The Emo Clause

The Emo Clause is: in order to tell if you will get any presents this year, you have to hang a soaking-wet woolen sock full of coleslaw on the living room mantel, and watch as the mayonnaise sauce drippings form a portrait on your shiny wooden parquet. If you've been a good boy or girl, you'll see the lovable mug of Ernest Borgnine . If you've been bad, Nina Hagen's visage will let you know your friends have been steering you wrong.

Emo is making a rare Oregon appearance in January, and as a star of this caliber, you have probably guessed that he'll be performing at Joker's Bar and Grill in Bend, OR.

Please let me know if you would like to hop into a middle-aged Volvo on January 24th and go see the man ripped off by Hot Topic in live person, and we'll make an evening of it, or as long as it takes us to post bail.

Postscript: I wrote Emo's agent to inquire after a gig in Portland proper so we can hold our heads high in front of Bend, but apparently the "big" comedy club in town balks at paying anyone much more than fifty bucks and free nachos.

The Return of the Prodigal Famous?

So, after a busy weekend of karaoke, drinking, and baby visiting, I was settling in on a rainy Sunday night to suck the sap from Comcast: On Demand, and was shocked and amazed to find a program titled "(Not Even Close To) The Best of The Famous Mysterious Actor Show." Further internet research reveals that Famous is starting up again on Comcast 14, with a program airing at 11PM on Saturday the 25th, and he is taping shows with Super Atomic Television at the far-flung but glamorous Red Room on 82nd and Russell on Wednesdays. Also, evidently Famous is obsessed with, and will kick your ass at, Guitar Hero. Naturally, since I am a huge fan, friends of friends of the show, and am on the email distribution list, I hadn't heard crap about any of this.
If someone has more information than that, please write me. Oh, and I stole the picture from my friend Andy. NYAH!

Postscript: I had the pleasure of meeting the illustrious Chris Formerly Known as Intern Chris at the Saturday gig at Nine Muses, and he told me he didn't think that Team Famous was making whole episodes, but that they would be taping segments to insert into Super Atomic Television programs.

More Postscript: I had the unique honor of making the acquaintance of Famous producer J.D. Fisher recently, and he confirmed rumors that Team Famous will be moving on to "another" project. I don't think he saw me crying, because I sprayed Mace in his eyes and ran away.

Youtubed!

This will be the last time I will mention our dang Leigh Bowery costumes. Probably.

I put a short film of a dance routine I did on Halloween on Youtube, but I hesitated to post about it, because it's not really the film I wanted (due to the shaky-cam, tight-zoom effect) but in retrospect, it is the best one-minute tap routine in a Leigh Bowery costume ever done to a mashup of "Baby Got Back."

Or else, certainly it's in the top ten.

Yesterday, I got a Youtube comment asking if that was really Leigh Bowery. I told my new friend no, it was just little me, and my friend complimented my costume, and I felt all warm inside. However, shortly after that, I got a Youtube comment from an alert viewer pointing out that he didn't really believe that it was Leigh, and believes the film to be: A HOAX. He noted astutely that:

A. The costume is not as fancy/decorated as it should have been. Shitty, shitty
costume.

B. The dancing is graceless, like a drunken elephant in toe shoes. Nothing like Leigh.

C. It could be Leigh at 5 AM in an afterhours bar, snockered out of his mind- but in general, he's calling Bravo Sierra on this!

I wrote my esteemed viewer to thank him for his interest and to note that I never intended to pass the movie off as the genuine article, and had re-titled the movie Tribute to Leigh Bowery to avoid this kind of confusion in the future, and did not point out clues that he missed:

A. In both the notes and in the comments I say "This is me, dressed as Leigh Bowery." Also, I put the record date on the submit, which is 12 years and 9 months after Leigh took off for parts unknown.

B. Although "Baby Got Back" was released in 1992, 2 years before we lost Leigh, the Benny Benassi mash-up by DJ Tripp was just released in April 2005, and the one minute remix of that version was done over Labor Day weekend of this year. (Thank you, Kid Whatever!)

C. Although Leigh was gifted in many different artforms, I don't believe that tap dance was ever on his list of interests.

D. He overlooked the fact that I am between 125 and 150 pounds lighter than Leigh.

And that's the unkindest cut of all.

Why must the interweb prefer destruction to creation?

Public Service Announcement

PLEASE DON'T MILK THE PUPPIES!

Ground Control To Capsule Toys

Here is the bank of capsule toy machines in Singapore, with a child pretending to fight a cutout robot. They are the sophisticated, collectible cousins of the machines that sell useless crap in American supermarkets. The uselessness of the toys is not different, nor their intevitable fate as something unpleasant to step on in the dark, but the marketing and interest is much different. There are some "rare" toys that are more desirable, and entire sets can be bought at stores at huge markups, just to keep from having to pump dollar coins into the machines. There is a large box next to the arcade of toy machines to collect empty capsules for reuse. Here are some of the most special displays.

Sure, every kid wants a trinket of Dig Dug, a game from when his parents were in elementary school.

"How can you think that the sound of a dog barking is How How?" This is one of the capsule toys that doubles as a cell-phone trinket, for the 8 year old that wants to distinguish himself apart from just having a Nelly ringtone.

Please note some of the things the frogs say as they are driving their vehicles: "I love surfing!" and "I am No. 1!" That's what it is to be an American.

Why would a child want an auto-matically sliced wooly Mammoth steak?

A capsule machine from my favorite weird Sanrio imitator, San-X. That bunny is also a mummy, or possibly he's just horribly injured.

This one is a panda machine operated by another, tiny panda, and it reads "Let's try to find our future!" If my future involves evil dual Panda overlords, I don't want to find it.

Little boys still like sex, right?

When lucky dragons attack! Holy Shit!

Step right up and get your Golden Dinosaur!

Jack Skelling-ton's career keeps on going in Asia, just like Roy Clark's does in Branson, MO.

What's more fun (or delicious) than Melty Blood? Nothing!

Something about the tired, half-lidded expressions on these little floating dogs in pots makes me think that they have lost their homes in a hurricane, and will soon be embroiled in a fiasco of failed insurance policies and a troubled government emergency system. Or not.

This is the other kind of Strange Fruit, that has nothing to do with lynching or racism, but is just a little bear that might occasionally be born in a banana skin.

Muscle Swing! It's big gay wrestlers.

This one was so mysterious that I had to plunk three dollar coins in. What was it? Am I really gonna get a hunched-over, vomiting cellphone charm?

And that's exactly what I got. This one is vomiting up a tiny Flying V guitar, which makes him the "Rock" Hackman. If you are what you eat, surely you are what you later vomit up.

Bizarre small-world postscript: A friend was in Tokyo a week later, and met Hackman's designer, who sent me another Hackman capsule. She explained that Hackman comes in twos, because when you are sick, your friend will come to your aid. Now I have more than I could ever want or need.

Brushstrokes in Singapore

Singapore Brushstrokes

There is this Lichtenstein sculpture garden in Singapore that is a relative of another garden installed in Philadelphia in 1996. Here is a view of a Lichtenstein sculpture from my hotel room in Singapore. It's probably a half mile away. Look for the little blue and white thing in the courtyard.



Here it is on super-supreme-robot optical zoom.




Here it is up close and personal.

Closer.

Closer still.

And here is my hotel room as seen from the sculpture, again on super-zoom. It's the one with the open drapes.

I am in Singapore, I have a camera and some free time. I like art.

It's convenient to me that they have art right outside the mall. People seem to ignore it, because there's two Lacoste stores within a mile, and everybody wants to go there. Also, if you are not used to being in ninety degree weather with 80 percent humidity in November, being outside where the sculpture is could kill you. I risked death, but as you can tell, it was hell on my hair.

There is sometimes a kind of paradoxical high level/low quality of service. I was in a drugstore, looking for hair products, and a well-dressed lady followed me around, letting me know that she was there to fulfill my every whim and passing fancy- however, it became clear that this was not the case when a furry hippopotamus change purse caught my eye that had to be un-Swif-tacked from the display, and when I asked her about it she deflated and resisted, and then finally turned around dejectedly to get scissors. So, she was playing Watch The Giant Freaky American To See If She Steals Something And We Can Cut Her Hands Off. I am not sure what kind of criminal mastermind I would have to be to say, I can go into a crowded store in a country with very severe criminal punishment policies, where I could be fined for spitting on the sidewalk and chewing gum in public, and where I am a foot taller and a hundred pounds heavier than anyone else, and steal this hippopotamus change purse with impunity. But I'm not even close to that level.

Update: Portland has acquired a Lichtenstein brushstroke, and we stuck it in front of our modern art museum:

Hooray for us!