UnderCovers

Why???

The cover photo of Rolling Stone magazine has long been held in high regard despite past covers featuring The Backstreet Boys with their pants around their ankles, Justin Bieber in a tank top, and Snooki on a rocket.  Even with those embarrassments in the catalogue, not many other magazines hold the cultural impact and the aspirations of countless musicians trying to grace this cover.  It’s so revered that there is a well-known song about being on the cover written by none other than Shel Silverstein.  You don’t see any dinette sets writing a tune about being on “The Cover of the Good Housekeeping”.

With my limited grasp on how quarter notes and whole notes become quarterly royalty checks and whole world tours, I figured it would be easier to recreate and sketch a few iconic RS covers, then to get myself on the cover of Rolling Stone for any of my own musical ability or fame. 

The naked John Lennon curled up next to a fully clothed Yoko Ono may very well be the most famous picture ever printed by Rolling Stone.  It has the back-story of being taken by one of the country’s most famous photographers (Annie Leibovitz), being a stunning and arresting photograph with no cover lines or type of any kind, and being taken in the last professional photo shoot of Lennon’s life.  He was shot and killed hours later. 

I took all the history and beauty in that photograph and sketched out my attempt at this cover shot.  If I’m being easy on myself, I did a pretty damn good job with this one.  Aside from the lopsided butt-cheeks and a few misshapen limbs, this drawing represents the photograph fairly well.  I honestly don’t have too much bad to say about my result here, aside from my apologies to Ms. Ono for accidentally giving her a semi-mustache and a squiggly hairline.

My apologies to the Lennon family for making his right butt-cheek look like a soggy flapjack.

I chose this cover because I love Rodney Dangerfield.  Just look at that face, how could you not laugh at any sound or sight that comes from that?  This is another photo by Annie Leibovitz, and I would love to hear an interview on how this photo came together.  I assume the concept of him whining like a baby was pre-planned, but I like to think either Rodney showed up with his own prop (a small diapered child) or they found this baby in the bottom of trunk full of umbrellas, hats, leather pants, babies, and other cover fodder. 

My recreation of this is completely terrifying.  Aside from the suit jacket I don’t think I got one thing right about the photo.  My Dangerfield looks less funny and more like an offspring of Andre the Giant and the chupacabra.  The baby in my drawing is drawn to scale, and by scale I mean representing a 4-foot tall toddler with gargantuan legs, a severely dislocated elbow, and a pinhead.  But I don’t know how to faithfully draw Dangerfield, I started laughing every time I thought about the Rappin’ Rodney video (posted below).

I must say I gave Mr. Dangerfield 'No Respect' with the drawing of this monster.

As a fan of Hunter S. Thompson’s work from Fear and Loathing, to Hell’s Angels: The Strange and Terrible Saga of the Outlaw Motorcycle Gangs, to his appearances like this on Conan, I had to attempt a Ralph Steadman illustrated cover on a Thompson story.  I knew that my artistic lack of consistency, clean lines, and logical body types wouldn’t factor in a Ralph Steadman cover because his style reminds the viewer of vomiting up a terrifying and beautiful acid flashback mixed with a Rorschach test.

Is this ad referencing Nirvana as the American public's enemy? Or has Public Enemy achieved nirvana through Buddhism? Or is it just a reference to separate stories on both groups Public Enemy and Nirvana?

Songs for Making the Cover of Rolling Stone

- "The Cover of 'Rolling Stone'" - Dr. Hook & the Medicine Show

- "Like a Rolling Stone" - Bob Dylan

- "Rip This Joint" - The Rolling Stones

- "Magazine Called Sunset" - Wilco

- "Rappin' Rodney" - Rodney Dangerfield

52 Card Mix-up

Sadly, he was prouder of this house of cards than he ever was of his children.

Houses have a long history of being the preferred shelter amongst human beings, with caves coming in a distant second place.  An increased focus on sturdy and durable materials to make up a home began with a little story involving three pigs and the neighborhood wolf with super lungs. Despite that lesson of fragile homesteads crumbling behind a wolf’s breath, a house constructed from playing cards breaks ground every 4.5 seconds of a bored and lazy afternoon.

Building a house from cards has many advantages over building a house from wood, bricks, steel, cheese or what have you.  For instance, you will save hundreds of thousands of dollars on supplies, interest rates and stress balls, but the disadvantages may cost you your mind and pride.  In my experience with regular home construction, when you hit a snag, you turn to your contractor, throw him a pile of money, and say, “You there, sir, make me four walls and roof for which I can sleep in…Oh and hardwood floors with an open concept would be a plus.”  Currently, there are no houses of cards contractors, carpenters, electricians, or even plumbers.  So all the responsibility falls to yours truly.

Sure you think you know how to build a house of cards based on a Youtube video and a basic understanding of playing cards and gravity.  But that means nothing, once you see your creation crumble halfway through the second floor for the fifteenth time.  It tests and destroys your patience.

“You can do anything you put your mind to,” they say.  “When the going gets tough, the tough get going,” they say.  And yes, those are great mottos, but when you are leaving to catch a movie in 30 minutes, they are as useful as a being a season ticket holder for an XFL team.  Here are some of my failed attempts in that half hour.

No, they did not go well, but in fairness, contractors are given months to build a house, while I built multiple unfinished ranch houses in a half hour.  And where’s my HGTV show???

With my back against the wall, and the order of one house of cards running against the deadline of my movie time, I had to improvise. 

Kevin Spacey stars in the Netflix series House of Cards and spelling out his name required an entire deck of cards (including both Jokers).

The K-Pax Man himself.

 And here is my final structure…

It's a starter home.

It’s a 3 bedroom and 2 bath home with hardwoods throughout. It includes windows, a door, but is untested in wolf blowing situations.  Listing Price: $1.25 – a reasonable asking price for a used deck of cards.

Necessary Songs for Home Construction
- "House of Cards" - Radiohead
- "House of the Rising Sun" - The Animals version (or the Nina Simone version)
- "Myth" - Beach House
- "Ace of Spades" - Motorhead
- "Burning Down the House" - Talking Heads
- "Our House" - Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young

Street Tart

Sculptures.  Sitcoms.  Paintings.  Gwen Stefani songs.  Junior High School Gymnasium Murals.  And David Hasselhoff eating cheeseburgers.  All of these are viable entities that have been considered art.  One of the newest and most popular forms of artistic expression comes from the streets.  Stencils and graffiti have pushed the medium of the outdoors to the forefront of the art world.

Using the open air gallery of the street, street artists are scrawling all over the "established" art world elites with their Pinot and their abstract-itude, as well as the world of anti-vandalism police squads with their high profile teepee cases and pie-in-the-sky pension funds.  With the faceless face of street art, Banksy, completing his October "residency" of New York to great acclaim, I thought it was high time for yours truly to enter into the rough and tumble streets of the new art world.

"Nightmare on My Street" - Artist Unknown

I was as surprised as Pee Wee Herman finding out about public indecency laws, when I heard the latest art craze involved the streets.  Like any red-blooded American male I concede that the streets are best used for driving on or dancing in, but for drawing pictures of???  But once I gave it a shot, I can honestly say that I've never experienced anything that came within driving distance of the thrill of adding my vision of a street to a public wall.

"Crossroads at the Fridge" - Artist Unknown

Finally, I had my day in the sun of getting something of mine put on the refrigerator.  Word to the wise (or to your mother ™ - Vanilla Ice): When you choose what goes on the fridge, there is no pride in seeing your self-chosen work there.  This piece represents the crossroads we all face when absentmindedly finding ourselves staring endlessly into this appliance without a clue as to a.) how I arrived here and b.) well I better eat something since I'm here, and hmmmmm, well, umm, I assume carrots and chocolate sauce might mix well, and my eyes feel like they could use the old carrot boost.

I hope you noticed the inclusion of a guitar and shoddily sketched devil (below) in the street work.  I can't verify the truth behind the story of Robert Johnson and his dealings at the crossroads, but I am confident that he would find my lollipop-shaped stop signs nauseating.

"I Make Pot Holes Not Plot Holes" - quote by Steven Shakespeare

The photography is clearly my biggest error in this post, but as you can maybe see - the above shall rest as a "pot"-hole until it is quickly dispatched by wind, rain, SUVs, and roaming packs of wild dogs.  I'm only joking, I didn't let that drawing get destroyed by the elements and canines.  I placed it as a halo above my house guardian and omnipresent mascot Vonn Mexico.

"House Elf and Pot-head" - Vonn Mexico

The final Street art installation from my night residency of my residence depicted my lack of familiarity with the definition of curb stomping.  Yes, I've seen American History X but I have seen far more people just stomp on a curb without a human head being smashed between Neo-Nazi shoe and concrete.  The enthusiastic stepping onto of a curb is how I define a successful curb stomp.  I decided to trivialize memorialize this by capturing a shot of this.

"Stomp the Yard" - Artist Unknown

Songs Meant for Dancing in the Street, That Are Not Named "Dancing in the Street":
- "Positively 4th Street" - Bob Dylan
- "Mainstreet" - Bob Seger & the Silver Bullet Band
- "In the Street" - Big Star
- "Electric Avenue" - Eddy Grant
- "Dry the Rain" - The Beta Band (just because)

Seek and Destroy

Were these ever an actual way to commence a demolition or just another cartoon creation?

Although it's a passing feeling, destruction can satisfy in the moment more than the creation of any one thing.  Sure, building a 20,000 piece Lego recreation of the Death Star results in a sense of accomplishment and pride, but can that really match the momentary high of tossing that plastic Death Star into a canyon filled with angry alligators on a plastic diet?  Since the overwhelming majority of us don't moonlight as the "pushing the down the lever that collapses old stadiums and buildings" guy, the opportunity to harmlessly destroy items comes up too infrequently.

For those reasons, I cannot blame the decorative-squash-smashing teenage hooligans who celebrate Halloween as if it were Billy Corgan appreciation night at the local minor league ballpark.  Instead of getting my kicks by intentionally ruining a child's day like a complete sociopath, I decided I would create my own jack-o'-lantern to then destroy it in a controlled and adult operation......by blowing it up with fireworks or power tools like a professional adult.  This plan sounded perfect at the beginning of last week until I decided realized I missed Halloween, and it was November 1, and also that pumpkin tastes like sauteed mahogany.  Therefore carving and smashing a watermelon would provide much more deliciousness and less embarrassment for the fact that I had missed a predetermined and well-marketed holiday.  I should've really put together that the Halloween marathon I was watching probably meant something other than assuming Jamie Lee Curtis had passed away.

As the old saying goes, when life hands you melons, make - SHARKS.  I carved mine from a seeded and little past season watermelon.  I named him Roger.  He's 13 inches tall, a Scorpio, and his favorite dance is the merengue.

We're going to need a bigger melon.

Clearly he is too cute, and drunk...

If you see a fin in the water, run and save your bourbon.

to mercilessly smash in my backyard.  So to recap here are how my plans for this entry have gone.

First Idea: Carve a pumpkin.  FAIL!
Second Idea: Smash that pumpkin watermelon.  FAIL!!
Third Idea: Buy a calendar and remember holidays.  FAIL!!!
Fourth Idea: Find something else to smash.  FA - at this point I should just give up and go to sleep for the next few months.

So to quench my newfound and disturbing thirst for destruction, I made my way to the KDHK fundraiser Art Attack.  The show involved a bracket-style competition that pitted two paintings against each other with the winner of the always reliable applause-o-meter moving on to the next round.  The loser of each round was then auctioned off to the highest bidder.  If that bid didn't exceed $150, the painting would then meet a grisly demise.  Methods of destruction included your run-of-the-mill smashing, kicking, and chainsaws, but they got creative and also putting the paintings out to pasture with an evil Bob Ross covering the canvass in fake blood paint and a Nickelodeon-inspired sliming.

Proceeds from the event benefitted local public radio station KDHX, while watching the annihilation of art benefitted all involved except the artist responsible for the tattered canvas.

There's some good old fashioned destruction.

This awesome painting of Grover didn't win, but was sold in the auction for $600.  Luckily his new owner seemed legit and had a fantastic sense of humor with his "Relax, I'm hilarious" t-shirt.  You can tell he was a comic savant.

Songs Meant for Destructions

- "Search and Destroy" - Iggy and the Stooges

- "Destroyer" - The Kinks

- "1979" - Smashing Pumpkins

- "When I Paint My Masterpiece" - The Band's version

Pig Out

Origami - know when to hold 'em, know when to fold 'em.

Bills!  Bills!  Bills!  What else is there to be said about your bills?  They’ve had their day of reckoning in popular culture with references from Destiny’s Child, Beastie Boys, and people with the last name - Nye the Science Guy.  I admit it would be a fun challenge to crumple up my bills, throw them in the trash, hop on the first train to Flint, MI., and outrun my debts, but I recommend finding a use for that piece of paper before throwing it away. 

Are you thinking of ideas for how to use a piece paper covered in your personal information?  Well, I imagine you have by now come to the only logical conclusion – burning the paper to lower next months heating bill.  But, with all due respect to Spock, the logical conclusion is boring, and the correct answer is origami.  Encyclopedias and know-it-alls around the world describe origami as “the ancient art of making paper into slightly more interesting pieces of paper.”  But making a typical flower just won't get across my artistic expression anger about bills.  So, I turned to pigs.  

Aside from being extremely tasty and sending their little ones to the market, pigs are known as a symbol for greed.  So transforming folding a recent utility bill into the shape of a pig was the best statement I could make. 

Step one: Use electricity.  This will result in your mailbox blossoming with an exciting letter asking you to send your money to keep the lights on.

Step two: Pay bill.  Now that you’ve become accustomed to living in the light, you have realized it would be a difficult thing to live without.

Step three: Follow the directions here to create this little utility bill piggy.

With a background in working retail that sometimes involved entire shifts spent folding t-shirts, I am secure in my self-appointed categorization as a natural born folder.  Naturally I assumed my clothes-folding skills would translate seamlessly into decoratively folding paper into animals.  Here’s my ego-defeating final result. 

All my hard work, after unsuccessfully trying to re-fold into a pig-ish shape twice.

I clearly overestimated my folding abilities.  I should have lied in the outset of this post and written about making paper airplanes that have had their wings clipped.  Or just simply posted the lyrics to “Bills, Bills, Bills.” 

My first couple folds were on track with the directions, but that fell apart quickly.  In my defense, I think the use of a pre-folded piece of paper like the bill I chose (which was folded to fit in the envelope) was my downfall.  That or my frustration with how quickly my work distanced itself in the wrong direction from the pictures with the instructions.

After the crushing embarrassment of comparing my origami pig to the other google images of origami pigs and even just comparing my final product to the more beautiful blank piece of paper it began as, I thought maybe changing the environment of my creation would enhance the image.  So I decided to give Huey the pig (because Huey Lewis is as misunderstood as my grasp on origami) some farm friends.

Quite the barnyard party.  Who brought the e....i-e-i-ooo?

The closest thing I had to farm animals were a rubber ducky, a caped monkey (classic farm animal), and an elf.  This didn't help.  In fact it made for a more depressing photograph, when admitting that all of these props were surprisingly close at hand.  Speaking of surprisingly close at hand props, my final hope of saving this project involved a cassette tape and showing Huey having a blast. 

Probably the only compilation to ever feature Dream Weaver and Feed My Frankenstein.

There's no wrong way to eat a Snickers, or have a blast.  Even if that means putting the Wayne's World cassette tape on the cans and letting Huey tear the place up.

Domo Origami Mr. Roboto Songs
- "The Gambler" - Kenny Rogers
- "The Bends" - Radiohead
- "Bills, Bills, Bills" - Destiny's Child

The Art of Letter Writing

What follows below is an open email letter that I sent out to New York City's Metropolitan Museum of Art.  I also sent this correspondence to NYC's New Museum, the Modern Museum of Art, and the Guggenheim museums (with slightly altered copy) with the attachment of my previous work of "Scrooge McPowers".  My goal in sending this heinous piece of "artwork" was to see if it can elicit an actual art critique or at the very least a terse response of rejection.

 

Hello,

You don’t know me, but I’m your brother.  Michael McDonald sure knew how to sing ‘em.  Am I right?  There I go again boring people with Doobie Brothers trivia.  Anyways, the reason I am contacting you today is because you, as an employee of the esteemed Metropolitan Museum of Art, have a skilled eye for art.  And I recently finished a piece that I think you will be very interested in.

Pop art highlighted the impact of the mass production and consumption of popular culture.  The public self-pimping of celebrities today (i.e. Kardashians) makes Marilyn Monroe;s public image look like Haley Joel Osmont’s.  Commentary on greed in the digital, popular culture age is what I tried to touch on in the piece I am submitting to you.  Which reminds me what’s your favorite color?  Also what color do you think the Smurfs should have been?  Also was it copyright infringement when the Blue Man Group painted themselves blue like Smurfs or was it legally considered homage?

Questions like these are what led me to create “Scrooge McPowers”.   This is my mash-up of renowned greed-hound Scrooge McDuck and self-described poon-hound Kenny Powers.  Since we are on the topic of mash-ups, do you think Girl Talk would make for a good Freemason?  I’m trying to decide if I should recommend him or not, and am looking for guidance anywhere I can find it. 

You seem like someone who likes the painter Seurat, and did I mention that my painting uses pointillism?  So, there’s that.  And really I think your museum could use something like my piece to get the young people dancing again. 

As a New Yorker, have you ever seen anyone dancing in the streets?  Mick and David were singing about it, and the Jets and Sharks sure liked to snap and knife dance in those streets.  In conclusion, I would like you to consider my attached painting for inclusion in your museum, or I would like you to consider dancing in the streets more often.  Either way do whatever you want, unless you want to poison a children's hospital or not respond to my correspondence.  Those would not be cool things to do. 

I look forward to your response.

Yours Truly,

pH

Songs (not yet referenced) for Writing a Soul-Bearing Letter: 

- "The Letter" - Joe Cocker's version

- "Box Full of Letters" - Wilco

- "Hello" - Lionel Ritchie

- "Modern Art" - Black Lips  

Duck Dynasty

Georges-Pierre Seurat's pointillism masterpiece - 1884

The painting technique of pointillism uses small dots to create a larger image.  The incorporation of small individual points serving a greater pattern can be seen in the works of Vincent Van Gogh to somebody alleged on Wikipedia to be named John Roy (who sounds more like an old-timey drink than an artist to me).  These small points can be seen in famous works like A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte (pictured above) to Vincent van Gogh's Self Portrait to Necco's Candy Buttons.

Necco's Candy Buttons - delicious.

While many works featuring pointillism techniques now line the walls of museums, the style was originally considered an insult.  Art critics with a lack of imaginative insults penned the term to mock this form of art.  They probably could have completely curbed the technique with a more cutting moniker.  For example, "Circle-cism" and "Dot-tingham Hill" might have been just cheesy enough to stop the movement at it's beginning.

Alas the movement had it's run, and in all honesty makes painting far easier than the usual smoothness of typically painting.  If you make a mistake with your dots, no need to erase.  Just add more dots and leave some blank spots between them to even your painting out.  I really should quit using the term "paint" since I was too lazy cheap hopeless to use an actual canvass and paint.  But the supplies needed to create a pointillism-inspired masterpiece scribbling can be found at any arts supply store.  A couple colors of fine-point ink pens to keep your colors from bleeding are cheap, and easy to use.  By "easy to use" I mean the process of dotting the paper for individual dots is easy.  I can't say that making a beautiful image that stirs thought or emotion like actual art is easy for me by any stretch of that word.

With the culmination of Breaking Bad this week, we saw the pinnacle of the antihero saga play out.  You could probably trace our culture's fascination with stories of amoral protagonists that blur the hero/villain line back to the jurassic age...of audiences wildly cheering for those velociraptors to eat Laurn Dern.  For myself though, the real antihero begins with the greedy businessduck who enjoys a nice dip in his money pool.  I, of course, am referencing Scrooge McDuck.

McDuck is a character that was begging to be drawn.  But how does one capture the essence of a miserly narcissist?  After racking my brain for an eternal 5 minutes, the only logical choice was to mash him up with fellow antihero Kenny Powers.  Warning: In an attempt to channel Van Gogh, I suggest employing the help of a cheap bottle of wine, if there is no Absynthe handy.  Choose a wine that can add a splash of needed color to your work.  As seen below spills are a certainty, if you do not enjoy your $5 wine in a safely locked sippy cup.

And now I present to you Scrooge McPowers...

Scrooge McPowers taking a leisurely ride through his gold-strewn pool.

The most glaring observation from this piece is the uncompleted gold pool.  Sure, I could have spent some more time making dots to make his gold pool look grander, but hand cramps set in.  And I had to put myself on the disabled list (bad news if you took me in your ill-advised fantasy artists league).  The more I think on it, the more I believe Eastbound and Down only has one direction to head, and that direction is toward Duckburg and a partnership with Scrooge McDuck himself.  They truly are two peas in one racistly and homophobically greedy pod.

The accent from the discount shelf wine steals the show here.

You also should notice my faulty knowledge of duck anatomy.  This is on display with my attempts two of his duck appendages.  His middle finger has ballooned to more than triple the width of the rest of his fingers.  I'd like to also take a moment here and ask, does Scrooge McDuck have knuckles?  All of my minute of research was inconclusive.  At least the spilled wine to the left made an appearance on my final draft, and distracts slightly from the mutant finger.

I'm no vet but that duck's toes look severely broken.

  Yes, that is a close-up of McDuck's left leg atop a jet ski, and yes it's difficult to decipher where McDuck stops and the jet-ski begins, and no I didn't mean for McDuck to be a half-duck, half-scrooge, half-jet-ski cyborg, but sometimes your fractions just don't add up you know?  The broken toes aren't one of the more aesthetically pleasing parts of this drawing, but Web(bed Feet) MD cites this as a common side effect of swimming in pools made of gold coins.


Where did McDuck get all these gold coins?  They don't have an easier paper currency or reliable banking system in Duckburg to safeguard his large amount of cash.  Duckburg is in serious need of a few banking overhauls.

In summation, are there bad mistakes in here?  Sure, I've made a few.  And I've had my share of sand kicked in my face, but I'm pretty sure I've come through on this one.  And sure I could go on and on and on and on, but this is honestly the best thing I've ever "painted."  Or as Vonn Mexico (my house elf roommate) wrote in his column in Elf Quarterly, "It reminds one of looking into the face of God and spitting in his face.  Only to then wipe away his tears onto a canvass to edify the souls of man (and elf)."


Recommended Songs for Making Ducks Out of Dots: 
-"Goin' Down" - Freddie King
-"Johnny B. Goode" - Chuck Berry
-"Money" - Pink Floyd
-And whatever this "Disco Duck" is...

Miniaturize This

As far as museum galleries go, the square footage of the room is miniature too.

After a recent stint of lazy Sundays, I found myself scouring the web for a low-cost use of time in St. Louis.  What I discovered was the quickest non-surgical way to eliminate anyone’s underlying Napoleon complex.  It comes in the form of the Miniature Museum of St. Louis.  It’s the perfect getaway for anyone that enjoys light switches, complex dollhouses, or the view from a voyeuristic giant’s eyes.  Check.  Check. And double check!  Three of my favorite pastimes all under one roof!

Editors Note: Lucky museum-goers, like myself, might even be treated to the thrill of accidentally walking into the restricted area and see the employee on security camera duty partaking in an early Sunday afternoon miller time.  I badly wanted to join in but wasn't sure on this museum's policy on customer/employee alcohol interaction.

Typically, museums exist on some level to place their customers in a place of smallness and insignificance.  The Mona Lisa causes one to wonder, “will anything I ever accomplish, make people want to travel across the globe just for a brief peek from behind a protective glass.”  Dinosaur fossil replicas, like Sue the T. Rex, lets you envision life at the bottom of the food chain (or what life was like for Rick Moranis’ shrunken children).  The miniature museum spins this paradigm on it’s head, and gives the viewer an insight into the world of Gulliver staring down on the lives of the plastic figurine Lilliputians for the reasonable price of $5.

 

Exhibits ranged from large-scale houses like the haunted mansion, to replicas like the Bevo Mill restaurant, to small dioramas just a step or two above the old shoebox and ninja turtle action figures ones that I made for first and second grade projects.  While I’m on the topic of that diorama sentence you just read, I must say, a quick google search on the topic brought up some pretty spectacular life-size dioramas that are being built out there.  There are dioramas that make great use of perspective, dioramas that make great use of lighting displays, and even dioramas that make great use of wolves.  A whole bevy of diorama information can be found at http://fuckyeahdioramas.tumblr.com/ because that is a real web site that I did not just make up, and that kind of enthusiasm about artificially constructed three-dimensional scenes has to be celebrated.

Each display at the museum comes outfitted with a user-controlled lighting display to shine a light on the scene.  These switches are not to be trusted.  They would often turn on with ease, but clicking the light off often proved difficult.  It was disclaimed the lights would shut off automatically after they deemed themselves out of use.  But the lingering lighted display seemed like a desperate last-ditch call from the miniature to entice the viewer back for one more look before heading back into a cruel world filled with regularly-sized items.

 

Smaller displays like the one pictured to the right, plastered the walls of the museum.  While this particular display doesn’t have the size and intricacies of the other miniatures, it still has plenty of  merits, and for a non-miniaturist what looks like a world of frustration in the production process.  

This was the “Rock & Roll Room”, which attracted me despite the very un-rock and roll font choice on the title card.  Arranging all the miniature musical trinkets in such a tiny place requires a surgeon’s hand and a designer's eye.   However, the design to this particular piece does give me a few reservations.

I’m going to make an educated guess the miniaturist who created this piece had no idea what rock and roll is other than something the kids were bopping to back in the day.  It appears as though they admire Gun’s and Roses, or at the very least were able to find pictures of them without any trouble.  But why the inclusion of all the brass instruments?  Did I miss the face-melting tuba solo in “Paradise City”? 

Or how about the “influential” rock albums covering the wall?  I don’t recall reading anywhere about the influence Dolly Parton and the Dirty Dancing soundtrack had on a young Axl Rose.  If I’m being completely honest, I would pay many shekels to see a Gun’s and Roses reunion show where they had to make do playing Dolly’s “Jolene” with all the instruments included in this exhibit.

 

Damnnnnnnnnnn.  This haunted mansion is killer (sorry for that lame joke).  It scares me to think my best effort today would still be the old shoebox/action figure display.

Oh. Hey there vampire with Nicolas Cage face syndrome.

Good to note here that all the displays in the museum are donations, and this haunted house by Drew Hunter deserves some name recognition.

 

This two signs detailed the contagious nature of miniaturism as well as an itemized description of who a miniaturist is.  Do any of these symptoms affect one of your loved one's?  Probably not.  But my favorite highlights include "Has an attention span of 23 minutes for spring cleaning, and 6 hours and 49 minutes for making a miniature." - Those are oddly specific time measurements, and holy hell that's the time frame for one miniature.  Impressive.  "Has trouble operating a can opener, but can turn out 48 identical spindles on a mini lathe." - Nope.  No idea what that sentence means.  "Can't think of any ways to serve leftovers, but knows three uses for sawdust." - Is one of those uses for grade-school janitors to sprinkle it on vomit?

There are minimalist miniature scenes...

...and there are more active scenes. So a horse walks into a bar...

Finally, there was one exhibit that requires a deeper look.  It is titled "The Immaculate Deception," and is the far-and-away winner of the "Creativity Award."  But also winner of the "Most Confusing and Strange and Guess the Clinical Diagnosis Award."  The basic premise of the piece focuses on the awkward explanation every family faces to a child's query of where babies come from.  Obviously the answer involves, not just storks and the birds and the bees, but a "nun"-sense mixture in the baby garden.  I could try and explain more, but the pictures tell it better.  There are some highlights to keep an eye out for including the twins, the baby "breaching" on the cabbage patch, and the likely horrifying use of puppy tails.

If only my laundromat offered free delivery service via bird.

What are the puppy tails for? What are the puppy tails for? What's in the box?

What the hell are these birds and bees doing if babies come from sugar, spice, and everything nice?

And.....this clinches it.  This display is completely bonkers, yet completely awesome.

At their core, hobbies provide enjoyment - a distraction from the mundane and bigger challenges of daily life.  In this way, miniaturists chose the most logical and fulfilling use of free time.  So, in honor of the beer-toting employee of the miniature museum, here's to the miniaturists and their quest to conquer the minuscule, so the rest of us don't have to.  Also, mark your calendars now, the World Federation of Miniaturists will be held next in South Africa in 2016, book your trips now.

Recommended Songs for the Next Installment of Honey, I Shrunk the Kids: "Short People" - Randy Newman, "Tiny Dancer" - Elton John, "I Wish" - Skee-lo, "I'm Nothing" - Violent Femmes, "Rattlesnake Highway" - Palma Violets - no real reason other than this song came through on my iTunes shuffle and it's good stuff.

Scooby Doo('nt) Where Are You?

Having the lanky physique of a coat rack has come in handy many a time (see: sneaking through tightly packed crowds at concerts; see also: holding your entire groups coats when trying to leave a party).  Perks aside, gumby-esque body types don’t have a long history of flattering celebrity look-alikes.  Add in a mop-top style haircut and feeble attempts at chin stubble, and it’s a given that people endearingly attempt to compare me with renowned screw-up (and go-to example that dogs can be smarter than humans) Shaggy from Scooby Doo.  If I was so lucky to be blessed with the golden voice of music chart enthusiast Casey Kasem (original voice actor), but alas I’m stuck with a voice even Matthew Lillard would scoff at.

Instead of making the daring choice and starting this web site with a Van Gogh inspired self portrait, I attempted to start with the next best idea - drawing a sketch of my cartoon twin Shaggy and his pal Scooby Doo.  Never would anyone mistake Shaggy with being a good-looking man, but once you see my attempt at drawing him, you may reconsider how attractive the real cartoon is. 

I have a query pending with Sootheby’s auction house to see if the blank sheet of paper is worth more than my drawing, but the safe bet is on the blank sheet.  Let me reiterate that this is my honest attempt at drawing these characters.  Sadly, I spent near an hour on each of these attempting to perfect them for publication.  

"Anatomically Incorrect Shaggy"

I know what you are thinking.  And no, that is not Ellen Degeneres' face after being run over by a truck.  Let me stress again that this was my best attempt.  I threw away a piece of paper in which I failed three times at just drawing an oval to start his head.  

The Good:

-You know it's Shaggy because of my intro to this post.

The Bad:

-The amount of time I spent on this drawing.

The Ugly:

-His hair is clearly a wig made by a first-time wig maker with no clue how hair looks or sits onto heads.

-Shaggy is rocking an extremely deep V-neck.  It's encroaching on sub-nipple levels.

-His forearm looks broken.  It has more twists and turns than a corn maze designed by M. Night.

-4 out of 5 doctors agree it is a miracle his single-strand-of-yarn-like neck can support his oblong head.  Also, check out the expert shading work on that neck...sexy.

-I won't even comment on his left arm and fingers because "I honestly forgot how to draw what fingers look like, so I scribbled a mess." (this is my favorite Renoir quote)

-The angle of that bulbous right wrist has no precedent in anatomy or life.

Recommended songs to listen to while drawing Norville "Shaggy" Rogers: "It Wasn't Me" - Shaggy, "Angel" - Shaggy, "Break My Body" - Pixies 

Scooby Doo('nt)

Honestly, I'm going to go easy on myself for this one.  I don't think this is too terrible.  Maybe that speaks to my lack of authority as an art critic.  Don't get me wrong, I am not an insane person, I don't expect the folks over at Scooby Inc. to give me a  job as the new Scooby artist, but this might place second or third in a second grade art class competition.  And that's really my whole goal with this project.  Sure his face makes him look dumber than the Lou Reed-Metallica album, and I blatantly don't know how to draw a dog ear, but I'd say I'm proud of this one.

Recommended Songs for Scooby: "Hair of the Dog" - Nazareth, "These Days" - Dr. Dog, "Mad Dog" - Black Lips, "We Did It" - Dora the Explorer