Ill diorama maker

The wife is sick (i'm ashamed that I gave her my illness), so I'm helping her post about the diorama she made. Here are pictures:


oh wait... that's my thinning hair... but she helped make that too...here's her diorama:












Something about this reminds me of the artwork from The Yellow Submarine (oh man, I think it's time to pull that out and watch it again... anybody wanna join me?!)
Our friends from out of town saw the diorama (and The Wifest's half complete diorama sitting in our house) and decided to go home and make their own. They declare dioramas to be the new knitting!

Now the artist will say a few words:

"personal nostalgia is very important to me. how can i enjoy positive aspects of my childhood? by dio-ing bitches!"

...well, that wasn't as much insight into her piece as I had hoped for, but you get the point.

Christopher Reeve: Man of Amazing Faces

We're watching the Christopher Reeve Superman movies. They're not aweful. They're fun enough. In Superman 3, Superman is exposed to something that's not quite kryptonite and it makes him go evil... blowing out the olympic torch and straightening the Leaning Tower of Pisa! Christopher Reeve looks soooo different when he is evil... he doesn't look at all like himself, and it's amazing. I shan't say anymore as McMüller has done an amazing job for us already at Crude Futures, complete with animated gifs!

Man, it took me forever to figure out how to link that!

the red tent

last night we went to "broadway under the stars" with the mytouchos'. it was really fun, i got a few bug bites, saw a million people i knew, and had a generally excellent time. the finale included the patron saint of broadway, liza minelli, coming out and slurring...er...saying a few words. pbf said he knew it was her before she was introduced even though all he could see was someone in a red tent shirt. he says that under her shirt she wears a belt of flasks. he might be right.

in other spotting news i walked a block next to james rebhorn today.

foggy memories

I coughed myself out of be at 7:30 this morning.

I got a time machine and asked myself, "What's the stupidest thing I could do with this?... I know! Download and get hooked to Snood!"

My first drink of alcohol was at my Aunt and Uncles house. It was shortly after my dad died so I was either 15 or 16. My dad was a drinker and smoker when he was young... his last cigarette was on the night of his wedding and he stopped drinking when he had kids. When he and mom were dating, he got her drunk for the first time in her life, and when he took her home, he told her to go straight in and straight to her bedroom and not to talk to anyone. I grew up in a church that believed drinking was a sin. When I was young dad said that if I ever wanted to taste beer, to let him know because he'd rather I taste it at home than somewhere else... when I was in 5th grade I had a bad bike wreck and had to be driven to an emergency doctor's visit about an hour from home... dad and mom took me and they had to put some neon stuff that glowed under black light in my eyes to see if they were harmed. My parents thought it was really cool looking. On the late night drive home I reminded dad that when I was a teen he would buy me beer to taste and he denied he ever said it. So at my cousins house, when I was barely 16, I was with my sister that's 6? years older than me. One of our cousins, Julie, is her age, and the other, John, is probably 3 years older than me (i'm not good with ages). Also a lot of my sister's friends and cousin's friends were there... I'm not sure how I found myself in this situation, but you know I thought I was cool. We were playing poker, and John brought a case of beer home. His dad and mom got really mad at him (since he was under age and all) but then he gave them some beer and they got over it. Then he gave me a beer, and I looked at me sister and she gave me a look that was something like "whatever you wanna do". Beer was not for me. It's an acquired taste that took me years to acquire, but then John pulled the hard stuff out of the freezer. he poured me a shot of vodka and he kept refilling me and getting tickled at how much I was drinking. And the more I drank, the more poker games I won. I didn't think I was drunk and then they told me to walk to the couch, and I did and wobbled and giggled. I think we stayed up 'til sunrise that night. But I could be confusing that with one of the many similar nights that followed this.

I was in a summer program in high school where we would spend 6 weeks staying at a college and taking classes. One of the guy's dads helped him sneak vodka too us in lots of 20 ounce water bottles. When I went to college I decided not to drink until I was 21. On my 21st birthday, I was working as an RA for a highschool program, and had to stay in the dorm all night... I snuck myself in some zima and drank by myself with my girlfriend (now wife) in the room... that might be my lamest alcohol experience.

Come on over, we'll open up a bottle of wine, or break out some of our hard liquor that's rarely touched. I'm a rum guy, but we don't keep that stocked.

who me saw...mytouchos!

today i saw moby. i'm a crazy spotter folks!

over didit

I went to work today, then to the doctor, then back to work. I think I over did it. I'm back home now fighting with the dog over the couch. The doc gave me a perscription for some giant decongestant.
I woke up feeling a bit better, but I talked too much today and now my throat is back to being crap.

I like my doc. He always asks how works going and he always remembers that I work for a school. He lives in parkslope with his large family. There's a picture in his office of him with his 4 daughters and the girls have written in crayon all over the matte around the photo. It's cute. He's cute, he's a short, meek asain man.

I've been drinking a lot of tea. This morning I went to starbucks and ordered a calm tea and three of the workers were so shocked and then told me my iced venti americano was already made and I had to take it too... I gave it to my assistant. Right now I'm drinking throat coat tea with honey while I watch the world news.

Sotheby's will be auctioning off a bunch of Martin Luther King Jr.'s papers and such next week. His heirs have been trying to sell them for years, but no one (not even the government) would buy them because they wanted $15-$30million for them. The Government bought Nixon's watergate tapes for $18million.

Now the Simpsons is on... "Whoa coool... God is so in your face!"

I guess that's all. I promise once I'm unsick I will come up with some more witty blogs again.

larnx

Oh my gosh... I want to rip my throat out of my neck...

Doctor tomorrow.

In better news, X-Files just gets better and better with each season... I think Season 4 and what I have seen so far of Season 5 are outstanding.
Perhaps I'm becoming a dork.

Perhaps I'm blogging because I can't speak really.

i can't breath

I'm still sick and stayed home from work today... I spent the day on the couch, switching positions every few minutes so my congested nostril would clear, congesting the other nostril. The problem is that I was fighting with the dog over the couch... when I was ready to switch sides, she was just getting comfortable.


I watched some of the FIFA world cup yesterday... i'm not a sports person, but I think if I wanted to, I could enjoy watching futball regularly.

two thumbs down

I'm sick... throat's sore, coughing, headaches, all that fun stuff.

But it means I'm home watching Ebert and Roeper instead of going to church. A quick google search shows that Many people also hate Roeper and barely anyone loves the man. He's loud, obnoxious, and rude. He enjoys interupting Ebert (my main man) and looking down his nose at movies and people that like those movies.

I went to the MOMA with a bunch of college art students from out of town yesterday... they were all in awe which was fun to watch.

Who Nu

Today I saw Keanu Reeves at work, he is tall and definitely walks all ridiculous like in all of his films. But I'm not dissing because my friend Shauna that did video assist on Thumbsucker said he was really nice. Also ditzy. Shauna also got to know the incomparable Tilda Swinton on this same shoot. Shauna said that Tilda and I are very alike. I never really believed her, but I wanted to.

Crizazy

There is this crazy "church" based out of Kansas called Westboro Church, it's founder was this guy named Fred Phelps, his daughter now runs the church and her name is Shirley Phelps-Roper. She and her "congregation" like to do things such as picketing soldiers killed in Iraq's funerals. Nice and classy. Recently Shirley was on Fox News and the anchor Julie Banderas gives her a piece of her mind!!

Spotting

Today at the work I saw Marcia Gay Harden, or should I say she saw me. I was working so she looked at me and said thanks. Thanks Marcia Gay, thanks.

MoCCA

My old college roomie and his lovely lady are coming to visit this weekend. He does video game stuff and comics... she does gorgeous comics, illustrations, children's books, caricatures, and porn. We're going to MoCCA on Sunday, where I will be tempted to spend all my money on indie comics and prints. I will try to keep my wallet in my pocket.

Work has been extra stressful for the past two weeks. It continues to be so as I got a phone call from work on this saturday morning. I'm sure I've been a real pain to be around this week as I bring work stress home with me... and everywhere I go. I fear I've lost any passion I had regarding the job and I don't know how to get it back... and that effects all of me.

I'm stuck.

I saw a good film last night lent by the mcmullers... Sherman's March by Ross McElwee. It's a documentary of the personal narrative kind (my favorite).

I have this memory that randomly pops into my head sometimes... at the 2nd annual Tribeca Film Festival my thesis advisor was showing her film Set Set Spike and as a graduation gift she invited me to her screening and Q&A and to sort of shadow her as she did the filmmaker at a festival thing... free gifts and rubbing elbows and all. My advisor also gifted me with a VHS copy of Pigeon (and more) Within, a compilation of her films... I took the gift without telling her that I'd already bought the dvd months before (I later regifted the vhs)... I also never decided how I felt about her giving me her own work as a gift. BACK TO MY MEMORY... after the screening we were outside on the sidewalk talking to people... she was speaking to this balding middle aged man and I began a conversation with his daughter that appeared to be about my age. She was in college studying mathematics or something like that which was odd because her dad, mom, and siblings were all artists. Her dad had an experimental film in the festival that I've never seen, but she did such a great job describing it that I feel I have. Their family lived in the garden apt. of the building that JFK JR. lived in. When Jr. died, everyone swarmed the building, and from their apt., with the shades drawn on their windows, they could see all these legs of people surrounding the building. The father filmed these shadows of legs and that was the film in the festival. The daughter was goofy looking... she had short curly hair, big square glasses and large teeth and she was wearing a t-shirt and skirt and chucks... I remember flirting with her, even though I was dating the woman that is now my charming, lovely wife that will not kill me for noting this.

The car needs an oil change and the dog needs a checkup. I don't feel like doing any of this.

My lovely lady bumps

I have pretty sensitive skin. I have pretty severe allergies. These two things go together. Since I was little I have had something called Chronic Urticaria, this just means I get hives on my hands and feet, sometimes knees and elbows, during the summer, or when I go to warm climates. They are chronic because I will have them for weeks or months at a time. They do not itch, but they are pink bumps and they look gross and sometimes they make my fingers swell a bit. I'm pretty lucky because I rarely get them on my face, like some other people. I have what are called Cholinergic Urticaria, which means that I get my hives from my core body temperature being raised for long periods of time. This is a problem right now because I work an outdoor job and it's regularly in the 80's and 90's. Good times. The second week of marriage my skin became Dermagraphic. This literally means, "to write on the skin." This is a reaction defined by the raising of the skin whenever it got even slightly touched, I could actually write on my skin and with in seconds it would be raised and puffy. It was alarming but also awesome. The problem with my hives is that because they are a product of my body temperature, creams and other external products are useless. I take lots of prescription allergy meds and they sort of help, but only sort of.

Ring around the Posey

On Tuesday I spotted Parker Posey at work. She was with her little dog-as usual. I say as usual because it's the third time I've seen her. Soon I will post more about the ridiculousness of each sighting. I just finished talking to my mom and we were talking about folk artist Elijah Pierce, who I really like, and she was telling me about when she met him and saw him preach. Ok mom, you win.