50 Couches in 50 Nights

My name is Dean MacKay. In June and July of 2010, I slept on 50 different couches in 50 consecutive nights. I took photographs of the couches, both as a couch and as my bed. I took portraits of my hosts and interviewed them. I documented their homes on film and digitally as well as in a journal. I was treated to home cooked meals and intimate secrets. I was cared for when I was ill and checked in on after I was long gone. There were sleepless nights and busy days and times spent discussing the past and dreaming about the future. I drank a lot of coffee at a lot of different coffee houses. There were old friends who became closer and acquaintances who I now call my friends. There were even strangers who invited me into their homes. Threads were woven among them all. My skills were honed as I practiced my craft on a daily basis. I learned many things about my hosts and I continue to learn many things about myself. These times are unforgettable. This journey was initially born out of necessity. The economic times had taken their toll. But the fruit of this labor is not simply financial. It is emotional and spiritual and societal. I tapped into something that is still developing. And as it develops I will share with you this knowledge as well as providing you a way to share it with others. I hope that you will support me as this journey continue and grows. I plan to unveil many things from this work including a coffee table book on the couches, and perhaps other books and a documentary. I'm also hoping to get the blog carried on a major website. Of course, and second project is also in the works although what form it will take has yet to be determined. Any assistance or advice that you can offer to further these projects is welcome. Your support, both financial and emotional, is crucial to my success. Thank You. © Dean MacKay 2010

50 Couches in 50 Nights has written 48 posts for 50 Couches in 50 Nights

Couch #8 – Jay – June 7th, 2010

Posted by 50 Couches in 50 Nights ⋅ June 18, 2010 ⋅ 1 Comment

Couch #8 belongs to Jay. It’s a boring couch, bought online 2 years from a company in Boston. It has a sister chair. It’s relatively comfortable. It ranks a 6 out of 10 for comfort in Jay’s book. Jay slept on it once. It is stain proofed. Jay lives in a 3 floor apartment complex in Hollywood, California. He works in marketing for the music industry and is a corporate sell-out type person. He likes camping, going to the beach and anything to do with water. Jay still plays soccer once in a while, as well as video games. He is interested in anthropology, music, and design and likes to make shit for fun. Jay is pretty tame. People usually think he is weird or eccentric, but he is pretty normal. We met at the Burgundy Room through our mutual friend Nico (see Couch #6) on Movie Night, probably in the late ‘90’s. We don’t see each other as much as we used to, but we have a good relationship. Jay’s current favorite song is “Don’t Let Me Down” by the Beatles. He like the film “Excalibur”. He is always down for pasta, any kind of pasta. He has a positive prediction for the project. It will at very least be a personal success. It is something both he and and I will always remember. Jay would probably not have let a stranger stay on his couch, but that’s probably due more to laziness.

When I left Buffy’s house it was midday and as I still had keys to Nico’s place and he was still out of town, I headed there to work for the day. I made pit stop at Trader Joe’s for some fresh squeezed orange juice, a vitamin water drink, and some Tejava iced tea. I also picked up a yogurt. As I had had a full breakfast and expect to have a full dinner, a yogurt would tide me over. I also still had a parking pass for Nico’s neighborhood, so I was able to park right out front of his place. I unloaded the usual things including my laptop bag, my clothes and toiletries bag, and my box of cameras. I settled at his desk a plugged away at emails, blogging, facebook, and any number of other things that eat up one’s time. Now that I was blogging and moving around every day, my time was getting eaten up much easier than it had been before. This will be a theme for this project, and I’ll discuss time management in another blog. Hours passed and before I knew it was time to head out to the my next couch at the home of my good friend Jay.

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