Artsy Fartsy Hirsty Wursty

Autopsy of a Sliced Human Brain

Over a year after it opened, the lure of a Damien "Drugs and Animals" Hirst exhibit finally got us out to the Portland Art Museum's modern art branch in the Jubitz center (Paid for by the people who brought you The World's Classiest Truck Stop!). Because I can't pay attention when other people speak, I didn't realize that you enter the new museum via a downstairs hallway in the old one, and I wound up asking the girl at the front counter if she had anything on hand more recently deceased than the current Egyptian Rich Dead Guy Stuff. Once we got there, the new branch was really nice, with four floors of nice assortment of famous and less-famous artists. It's great to have some sort of contemporary art wing to the sometimes fusty and localized older museum.

Once we had enjoyed Oldenberg's giant, breathing icepack, a nice little assortment of Duchamp stuff, and the Longo crawling-drowning-yuppie sculpture, we made it to the top floor to all four (4) Hirst pieces. I was mildly disappointed at the number, but what they lacked in quantity, they made up for in size. Two of them were giant, one Pharmacy installation and a glass display of many, many animal skeletons. The other two pieces were a drug-spot painting and the above painting of sliced brains that has a lot in common with my infamous attempt at the Beastie Boys' Heil Seitan recipe from Thanksgiving 2002.

Away From The Flock

"But for me, from my point of view, I don't mind if it falls over... if you
break the glass you replace the glass, if the sheep falls out you can always get
a new sheep." - Damien Hirst

It's good for me to go to the museum, not only because I heart art, but it's also a helpful reminder of how tired my whole nosering-and-glasses, bob-haircut, art-chick bit is. It's like coming to the place in Battlestar Galactica where all your identical Cylons live. At least I don't wear clogs, so my spouse could still tell which one was me.

Emo-Philia!

It's important to point out that sometimes meeting your heroes is not all it cracked up to be.

I am back from my first trip to glorious Bend, OR, where I went on a comedy pilgrimage to see the cerebral palsi-ness of Emo Philips. Although it took seven hours to drive there and back, and we got pulled over in Redmond for looking weird, and we had curly fries and vodka for dinner, and we sat with a retiree couple who were just glad to be out of the house, we knew it was all worth it when the emcee took the stage and said "I'll bet you can't wait for your headliner, Elmo Philips!"

Emo is, dare I say it, even more dashing at 50 than he was at 30, and his jokes are as surreal and mean-spirited as ever. He has gained approximately 3 pounds, so you can no longer see his hipbones rub together when he walks. He was kind enough to chat with us in greenroom afterwards, although I mostly just talked nonsense at him. I'm petitioning to bring him to Portland in July for a show. He's aching to join us in our pinko outcast majesty, and I believe he has an inkling that he might well serve as our king.

Snow Day!

From the bus stop at 7AM- I thought things might go badly.

Thank goodness we had five inches of white stuff dumped on us Tuesday, because after MLK day on Monday, we might have had to work four days *in a row*. Unfortunately, that much snow keeps Portland at a standstill, because we don't really have much by way of chains or snowplows, and essentially we depend on local children building snowmen to clear the streets. Multnomah county is bussing in snowman-hungry children from as far away as Nevada to get the city back to normal.


Spouse tried to make a snow angel in the backyard, but something went horribly wrong and we wound up with an image of what would happen if you died in the snowy woods and wild bulldogs ate your face off.


Bulldogs, satiated with fresh people meat, but annoyed that the snow is up to their elbows.

Goth Nite

Over the long weekend, we took the opportunity to take in a spooky, sinister evening at Hive at Lola's room, and we dressed appropriately as a sad, chubby French Maid doll and a transvestite military man. Walking up to the bar, I wondered- Aren't I getting a little old for this shit? If the reader has an opinion, I would kindly ask them to keep it to themselves.

Bike Essay

Me and my bike, making snow angels.

I sent this essay in to a contest for to promote bike commuting, and it was not good enough to win a prize, but it's plenty good enough to annoy you people with.

Mental Health:

I am the last sane person at my office, because I never have to worry about the over-capacity parking lot. Whenever I arrive, I put my bike in the same bike room. And if the racks were full, I could lock my bike to another bike, or I could chain it to a railing. If I were really stuck, I could put it in my office. Try that with a Jeep, and you’ll find you can’t. My tinkling laugh rings out when co-workers run into meetings panting they had to park and walk from Vancouver.
I am guaranteed an hour and a half of quiet "me" time a day, when I am not annoyed by the horrible, grating chitchat of friends and loved ones. If you are a friend or spouse, I'm not talking about you. I'm talking about the others.

Continued Education:

I can pull a blown tube, replace it, and put the tire back on the wheel while standing. It's like the world's slowest, lamest magic trick. I can trigger the signal at stop lights by rolling over the mysterious tar circles. The motorists think it’s magic, or that the light turning green has something to do with elves.

Fitness:

I have calf muscles that could cut diamonds, or at least slice bread, or definitely spread butter on bread. Unfortunately, that makes for really greasy, buttery calves.


In closing, go ahead and ride a bike, because who wants to live forever anyway?

My Favorite Things

Slowly but surely, my next birthday is creeping ever-nearer. This year, since it falls on a Monday, I get my birthday off work, and I will spend most of the day devoted to tribute to my birthday twin, Dr. Martin Luther King, but the evening is all about me.

At 7:30PM, I invite you to join me at the Vegetarian House at 22 NW 4th to enjoy some delicious fake-meat Chinese food and to bask in the almost total lack of ambiance, save the promotional material for their cult. We'll eat family-style and wipe the chopsticks on the tablecloth.

At 9, we can walk across the street to Dante's, to claim our seats and enjoy some chitchat and drinks before Karaoke From Hell starts at 10. We'll be singing onstage with a live band that is nearly as drunk as we are. Here's the songlist. You can start planning your moment of triumph now!

You can attend either, neither, or both activities, whatever strikes your fancy and works with your schedule.

Gifts are not expected, and nor are they really deserved. I just don't wanna grow old alone.

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.