dead old blog

I just wanted to share with ya'll that Rhyme Torrents #5 has been released at RhymeTorrents.com

Drown Radio has a demo track called Robot Friend on there from the forthcoming 'Our Friends Electric' cd. Check it out while your listening to the rest of the nerdcore hip hop compilation.

Learn english with aerobics!

Maybe this could work well with other things. Imagine a how to yo-yo video taught aerobics video style.

This is long overdue, but I'm posting pictures up from the recent Zine Festival at Cell Space in San Francisco. Here is a picture of Ryan Shiga, the author of Fleep. Meeting Ryan was probably the coolest part of the whole fest for me.


I spent the friday before the event printing up two new comics that were pretty much intended as giveaways or trade for any other cartoonists. The one on the left is sort of an introductory book on what we do at the SFCC and the one on the right is an 8 page linear story called Unicorns Unvenge.
Here is a crowd shot from the main area of the event. Table s around the outer walls, and an island in the middle. Apparently this was the most successful Zine Fest at Cellspace yet, both for the vendors and the promoters (who sold out of tables about two months before the event).
Another crowd shot, you can see fellow conspirator Brian from Atomic Bear Press in the teal shirt.
Speaking of Big Bear, here is Brian's table featuring his Great Chimney comics and Other Worlds (his newest book).
Another conspirator, Jeff Plotkin, tabling his Happy Freak Show comics. I've tabled with Plotkin at APE before and let me say that this man is very popular. He's been plugging away at the comics scene for a long time and has been a fixture of the Conspiracy since the early days. People love his comics and he gets respect for being an extremely consistent creator.
Mary Van Note; comedian, crafster, comics writer, and perv.
A pic from the entrance to the event, you can see part of a silkscreen workshop in progress.

Labels: comics

On a recent trip to the Laney Flea Market I scored these boss fake Nike's. Now I obviously don't know much about the real Nike's shoe line, I do know they don't make shoes like this. I'm assuming these kicks where made to actually imitate Bapes.

The shell toes are clear, the heel is shiny black.

On the same trip I scored a new keyboard with some great drum buttons and drum sounds. Trying to keep my eyes open for a good sewing machine and iron, but none to be seen.

Robert found several Casios and an amazing keyboard called the Polyrhythm 8. I'll try to get pics up of it soon.

Banksy, Bansky, Bansky.

Bansky this.

Bansky that.

Below is a newer video of a project that Bansky and Dangermouse worked on. Dangermouse has the ability to take any phenomenal talent and make them kind of boring. I guess that goes true with this prank/statement/vandalism, but I still would love a copy of the remix album.

Story here.

This post is from an older story on my old MSN page, it is entirely true:

Okay,

My high school didn’t have a prom.

One of the teachers brought up a fine point that by requiring a dress code, we were excluding students that couldn’t afford a rental and thus couldn’t attend a school event. Good point, but the student council didn’t think so, so they stood firm. If there was no dress code, there would be no prom.

At least they stood to their word, there was no prom at my alma mater Marshall County High School.

Skip over to the next town, Chapel Hill, TN, home of Nathan Bedford Forrest High School. They had a prom.

It was spring of 94 and I was in 11th grade. After school one day, I was shopping at Red Food when I saw this cute blonde girl sort of staring at me. I kept trying to convince myself she wasn’t looking at me, when she came over and introduced herself. Her name was Beth, she went to Forrest High School, but her older sister, Wendy, went to my school. She had seen me around town and knew who I was. We talked for a few minutes then she asked me to her school’s prom in a couple of weeks. I said sure, and called her later that week to make the plans.

I was ecstatic, this girl, let me tell you, would not look out of place on the arms of an attractive man. In fact, she was the captain of the cheerleader squad at her school, and had this super fine southern accent that does it to me every time. I was so darn excited that I never really thought much about why this fine female, whom I had never talked to before, asked me to be her prom date. Always willing to bring me down, it was my bassist Chris, who brought up how fishy it was.

"Dude, why would she ask you out?"

He lacked tact, but I knew what he was getting at right away. We both grew up on those nerd movies from the eighties, you know the ones, right? Same thing in every one, the dorkiest kid in school gets asked out by the most popular girl in the school, but when the dork goes on the date, it turns out to be a sham. The girl always turns out to be dating the captain of the football team, and the dork always gets tarred and feathered or hung upon high from his underwear.

Happens every time.

Fuck her!

I’m no sucker, sure I bought that Blind Melon record but I know what’s up, there’s no question I had to be the biggest geek in school. She thought I was an easy target. Ha, well I’ll show her, I’ll bet her to the punch. Lets see what happens to her reputation when her prom date shows up in a skirt!

So prom night rolls around, and Chris, myself and some other punk wannabies show up in full drag. I had this great school teacher dress from the 1940’s, all black, tight waist with big puffy shoulders down to the sleeves where it got real tight again. The dress was designed, I believe, to make a proper lady stand smart, there wasn’t an inch of room for bad posture in this get up.

It was 8:30 pm, and I bet my folks would be real proud to know that their son was just strolling into the Nathan Bedford Forrest Cafeteria in a dress. I still had this "fuck you" mentality when Beth spotted me, and came over. She did this quick double take, then politely said, "Hey Brian, uh.. How are you?"

Within a couple of minutes it became blatantly obvious this was no sham. She was so sweet, and even introduced us to her friends, who were obviously a little bothered by being around men in dresses, and didn’t try as hard as Beth did not to be rude. An hour had passed and I didn’t get tarred and feathered once, though I was beginning to wish I had been. I felt like such a jerk, then the principal and the football couch pulled my by my puffy sleeve and kicked my friends and I out.

"You boys don’t go to this school, get off this property at once"

I had been building up this pissed off punk rock attitude all week, and I just busted out

"Fuck you, I’m the great grand-nephew of General Nathan Bedford Forrest, I have more right to be here than you do. As a matter of fact, get off my property, I’m reclaiming this school"

The principal then informed us he had called the cops, and we ran to our car and peeled out. I don’t think I ever talked to Beth again. She was so sweet, and must’ve sincerely liked me, up until that little dress incident.

I just wanted to repost I comment I left on a friends blog in regards to Chevy's restaurant chain:

As part of their "Fresh Mex" pledge, you can ask your waiter to bring you the pit of a fresh cut avocado to prove that they make their gaucamole in the restaurant.

Ever since I was a kid I had dreamed of taking one of these pits and raising my own avocado farm from it. As my avocado empire grew I'd open my own Tex Mex chain. Eventually we'd crush all of our competition thus driving Chevy's out of business... all from the seed that a Chevy's waitress gave me in '93.

I'm up to 4 plants now.

-Doc

A Day Without a Barista: Burning Man Week

On Friday morning a heavy fog covered the city of San Francisco. When it lifted it was soon discovered that 8,000 of the cities population had disappeared. The residents that were left had no choice but to conitnue on with their daily lives with some minor changes; less crowded streets, friendlier restaurant service, quite parks, and all the raw food restaurants closed down and were to later be replaced with only vegan restaurants.

Who would make the bright orange fuzzy leggings? Who would buy those fuzzy leggings if they did get made?

I went to the Power House in SOMA yesterday, it's a trip. I had never really been into a "Leather Bar" venue before, it was a total trip. I asked the bartender where the restroom was and as he told me the directions he fumbled around for this large block of wood behind the bar. "Trust me Mary, you're going to want this". The restroom was dimly lit and as I closed the door I noticed it didn't look or anything. The block of wood was intended to be slid onto the hook on the door, like the way old castle doors would be kept closed from the invading hoards of Vikings... ramming against it... with their huge battering rams... Oh, they want in so badly.

This all explains the funny looks I got as I headed to the bathroom.. The block in my hand was a "look but don't touch" kind of thing.

Like most bars, there where television sets everywhere. In the Power House I guess they are very fond of watching "Naked Ultimate Fighting Cage Battles". So the guys are jumping around, kicking, and punching, while the camera's focus in on their freshly shaven parts bouncing around. The wrestlers had characters, and background stories, and pre-written trash talk... It was just like regular wrestling, but less gay.

Here is one of my most recent projects. Of course I’m a huge fan of retro technology and re-using old items, but this newest craft project has been one of my favorites. It also seems to have garnered more interest by passerbies than some of my other projects.

I’m taking old vacuum tubes from broken radios and television sets and converting them into jewelry. I have to do a lot of searching for good vacuum tubes, most tubes are too large, or boring looking, but you really start to appreciate how different the tubes can get, and sometimes find a gem in the form of a perfect size tube.

If they need it I'll clean them up before I carefully bend the pins down. This is the part that requires patience, when working with glass you have to move slowly and can’t overwork the pins. I’ll admit that I have broken a few tubes, and gotten a cut up a bit while learning good technique.

I usually add extra pieces of jewelry that I incorporate into the bending process. In most of my pieces I will add boss jewels or metals. With some pieces I take the bending process and do more complex work, not always folding the wires inward, but trying different patterns and shapes.



I also use the pins to harness the necklace chain to the tubes, it’s usually pretty easy, but if I have a bigger piece of jewelry being held on top, then it can get more difficult. I spend a lot of time searching in Beyond Beads for the perfect fitting jewel for each tube, but I’m trying to get the chains and clasps off of older pieces of jewelry whenever possible.

I guess I’m stuck in a bit of a Maimi Vice phase now, but I think these chains look best shiny and short.

Insert "tube tied" joke here.

On the right is a close up shot of two pieces. The one on the left is the one I gave to Jean Jacques Perrey to match his spectacular suit, the other one is one of my personal faves (made from a vintage wallet chain). Notice the difference in jewels on top AND the different types of bent pins.

Labels: crafts