Gloomy, The Naughty Adult Bear

Judging by the referrals on my site meter, a lot of people are getting to my page because they are looking for pictures or information about Gloomy, The Naughty Adult Bear. Since I sometimes pretend to myself that I am providing a service, here is a good page from Wikipedia about the Gloomy toy series and his creator, Mori Chack.

From his press release: Gloomy, an abandoned little bear, is rescued by Pitty (the little boy). At first, he is cute and cuddly, but becomes more wild as he grows up. Since bears do not become attached to people like dogs by nature, Gloomy attacks Pitty even though he is the owner. So Gloomy has blood on him from biting and/or scratching Pitty.

The moral: wild animals are dangerous, even when they are cute and/or pink. I'll bet you didn't know that a hippo will take your arm off if it gets a chance. I met a guy who was pulled out of a boat in Africa and badly maimed by the cutest, fattest hippo ever. Hippopotamus means "river horse" in Greek, but you absolutely should not ride him.

Many celebrities exhibit the same behaivor, appearing cute and harmless but lashing out when cornered, like Mel Gibson, Peter Buck, and that crazy guy from Seinfeld.

Some of the other search results for my site are for nude lolitas. I have no information for you, but when they grow up, they might also be dangerous.

Postscript: I have gotten a hit from "foot sex", which I can assure you I don't know anything about. If anything, my feet are qualified to cure people of fetishism.

Tivo Alert: There is a stupendous doc about Robyn Hitchcock and Peter Buck recording Robyn's most recent album with the Venus 3- It aired on Sundance on Dec 31, and included footage from this most recent Thanksgiving. My, what a modern world it is! Look for it!

Happy Holidays from Hazel and Chico!

Bye-Bye, Baiji.

One of my favorite weird animals appears to have checked out, after 30 million years of rocking freshwater rivers in China, which means they watched us stand up and walk 3 million years ago. There were 7 spotted in 1998, but this year, the Yangtze river dolphin appears to be extinct. I am sorry to see us lose our first whale species to human pollution, fishing, and sonic interference.
Douglas Adams, who unfortunately is also extinct, wrote extensively about about this dolphin in his book on endangered species, Last Chance To See, and imagines a happy ending for them in the fourth book in the Hitchhiker series, "So Long, And Thanks For All The Fish!"

Here is the bottlecap of Baiji dolphin beer, where our friend is immortalized as a delicious light lager.

Every time I have been in China, I try to pour a bottle of molasses or maple syrup into the murky Yangtze as a special dolphin treat, and as a tribute to my fallen homies. It may not have been as helpful as I thought.

He's called Baiji when he's at home. The Chinese believe the Yangtze river dolphin to be an incarnation of a drowned princess. Although she did not drown, I think they look a lot like Princess Diana.

Sure, they're frequently albino. Sure, they have small, strange-looking eyes, and are mostly blind from knocking around in the murky, polluted river for the last thousand years. Sure, they think that dead aliens are in our blood, screwing up our life and relationships. Are they really so different from Edgar Winter? And yet, he survives.

Crispin Lovers

Danny Glover's eccentric white cousin, Crispin, was in town at the Clinton Street Theatre last weekend, presenting the oddest film I've seen for awhile, called What is It? It deals with Crispin's rejection of the censorship involved in corporate backing, and his continuing interest in the "aesthetic of discomfort." Almost all of the actors in the film have Down's Syndrome, and although both Shirley Temple and a minstrel performer are in it, there is zero tap dancing, which I consider a tease. Crispin is on tour presenting his movie, which for various reasons is unreleasable, alongside his slide show presentations and readings from some of his books.

The evening started oddly when Crispin headed out onto the stage and immediately fell off the one-foot drop at the Clinton Street, hard. The audience held its breath, but when the actor sprung up and started reading from Ratcatching, we laughed in relief that he had executed a pratfall. Later, when he told us that he had really fallen and hurt his elbow, we felt badly. We didn't know any better. We're just an audience.

All in all, it was kind of nice being in a small room with Crispin and letting him make a world. He's interested in Victorian novels, cut-ups, madness, films, sex, and animal skinning. Here's a reading from the event from an unpublished book, Round My House.

For no reason, I'd like to point out one of my favorite Crispin trivia facts- He was George McFly in the first Back to the Future movie, but declined to be in the rest of the series. When the director opted to make up another actor in prosthetics to imitate the appearance of the original George, Crispin successfully sued for trademark violation. No matter what the pod people think, you can't steal another person's face without their permission, both written and verbal.