Filed under: Bloggidy Blog
Hey! I’m in Mexico! It’s 80 degrees! There are lizards all over the place! The condo I’m staying in is swanky–the towels are folded into bird shapes. My camera took a shit about 6 hours into the trip so I had to get another one. Cigarettes and booze are so cheap here it isn’t even funny. I only have a couple minutes to blog before Don and I grab lunch and go to an aviary to look at toucans.
I really thought I’d have more to blog about but it isn’t much fun without pictures. Oh, how I got pictures. I’m the whitest person in this complex. Don has the largest beard by far. All of the vendors call him “Senor Whiskers”. ALL of them. Too weird.
The ocean is really warm and salty. There are no bugs here but there are feral cats. Mostly I’m eating, walking, drinking and sitting around in the warm–sometimes all of those things at once. Haven’t really gone anywhere or done anything special. It’s just fun being warm.
I’m going to wander off and look for Senor Whiskers. That would be a good name for a feral cat. Later!
When you walk into Erika’s house you have to walk upstairs to get to the kitchen so the first thing you see is the word “SUN” spelled out in bottle-cap magnets on the fridge. Yes, sun. I would like some sun, please.
We’re going to Playa del Carmen, Mexico on Feb. 25th-March 1 on the graces of Don’s employer. I’ve been promised that there is sun there and also toucans. I’ve been Google-Earthing the city to see what it looks like. So far I’ve seen a lot of gringos and a Hard Rock Cafe so it’s pretty much like it is here…except it’s warm. I am looking forward to 1) Warm, 2) Iguanas and other creatures, and 3) Really elaborate mixed drinks served in a coconut. Anything beyond that will be cake.
Not much else to say today. Don made it back alive from Chicago. It’s snowing really hard. I have to go shopping for a swimming suit that covers my middle age junk. That should be pretty funny. Let’s all look forward to that.
Filed under: Bloggidy Blog | Tags: david lynch, lost highway, piece, robert blake
I think that Robert Blake’s character in the David Lynch movie “Lost Highway” is the creepiest, creepiest, creepiest film character ever. I feel very strongly about this. You can try to convince me otherwise but I think you will be wasting your time. Last night while I was sitting in my shoe chair I wished that, when I had that DVD in my possession, I had taken a picture of Blake and stored the image on my camera so I could look at it from time to time to re-live the creepiness and maybe share it with others. Why would I want to do that? I don’t know! I’m just telling you my thoughts.
As luck would have it, the IFC showed “Lost Highway” late last night and I got a picture of Robert Blake. Now I can think of something else.
I’ve been mentally compiling a list of objects that either are or will be soon as obsolete as the buggy whip. They are: pay telephones, white out and ascots. Add more if you want.
In other news:Don just left for Chicago. He’s expanding the brewing system at Piece Brewery and Restaurant. Busy, busy, busy. (I think that Piece has the best pizza anywhere, by the way.) Before he left he gave me a heart shaped box of candy and some nail clippers. If you look very, very carefully at the box lid, which I don’t think he did, you can see that it says “Russel Stovers…Just for him.” You’d think that if you were going to go through the trouble to engender something you’d make it a little more obvious than that. Like package the candy in a burlap bag or a tool box? No matter which words are on it there isn’t really anything masculine about a heart shaped box of candy. And it’s so hard to read–I bet a lot of gals are getting “Just for him” candy this year. I don’t know if that’s going to cause any problems but you know how some people will bitch about anything. Me, I’d eat candy even if it was “Just for White Supremacists.” I think candy is great.
Filed under: Bloggidy Blog
I found this sign from the land store when I was cleaning out a display case. I made a lot of funny signs back in the day. This one was advertising wine bottle stoppers. That’s Biscuit the hedgehog dressed up like an aardvark down there in the corner. I miss Biscuit. She was nice…but also bitey. Click here if you want to view the sign large or print it out to advertise your own wine bottle stoppers.
Well, I’m bored already. Yesterday when I was bored I decided to look for snow statistics for Madison. We broke a record today when the seasonal snowfall topped 76″. Yee haw. Anyway, while searching for data I found this interesting site called city-data.com. On it is extremely detailed data for most cities in the country, and within that, most zip codes within each city. It’s pretty cool if you like statistics. I love statistics…and packaging…and shoe chairs.
I found some really fun facts about my zip code. It’s about two square miles with 26,000 people living there. No wonder there’s no place to park. Since it’s mostly students there’s very few people my age here. I knew that already. But what I didn’t know is that there are almost as many registered sex offenders (83) as there are 40 year old women (about 100) living in my zip code. If you wanted to you could find out the median age of the sex offenders. All of that information is there. Isn’t that something? That’s one hell of a data base.
Want to know how many sex offenders live nearby? Or you city’s average wind speed? Or the year most houses were built? Go look it up…if you’re bored.
Another fun fact: My blog about beard beads is up on Watch Me Create. Go look!
Remember last January when I was talking about getting hand or shoe chairs? Of course you do. We had some space open up for seating in my work area when we got rid of a refrigerator. Who wouldn’t remember such a momentus event?Anyway, back then Don was down with the shoe chair idea until he found some pew-like seats at a thrift store. They were endlessly more effective for seating so he bought and installed those. I was bummed. My bummed-ness was completely unfounded too because Don’s furniture choice was obviously the right one, no question. The pews seat 5 people. And they have storage space. Being unfoundedly bummed made me a little angry. So I stopped thinking shoe chair.
Then today we wandered into a pawn shop on Willy Street and there, up high on a shelf was a brand new shoe chair! I don’t know what the odds of that were–there wasn’t any other furniture in the joint. The inventory was about 90% jewelry and musical instruments. The dude who sold us the chair was really nice. When we got there he was lugging in a 25lb bag of bird seed. He took a lot of time and effort feeding wildlife outside behind the pawn shop and boasted openly about saving the life of an injured and nearly hairless squirrel by feeding it day old scones from Lazy Jane’s Cafe. I’m not so big on squirrels but people who look out for the critters are ok by me. Anyway, as a bonus, it turns out that shoe chairs are actually very comfortable to sit in. So we bought it! Hooray!
Also, I successfully photographed the world’s ugliest lamp:
It’s that green one. I don’t know what it was made out of–fiberglass maybe? And it looks like the bases are engaged in some kind of struggle. And the shades are such weird shapes. If you frequent antique and pawn shops you know that the number of participants in the ugly lamp contest is so vast it’s pretty much impossible to pick a winner. Until today. I win!
We’re all dug out now, back on track, world still spinnin’ round. Things like snowstorms…politics, too…aren’t all that bad so long as you put off experiencing them until it’s absolutely necessary.
Someone or something has been removing snow from both of the sidewalks for which I am responsible (house and store). Maybe it’s someone having fun with their new snow-blower or maybe it’s something mystical. I am fully aware of the blessedness of this development and I want to pay forward to whatever entity is in charge of snow-removal karma, but I don’t know how. I’m not good with winter time random acts of kindness because I don’t like being outside. I’ll try to be extra nice when I’m indoors. Anything to keep the snow off the sidewalk.
I liked the way that week in pictures thing went the other day. It’s an easy way to cover a lot of topics without having to string them together theme wise. So here’s some more stuff:
Yesterday during the blizzard I walked home from the shop behind a guy wearing shorts. His legs were pink. I hope he’s ok.
Today: Car with spider themed decals parked outside my house.
Yesterday: I ate a box of Spider Man themed macaroni and cheese. Coincidence?
Interesting packaging alert: Our dishwasher that was delivered on Monday came with this nifty sticker on the box. There’s a little tube of fluid there that turns red when the package is handled roughly. Isn’t that neat-o? Of course we did not notice the red fluid until long after the delivery guy was gone so it’s kind of a moot point.
This is an anyonomous individual from the downtown Great Dane during Fat Tuesday festivities. I like his shoes.
That’s it.
Filed under: Bloggidy Blog
We got 13.3 inches of snow today. The city pretty much closed early. Since there was no going anywhere (except on foot, and that with great difficulty) Me and Don holed up in the house all day eating macaroni and cheese and watching stuff like “Escape From Planet of the Apes” on TV. I floundered over to the shop to list beads and on the way home I got a picture of a guy walking around in shorts. That made putting my boots on worth while. Now I have enough material for another week in pictures. Probably put that together tomorrow.
Filed under: Bloggidy Blog | Tags: beard beads, law and order, turnips, wiener dog light
I didn’t have a new photo today so I’m posting a picture of this wiener dog light Don gave me for Christmas. Isn’t it large and yellow?
Yeah, so, today. I’m peeved that I forgot to ramp down my kiln last night. Now I have to wait until tomorrow to have annealed beads. Crap, crap, crap! Think about other things.
My sixth sense told me to go to work early this morning because the dishwasher delivery guy was going to be there…and my sixth sense was right! Moments after my arrival and old, friendly delivery guy showed up with the dishwasher that’s going to be installed at our house. Where the hell was my sixth sense when I left the store last night without ramping down the kiln?
Do you know what doesn’t taste terrible? Raw turnips. Surprising! I chopped some up for Carcass Soup the other day and felt compelled to put one in my mouth. They’re good! They have the texture of a radish but without the bitter. Is it ok to eat raw turnips? I don’t want to get worms or anything. Did your parents ever tell you that eating certain things would give you worms? When he was a kid Don’s mom told him that eating raw cookie dough would give you worms. That’s pretty smart.
Speaking of Don, I’m working on a Watch Me Create blog starring Don’s beard, which is on the verge of being large enough to get a job and live somewhere on it’s own. The blog is about creating and installing beard beads as per Don’s request. People, mostly biker types and hippies, have been known to wear beard beads but it wasn’t until Don saw someone on Law and Order wearing them that he really got the fire in his belly. The beads I made aren’t anything spectacular but I did learn something about direct painting on beads that I did not know before. The blog won’t be done until later because we’re not putting them in until we go to this Mardi Gras thing tonight. I’ll let you know when it’s up.
Ever since I got my Gus Fink Boogily Head I’ve been obsessed about how fabulous it would be to design some kind of creature and have it mass produced overseas. I don’t know if such a endeavor would ever result in significant monetary reward but, man, Boogly head’s parent company really hooked Gus up with some nice packaging. That’s worth a lot in itself. I love packaging. Things just seem eminently more collectible in nice packages. I think I’m more jealous of those little boxes than I am over anything I’ve seen any other artist make. Yeah, I just never know what’s going to set me off.
I used to dream about fancy packaging for my Failed Legends Ornaments. Fancy packaging and a hoard of workers putting the product together. I know…slave labor, blah blah blah. It still would have been cool.
I ended up giving Mummoo (the toy in the snake’s mouth up there) to my pal Sean’s boy children who appreciate Tim Burton are just above choking hazard age. I ordered three more just to keep around for surprise gift-giving. I think I know lots of people who need these.
Filed under: Bloggidy Blog | Tags: aoa, cheap art on ebay, fizz, gus fink
I found my pickle pin that has the cockatoo bite out of the forehead. Right off the top I want to say, thank god for people who sign and date their work. It sure clears up a lot of mysteries. Even though the signature on this piece is partially covered with JB Weld glue ( the pin bar fell off at one time and I re-glued it) it is still kind of readable. It looks like it says “FIZZ 04”. So not a Fink. Close though.
Back in the day of the land store I used to buy all sorts of cool work from AOA (Alternative Online Art) searches on Ebay. (That’s how I found the pickle pin.) Often I needed new stuff fast for Gallery Night or whatever. Helpful gallery tip–artwork purchased off of Ebay is often rather small (8×10″ or less) so it doesn’t cost very much to frame it. And, I hate to say it, but it’s usually pretty inexpensive to start out with. So there’s really no downside to buying it, unless of course you live in an igloo and can’t hang stuff on your walls. Or maybe you just don’t like what I like. I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with that but I think you’re missing out.
The AOA search no longer turns up artists on Ebay but I did find a “My Space” page for them. In the “Friends” section are links to a bunch of folks who do stuff that I like. Probably no one’s making pickle pins anymore but if you get one don’t let the cockatoos see it.
Aardvark Art Glass 