David William — also known as D.Billy here — designed this cool poster to promote our show on August 28th. He included an image I made at my desk by cramming two plastic toys into a half-eaten peach:

Share it far and wide if you like …
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I spotted this flyer walking up 5th Ave in Brooklyn today. I don’t think someone so much lost this cat as cast it out of their home with a series of prayers and incantations.

I would have mentioned this earlier, but I’ve been crippled with a bog monster infestation – a whole bunch of them set up shop in my sinus cavities and have been using my lungs as a fricking waterslide. I coughed so hard the other night that I think I gave myself a small hernia.

That’s got nothing to do with what I’m talking about here, though.

What I’m here to talk about is that we had us a show a few weeks back, and it went really well! I had a ton of fun, despite some really frustrating technical difficulties in the beginning.

The Kraine Theater is this dank, crumbling space in the East Village, the sort of place that feels like it’s haunted by a bunch of old men in long raincoats. It made a certain kind of sonic sense to hear someone kick over a beer bottle during the show, and when an old lady showed up in a sun hat with a Mike-Tyson face tattoo drawn on with eye liner, I wasn’t even surprised. OF COURSE we had one of those. It was that kind of show.

Don’t get me wrong, though. I still wanted to kick the wrinkles out of that old bat when she started heckling the comedian. I like weirdos in the audience and all, but I really prefer when they stay quiet.

Still, I had a ton of fun, and I’m pretty sure the crowd did, too.

I talked to the theater director about the show today, and I think we are going to start doing this quarterly.

One thing I know, though: we’re bringing this show up to Albany, NY in mid-August. We’ll be performing in Saint Joe’s Church, what appears to be this amazing crumbling cathedral in downtown Albany. I’d love to make a little tour out of it, maybe play in Boston, Providence, BUffalo, what have you. If any of you book shows in bars, clubs or theaters in that area and want some storytellers and burlesque people to come up, do please let me know.

And if you happened to be in the audience on Sunday, thank you so, so much for coming. It was a jam, for real.

Look, I know I’m flogging this live show on Sunday pretty hard. But I’m really, really excited about it, and I think you guys should be, too.

Our good friend and fellow storyteller Tracy Rowland just made us a magnificent trailer for Sunday’s show, and I’d be remiss in my mission to promote awesomeness on the Internet if I didn’t share it here. There is some mild language, almost- nudity. Which is maybe a selling point:

The music is by Richmond, VA sweatrock legends RPG, permission given by Matt Conner. Show info after the jump:
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I’d apologize for being all self-promotional, except I’m not really all that sorry. See, back in December me and my friends David William and Brad Lawrence and Cyndi Freeman put on a live show loosely based on this very blog that we work on (or slack on, more typically) together. And you know what? It went REAL well!

It went so well that we’re now being asked to do another one in a theater that’s double the size. I’m trying to put asses into seats here.

But look: we’re going to be telling stories, seeing some comedy, watching a puppet get all its teeth yanked out at the dentist and then look at some belly-dancing and burlesque.

There’s going to be a whole lot of shaking going on in between all the sensitive people telling witty stories about their precious feelings. Balances it out nicely, I think.

Here’s a flyer, followed by a trailer. Detailed info after the jump:

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(I took this picture of gummi fangs. But otherwise, it doesn’t have anything to do with anything in this post.)

At the risk of appearing in Cory Arcangel’s project, I’m kind of sorry that I haven’t posted in a while on here. I’ve been busy, sure, there’s that. So have Brad, Cyndi, and David.

As you may have seen, Brad’s launched The Standard Issues podcast. This is a project that, like anything else in life, sounds easy when you’re necking on about it over a few beers, then gets really, really hard. That’s how the whole life thing works, I think: everything that’s hard now gets easier, and you can relax for a minute. Then you get some new problems. I’m really stoked for Brad, though – this is a great idea, and once he gets the formula down it’s really going to take off.

Cyndi’s just wrapped the first run of her one-woman show Wonder Woman – A How-To Guide For LIttle Jewish Girls and is gearing it up and refining it to hopefully take out into theaters again. I saw it during its first week and loved it my damn self.

David’s been working on a longer form video piece with our friend and fellow artist Nathan Manuel.

And me, I’ve been doing all kinds of stuff. For one, I’ve been doing my actual job a lot. And when I’m not doing that, I’ve been trying to write a book. Ssshh. I don’t want to curse it. But it’s time. I kinda got myself to this Jonah and the Whale moment in the last few months where I’m either going to have to write a book or turn into whatever the creative equivalent of Frustrated Sports Dad is and yell at a future child from the sidelines at spelling bees or something. I don’t have a deal yet or a contract or anything like that. I’ve got a friend at a publishing house here who’s helping me out, though.

For all I know, all these words will eventually go into a greasy paper sack somewhere and then move with me from apartment to apartment along with a few coats I can’t get rid of for the rest of my life. But it’s still important. It’s got to happen. And it feels right.

So this blog, this project I’ve had for coming up on six years now, it’s changed a bit. I’m not doing this because I feel this *urge* anymore. When this started, I had all this *stuff* inside me that just came flying out. Now I’ve learned how to shape that stuff a little, and I’m not trying to blog my way to a book deal anymore.

Nor do I really want to be a professional stay-home blogger that depends on ad revenue for income. It would be nice to build this thing into a powerhouse with a huge following, sure. My ego would like that. But on the other hand, I really don’t like what I turn into when start living and dying by my blog stats. I spent a few months checking and rechecking my stats about 80-100 times a day, my heart soaring when traffic was up and grumbling and frustrated when it kind of flatlined.

That’s not a good way to be on the earth.

Once you start focusing too much on what’s popular, you lose sight of what’s important. First it slips away online, then it slips away in your real life and you’re just this walking collage of other people’s ideas.
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Through April 15th, Baltimore-based independent clothing & accessory company Ex-Boyfriend (a.k.a. my pal Matt Snow) is donating 100% of the proceeds from sales of magnets and keychain bottle openers to the Maryland SPCA to help provide care & find homes for homeless animals. He’s also offering FREE SHIPPING for the magnets & keychains – which feature designs like Fuzz Aldrin, here.

Check out Matt’s wares and grab a few things if you’re so inclined. Who knows? Your contribution could help give a homeless kitten the chance to grow up to be an astronaut.
LINK: Ex-Boyfriend Collection’s SPCA Animal Fundraiser

Nine times out of ten, when I see an anthropomorphic cartoon tooth being used as a mascot for a dentist’s office or oral hygiene campaign, the cartoon tooth is smiling. With it’s teeth showing.

In case you need me to break this down for you: The TOOTH has TEETH.
It has tiny versions of itself in its mouth, and this freaks. me. out.
Let me put this in terms that the Internet can understand:

Here’s Chuck Norris, just chilling, waiting for someone to f*ck with him so he can destroy them any number of different ways. Nice smile, Chuck.


And here’s a little illustration I knocked up to show what it would mean if the “smiling tooth” principle were applied to Mr. Norris:

Horrifying.
And now that I’ve made and looked at this awful thing, if I am ever in a position to choose the form of the destructor, I’m pretty sure that this is what will end up razing Midtown. A giant Chuck Norris with smaller Chuck Norrises for teeth, gnawing skyscrapers end to end like steel & concrete ears of corn. God help us all.

Comics artist and illustrator Paul Harrison-Davies recently tweeted:

Do you like The Big Lebowski? Do you like Sesame Street? Well my wife does, so I drew her this:

I’m fully on board with Paul’s casting here — “Oscar The Dude” definitely works — but still, a part of me can’t help thinking that “The Big Bird Lebowski” could be epic.


(Via Blog of the Nerduo.)


PREVIOUSLY IN LEBOWSKI LOVE: Mark it Zero.

I have learned that there is a SUPERVOLCANO (which is a real thing not made up by an 8-year-old kid, apparently,) underneath Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming. This supervolcano has erupted in the past, and was possibly partially responsible for the extinction of the dinosaurs. According to one guy (who keeps saying “million” when he means “thousand”, which you’d think would be problematic for a physicist,) it WILL erupt again, and everybody who lives in the huge area depicted here will be pretty well f*cked.

Coincidentally, on the same day that I learned that 11 U.S. states and 3 Canadian provinces are just incontrovertibly screwed six ways to Sunday, I came across this amazing and hilarious Jack Kirby drawing from 1972 of what our future might look like after “A GREAT CATACLYSM!”:

Image taken from Kamandi #1, Via the always excellent Comic Book Cartography.

Also, Discovery Channel has a pretty cool interactive explanation of the supervolcano.
BOOM. For real.