I Let My Fists Do The Talkin’

Another week without stuffing my head in an oven? What could be the reasoning that keeps me barely clinging to an empty and pointless a life?

Boom!

(More episodes of Bartender at crunchyroll.com. You have to register, but it’s free.)

In America, to build a show around a bar you load in a lot of wacky mismatched characters and push the drinking into the background and call it “Cheers” (or “Archie’s Place” if you’re a fool). In Japan, you build a show around a “magic” robot-like bartender with dead eyes who solves social ills and the specific life-changing problems of middle-aged salarymen by name-dropping specific brand’s histories and then making gussied-up cocktails. It definitely goes in the “why would anyone make this” category as well as the “who is the audience for this?” category.

The most telling “what the hell” feature is Mitch Magee told me before we knew this show existed a pitch for a 102 show that was almost identical to this show.

I also thrill that it’s animated and NOTHING HAPPENS. There’s no location changes… it’s basically a play with a heavy dose of instructional film (the cartoon Bartender makes the drink, they show the recipe at the end and then under the closing credits a faceless live-action bartender also makes the drink). And as the episodes go in it gets weirder with characters from previous episodes reappearing in jumpcuts to narrate the story as a weird sort of Greek Chorus.

I also love listening to Japanese voice actors glide through Engrish prononciations of “Gin & Tonic” and “Drambuie,” etc.

Click to view “Being Glenn”

Finally, someone got around to recording 79 covers of my favorite song.

WFMU collects “Popcorn”

(and also popcorn-song.com)

Shot. Cut. Exported. Submitted.

So, what’s been keeping me from hanging myself lately? Well, I’ve actually become terribly addicted to this British comedy/quiz show, which is of the model of those “Whaddya Know” and “My Word!” NPR crap. There’s hundreds of episodes on YouTube in 5-9 minute chunks and I’ve watched 3 season’s worth

I’m surprised to see the creator of “Sniglets” on this show (and many original Who’s Line players, now 15 years older and crappier looking), who apparently has become the toast of British comedy. I also learned that Matt Groening has commented in interviews that the character of Moe on The Simpsons was inspired by Rich Hall. (On Inside the Actor’s Studio, Max Azaria said the voice was an Al Pacino impression done with extra rasp)

My other apple-a-day keeping Final Exit at bay is the 1950 hit “A Smile and A Ribbon” by sister singers Patience & Prudence. It was a plot point in the comic Ghost World (and the movie as well, I think, but I don’t remember) and the flip of the 45 was the even creepier song “Tonight You Belong to Me” which was featured in The Jerk and also apparently is on John Water’s new CD. Anyway, “A Smile and A Ribbon” is the song for this pretty great British Lottery commercial and for the longest time, the only copy of the song I could find online… artificially crackled and tinny sounding as it is.

I’m still getting over my “flu” or what I now believe to be a secret conspiracy between two illnesses simultaneously to infiltrate my body. I started to get cold symptoms on Thursday—sore throat and headache and took zinc and ate what I thought would be a comforting hot meal at the Comfort Diner. One of those two things set off a 4-day riot of stomach upset/food poisoning which ended on Sunday. I now am picking up where I left off with standard cold symptoms, which I will heavily be dosing with Dayquil/Nyquil/Vodkaquil with no breaks ‘til it breaks.

I am “working” again, which means sitting in a hot cubicle and not talking to anyone or doing anything for six hours a day. In case you think I’m lazy for coming in after 11, I could easily stretch that to nine hours of doing nothing, but I’m giving the company a break on paying me those extra hours. I suspect I will be laid off again, especially since my supervisor of the last two weeks just left for another job leaving no one around to tell me I have nothing to do.

In preparation for that and also to fill my time, I’m trying to assemble a new portfolio of my work with 12-or-so of each design and illustration work (24 total, to be split in two collections) I have an actual physical portfolio (thing with a handle) which I’ve never used for anything, so I’m going to make the best use of my time (and the office’s color printer). I’m also going to redo the site one of these days and limit the pieces on the site to just those 24 and direct people to go to flickr if they want to see the rest of it.

I have an idea of what I want to put in and some “greatest hits” from my earlier portfolios, but let me know what you’d want to see if you were a client, I guess. I also am not opposed to creating some new stuff just for the portfolio… God knows I have time…

Here’s quick links to Flickr.

Newest Work
Illustration Stuff
Design Stuff

I bought a wig for a shoot this weekend.

The style name is “Patchy II”

I woke up with a sore throat and by 1 PM I could barely stand up. This is the fastest I’ve ever gone from healthy to ill. I’ve thrown up, I think, six times tonight… all over the new messenger bag I just bought on Monday. The few attempts I’ve made to take some pills were met with immediate vomiting. My stomach’s all like “Oh no, you di’n’t” as soon as the Pepto Bismal chewable tablet I found in the bottom of the medicine cabinet hit my mouth.

I’m trying to pin point whether this is the flu or food poisoning.