Saturday, December 30:

Someone is selling a Jim Sheely sculpture on Ebay. It's a bat! Go look!

I was listening to a show about the lives of lobsters on Wisconsin Public Radio (WPR) today. The lobster expert was on for a while but I only started listening when he dispelled the myth that lobsters mate for life. He mentioned the the television show "Friends" was responsible for perpetuating this myth during a lobster-related episode of the program. I remember a few years back, for a Valentines Day promotion, starting a rumor that aardvarks mate for life. The store slogan was "Aardvarks mate for life and so should you". I don't think anyone believed me on either count. Guess I'm not a percieved animal scientist like the people on "Friends".

Wednesday, December 27:

My old pal Rob in CA sent me one of those dancing/singing Douglas Fir trees for Christmas. If you were reading the blog last year you may remember that I already have five Douglas Fir trees of my own. Rob bought me my first tree back in 1996 when he lived here in Madison. He's a good friend.

Anyway, what makes Rob's tree different than mine is that it hasn't been "fixed" yet-- meaning that it still sings and has the same appearance that it had when it rolled off the assembly line in China. All of my trees have had their singing wires clipped and have had jagged teeth and springy arms added to their bodies. For years my trees have frightened potential customers as they trip the little tree motion sensors when they walk by the store. That's fun for me. I don't know why.

If you've ever heard one of these trees sing you would know why all of mine are clipped. They are extremely loud and obnoxious and they don't know how to say very many different things (mostly "HI!", a rendition of "Jingle Bell Rock" and "Have a tree-mendous New Year!"). Listening to them sing gets old after about a minute. So on Christmas Eve I unpacked my tree and Don and I listened to him nostalgically for about a minute before, noting how incredibly loud it was, we came up with a better use for the tree. Why not place the tree in the bathroom and position it such that it would come screeching to life whenever someone reached in and turned on the light? What could be funnier? I can't think of anything. I'm still laughing about this and it happened two days ago.

We succeeded in frightening two people who used the downstairs bathroom that night. Bob Foster was wise to the tree and everyone else had some kind of iron bladder and didn't use the bathroom at all. I don't know why I think this is so, so, so funny. Maybe it's because this thing that has such a startling appearance is supposed to a Christmas decoration? I don't know.

If you want to buy your own Douglas Fir, one place that they're available is Ebay. Here's an auction for one now. This guy is getting rid of his because it scared his wife. He thought that was pretty funny.

Monday, Christmas Day:

Congratulations to Leslie Long winner of the "You're an Imbecile" pin drawing! Hooray! Don drew her name just after midnight at my store closing get together last night. Your prize will be mailed out tommorrow.

I just got back from Christmas dinner at my parent's house. That's always a good time. Both of the parents, and my brother as well, really know how to cook. Having spent most of my formative years living in a store without an oven I've learned how to prepare and enjoy mostly dried foods that come in little cups or little individually wrapped envelopes. Ramen noodles, granola bars, hot dogs--you know, stuff that you eat when you're camping. That's my diet and I'm ok with that. Since we got the house I have made forays into the world of foods prepared from scratch without much success--except for Carcass Soup. That's actually pretty good. At dinner tonight I told my brother that I learned how to make soup and he just laughed at me and said that making soup is like sleeping--everyone can do that. I have a hard time sleeping, too.

Inwardly I wished this year that someone would buy me a Roman Centurian helmet and a box set of all four seasons of Futurama. Those are about the only two things that I want but do not have already. Of course I recieved neither of them because I did not mention them to anyone. I'll probably buy them for myself later.

My family has never been all overly overly about the whole gift exchange movie. Usually we give or recieve highly practical things like socks, towels, kitchen knife sets or booze. Occasionally someone will come up with an unnecessary gift of high comedic value which is, in my opinion, the best gift of all. A few years ago my brother gave my Dad a cane that was made out of a bull penis. To this day I know that anything I buy will pale into comparison to that gift which was practical (Dad needed a cane at the time) and of high comedic value and something that my really wanted, though he did not know of it's existence before my brother gave it to him. That's the gift trifecta right there. You're lucky if you see that once every ten years. This year we just gave bottles of single malt scotch. That's good too but it's no bull penis cane.

Friday, December 22:

Did you hear about Flora the female Komodo dragon who recently laid a clutch of fertilized eggs despite never having had contact with a male dragon? Isn't that something? This is a huge, huge story. The press never has anything nice to say about reptiles. Way to go, Flora! I'm going to avoid all of the obvious seasonal references pertaining to parthenogenesis and just say that this is probably a result of all of the good looking male dragons being either gay or married. (That's not even my joke. I stole it from the Mel and Floyd Radio Show. I am lame.)

So, today the weather outside was frightful and it was really, really, really slow in the store. Like always, for background noise I had on Wisconsin Public Radio. I had to shut it off after I found my self listening to a call-in show about your favorite Christmas cookie traditions. Not that I have anything against Christmas, cookies or the traditions surrounding them. There has got to be a better way for me to spend my time than listening to people talk about cookies on the radio.

Wednesday, December 20:

My favorite food is that rotisserie chicken you buy in the grocery store. I ate most of a chicken just before I came back to the shop tonight. My second favorite food is soup that I make out of the remains of the chicken. I call it Carcass Soup. It's delicious. Is it not amazing to you that despite my love for rotisserie chicken ( that's been sitting in the rotisserie for who knows how long) and the fact that daily I clean up after two iguanas and two hedgehogs, that I have never once contracted salmonella poisoning? I think it is. I've always been lucky like that. I think about that every time I eat rotisserie chicken.

Tuesday, December 19:

Some of my favorite art pieces are things that I know how to make but would not attempt to make myself in a million years. Like, a house covered in seed beads or this copper Jesus. This Jesus stands about 14" tall and is made mostly of 26g copper wire. The serape and staff are removable. It is a marvel. Don's boss, Eliot, bought him while he was on vacation in Mexico. Paid quite a bit for him too by Mexican religious icon standards. Eliot let Don borrow him for a few days so I could get a picture. I just think he's cool...even if he looks kind of scary.

Here are some big pics: Full body, head and hands.

Monday, December 18:

We are going to be rewarded in January with a visit from the building inspector for going through the proper channels and getting a building permit to work on our house. As long as he isn't from the Department of Tasteful Decorating we should be ok.

The emails for the pin giveaway are piling up. It's always a surprise to me to find out that people are paying attention to my antics. Don't forget that you have until Dec. 24 to send me yours. I promise not to sell the email list to anyone--not that any company would be interested in a list of people who wantin a pin that says "You're an Imbicile".

Sunday, December 17:

Check out my deformed photo flood bulb. It was normal when I put it into the fixture but when I took it out it had this big old bubble popping out of the side. I've been holding onto the bulb for about a year because I think it's an interesting glass anomoly. Now that I've shown it to you I can throw it away. You'll probably be seeing a lot of my garbage over the next few weeks.

Thursday, December 14:

I've was going through boxes and drawers and piles of stuff in the store waiting for the Organization Fairy to visit me and tell me what to do with all this crap when I came across this pin that I made probably 7 or 8 or maybe 9 years ago. Here's the poop: I used to make these etched dichroic glass pins that said "Bite Me!" on them and give them to WORT community radio station to give away during their pledge drives. The thing that people like about these pins is that they're small (1- 1.25" square) so people have to get up close to admire them. Usually they figure out what the pin says and they say "Bite Me!" or perhaps they ask "Does that pin say 'Bite Me'?". Then they laugh...usually.

Anyway, at one point I must have wanted to mix things up a bit because I started making pins that said "You're An Imbecile". I was pretty pleased with myself until Don pointed out that I had misspelled "imbecile" on the prototype. Now, as we all know if you're going to go around calling someone an imbecile you better make sure your spelling is flawless or it will be you who looks like well...an imbecile. Into the drawer went the prototype pin.

Since I'm older now I simultaneously laugh at my mistakes, appreciate the irony in the pin and also just not care whether or not people think I'm an imbecile. It's time now for someone else to own this pin and display it where others can see it and probably not notice the mispelling. If you would like this beautiful pin for yourself just email me at aardart@aol.com and put "You're an imbecile" in the heading. Any spelling of the word "imbecile" will be accepted. You have until midnight on Dec. 24 to enter. I'll put all of the emails into a hat and Don will draw the winner. The winner will be notified via email on CHRISTMAS DAY. You will recieve your pin in the mail shortly thereafter and I will have one less item to worry about moving. Good luck.

Wednesday, December 13:

Our house has a myriad of little screwy things that we are trying to work around. One of them is this archway where about two-thirds of the nice old wood has been painted over. Since we like making tiles more than we like stripping wood we've decided to cover all of the painted areas with 4x4" tiles. Right now the tiles are tentatively hung by hooks so we can move them around, swap them out with newer ones and work on the spacing. This is going to be something else when it's finished.

(Yes, we do have a toy bat hanging from our ceiling fan. When you switch it on it's wings flap and it's eyes light up. We turn it on when company comes over.)

Tuesday, December 12:

Things have changed big time since my last pants update five days ago. After five months of wear Don's pants began developing a hole. Since the hole was making Don cold he decided to return the pants to Sam so he can either repair them with the special, special little square of denim that accompanies the pants or just wash them and call an end to the experiment. I don't know which way Sam will go. I tried to convince Don to wear long underwear under the pants (something that I would have done months ago for sanitary reasons alone) and keep the experiment going but he felt that the hole was a harbinger of larger holes to come and that it was time to hang up the pants before they fell apart. They lasted a lot longer than I thought they would, those pants.

Thursday, December 7:

My fabulous Epson Photo Stylus 870 printer (Jan. 2000-Nov. 2006) died a few weeks ago. It was the best printer ever. I came to grips with it's demise and finally replaced it just the other day. Now it's carcass is sitting on the floor in the front of the store because I can't bring myself to throw it out. I swear that were it not winter and were our backyard not a slab of cement I would bury it, as one would a beloved pet, somewhere near the house and give it a little headstone so everyone who benefited from it's greatness could pay their respects. I guess I could still do that come Spring...not like it's going to rot in the meantime.

UPDATES:

Our pet cut worm emerged from it's cocoon a beautiful cut worm moth on Nov. 26. Noting that both he and the moth shared the same birthday our pal Brad named the newly morphed creature "Brad jr.". Brad jr. disappeared into our house the next day, presumably to find a cut worm moth of the opposit sex and lay eggs. The circle of life, man. It's all happening in our kitchen.

Don's pants seem to have reached critical mass dirt-wise meaning that there hasn't been any discernable difference in the pants over the past few weeks---they're just really, really dirty. I don't notice them so much unless I see them in a well-lit environment (like a grocery store) or if they get too close to food that I'm trying to eat. After 5 months Sam is still coming in to photograph them each Wednesday and has nothing but good things to say about the experiment's progress.

Monday, December 4:

Speaking of falling off ladders and stuff, Iggy took a header off the top of the lizard condo on Saturday night. Due to her advanced years and poor bone condition I had long thought that such a fall would kill her but she was saved by landing in a massive tangle of extension cords that power her day and night lights, fans and my master card machine. (Iggy does not use the master card machine---she merely sneezes on it until I can't read the LED screen.) And to think the fire inspector was just in here harping on me about all those cords! Fie on you, fire inspector. Extension cords save lives.

Friday, December 1:

I had to change Iggy's (the senior iguana's) heat light bulb yesterday. Iggy lives up high on top of Lucy's (the junior iguana's) cage so I had to crawl up a ladder to reach the fixture. I was kinda worried about Iggy accepting her new bulb because it glows red in what seemed to me an unacceptable level of brightness. So me and the lizard are hanging out up in the air in the red glow and I'm trying to mind-meld with her and guage her level of comfort or discomfort. I wasn't making much progress with Iggy's feeling's toward the light so I asked myself if I thought I could sleep comfortably under these conditions. I closed my eyes, you know, as one does when they sleep, and I immediately lost my balance and almost fell off the ladder. My life did not flash before my eyes but I did have an Epiphany of sorts: it is exactly this sort of activity (ladder climbing in a desperate attempt to understand what my lizard is thinking so that I can better attend to her needs) that is going to kill me someday. After I had my Epiphany I laughed and laughed.

Tuesday, November 14:

I finally remembered to bring my camera back to the shop so I could download my Lost School tile pictures and show them to you. Aren't they super? There's a picture of all of 'em right here. I'll get the information about the paints we used up here eventually so you can make tiles like this at home.

It has come to my attention that not everyone knows who or what Lost School is. Basically, it is a group of people who come to our house every weekend to drink beer and play music, work on art projects or just hang out and talk. Here is a brief history: Lost School started way back in 1988 when myself and my pals Sean P. and Bob Foster started going out to bars and drawing on bar napkins together. This eventually led to drawing in books which we would take to the bar with us. Sometimes other people at the bar would join in on the drawing and sometimes it was just us. At this time we were really young--21, 22, and 37 years old respectively. We gave our group the name "The Lost School of Madison".

As the years went by the school started staying home more and people started coming over . We had maybe 5 regular members then. We didn't get together all that much in the mid to late '90's, mostly because I opened up my store and people seemed to have other things to do. We were still meeting when we could at my and Don's puny apartment. We had a resurgence a few years ago when I met my pal Cindy and she opened up Full Circle Galleria. It was a big place so we had some serious room to run around and play. Cindy did more than a little cleaning up after us in those days--for which we are truely grateful. We also picked up some new members from the artists who were renting space from her.

In 2005 Don and I bought our house and that became the new Lost School meeting place. Now we have plenty of room, 2 kegs on tap and whatever art materials we want--tiles, mannequins, musical instruments and what have you. Soon my studio will be there and we will have glass as well. Regular members include: Me, Don, Bob Foster, Sean, Kent, Cindy, James, Sara Jane, Brad, Aaron, Erika, Chris, Dave, Patrick and Watson the weiner dog. Other guests appear every now and then. Sometimes they come back regularly and sometimes they don't. Sometimes they bring food and sometimes they don't.

Next January many Lost School members will be getting matching tattoos to celebrate our near 20 year anniversary of our "institution"--even though not everyone has been together that long. We just love each other is all.

Saturday, November 11:

Yikes! Another week has gone by. Not a lot of beads getting made but there has been much progress on household projects. The bathroom is almost ready to be painted and to recieve the washer and dryer that is in the living room. Don, myself and the bathroom too are all happy and excited about this development. We're still trying to scrounge up cabinets and what-not for the kitchen--or "frankenkitchen" as Don calls it (since all the countertops, cabinets and such are coming from Habitat for Humanity's Re-Store you don't really get to choose what you're going to work with. You just put pieces together as you get them.) Not knowing what the kitchen is going to look like is kind of exciting. It's sort of like making a bead.

So we're celebrating Don Rumsfeld's resignation all weekend at Lost School. Last night we had the whole gang (including the weiner dog) over to celebrate. It's pretty much like a regular weekend except we have balloons to look at and cheese to eat. For the latest Lost School art project we are making tiles for an installation going over an archway in our living room. We're painting 4x4 ceramic squares with that bake in the oven ceramic paint. It's really, really fun. We've got some great squares so far--and the art supply store down the street sold me 63 bottles of ceramic paint that they were discontinuing for $20.00 so we probably have enough materials to do the whole house. I'll post a picture of what we've made so far tommorrow.

Sunday, November 5:

I guess it was my idea to just stop cleaning anything in the house until we got the bathroom and half the kitchen finished. We had been cleaning regularly and I was getting pretty sick of it. Seemed like a lot of wasted time with things messing up again all the time. But you can't really do that, you know---just stop cleaning. Even if you order out food each night things in the kitchen will get out of control if you completely stop cleaning. It takes aboout a week. Just thought I'd share.

So last night when Don was out of town I finally broke down and did the dishes. I was sure he was going to cave before me. The only empty surface on which to dry them was on our new clothes washer and dryer which have taken up hopefully temporary residence in our living room. We're pretending that they've always been there. At least the toilet is out of the kitchen.

WORM UPDATE! Exciting news, everyone! Wylie has turned into some kind of a coccoon. I was surprised by this development because I didn't think worms turned into anything. I guess he's going to be some kind of a cutworm moth one day. That would be great to just fall asleep several weeks after you should have been dead and then wake up being able to fly. I'm excited for him. I'm keeping his tupperware container up high on the fridge--I don't want any of our confused guests mistaking him for a mixed nut.

Tuesday, October 31:

Want to hear something funny? Turns out that little "catterpillar" that I've been keeping as a pet is actually a cut worm. So all it's going to do is destroy vegetation. It's not going to turn into anything interesting either. Disappointment! That's not the funny part though. The funny part is that the cut worm is actually a pretty nice pet--you can feed it things it enjoys eating and it's not afraid of people like most of my other pets. In fact, compared with my other four pets on a scale of interactiveness, I'd say the cut worm rates just below Iggy the iguana and just above Cracker the hedgehog. Not too shabby. The cut worm's name is "Wylie".

Here's something else that's funny-Madison's Halloween celebration was actually really peaceful this year. Turns out all the city had to do was turn up the pain in the ass factor with respect to attending the event a little bit (by making people pay five bucks for a ticket to get onto State Street) and voila! Only 35,000 people showed up. Frankly I am stunned that this asinine-seeming plan worked. You just never know.

Friday, October 27:

Halloween in Madison starts tonight. This year the city has planned all manner of things to keep the situation under control. Planned their little tails off, they did! I hope the kids whip themselves into a mayhem loving frenzy early on and get it all out of their systems by Halloween proper. That's when us old folks have to dodder on downtown to attend a Bob Dylan concert. Yay Bob! Last week when I was drunk at Lost School I promised to take my shirt off at the show if Bob played my favorite song "Man Gave Names To All The Animals". Let's hope Bob has forgotten all about his Christian Period.

Wednesday, October 25:

I went to my pal JC Herrell's house this weekend and while there my pal Jude told me about a dream she had where in I made a mask bead totem pole with feet. Since Jude's dreams have been defying her lately (and also because I had no better ideas of my own) I decided to obey this one and make the display. It turned out well and it will be up for sale on Ebay tonight at 7:30.

Meanwhile, back at the house...In the continuing spirit of taking things apart and the putting them back together so they look the same we dismantled the downstairs bathroom again so the plumber could install new drains. The whole house reeked like PVC glue yesterday...so that was kind of a treat. Today we're putting up drywall and hopefully re-installing the fixtures. Then it's the floor...then it's something else.

I seem to have a new pet living inside my house with me. About a week ago I found a bald-looking catterpillar type creature on top of a pile of sawdust in our kitchen trash can which was out on the back porch. Since it was really cold outside I decided to place the catterpillar in a tupperware container for release the next day when it was warmer. Thing is, it never got warmer so now we have a catterpillar that probably should have been dead long ago living in a tupperware container in our kitchen. We're quite interested in keeping him around to see what he will turn into. Hopefully it won't be something that will feed on us while we're sleeping.

Wednesday, October 18:

Look what Don found at the thrift store! It's a Disaster Preparedness coloring book put out way back in 1994 by the Red Cross. Seems like we had hardly any disasters to worry about back then. Making an update to this one would sure be a fun project. Like what to do if the Republicans "win" the next election...stuff like that. Too bad we've got a moratorium on fun projects for the time being.

Speaking of disasters, last night I invented a little game to play by myself while Don was hanging insulation in the kitchen. It's called "Kill The Fly With A Hammer". It's quite challenging and can only be played in an environment that has somehow already been destroyed. I killed a fly in three strikes, which is pretty good considering I really had to hold back on one of the swings 'cause the fly landed on the stove.

In other news...I can't believe I've agreed to make a stained glass window for our house but I have. I grew super-weary of working in stained glass years ago, gave it up and never looked back. Now we've got this little transom above our downstairs bathroom that would be perfect for a stained glass window and Don really wants one with a crescent moon moon in it. Why a crescent moon? Because Don has always harbored a not-so-secret desire to have a downstairs bathroom reminescent of an out house, you know, with a crescent moon cut into the door. (I'm actually on board with the outhouse thing--I'm just giving Don credit with coming up with the idea). Anyway, I guess a window with a moon will afford more privacy to our guests than a cut-out door so that's what I'm going to do.

Sunday, October 15:

Guess what I haven't done yet...that's right, clean the store. I'm having a week where what I think I'm going to do and what I actually end up doing are two completely different things. Like yesterday I thought I was going to make beads and instead ended up doing surprise demolition on our kitchen. Surprise! Right now we're tearing the plaster lath walls down, cleaning out the blown-in insulation, re-insulating and then building the walls back up so they look about the same as they did before we tore then down. Same goes for the siding on the house--take off the old, replace it with something identical. So far home repair is a lot less satisfying than I thought it would be.

Thursday, October 12:

Mother of pearl! Is it ever cold outside all of a sudden! It's cold inside too, boy howdy. This morning I got up, went to the bathroom, turned on the space heater and fell back asleep on a pile of dirty laundry. Woke up warm, but with the imprint of a Levi-Strauss button on my cheek. Not looking forward to the day when the skin stops bouncing back from that sort of thing.

Yeah, so...I guess the forecast is that my precious tomatoes are going to die now. I'm not sure how cold it has to get to freeze a plant but we're supposed to have several consecutive days of below freezing temps so I'm preparing for the worst. We're not prolonging their time on earth by covering them with plastic because it's too damn windy for a tarp to stay on anything. Those tomatoes sure taught me a lot about tomatoes...and life too. I will miss them. The circle of life goes on.

Meanwhile, back at the store...Don successfully removed my 10 ft. tall chimney the other day. I had been worried about him swinging a sledge hammer up on a ladder on a roof but it turned out that the bricks were so deteriorated that he was able to take it apart using just his hands and occasionally a small hammer. Scary! We were just one fat, drunk college student partying on our roof (which happens a lot, actually) away from a major lawsuit. Dodged a bullet there.

Sunday, October 8:

Ahoy everyone! I'm still around--I've just been very busy improving the store and house while we still have weather. The store furnace was successfully installed over Tuesday-Thursday. It is magnificent! I've never purchased a furnace before but I think I got the best one. Now we just have to figure out how to tear down the old chimney and do that.

But not knowing how to do something isn't slowing us down at all...well actually it is slowing us down a lot, but it's not preventing us from getting things done. Yesterday we re-fit and re-hung all of the asbestos siding we took off the house to work on our kitchen wall. The only wet saw we had was my murrine saw--a Gryphon Diamond Band saw--and it worked slick. I did all the cutting because if anyone was going to fuck up my saw I wanted it to be me. It took all afternoon to cover a relatively small area of the house. Don and I both agreed that our time would have been better spent doing something we were good at. I think we're going to be back at it today with the cement/fiber siding as soon as we figure out how to cut it.

The high point of the week was probably on Monday. I went to the post office to pick up a package that I thought was a returned bead but it turned out to be four bottles of wine from Moon Dancer Vineyards. The package was part of a wine for murrine exchange between myself and vinery owner Sue Miller. I thought I got the way better end of the deal. I promised Sue that I would drink the wine with Lost School on Moday night and that we would write a review of it in the form of a collective poem. At the time this seemed like a good idea, in as much as it always seems like a good idea to drink wine with friends and write strange poetry. The poem turned out pretty spotty though so I'm only going to show you the end of it.

Excerpt from: "VIDAL BLANC"

...But you can't put new wine in old wineskins,

and you can't put this supple fermentation

into the prison of your gullet

without feeling more free

in that warm spot where your

inner dinosaur

wags a stern claw in your direction.

See what I mean? This is Lost School's idea of a ringing endorsement, in case you can't tell. Inspired by Moon Dancer Vinyard's Vidal Blanc. ( It's dry and white...Yum!)

Sunday, October 1:

Holy crap! It's the first of October!

Don had to go to Denver this weekend to represent his employer, the Great Dane Pub and Brewing Co., at some enormous national beer contest. Yesterday he called me to tell me that they won a gold medal for their barley wine. He also told me he got a bead name off of a bathroom wall in Border's Bookstore. Intriguing!

Thursday, September 28:

Yesterday I took the lizard (Lucy) out for a run around the store. I was trying to watch her real carefully because she's taken to eating absolutely everything she finds on the floor. So the phone rings and, of all people, it's my psychiatrist wanting to tell me about my blood work which, though a very simple procedure, I usually manage to screw up in some way and have to do it over. I'm trying to listen to Dr. Crawford when I hear this little crunch, crunch, crunch coming from behind the display case. At first I thought it was Lucy chewing on the plastic packaging from a bundle of paper towels. While this is something she shouldn't be doing I figure it's ok because the package is so big she couldn't possibly swallow it. As the crunching went on and Dr. Crawford went on I decided that I was going to have to interrupt the conversation and put the phone down and go see what Lucy was getting into. Protruding from Lucy's mouth was about four inches of what had been a very long (18" or so) piece of receipt tape for all of the master card sales I had in the Chicago show. I pried open Lucy's mouth and got out what I could, which wasn't much. Then I had to go back to Dr. Crawford and explain why I had interrupted our conversation so abruptly. It was funny. I thought it was funny, anyway.

Tuesday, September 26:

Hey! Did you see that installment of American Masters featuring Andy Warhol last week? It was riveting. Watch it next time it's on if you've got four hours burning a hole in your pocket. You'll come away with a great deal of respect for him and for his work, especially if you're like me and you don't have a whole lot of respect for art that requires extensive explanation in order for it to be appreciated.

I'm finally back on the torch after about eight days of doing other things. I'm going get things done now. I made my little psychotic mini-wheat figurine and it's pretty funny. It could fall into regular rotation with the other beads I always make. Next I shall attempt a subjunctive rendering of the fungal infection that attacked my hand last Spring.

Here are some updates for you:

We got our remote control UFO but it did not work very well--it just kind of scuttles along the floor. It did not even scare the weiner dog. Moral of the story: if you want a remote control UFO that works you probably have to pay big bucks for it. Our $19.95 model will make an amusing, kinetic hat for someone but that's about all it's good for.

My new store furnace is finally being installed on Oct. 3 and 4. Don't know if I'll be working those days or not. If it's cold I might be busy keeping the zoo warm.

My pals Erika Koivunen and Miriam Hall will be in a show at the Hue Gallery that opens October 6. Manniquin #1 will not be making an appearance as the show is open work created by women artists only. Many men have worked on mannequin #1, I'm afraid.

Monday, September 18:

I'm back from by brief adventure! The show was slow but not dead. People bought a lot of little things, a few fish and a few masks. I'd still reccommend Bead and Book because it's easy to do and they have a nice spread for breakfast. I started to post some of my best left over beads on the FOR SALE page. Some will be up on Ebay shortly.

So far today I talked to two people which is two more than usual. A second furnace guy came over to give us a second estimate on a new furnace (the first one was a little steep). Then, as foretold in a dream I had, the fire inspector came by. (I have a sixth sense with respect to when the fire inspector is coming). I can't remember how things went in the dream but in real life the inspection went ok. My extinguisher is out of date. No big whoop.

Speaking of dreams, I had a dream a while back the Hillary Swank was tormenting one of my iguanas. Both Hillary Swank and the iguana were living at my parent's house at the time. I'm not sure what all was going on but when I got there I found Iggy cowering behind the couch. She had lost two of her claws, presumably trying to get away from Hillary. At that point I asked Hillary to leave. I sure hope that dream doesn't come true!

Sunday, September 10:

It started raining here again so my thoughts turned toward East Johnson Street's drainage issues--the mini-floods are getting kind of old. The photo on the left is the storm drain in front of my store. It's a little clogged but you can clearly see the drain pipe. Water can go in there, maybe a medium-size raccoon. (BTW--How determined to litter do you have to be to cram a water bottle through those little holes in the drain? Harness that energy and use it for good, people!) Anyway, the storm drain on the right is located up the up the street from my shop. Look at that thing! Have you ever seen anything so clogged? It's remarkable! We've notified The City about the drainage problem and they're moving with the swiftness of the world's worst landlords to correct the situation.

Friday, September 8:

Once again I found the funniest thing ever on You Tube. It's a series of spoof science shows put out by the BBC called "Look Around You". Here's a link to one episode, possibly the best one though it's hard to choose, about music. All of the episodes are eight to nine minutes long. You must watch all of them. I'm sure your boss won't mind if you tie up the work computer.

Wednesday, September 6

Don stumbled upon an album cover that may have been hidden for as many as 14 years behind the radiator in our living room. The album, Dr. Dre's "The Chronic" which was released in 1992, managed to eluded our notice for the past thirteen months that we've owned the house--quite possibly because I never had occasion to look (clean) behind that particular radiator. The cover is in mint condition though the albums are missing.

I imagine that, while listening to the record, the previous owner had the cover proudly displayed on top of the radiator. The pounding bass in the music must have caused the cover to vibrate right off the top and fall down between the radiator and the wall where it remained until last weekend. Even though though the cover design includes a really nice picture of Dr. Dre, we do not wish to hang onto it. If you are one of the dozens of people who have lived in our house over the past 14 years and you think this cover belongs to you, please email me to claim it.

Sunday, September 3:

Here's some mannequin parts we've colored in so far. For those of you wanting to color your own mannequins the names of the paint pens we've been using are "Deco Color" (available at art supply stores) and "Super Met-al Industrial Grade Paint Marker" (available at hardware stores). The Super Met-al ones stay on better but don't have as good a selection of colors as the Deco Color ones. I reccommend that you prime any surface that you want to paint on with something before painting it. We didn't prime this mannequin and we're having issues with the paint now. Live and learn.

Slow news week. I guess the big news 'round here is America's Couple, Cracker and Deet (the hedgehogs) appear to have broken up. Deet moved into the far end of the exercise room forfeiting the sleeping room to Cracker. They've been completely ignoring one another for about two weeks. I don't think they had a big fight or anything--just a lot of low to medium level stress from being two prickly animals living in the same bag. I think we've all been there at one time or another.

I almost forgot--here's something extremely funny I found on You Tube.

Tuesday, August 29:

Egad, people! Have I ever been busy lately with a bunch of stuff that has nothing to do with beadmaking. It's unfortunate timing too because I've got that pesky Bead and Book Sale creeping up. Oh well.

The saga of the high effeciency furnace continues. As the furnace room empties out the ginormous crap pile in the front of the store grows. I'm beginning to realize that a crap transfer from store to house is going to have to happen sooner rather than later. That's something I didn't anticipate doing for another couple of months.

In other news-I bought a remote control UFO for Lost School. I saw some people across the street playing with one the other day and decided I needed to have one too. It should be coming in the mail soon. It'll probably scare the shit out of Lost School mascot Watson the weiner dog.

Speaking of Lost School...to celebrate our 20th anniversary in 2008 we have decided (and by "we" I mean myself and several other people who aren't all wussy) to get matching tattoos of the image above. I even drew it on the new manniquin's arm to show everybody how great it would look. Not everyone is on board with this one...yet...but they will be if they want to be in the gang.

Wednesday, August 23:

We got our new mannequin in the mail yesterday! Now there's a naked lady in our living room, which is weird because there was no naked lady there before. She keeps freaking me out when I see her out of the corner of my eye. One thing that I did not notice in the auction pictures of this mannequin is that she's got an extremely gimpy left leg. When you look at it from the side it looks normal but from the front it kind of looks like a noodle. I guess they make them this way so it's easier to put pants on 'em. Since we bought this mannequin for artistic purposes though we need two good legs under her, or at least a leg less noodle like.

I'd kind of like to give her a peg leg. Mostly because it would be easy to do but also because it dovetails nicely with Brad's plans to replace her hands with hooks. Other leg suggestions include a metal Terminator muscular leg, a cast, a bird leg, some kind of cloven leg, a Greek statue leg and a few others I can't remember. So the mannequin has been pretty fun so far. Well worth the investment.

Monday, August 21:

The other day my pal Bob Foster was telling me that he saw an interview with Jon Bon Jovi on TV. "How's Jon Bon Jovi doing?" I asked. Said Bob "He's comfortably in love with himself." AHAHAHAHAHA!! I thought that was funny.

Today I cleaned out the furnace room in preparation for the arrival of the new high effeciency furnace we have to have installed. Our current furnace is 10 yrs old but perfectly good but it's hooked up to a chimney that had to be removed because it's falling apart and there are code issues with building a new chimney in it's place. So rather than dink around with the city we're getting a new furnace. Then they'll leave us alone, which is all I want. I'm tired of buildings demanding my attention.

Thursday, August 17:

Great news everybody! I just uploaded a 37 second movie starring Biscuit the Wonder Hedgehog and the voice of me on You Tube! Me and Don made this movie back in 2001 when Biscuit was about a year old. Click here to see it! Rate it for me, will ya?

Wednesday, August 16:

In honor of moving week Don and I went out the other night when the garbage piles were at thier apex to see what we could see. We were looking for something that we could use as a stand for our mannequin but ended up unknowingly bringing home mostly items that began with the letter "C". These items included a cane, a cowboy hat, cd cases, a ceramic cow, cups and a candle. What is the universe trying to tell us now?

Don also picked up an album by the band Bent Fabric called "The Happy Puppy" because it had a weiner dog on the cover. We've been pro-weiner dog ever since our pals James and Sara Jane started bringing their pet weiner dog Watson over to Lost School. I'm not much of a dog person but I think Watson is a lovely creature. Small. Easy to control. Likes being petted. Cute. What's not to like?

In other news..Sam Parker, owner of the men's clothing store Context (the guy who provided Don with a pair of expensive blue jeans that he has to wear every day for a year without washing them) has registered the domain name "dons pants.com". He's been taking pictures of the pants every week and says that the site will be up soon. As for the pants, Don is still able to wear them but after 6 weeks they're getting pretty gross. During a beer brewing session he unknowingly spilled some yeast in one of the pant's cuffs and reported to me that something started growing in there. I didn't look or anything but this isn't the kind of thing Don would make up. Real life is always stranger than fiction with him.

Incedently, in case you're wondering what possible good could come from Don not washing his pants for a year I'll let you in on the secret. Expensive pants like Atlier La Durance jeans are made of a special dense weave Japanese denim that fades in a specific way along whatever creases are in the jeans. The longer they're worn without washing the more creases they get. When at last washed Don's jeans will fade in a glorious, complex manner that vain men everywhere will desire. It gives me goosebumps just thinking about it! Complex fading! This better work, Sam.

Monday, August 14:

Our one week of supervised renovating has come to an end. We got some stuff done and a lot of stuff almost done. We installed some new windows and doors, jacked up the house, leveled the front porch and gave it a new railing, put a new floor and walls in the downstairs bathroom and got rid of rotten siding. We made a hell of a mess too. We also drank a lot, as is the custom with persons in the construction industry.

Now I've got stuff to pick up, laundry to do and neighbors to apologize to. I also have to find my tooth brush, the cordless telephone and a number of other things I lost during the great whirlwind construction period. Wish me luck.

Monday, August 7:

It wasn't even half a day into the demolition of the downstairs bathroom before I got a call from Don saying "Cathy! Come home! You won't believe what we found in the wall!"

What Michael and Don found appears to be some kind of gigantic, abandoned bee nest. It is impressive not only for it's size but also because it appears to be made almost entirely of blown insulation. The outside of it looks like beautiful marbled handmade paper. It's quite remarkable what those bees can do with stuff that's just laying around. Go bees!

Sunday, August 6:

I went mannequin shopping on ebay today. I just know that this is going make me have messed up dreams. Buoyed by the success of the first mannequin project we decided to purchase a second mannequin for coloring purposes, this one with arms and legs. I've been advised by the guys to go with a female mannequin over a male because female mannequins are "artistically more interesting". (Translation: no one wants to color in the nut sack area on a male.) My only stipulation is that the mannequin not have "realistic looking eyes that flirt with the customers" like Masculine Joe up there. That's just too creepy.

Wednesday, August 2:

Egad! Do you know what week it is already? It's Renovation Week at Our Old House. Don finally lured up one of his contractor brothers, Michael, to play the role of The Guy Who Knows What He Is Doing. An important part to be sure because we're jacking up the house and re-doing the graffiti bathroom and the kitchen. That's the plan, anyway. Don and I spent the last two mornings tearing siding off the house's rear. Even though I knew this time would come someday I feel really unprepared for it. Maybe a tetanus shot would make me feel more ready.

Thing is, the jacking up of the house represents a floodgate to a zillion other repairs that I've been avoiding because, well, why paint the walls if the plaster is going to crack when the house gets jacked up? Why even consider replacing the kitchen cabinets if they'll be out of whack when the house gets jacked up? Once we're level the handiest and best excuse for not fixing anything is going to vanish! That's what I'm not looking foreward to. That and the discovery of more earwig nests in the walls.

Tuesday, August 1:

NEW STUFF UP FOR GRABS!

Monday July 31:

One of the founding Lost School members who is no longer with us (he's not dead or anything, he just moved to California in 2001) sent me this swell cartoon of my cactus bead that he drew on his computer, probably while he was supposed to be working. In his email, Rob was missing Madison a little and lamenting the fact that there is no Biblical-type weather where he lives--I guess it's just clear skies and sunshine all the time. Boo hoo. Cheer up Rob--you've still got earthquakes and probably fires or something to keep you on your toes.

Know what someone ought to do? Someone ought to put together a gallery-type show consisting of pieces of artwork that people created on the job because they were bored. I've always considered art born of bordom to be very pure because there isn't any monetary incentive behind it's creation. Not just computer art but also little twist-tie sculptures you sometimes see around the cash register area at a deli. It's all around if you're looking for it and some of it is pretty cool. I think it deserves hoity-toity gallery recognition. Why the hell not?

Saturday, July 29:

Before I left for the Gathering I made Don promise to: 1.Feed the animals, 2. Water the plants, and 3. Don't let anyone fuck up the mannequin that we've been drawing on for the past month. I was pleased to see that everyone followed my instructions.

We created "Va Va Voom" using a mannequin and paint pens. Paint pens are great because they are reletively self-contained and they come in many bright colors. They dry fast too. It's possible to make a mess drawing with them but you'd reall have to try. Paint pens! Go get some!

Friday, July 28:

Geez Louise did yesterday ever suck. Today kind of sucked too because I'm trying to dry things out and clean everything up while I've got an uppity lizard who has been cooped up in her cage for five days demanding my attention. Lucy clearly wants out the cage so she can perform a display of dominance over the fans and the dehumidifier in the front of the store. Who doesn't?

Anyways, about that Gathering...the picture on the right is the view from our hotel room in the Hyatt. Since there were so many buildings on that block with the word "Hallmark" emblazoned on them mooning any individual building seemed small and ineffectual so we aborted that segment of our mission. You would have done differently, I am sure.

WIth all that evil surrounding us it should come as no surprise that our stay at the Hyatt was a crappy one. The upside of the stay was that we got to meet a lot of cool people including Mr. and Ms. Booger. (We met way more people than I can remember) At the hotel bar Triangle Man got reacquainted with his pal Kim Fields and had his photograph taken with many other admirers. At the Bead Bazaar a nice gal named Tera of Beadygirl Beads gave me an outstanding children's book called "Alien Alphabet" by Rob Chaplin. Inside my head I was the envy of all for receiving such a great and unexpected gift.

The mask bead class taught by myself and my lovely assistant Cindy Palmer went smoothly. All of the students were smart and picked up the techniques quickly producing many, many amazing mask beads. We had time to go over screaming cacti and fish too. Now there are six more bead makers out there who may be using cartoons and children's books as sources for bead ideas. (Take that, bead world!) As an additional bonus, class over-seer and all-around swell guy Larry Brickman has invited me to teach a class at his studio in Spokanne, WA. Stay tuned for that one.

Thursday, July 27:

I'm back now. Once again weather is taking precedence over the news: I walked into the store today during the most spectacular Garbage Day mini-flood I've ever seen. It was like a hurricane outside. There was easily 3" of water in the front of my store and a river of garbage floating up the street. That has to get cleaned up toot-sweet before it starts to get moldy. Hopefully back on the bay today. Hopefully Gathering news tomorrow.

Thursday, July 20:

We're packing up the JC mobile today and heading for KC tomorrow. I'm disabling the "For Sale" pages on the site 'cause I'm taking all that stuff with me. We'll be back next Wednesday hopefully with pictures of one of us mooning the Hallmark World Headquarters. So you'll have that to look forward to.

Oh yeah, the answering machine at the actual store has taken a shit and I don't know when I'll get around to fixing it. Attempting to leave a message will be a waste of your time. I wouldn't bother if I were you. Just email me instead--I will be able to answer emails while in KC.

Monday, July 17:

Thought I'd take a moment to foreward promote a few OOAK items that I'm bringing along with me to the Gathering bead sale in the hope that I might reduce my store inventory a little. The first is a mostly dichroic glass jewelry and/or bead box that's about 10x7x4". It was in a museum show in West Allis, WI in 2000 and it's been sitting around the shop ever since. The second piece is the first bead assembledge that I ever did. It's supposed to be a vase made out of a pyrex distiller and a bunch of beads but it turned out looking just like a bong so I was never able to use it for anything. For some reason I think the KC crowds will find these items cooler than my store customers do.

Mother of pearl! Is it ever hot here! I really picked the wrong week to have to make a bunch of murrine. The shop has a/c but it doesn't really behoove me to run it while I'm torching. Despite the heat resident hedgehogs Cracker and Deet continue to sleep huddled together inside a polar fleece bag. Their bodies are like little furnaces too so you know it's got to be at least 100 degrees in there. Crazy hedgehogs.

I'm having ebay withdrawl but I can't seem to find the time to put anything up. Hopefully I'll get some stuff up before I leave on Friday. In the meantime don't forget about me or my auctions. We'll be back.

Friday, July 14:

Lucy came out of her cage today to help me start packing for the Gathering. In this picture she is pointing out that my method of credit card processing is archaic and that I need an upgrade. Whatever, Lucy.

Thursday, July 13:

Well, yesterday was building inspection day of reckoning. Now we need to get a high effeciency furnace, tear down a chimney and tuck point the back wall. That's pretty much what we thought would happen. Though expensive, the experience is an overall "Hooray!" because once everything is done we will be up to code and we'll be able to begin what will surely be the lenghty process of moving the studio and selling the building. Hooray!

Our inspector, Al, was a really nice guy. He got me thinking about what it must be like to have a job where everyone hates to see you coming. Building inspectors, meter maids and Jehovah's Wittnesses all fall into this category. I can see how such persons might deveolp a bad attitude because of all the hatred but not Al--he was a real cheery guy. Thumbs up for Al the building inspector.

Monday, July 10:

Look what I got! It's a little metal hedgehog! I was bored on Sunday so I walked up to the behemoth Art Fair on the Square and ran into Sean Burgess of The Copper Frog. I have a lizard of his from years ago when we were in a show at the Madison Art Center. It looks just like Lucy. I've never gone up to that show and bought anything before. I felt like such a tourist! Sean also makes excellent fish and excellent giant flies.

Well, Don is still wearing the pants. They're not "softening up" as promised so they look kind of uncomfortable to me. I tell you one thing- A week ago I knew nothing of men's designer jeans and now I can look at someone's ass and tell you whether or not they're wearing a designer label or not. That knowledge probably pushed out a key bit of information out of my brain--like I know "Atelier La Durance" but I don't know what to do in a fire. Something like that. Stupid pants.

Friday, July 7:

The monotany in Don's and consequently my life has been broken up a little by a pair of $113.00 blue jeans. Sam Parker, a friend of ours and owner of Context (an upscale men's clothing store), has bestowed upon Don this very fancy pair of pants under the stipulation that he wear them every day and not wash them for a year. Don also has to report back to Sam every week and have his jeans photographed for Context's website. He also has to keep a log of all of the substances that come into contact with the pants. Don, being the helpful sort that he is has agreed to do all of this.

Here's what I know about Atlier La Durance jeans: nothing, except that they're made in France and you're not supposed to wash them. I guess this is alright if you don't do much of anything except go to clubs and drink Red Bull but Don is a welder who installs beer brewing systems. He regularly throws his clothes away after an installation because they're too dirty to respond to normal cleaning methods. I don't think the pants stand a chance but Sam has faith so we're just going to have to see what we're going to have to see.

Since I know all of you have a penchant for watching things rot week to week I will be sure to let you know when the pants pictures start going up.

Wednesday, July 5:

The new flag magnets are up in the web store! Go git 'em!

In other news: I had a fun birthday party on the first. We all got to decorate a mannequin donated by my pal Cindy. The picture above is the ass-side of the mannequin. That thing is going to get a whole lot cooler as the weeks go by and it fills up more.

On the fourth I mostly sat around doing bookwork and working on a handout for the Gathering mask bead class. In the afternoon I was lured to the Great Dane (Don's place of employ, as you may recall) with the promise of ten baby ducklings that had recently hatched in the garden dining area. Wouldn't you know we got there just hours after the DNR swept in and took the ducks away. I guess they (the ducks, not the DNR) were running around everywhere and the servers were afraid they would step on them. I was robbed.

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