Friday's Rain

Today's Jumble 9/27

My Extensive Comics Resumé

From a site that keeps track of small-press comics, here's the entry on Paul Hehn.

I was thinking about Top Shelf comics just the other day, when Amy and I were in Powell's Books on Burnside. One of the first issues of TOP SHELF included a really stupid cartoon of mine called "Stinky and Pinky." At Powell's I saw a comic book for sale -- comix in that indie style -- called "Pinky and Stinky." And whaddya know, it was published by Top Shelf Comics!

I'm not under any illusions, mind you... I know that Ben Franklin was the first one to rhyme stinky with pinky, and it's all public domain now.

And anyway, I could be wrong. It could be that MINE was called "Pinky and Stinky" and the new one is called "Stinky and Pinky."

The Van

I met with Greg this morning over at his Hawthorne Street restaurant and we walked from there up and around Mt. Tabor. It was a beautiful morning. Lots of birds, but nothing too unusual.

I took this photo of the van, parked a block up from the Hawthorne Street Fish House. Driving around in it you forget how colorful it is. Inside it's not colorful at all.

Biting Satire (FYI)

Celebrating yet another anniversary of the war in Iraq, America in the year 2052.

Water and Rocks

I took too many photos of our stream this morning.

Today's Jumble

Oh, That CNN

I turned on the TV news to an alert in eastern Texas because some death row inmate escaped and killed a guard on his way out. I didn't have the sound on, but the visuals were amusing. Aerial shots of lone cops on horseback, aerial shots of open fields, long distance shots of the prison the guy broke out of... but no photo of the guy they are hunting. A little bit into it they finally flash the face of a bald guy in a suit, and my first thought was "he doesn't LOOK like a killer." Then I see the small-ish print below the photo -- identifying the guy as CNN's "crime analyst" or something. So it was a photo of the guy they were talking to, not a photo of the subject of the manhunt. Good thing I can read the TV from three feet away, or I'd be nervously looking at all bald guys in suits.

If I were in eastern Texas, I mean.

Or, as some media like to report it, "East Texas," as if it's a separate entity from Texas. Even though you never hear or see a reference to East Idaho (for example). Those Texans, they have a whole differnt way of doing things.

Eastern Promises

Last night we went to see the new David Cronenberg movie, Eastern Promises, starring Viggo Mortensen and Naomi Watts. Mortensen was outstanding, and the nude knife fight scene in the bath house is pretty intense. He's no Borat, of course, but he's a tough-lookin' little cuss, what with them Rooshian tattoos and all.

Sunday

1979?

From our attempt to recreate the Leonardo painting of "The Last Supper," in the dining hall of Matthews Hall at Willamette University.

In the Kitchen

September 20, 2007.

Rudy's Perspective

This quote comes from a news story about Rudy Giuliani's visit to England:

"I'm probably one of the four or five best known Americans in the world," Giuliani told a small group of reporters at a posh London hotel as onlookers gathered in the lobby to gawk at actor Dustin Hoffman, who was on a separate visit.

It made me laugh. I dug out this photo from my archives. I didn't realize until now that I look a little dazed in this shot. Rudy kept talking about hosiery and it was kind of freaking me out.

Tammy Faye

Last night I watched The Eyes of Tammy Faye, a documentary about the weird and troubled life of the former TV evangelist. It was a very sympathetic portrait. Tammy Faye comes across as a guileless victim of circumstance and evildoers, and, like all documentaries and biographies, that portrayal included bending over backward to instruct me how influential and important the subject is. Maybe so. In this instance it was the Bakker's achievment in broadcasting and Tammy Faye's all-embracing brand of Christianity. By "all-embracing" this particular film means "she liked gays okay."

Jerry Falwell is the villain of the piece and comes off looking like a treacherous crook. No, really! But it should be remembered that in the film the most damning testimony comes from Tammy Faye and from Roe Messner, Jim's friend and the guy who built their Jesus theme park, Heritage, USA. According to them Falwell was a snake. But later in the film we learn that Tammy married Messner after divorcing Bakker... and still later we learn Messner is in the pokey for bankruptcy fraud. In the end they're all a bunch of liars and who the heck knows.

As a documentary it was fair at best, nothing to write home about. It had annoying breaks in it -- featuring hand puppets with grating voices. Speaking of puppets, one of the best parts has Tammy Faye pitching her ideas for a TV show to the guy who created COPS and STUDS. He was polite in the way he told her he had no use for her notions, one of which was a TV show where she visited Alzheimer's patients to talk to them about their lives. The producer, a skinny Asian guy, rolled his eyes and groaned out loud at that one.

Photo courtesy of Lyle Hehn. He just doesn't know it yet.

Magazines

A couple of guys came to the door just now wanting my help in "keeping them off the streets." I know that this means magazine subscription sales. They began by saying they were not selling anything or asking for donations. Too bad -- if they ask for donations I usually give some money. And when they say they are not selling anything, that means they are selling something, and usually that something is magazine subscriptions.

I politely listened to the guy's pitch for longer than usual, but I finally began the no-thanksing when he got to the list of magazines that would earn him points for I-don't-know-what. The main guy, the "mentor" of the other guy, wouldn't take no thanks for an answer, so I began to tell him I had to get back to work. Then I went with I really have to get to work, so goodbye. He asked what I did for work and when I told him he started off on some other salesman path. I said no and turned away. Finally they began to leave, but three steps away the mentor said to nobody in particular, "...not m**herf**k'n readin' any of THAT motherfugger's..." but I stopped him from finishing that thought.

"Hey!" I called to him. "You gotta learn to take no for an answer, dude. Calling people dirty names isn't the way to go."

He sheepishly apologized, but I don't think he meant it. He sounded like he had lots of practice in trying to sound sincere, though.

Bad Elvis

From outside of Powell's Books on W. Burnside, Saturday.

Quiet City

Saturday night Amy and Cleo and I went up the street to The Hollywood Theatre to see a film the newspaper raved about, Quiet City, by some guy from Portland named Aaron Katz.

The plot: Boy meets girl, they hang out, movie ends.

You've maybe seen in done in Before Sunrise, Before Sunset, The Puffy Chair and Once.

It's artsy to not have an ending, that's what I have learned. It's even artsier to not have a plot, and to scrub the idea of written dialogue in favor of letting the actors make up the words. The realism of "like" and "uh" cast every other word into conversations certainly does make it seem like you are watching two real people having a real conversation. A real boring conversation.

So, in the end the movie was a shrug. There was a question and answer period after the movie with the writer/director (he introduced the film also). We cut out of there before I could impertinently ask him why he took 80 minutes to tell a ten-minute story. And I liked it more than Amy, I think. I am including an elaborate illustration that captures the feel of the movie but is more entertaining...

Sunday Spider

From out behind our shed.