The Blog Thingie
Boys Club?
Brooklyn-based Hasidic newspaper “Der Zeitung” felt it necessary to edit Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and National Security team member Audrey Tomason out of the now famous White House Situation Room “Death of Osama bin Laden” photo. Apparently some religious groups still find it offensive that women work alongside men and believe a few strokes of the Photoshop “clone tool” can somehow make it not so. I have no doubt these same people spend hours of their day trying to figure out how to chisel the breasts off the Statue of Liberty or arguing that, by getting a lot of women out of the work place, Hitler did “some good.” Do we really need to tolerate bigotry in the name of religion in 2011? In the United States?? Even Fred Phelps lets women carry the “God Hates Fags” signs for heaven sake. Maybe in the world of close-minded, extremist, nut-bags Westboro Baptist Church is considered “progressive.”
Well, in an attempt to balance out the actions of “Der Zeitung,” I offer my own version of the White House photo. Edited so that all of the players are women. Not pretty but you get the point.
Give Blood
I’m heading out today to do some touch-up airbrushing on one of the Chattanooga Bloodmobiles. I like working with the fine folks at Blood Assurance. I’m wondering if maybe I should try mixing some of my own blood into the airbrush paint so the artwork can sort of be like the old KISS comic books that had blood from the band mixed into the printing ink. Man that would rock! Okay, maybe not.
Blow Me
According to a New York Times blog, FOX has decided to postpone a “hurricane episode” of The Family Guy out of respect to those affected by the storms in the south. Apparently FOX doesn’t think we know the difference between a hurricane and a tornado down here in the south. Well, I guarantee every person who ran for their lives, took shelter, lost property or lost friends and family knew very well they were being slammed by a tornado, not a hurricane. Maybe FOX just thought it would be a good idea to postpone for awhile anything that blew large volumes of destructive wind. They should pull FOX News for a few weeks.
The Baldwins
It’s a rare thing in this day and age to find good, quality improv comedy. Rarer still to find such comedy from a group of people willing to go through whatever means necessary to drag your family name through the muck and mire. Such is the case of The Baldwins, an improvisational comedy troupe from New York City. When I think about how hard my grandfather Baldwin and his father Baldwin and his father Baldwin (and so on..) toiled to keep the Baldwin name spotless, only to be sullied by this band of big city jokesters and their little skits, I want to wretch. But only because they refuse to let me join their improv group. It doesn’t seem to matter how many emails I send or how much I beg. At any rate, enjoy this video of The Baldwins before my dad drives up there and kicks their ass.
Freddie Mercury Photoshop Caricature
This is my first attempt at creating a caricature using nothing but Adobe Photoshop filters and features. Although I prefer the traditional way of exaggerating and distorting by hand-drawn methods, this is the direction caricature illustration seems to be going. While I can see myself exploring this method in much more depth, I think my use for it will probably be as a foundation or reference for the beginning caricature drawing or painting. Then again, maybe I’ll grow to love it enough to make it my specialty. Let’s find out.
Automatic
I’m convinced that auto mechanics are the universe’s most observant beings. I know, I know, it’s impossible to conclude this just from watching them. It certainly appears as if they have no idea that 3/4 of their grease-stained underwear is hiked up above their trousers. This is all part of the mobile machine laborer’s secret deception.
The fact is, I’m mesmerized at the uncanny ability these seemingly mere mortals have to diagnose each and every problem of my car with only a quick scan of their hawk-like eyes. I’m fascinated by their immediate knowledge that, when I come in for a change of spark plugs, I also need a new rear axle. Just this week my Subaru was receiving a much needed oil change when “Lloyd” helpfully offered, “While I’m down here I can see yer transmission don’t look too good. I can fix ye up fer ’bout seven hunnert if ye got some exter time.” I marveled, not only at his automotive skills but also his crafty use of authentic King James English.
Don’t think I don’t appreciate this kind of service. On the contrary, I often wish other professions would be as equally helpful. For example, it would be nice to hear my hairstylist say, “I’m going to take a little more off the top… and while I’m up here I can see you need some neuro-brain surgery. For an extra fifty grand I can fix ye right up.”
Believe it or not, there was a time when folks didn’t get this type of treatment. I can remember when I was a youngster riding to the mechanic in my Grandfather’s old Ford Falcon. Grandpa would steer into the garage, lean out of the window and yell, “Need a fan belt!” Before the Nutty Buddy could drip all the way down my elbow, a single fan belt was installed and paid for without a second auto malady diagnosed. I chuckle now as I remember those were also the days you couldn’t screw off a bottle cap or call your best friend “Dude.”
I wonder what pandemonium you would cause if you went to an auto mechanic and pretended to be an escaped mental patient. You could drive your car up and babble “Put a new muffler on my car! No new tail pipe! No new universal joint! No new dash board! Just a muffler! Do it now and no one gets hurt!” Being concerned professionals, they would be forced to talk you out of this. “Calm down, sir,” they would say. “Let’s be rational. No one has only a muffler installed anymore. Now let’s slowly and carefully take a look at that distributor.”
Why can’t today’s mechanics be more like Goober and Gomer Pyle from The Andy Griffith Show? Whenever anyone came in to “Wally’s Garage” for repairs, Goob and Gome fixed the problem immediately and got the customer out in a hurry. Then they would go hang around Floyd’s or serve as temporary deputies. What rubes! They had no way of knowing that technology would become so advanced that mechanics would one day have to keep your car for hours or even days in order to become aware of every leak, crack, pull and fray. Or that a person would never again be able to find a accessible retail source for that freaky Jughead hat.
It’s wonderful to live in an age where advanced knowledge and skill makes everything less complicated. If only my Grandpa were still alive. He would be amazed at what today’s mechanics could do to that old Falcon.
Why I Cannot Wear A Dress
Late August of 1972 my entire family was brutally tortured, then slaughtered by a teal and beige casual sport dress. It was a thigh-length, sleeveless with round neckline and princess seams on the front and reverse. Authorities said the dress buttoned all the way down the back. To make matters worse, it was a size 8 (by all accounts it was a very high-end, quality garment). Before 1980 crimes by dresses were rarely reported in this country. Most victims of dress crimes were too embarrassed or intimidated to come forward. I had no choice. My entire family laid in pools of their own blood, scattered throughout our modest ranch home; victims of outer-wear violence. I alone was spared that brutal day. I had spent the summer at a special camp for children who couldn’t tan. Little did I know, before that summer was over I would be orphaned, severely depressed, and gain an intense distrust of women’s clothing. The investigation of the crime took almost three years but eventually the perpetrator was discovered on a rack at a consignment store in Atlanta. The dress was put on trial, convicted and given the death sentence. In April of 1986, after serving almost ten years on death row, the dress was cut up into hand towels and various scraps. Even though I know justice was done in this case, you now know the reason that, to this day, I cannot wear a dress.
I Love You, You Freak.
There is a scene in the movie Untamed Heart where Christian Slater’s character “Adam” tells Marisa Tomei’s “Caroline” that, for some time now, he has been sneaking into her bedroom and watching her sleep.
Contemplate for a second the wild-haired, socially-retarded oddball Adam, sitting on the nightstand in a gape-mouthed gawk while the tiny, sweet, vulnerable Marisa Tomei slumbers, completely unaware. Now see if you can keep your freaking skin from crawling off your entire skeletal structure.
As daft and demented as you and I might consider this ding-dong behavior, when Adam drops his sicko bombshell on Caroline, she takes it in with the unabashed awe of someone who has just been told she looks “mighty cute in them jeans.”
“You watch me sleep? Why?” she sheepishly asks, piano music tinkling in the background.
“You… have a peace. I don’t have peace,” Adam replies with a glazed-over stare.
Well, thank you, Mr Bundy, for actually admitting you are, in fact, an unzipped nutbag.
I wish I could say that Caroline instantly hoses the nocturnal peeping perv down with industrial-grade pepper spray but, no, that would be an unsentimental and way-too-obvious choice. Instead, she seems to be curiously fascinated and maybe even more than a little bit turned-on by the revelation.
Adam continues in his exposé, confessing that all of his dreams are filled with images of suffocation and despair and that Caroline is his only source of peace. This, of course brings Caroline to tender tears. She tenderly touches his scarred chest and they immediately, and with great tenderness, make out on the porch swing.
Now, before I go on, let me get this out of the way. I like this movie. I own this movie. I’ve watched it more than once and I’ll watch it again. I wish I had Christian Slater’s hair and overcoat and if I could figure out any possible way to make it happen, I sure as hell would sit for hours and watch Marisa Tomei sleep. I wouldn’t even care if she drools. Seriously. Marisa, if you are reading this, I just want you to know I’m really quiet, I won’t touch any of your stuff and I’ll let myself out around 3:30 or 4:00. Email me.
But that’s beside the point.
The thing that really skarks my skivvies is this Hollywood tradition of the scary, yet romantic, leading men who continually bag the hotties doing the very things we regular guys get a Birkenstock up the hieney for trying. Freaks with minimum wage jobs, living in cellars, driving 70s model cars, make gorgeous women love-loopy simply because they carry around a book of Pablo Neruda poems, know where to find Cassiopeia in the constellation and piss the girl’s name in the snow in a quaint Edwardian Script font, All supported by a John Mayer soundtrack.
Moronic dorks like Will Ferrell and Jack Black should need the special effects budget of a Peter Jackson film to make them appealing to women like Maggie Gyllenhaal and Kate Winslet but in Hollyworld they have no difficulty at all. John Cusak could play an out-of-work, halitosis suffering ex-con, show up at an antique shop slathered in hog bile and still get lucky with Rachel McAdams before sundown. Even Forrest Gump got laid. By Robin Wright, for crap’s sake.
I guess I’m ranting so loud about this because I really, really, REALLY wanted to be one of those sensitive, romantic, outsider-guys. I tried it. I left my hair unkemt for days, wore mismatched Chuck Taylor sneakers, rode a bicycle around delivering roses to strangers, held radios up to bedroom windows and worked in menial jobs where I pretty much kept to myself except when I saw a friendly Golden Lab that I just seemed to understand on a level where language was unnecessary. Never once did I attract the intrest of a leading lady, prom queen, socialite, debutante, cutie-pie or sweetheart. The closest I ever came was, once in a mall, Hollywood screen legend Patricia Neal looked up and smiled at me. But I’m pretty sure it was only because she thought I was the guy coming to take her to go pee pee.
So here I am and here I shall remain. Single-outcast-quirky-artist-geek living in a musty apartment with a closet full of thrift-store clothes and my too-friendly Golden Lab. Obviously I still don’t know what the hell women are looking for. Anyone wanna buy a book of poetry and a ’79 Chevy Malibu real cheap?