Martino and George packed it all up today and Gary and I went from “seein’ orange” to seeing a Factory Floor of many, many colors. Those bindings got the best of us. Lots of clicking around in Illustrator CS2. Top Secret designs. Hand-crafted in Italy, very soon. Approved by all us later on in September far away in Italy, in the Colico valley’s fall shade.

Gary barely made it out from the vice grips off the Union development machine. Barely. We put up a good fight with our Union Binding Company brethren.

It was 96 degrees today.

The DDC Factory Floor was 71 degrees.

One year ago today, I would’ve been cussin’ and spittin’ and sweatin’, all at the same time. “Trench foot,” “trench mouth” and the ever-dilapidating “trench ass” would’ve been the topics of discussion on this forum.

Our summer is kicking into high gear. The work is piled high. No light at the end of the tunnel. Darkness, fear, conditioned air, etc. Basically, we’ll come out from underneath this mountain of design challenges—we hope—sometime in mid-September. Maybe.

The machines are all on. The electricity hums. A printer silently waits for its turn to produce. The scanner scans. The megabytes and ram and little wires all seem to be getting’ along real good, considering the amount of wear-n-year and general abuse we’ve handed down.

Drums are being played. Today we conquered, “Pilot Can at the Queer of God” by those goddamned Flaming Lips. Turn it up. Think about us rocking to that one. The blood pumps, as does our kick drum. I wish I could play—even with 1/100 of the talent—like Steven Drozd of those Lips. I try, with a hair of success. Weird beats. Surprises. Crashes. Magic.

Still on a dangerous Smog kick, with “A River Ain’t Too Much Love” topping the charts on the DDC Factory Floor. Quite possibily the “album of the summer” for us. Maybe. It’s good. Take our half-assed word for it. Even my mom is a fan of this album. No shit.