I Let My Fists Do The Talkin’

Let this set the tone for the coming year…

Some kind soul converted all of the “Science Songs” into MP3s!

http://www.acme.com/jef/singing_science/

The “Space Songs” LP is probably my finest thrift score of my high school years.

Still hammering away at the 102 site. Here’s as far as I’ve gotten on the front page:

(Further screenshots as the site develops are on the 102 Forum)

This is the direction we’re going in for the 102 logo for 2007—

Still hammering out the particulars of the site relaunch.

Spaghetti Ice Cream

I haven’t been this excited about a novelty food product since the octo-dog.

(I wasn’t all that excited, really.)

I can’t remember if I’ve mentioned it here before, but I actually was working this fall… at a pharmacutical ad agency, no less, doing shit graphic work for a yet-to-be-released diabetes drug. (I also found out that a rival company’s diabetes drug was derived from… komodo dragon saliva. That’s pretty much the best tagline for any drug—“100% Free of Lizard Spit”—watch those prescriptions fly off the shelves)

Pharma companies are probably number 2 or 3 with a bullet on the grand list of most evil corporations, but at least diabetes exist and is a legitimate cause for medication (even if it was “type 2” brought on my fatty overindulgence)... unlike the other drug being advertised by our floor which I overheard one copywriter describe as “a drug that doesn’t work for a condition that doesn’t exist.” I also learned that most copywriters in the “ad game” are assholes. Or terribly boring. It’s a 50/50 split between those categories.

Anyway, I got about 3 months in before they wanted to cut back the runaway budget by canning every freelancer they could. I just missed the ax before Thanksgiving, but only eked out another week before being shitcanned. They say they’ll ask me back later on, but who knows.

This week I was back to doing nothing, but a little birdie gave me a week of PA work on a Brides magazine photoshoot. I’ll have to squeeze next week’s drinking into this weekend. And get my wedding dress pressed, since I assume that’s the uniform worn by all employees of Brides magazine.

In other news, it’s terribly terribly cold outside.

So, I got these new shoes… from Zappos. Believe the hype, it’s great shopping site—good idea, well run. I assume they’re losing money with the free shipping and free returns jazz or if they are in fact making money, within a year they’ll have some bubble-bursting terrible Kozmo.com-type implosion. (I used to work for Kozmo.com part-time in college.)

In the interest of fair balance, I’d also say that their rival shoes.com is indistinguishable. I also bought shoes there and the service was similarly excellent. Plus, they wrap it with a printed packaging tape with “shoes.com” written over and over, leading to juvenile-hilarious/unfortunate boxes like this:

My shoes are green booties, really… very Robin of Sherwood. They don’t seem very warm or padded, but they’re slip on and slouchy and have ultra-cool extraneous straps on thes. Like keds wrapped in the corpse of Kermit the Frog.

I’ll be taking them on the town tonight to see what the man on the street thinks.

According to iTunes, I listened to “Georgie Girl” by the New Seekers 35 times today.

I may be mentally ill.

This weekend Mitch, Doc and their friends went for dinner and drinks in Williamsburg to celebrate their birthdays (Doc and Mitch, not the friends).

One highlight was having “Better Things” turn up on Barcade’s house music and the friends (not my friends, their friends) call it as “Cakey’s theme” and another was Mitch’s fevered pitch for a new show called Dudes with Attitudes which involved him doing kung-fu in front of a read-projected tsunami, but the conversation inevitable turned to the phenomenon of “smoked vaginas.” Not for eating, mind you… it’s a common “spa” practice in Indonesia that a friend of a friend at the party had tried where in the subject sits on some sort of port-o-potty type chair as a crucible of flaming herbs emits fragrant smoke right up in your business, leaving the subject with a herby, dried-out and one would assume slightly more Prosciutto-like set of genitals.

Well, risking having an easily mis-interpreted cache on my browser (leading to some ‘splaining to do when someone—probably a haughty, easily offended Margaret Dumont type—types an “s” into my google and it immediately suggests “smoked vagina”), I looked it up. It is a real thing. And here’s the info—
http://www.siecus.org/inter/connection/conn0058.html

I went back to Northern VA for Thanksgiving last week and also had the opportunity to meet up with Hunter Christy and Austin Bragg who make Defenders of Stan on 102 for drinks at a depressing Arlington mall I used to hang out in when I was 12. One of the first things Hunter brought up was, “What the hell is that naked woman picture in your blog?”

Well, this is what it is:

As to what “Nancy Friday’s My Secret Garden” is… don’t ask.

I saw some dude on the subway who looked like a Dan Clowes drawing. Like, exactly.

Not Ice Haven/Boring era Clowes, more like pre-Ghost World/Lloyd Llewellen era.

Stick-out ears. Prominent front teeth. Small pointed nose. Bulging watery eyes locked in a nervous/panicked expression.

I asked him to marry me.

I’m still working days at an ad agency in mid town, so the interesting illustrations have taken a backseat lately. I also can’t update my blog at work (I forgot the password… not any jobly prohibition).If I get that together maybe they’ll be more updates… so look forward to that three blog readers and various Apiary-linked passers-by.

A pretty slavish vector recreation of Edvard Munch’s “Madonna” for a flyer job. This is the first part of a virtual collage (they’ll be a texture over it and other elements—type, etc), so I haven’t deviated much from the original at this stage, except to make it shinier. Thanks, CS2 blur filter.

This will be my Xmas card when it’s done.

This is NOT from the Scared of Santa gallery below, but rather something I found on Flickr by searching “santa” and “crying”. I still have some details to add, but I really like how superflat and monotone everything is, even in the original photo is. And that creepy faceless santa with a blank expression; priceless.

I also wanted to adapt this family’s xmas photo from 1977, maybe as a cartoonier illustration. I’m trying to drop this photo-based jazz as a style, I think it’s really “done.”

Suck it, grandma.

The Scared of Santa Gallery

Battle of the color blocks!

I’ve been freelancing during the day for the last three weeks at an ad agency. Just like my last (limited) full time employment, there’s far more “waiting” time than working time, though at the ad agency most days there’s a mad crush of this-must-be-done-and-in-switzerland-by-breakfast work at like 5 PM, making most everyone stay until 10 or 11 or Midnight randomly. So… it is what it is.

I’ve been taking little flyer jobs and what not, mostly to fill up downtime so I don’t get too bitter and resentful that I’m not at home watching my Prisoner of Second Avenue netflix that just came.

(I had a delightful experience of irony opening a netflix rental of Casino Royale (Peter Sellers/David Niven/Orson Welles/Burt Bacharach score) and have the envelope inside plastered with new Casino Royale. I hope Woody Allen reprises his role in the remake. I actually think he should reprise all of his original comic roles now. Seing a frail elderly Woody jumping around in Take The Money And Run 2 can’t be any worse that whatever Woody Allen Summer Project 2007 will end up being. I’m just saying.)

(Another heavily ironic experience was walking by the newly opened Cafe Fuego and seeing billows of black smoke and flames pouring out of the patio. Their jack-o-lantern got away from them and legitimized the name of the place.)

Anyway, this is a new business card commissioned by Nate Shelkey. If you want to see the back, you’ll have to have some business with him and exchange cards.

Now to get Simon-ized with The P of 2nd A.

Dumb audience! This time last year, my co-production of The First Steps was the “top failed pilot” at 102 (top loser, you mean) and killed by three stupid votes.

Now, yesterday, the same thing happened again with Good Taste. Good Taste, aside from being a million times better than First Steps, seemed to go over better than some shows that placed above it in the laughs-per-minute tally. My conclusion—Audience be stupid. And they hate fine dining. And mimes and ghosts.

Now off to make my movie-of-the-week heartstring tugger Being Glenn, about a child molestor who works at an elite New England prep school.

I get so bored on the weekend. I never know what to do.

First, the bad news… there will be no Captain Conspiracy this month at 102… despite that graphic telling you otherwise below. For reasons why, ask me in person as they are potentially slanderous and not fit for googled blog entries.

The GOOD NEWS is GOOD TASTE, my other 102 submission is IN, but definitely probably a hard sell for the audience, unless a particularly snobby New York Times Sunday Styles-reading crew packs the audience. So, if you like ME (and the New York Times Sunday Styles section), you should come and vote for it blindly.

CHANNEL 102
Monday, Nov. 6th, 8pm at Tribeca Cinemas ($5)

“Awww, applesauce”