saw the most fabulous thing ever today. lei, james and i were out putting up our signs in the neighborhood and this lady came riding by on one of those adult tricycle bikes, with a basket on back, and a boombox bungee corded onto the back, blasting old school rap. it was SO GREAT. after that we got ice cream at the fabulous gran grans ice cream stand. they got a paint job and a different name since the first time i took leighanne to the terminal 3 years ago.

and nobody knew what “sig heil” meant. we know now. and it’s not bad. we figured it was probably bad, cuz it’s associated with hitler, and were afraid to ask people what it meant incase it was offensive.

so yeah. had a good time. if things go well tomorrow i will be doing some shooting with a few kids from toronto. should be good. i should sleep probably.

had a rather fun night DEALING (first time in 4 weeks) bacc in high limit. my players weren’t the normal regulars, only a few semi regulars, who were actually very pleasant for once, and tipped me regularly. by the end it was filled with lots of broken english innuendos and one female proclaiming that the win on a certain hand was “better than fuck”. LOL it was hysterical.

and once again i was asked if i was half asian. i really need to start lying about that. i think it would make me much more interesting.

 

spent the day inhaling alot of unhealthy dust at the terminal, cleaning up the gallery space for june. it was pretty productive, we just have to do floor and debris clean up now more or less, which we can do on the 30th. after, lei and i stopped at great northern to taunt the geese LOL, and then we were going to go past the loft building but got distracted by cargill. so we drove down to cargill and there was another car there…and as we got closer…it looked familiar. and it turns out adr2 was there LOL. small world.

so…as everyone knows now, a year and a half ago lei and i went to chicago and found the terminal’s giant concourse clock. which was amazingly exciting. and as everyone knows, we have the clock back now…which unfortunately was not all that exciting. i expected it to be way better than it actually was, to finally have the clock back, and see our work in tracking it down pay off. well all that changed today when we walked in and saw them setting it up in it’s original spot on the concourse. it was so awesome. as mike said, he almost cried. lei and i both jumped when we saw it. it is so so so so so totally cool, and i’m so happy we have it back. the unveiling is going to be great

even tho i don’t really want to, i’m having my own “room” at the terminal for the art show. it’s hardly a room, but the inside of a safe. haha. if i couldn’t have the safe i wasn’t going to do it at all. but now i have to figure out what i’m doing for it…

so…a mini vacation recap

wednesday: ran all the errands i neglected to run over the weekend and early part of the week. went by the parents house for dinner, so my dad could transfer the pics he took on my new cam to his computer. headed home after. sanded and spray painted wooden tables in the dark.

thursday: went down town shopping to possibly pick up things to decorate the tables with. work party at the terminal in the evening. picked up james to head out there. did work which included picking up/setting up tables and saws…spent quality time with russell in the terminal while everyone else was out taking apart saws…sat in the terminal by myself in the dark for a half hour. creepy. lol. but my new project is going to be wonderful i decided. thursday night came back to the house and worked on decorating the tables, james finished his nucular painting.

friday: james and i went to this grant information seminar that was mandatory if we wanted to apply for this type of grant to fund the terminal art show…back to the terminal in the evening to help yuri pick up more chairs and stuff for saturday. got fed at the ukranian hall, which has a zhitnik jersey that he signed in…ukrainian. i thought it was pretty cool. and i ate perogies and gwumkie?!?!… mom will be proud. back to the terminal with the chairs, then we left to jasen’s to play poker. i lost first, james lost 2nd. they made me deal of course. haha.

saturday: picnic on the plaza which was less than extraordinary, but i had way fun. it included the below pictures. brian asked for a hot chocolate the size of james’ head, and that’s what he got. him drinking from it never got old. buca’s afterwards as is tradition. had a fun time, i thought. glad brian seemed to enjoy it too, since he was a buca virgin and all, i was worried he might not like it. everyone was too hyper from giant hot chocolates and red wine so we went to jasen’s again and watched Friday. funny ass movie. macaroni!

sunday: back to the terminal again (that’s 4 days in a row i just realized…) to take around a photographer from pittsburg. i had wanted to stay only from 1-3…left at quarter after 5. wasn’t going to go up to the roof, but ended up on the roof. but! i finally got access to the clock floor AND the clock rooms….gaaaah. i call that floor for my apartment when we turn the building into lofts. and when we were on the roof we saw a group of punk ass kids on the roof of the baggage building, so james went on down to crack some skulls…lol. headed home shortly after that. then work. which was boring. except for the black guy with the black white sox cap walking around who i thought was dr dre each time i saw him.

i had a really nice 4 days off. had a great time spending time with the people that i got to spend time with. it was really lovely.

flooring tomorrow, dealing tuesday, 10-6 dealing friday, 9-5 flooring saturday, flooring sunday. and no 4-midnight shifts BLAH. i was really hoping for some. tomorrow is sleeping in finally, and depending on what time i get up, going to pick up photos from color tech. i hate driving all the way out there.

i’ve been getting comment spammed like you wouldn’t believe. so i attempted to integrate an anti spam thing…it seems that the site works still, so that’s good, but if you try to comment and it doesn’t work, let me know. and we’ll see if this stops the spam. i sure as hell hope so.

yesterday….james and adr came over, and the 4 of us ended up painting canvases to decorate our living room with. james and lei thought it necessary to have a theme, instead of just doing whatever we wanted to. so the theme ended up being “nucular”. good old W…..so lei painted a sock monkey holding an atom bomb, which is wonderful. adr painted an atomic flower. mine is all red. james’ isn’t finished yet. then adr painted lei an extra special painting of a sock monkey which is fabulous as well.

also we drank a bunch of mike’s alcoholic beverages because their bottle caps all have words on them, and we made them into our very own set of magnetic poetry words for the fridge. rock!

commenced watching the rest of “pirates of the carribbean” which is a highly entertaining movie, tho a bit too long. i did enjoy it though.

then it was bed time.

today brought exploring the bct tunnels. which was actually very interesting in a really boring sort of way. because there is really nothing to see, and definitely nothing to really photograph (besides the fact that there is no light down there anyway). but it was really cool i thought. it was very very creepy. we had to hop a train that was sitting on the tracks between the building and the tunnels, once in the tunnels the train started to move….so it was making very eerie noises while we were in the tunnels. not quite train like noises, it was very surreal and strange. at one point i commented to james that i felt like we were underground in the city of Lud with the war drums (dark tower reference incase you cared). once the train left, it was entirely too quiet, and i very much wanted the train noises back. good thing more trains did come by. our tunnel seems to be perfectly fine, and clean, and relatively non toxic (seriously…it was fine)…the post office tunnel however…i thought i was going to pass out. it just smelled so toxic, the water was so nasty. climbed over some…stuff…that was definitely placed on purpose so people wouldn’t continue through the tunnel to the post office. the water got much too deep farther along for us to continue, and then the strange noises started…not train noises, but noises that made us think someone/thing was at the other end of the tunnel and had heard us (well at least that’s what it made me think haha)…after standing there listening, we headed back and out. it struck me as a cool experience, not something i’m all that interested in, but did more for the actual “thrill” of it, and the fact it’s the only place on property where i haven’t been.

met russell up at the building, and scoped out a space for james to do his art installation. found this really cool room that i had never seen before…i still don’t understand how i continue to find things in that building that i’ve never seen before (also the restaurant managers office, that houses perhaps the largest piece of intact glass in the entire structure hahaha).

from there we spur of the moment decided to go to the last thursday in the square for a bit. i really don’t like being down there, it just doesn’t appeal to me at all. and i was completely scummified from the tunnels. we met up with mike and paul, walked a bit, listened to some of the (as james put it) “indescript rock band”, then went to towne restaurant to get some food. met up with mike and paul again at fugazi, played some darts and pool and headed home.

i had a fun time, so that’s good right? lol.

and i’ve decided that the only reason there are pool tables at bars are so that people have reasons to lean over something and show off their ass, and or boobs, and for others to spectate the view. nothing wrong with that lol.

have to meet with a gallery owner who wants to do a story on the clock thing for artvoice, and probably talk to her about my show she wants to have there in february. work at 10 (BLAH).

i spent 7 hours at the terminal today with the discovery channel crew. they had done the tunnel filming with ed on tuesday night, today they did the above ground filming which included 2 of the “stars” rapelling down the empty light fixture holes from the catwalks. leighanne came along to watch. hopefully i got a few cool pictures of them doing it. they were going to let me give it a try, but i really just wanted to go home after a while, so when the time came for me to do it if i wanted to, i passed. then the sun came out finally, so instead of going home, i had to wait more for them to do the roof shots. it provided much entertainment for the local kids who shouted “jump” at them as they sat on the ledges up top. not that i didn’t enjoy my 7 hours there, but i hope they don’t need to do anymore shooting before they leave next week. haha. they have been good to me, bought me (and accomplises) 2 lunches, and today they paid me (!!), so i shouldn’t complain.

there are social activities going on tonight but i got a massive headache at the terminal which hasn’t gone away yet, despite taking 3 year old aleve i found in my purse and prescription pain killers when i got home a half hour or so ago. i might have to take a small nap so that i can function and maybe finally finish the BCT store and press kit….and do a load of laundry. and eat somewhere in there….maybe eating should be the first thing on my list…

woo it’s been a long 2 days… where to start

so the tunick photo shoot was on sunday. arrived at the terminal bright and early at 10am to process models and do crowd control, and fight protesters. i’m very disappointed that there weren’t any protesters LOL. surprisingly no one who sent mean emails and death threats to people involved in the project had the balls to actually show up on site. i guess the cause didn’t mean that much to them.

anyway. leighanne and james ended up participating in the shoot and i’m very happy and proud of both of them. rock on! the entire thing was an intersting experience, i can’t imagine what it feels like to actually be a part of the installation.

i’m so happy that it went off without a hitch and everything was done so smoothly. it makes me really proud of buffalo that we are so cool to do something like this, and really make it happen. the atmosphere was nothing but love and respect and it was really touching (and i didn’t even see what was going on inside). my wacked out emotions almost made me cry when russell’s daughter was explaining what it looked like inside (she was in with the media, russell was posing – she quickly ran the other way haha). the few media shots of the event are incredibly beautiful and i can’t wait to see what spencer ends up using in the future.

unfortunately i was/am sick and had to call into work.

so after the event ended, 6 of us (me, leigh, james, adr, mike and paul) headed out for a late lunch at the towne restaurant on allen, then to fugazi for a few cocktails before the after shoot party at mickey’s back near the terminal. it was really great to hear the 3 of them (paul posed as well) talk about how the whole thing felt, and what thoughts they had and everything.

the post party at mickey’s was originally supposed to be for the CTRC and Albright Knox volunteers who helped during the day, but spencer ended up inviting anyone who was in the shoot to attend. so there was a much bigger crowd than anticipated. we just hung out and talked, and all that. met with the people from the discovery channel, and talked to the attorney who represents the church of the transfiguration (haha oops). james and i stayed til 12:30 ish, when i took him home for the night.

today brought the discovery channel people to the terminal to take their camera crew around and plan for the actual filming this week. james came along for that too. just the general wandering around the terminal stuff, up to the roof(s), and then back to the baggage tunnels. it’s been a year since i’ve really been around that side of the property so it was cool to see it again. went to lunch with them, then said our goodbyes. they’ll be filming later this week.

about the show…i am now glad that i am not a part of it (i had wanted to submit a tape to actually be in the show). it is not turning out to be what i expected, and seems much more scripted (and thus lame) than i thought a “reality show on urbex” would be. my initial concerns about letting them film in bct reared their head again, and i told them what i didn’t approve of. they seem to be willing to work within that, so that’s cool. and they’re not going to the psych center (though they did get access grrrr), so i don’t have to kill them but they ARE going to the nabisco plant in niagara falls, and memorial auditorium which is just super cool.

so that’s about it. i’m exhausted. and sick. really, i am. i got a cold a few days ago, all stuffed up. and i don’t want to go to work today either, but i must. duty calls

so today was the big day. the 75th anniversary of the terminal. i think it’s safe to say it was a success. there were some things that could have gone smoother, but it was definitely good. had a good turn out, better than the picnic last year as this year it seemed to be a good crowd that was very steady most of the day. sold out of all the posters, most of the 75th shirts, and did very well. hopefully everyone else who was set up, or attended, had a good time. ninj and liz came, it was nice to formally meet them, since we met breifly at a tour last year. they gave me the raddest infiltration pin, and then i thought i lost it and i was very disgraught. but fret not! i found it YAY. coolest pin ever. met many more people who’s names i forgot as soon as they said them. i’m a jerk like that. i felt like an ass cuz i had to ask brent (documentary crew) his name, and we’ve talked at at least 5 events so far lol.

after finishing everything, doing clean up stuff, etc, me adr and leighanne went to buca’s for dinner…just like after the picnic last year. turned it into a tradition. good food as always.

quote of the day/night. from adrienne: “that’s why i couldn’t do medicine, i don’t fucking care, just die!” and you don’t want to know about anything else that was discussed on the way home LOL.

and in recap of the other days this week…dunno where i really left off. wednesday watched a movie i think was called “heaven”…it was in italian. it was pretty. thursday….oh yeah, back to the terminal for kiosk work and some set up. james came by thurs night and watched “se7en”. hadn’t watched it even tho i got the dvd a year or so ago. forgot how good it was, and how good of a psycho kevin spacey is. love the line at the end, “oh, he didn’t know.” hehe gives you chills. brilliant concept, i thought. friday was…sleeping in, procrastinating finishing my signs for today…called into work as planned, but went to jasen’s to play poker. and somehow miraculously i won. with a 4,5. actually i won it all with a 4, ace, and i didn’t win with a straight haha. so i got paid to call in sick, and then made money. win win situation hehe. good times.

i’m feeling momentarily better. we’ll see if this continues, i dropped the dosage again. headaches…every day. dunno if i’ll be able to stay off the meds, i’ll give it a few weeks to see if things even out in my brain. and i totally absolutely cannot sleep again. i’d say i lay in bed for at least a good 3 hours before falling asleep. and every single little noise wakes me up. i hate not sleeping. so we’re gonna have to take care of that somehow too. i got used to being able to sleep through most of the night while on the meds.

 

o.m.g. rea building. holy cow. ok so…was back at the terminal today to take some engineers through the building. when that was done, since we had 5 people, we decended upon the rea building to tackle the upstairs. we figure go to rea en masse and we’ll be safe against homeless ted.

i’m not so sure about that anymore. because homless ted is psychotic. no we didn’t run into him, just his aftermath. it’s really really absolutely fascinating. but completely insane. if you’ve seen session9, and watched the alternate ending, you’ll remember the camera panning back on a room with an interesting collection of items all organized and displayed on the floor. very artistic. very very weird. and lets just say ted had a bit of that. and it got better as we moved through the 2nd floor, where he had barriers of garbage and debris…very very very strange. i can’t even begin to comprehend it really. must take the photos to 1 hour tomorrow. gah.

and what the hell was i just watching on vh1. it was called the surreal life, and there COULD NOT be a more appropriate name. a reality show featuring….vanilla ice, ron jeremy…and tammy faye…!!! and erik estrada and a chick who’s name i didn’t catch. all living in a house real world style WTF!!!!!!!!!!!!!

the sad thing is…i dreamed about vanilla ice last night. that more specifically, he was dead, and the world was mourning.

and the even sadder thing is. i find vanilla ice to be an incredibly attractive man. he is just very good looking.