I Let My Fists Do The Talkin’

For the first time since the ‘72 Olympics, the mascots are not barfy*.

Kawaii powerhouses meomi designed 3 (or 4) bizarre Canadian creatures for the 2010 Olympiad in Vancouver, including a half-orca half-bear which looks like a skunk with a faux hawk. But, by god, theyare cuuuuuuute!

*I concede Hodori the Korean tiger was ok, but he was no Waldi. Also, he seems to have eaten his mate—there was a girl tiger mascot initially who vanished completely with no explanation.

Welcome to my Study is currently on the front page of FunnyorDie.com. Please vote “funny.”

I almost wrote “FurryorDie” which would be a different sort of site.

If you haven’t already read it, check out Mitch’s blog post about performing at the Andy Kaufman Awards in Las Vegas in which he was a finalist based on the Andy-ness of Study.

P.S.—I did not alter this, which someone accused me of. This is the actual packaging.

I read an article about LastExittoNowhere.com in the Times, a guy who makes logo’ed shirts for fictitious companies and products from famous movies.

He does a Hudsucker shirt (The Hudsucker Proxy is my favorite movie released within my lifetime, despite its many faults), which is weird enough since as far as I know it hasn’t generated a gen-X cult the way other Coen Bros movies have.

I actually like it less than many on the site, just because Hudsucker Industries wouldn’t make a shirt in 1959 (the year the film takes place in), and if they made it in the 80s or later, they would have changed their logo. (Hudsucker Industries still exists in the 80s because H.I. works there in Raising Arizona in the opening montage.)

Still, I was impressed the Hud’ made the cut.

http://www.foxsearchlight.com/thesavages/

I do not want to see this movie. I saw the trailer withThe Darjeeling Limited along with 5 other trailers that looked exactly like it. Earnest, shaky-cam lowfi indie film cliches. But, look at the gorgeous Chris Ware artwork on the poster! (Fanatgraphics cartoonists doing movie posters is a semi-cliche as well… Happiness, etc.)

Chris Ware portraiture! His machine-like precision lettering… slightly old-fashioned but not really placable into any “past.” The rigid sterility of the poster totally at odds at the soppy emotive family drama of the movie it represents. This poster is movie of the year.

If you need to see a movie called Savages, see this one instead… it has Sam Waterson in a loin cloth.

I really want to a space future video series. Maybe retro-future, like Barbarella, and use Thai restaurants as my shooting locations.

Thai restaurant interiors in NY look like spaceships.

Will Hines and I did yoga today We are unlikely yoga people… people least like to do yoga, so we went together to cancel each other out. He had actually done it twice before, I was a total novice.

We went to Om NYC where they had a super basic intro course for $5. I pulled my shoulder almost immediately doing the least strenuous move of the class. Like putting my hands above my head. And anything where I had to support any portion of my weight on my hands, I felt like my wrists were about to snap in two. I have the dainty wrists and fingers of a 90 year old Southern belle.

The 90 minute class passed pretty quickly and the teacher was very normal and non judgmental and not hippie-ish, but there was some kind of questionable music played at some point. I guess they do what they can to offset the almost constant sirens outside. It makes me think—environmentally—people just shouldn’t do yoga in New York City. It doesn’t go. Like ordering Chinese takeout in Maine… don’t do it. They’re going to fuck it up.

I would go back even though I don’t quite know how I feel about it. I know I should be doing something like yoga… something exercisey or physical or calming or whatever, but the cool down meditation where we were supposed to just be calm and breathing I couldn’t shake a weird creeping depression that made me feel much worse than when I walked in. Not an intellectual depression like “I suck at yoga” or “I’m wasting my life” but an emotive non-specific feeling like being dropped into a tank of slightly uncomfortably cold water.

On the plus side, at least no one was jerking off in the class.

I like hand-lettering a lot, especially the kinda off not-too-slick kind where you can tell it wasn’t done on the computer. I attempted it (and then over-burdened it with photoshop effects) in this “Longest Sketch Show Ever” logo:

To see a real pro and sweet hand-lettering, check out the artist Linzie Hunter takes inspiration from SPAM headlines and renders them as whimsical art

The SPAM I get tends to be much dirtier. And in Chinese. Still my top headline: “Punish her meat tunnel with your husky third leg”... which my mail viewer cut off the last two words of making the horrific “Punish her meat tunnel with your husky”

I am not a member of the Writer’s Guild, but there’s currently a strike going on. I hope to be a member (soon) and I am currently unemployed, so I went out.

Today I walked the picket line at Chelsea Piers on the west side of Manhattan where they make Law & Order. I didn’t know they made Law & Order there until today. It was pretty cold out, something picketers in Los Angeles don’t have to worry about. When you’re picketing two things happen… trucks honk at you showing support (truck drivers like unions and they like honking) and people give you free cookies and coffee all day.

Do picketers in Los Angeles get free coffee? They don’t need it, it’s hot there. Maybe they get free sunblock or something.

The show-runners from Law & Order (a Show-runner is like a combo producer-writer that manages the day-to-day of making a show and as a result they’re kind in the middle of this writers vs. producers stalemate) kept sending out boxes and boxes of really fancy cookies and brownies for us. (Like from Elenis and Fat Witch… fancy!) Then as I moved from one area of the picket to another I saw The Belz handing out hot meatball subs to people on the line. THE BELZ

The Belz did not call anyone “cutie” but he referred to his two dogs that had with them as “children”—“C’mon, children,” he said as he walked off. Dick Wolf was also there, also walking a dog.

We also had a big inflatable rat, but its eyes had been rubbed off. Everyone was really nice and a good time was had by all. The End.

I was thinking about going to the Writer’s Strike picket tomorrow at Chelsea Piers. I’m not a WGA member, but I’ve registered scripts with them and have gone to free movies during awards season as a “guest” of a member, so it may be time to give back my precious, precious, valuable unemployed time.

In other news, the Cakey production irritations chug on full steam ahead. Trying to schedule about four different shoots this month, each with a different set of people who need to be at them. I am in need of two locations—
1. A doctor’s office
2. A large emptyish “hall” room that could have a bake sale in it.

I may have to rent a rehearsal space for #2 which might be the second greatest expense of the shooting, aside from renting a dozen costumes for another episode. If anyone has resources or recommendations for either of these locations, I’d appreciate your help. Email me through the link on the upper left.
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Channel 102 audiences, you finally did something right. All pretty good shows in the top 5 at last month’s screening, and esoteric/no-plot Mister Glasses took #2 (three votes shy of #1) despite the 90% absence of the cast of the show and it being the cold opener of the night. Cheers to you!

So, I wrote a post yesterday twice and both times my internet connection crashed and took the post with it. So I got frusterated and didn’t try a third time. I’ll retro-post it later, but it still counts as being written on Sunday.

Today is my first day of unintentional unemployment (as opposed to taking a day off) since I was laid off at the ad agency on Halloween. Well, they told me to leave on Friday and don’t come back. I was surprised but relieved since after 3 months I was getting really irritated and stir crazy. I also have mounting obligations with the new Cakey series, which will be on SuperDeluxe.com at the beginning of next year. We have one episode entirely shot, one episode 1/3 done, one episode written but not shot, and one episode as an outline.

Come to 102 tonight and I will answer more Cakeyrelated inquiries, but only if you vote for Mitch Magee’s new show Mister Glasses, which I appear in and was present at the first imaginings of this summer. And it was edited on my computer while I was at work, so I will claim producer credit. Also, for more Mitch Mageerealted news, that Andy Kaufman award thing I posted about? He’s a finalist. Nice job, readers.

I saw a documentary on Groucho Marx yesterday, and it must have been an old one since they interviewed Bill Cosby on the set of the Cosby show. Groucho was 40 years old when Coconuts was filmed (and he was the youngest of the “funny” Marx bros.) and it reminded me of a different American Experience show I saw on Lucille Ball that mentioned SHE was 40 when I Love Lucy premiered. Based on this pool of two examples, all from more than 50 years ago, I will unscientifically state that comedians get their breaks late in life. Bad science!

I got this on ebay, this very deck.

For the last couple months I’ve been re-obsessed with the card game Mille Bornes, which I was last most interested when I first moved in NY almost 10 years ago. It’s was game nerds call a “take that! game” (not to be confused with the British boy band that unleashed Robbie Williams on the world) since most of what you do while playing it is fuck your opponent over and stop them from advancing. This game is also French (or Belgian, according to the “made in” tag) and the cards are labeled in French and English, so not only are you a dick while playing it, you can be a dick who speaks French. Coup Fourré, shithead!

If you’re not able to be schooled by me in person*, I suggest downloading MacBornes, which is a nice piece of openware. It lacks the charm of the 1964 deck (pictured above), which features unusually chosen animals to represent the mile cards (50 km = goose?) and great 3 color graphics, but isn’t nearly as hideous as my 1988 deck which I won’t befoul my scanner with its shitty “roadside icon” illustrations. I own two Mille Bornes decks, shithead!

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*The random distribution of cards almost entirely determines the winner in most cases—80% chance, 20% skill, from my experience.

I am super psyched that The Secret Life of Machines are all up online on this site. What Connections is to history, Secret Life is to well, a different kind of history. Engineering history?

And there’s crappy limited/cut-out animation drawn by the presenter himself, who is an absolute twee dreamboat. I like that if he stumbles on a line they just keep going. And a lot of the male cartoon characters have female voices. Just ‘cause. Oh English edutainment programs, I love you!

Watch them all!

Nikolaschka Pillkallen