Schulz had a long association with ice sports, and both figure skating and ice hockey featured prominently in his cartoons. In Santa Rosa, he was the owner of the Redwood Empire Ice Arena, which opened in 1969 and featured a snack bar called “The Warm Puppy”.
Ice-skating is the only sport other than baseball at which I’ve ever instantly demonstrated amazing prowess on the first try. For this reason, I try to talk it up big to everyone I know, but, in a region of California that seldom ever sees temperatures dip below 25 degrees, fahrenheit, it’s an uphill battle.
A few weeks ago, one of my kids tossed off some Simpsons line, and I made some similar quote in reply, and the students asked, “You know The Simpsons?” incredulously. I said, “Pfft! I’ve been doing the Bartman since before you jive turkeys’ parents even kissed at their eighth grade dance.”
But I can’t feel too cool because I said “jive turkey.” And it was indicated to me by my dearest friendoh who is my barometer of hip that only old people say that anymore. Thanks, Miss D!
Normally I hate it when people do stuff for attention but I support this guy completely. It takes some stones to do that. I like it. Something about his face is less self-aware than I’d expect. Maybe in the backstory he is doing this for charity because he has a huge heart in addition to nice thighs. (Just come with me, okay?)
This post originally appeared on on November 14, 2009 at 3:15 pm.
“I also love to explore what defines who you are, and friendship, and how you love to rock out with your best friend and cruise and drive and listen to the Ramones and play air guitar, and yet at the same time, they will come and slap you when you’re acting out of line. I love the themes that I put on the poster: ‘Be your own hero’ and ‘Find your tribe.’ Those are two things that are really important in my life.”
(interview with the AV Club’s Sam Adams, October 1, 2009, for Whip It)
“I love empowering women, and I love women that are capable. The one thing that I’m not crazy about are women that feel like they have to be a man to live in a man’s world, or that men have the upper hand. These women have this bitter chip on their shoulder, and that’s not really sexy. I like girls who have got each other’s backs. …
… I don’t like cattiness, either. I hate seeing women be rude to each other. Oh God. I don’t like man-haters, and I don’t like back-stabbers. I like chicks who can fuckin’ rip it up, pull shit off, and want to go for a beer with each other at the end of the day!”
(“Whip It! interview with director Drew Barrymore,” Chris de Salvo, The Scorecard Review, September 30, 2009).
edit: When I posted this the first time, I had not yet seen Whip It. I watched it a couple months ago with Lo-Bo and Miss D and I thought it was great. From a critical standpoint, sure, I’m not stacking it up against Once Upon A Time In the West or The Godather: Part II, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t qualify as “great” in my book. You’re definitely not going to see some special release of it in the Criterion Collection, all fancy with laurel leaves around the names of the writers or anything, but it’s a fun flick whose cast is piled high with my favorite kind of women: flaky, unique, and funny.
It’s got a great noisy riot grrl soundtrack, too. I work out to a lot of songs from it. That’s right, she writes and she takes care of a bangin’ body. Call me.
I’m hustling to get things together to substitute tomorrow for an ill colleague (some might call her the illest of my fellow staff) and the Madness song “Baggy Trousers” came on. Reminded me of this Liberated Negative Space which originally appeared on Nov 27, 2009 at 8:48 am.
“So, what kind of music do you listen to?”
“Mm. Sometimes reggae, but mainly ska. … Mainly ska.”
end original post
And, for the heck of it, here for your Music Moment playing pleasure is Madness, “Baggy Trousers” (Absolutely, Stiff Records, 1980).
Madness — Baggy Trousers
Madness were a 2 Tone second-wave ska band associated with the ska-and-reggae-infused-pop sound of the 1970’s and 80’s, a movement which lay lower and extended its roots more deeply than its little cousin, the more moshin’ third-wave ska-punk sound of the 1980’s and 90’s. I’m suggesting that the second-wave may not have charted as long or as widely and noisily as the later third-wave movement, but it was arguably of greater influence and import musically. Ya hear that, Mighty Mighty Bosstones? Kidding, dudes (they have been around since the early 80’s). To true ska fans, it has never and will never go out of fashion as a genre, so the question of waves becomes one entirely of preference, whether you are in to Mad Caddies or Mighty Bosstones; Pauline Black’s original work with The Selecter or inspired acts like early No Doubt. ‘Scuse me while I go throw on my checkered chucks and filch me some smokes down at the skate park. Catch you on the flip!
San Francisco-based artist Jeremy Forson’s work has appeared in Proteus Mag, True Eye, Juxtapoz and Spectrum.
“Light Thief.” My topmost favorite in a field of favorites.
The troop number on the scout’s vest is 415, which is a reference to the telephone exchange for San Francisco. The area code for numbers in The City is 415 (probably at this point another has been added, but that’s what I always think of). I dig it.
“Green Shirt.”
The 2005 CCA grad (although then it was still called California College of Arts and Crafts) also does LP covers and skate decks, because he is too cool for school, and I mean that with the most far-sars and sincere admiration. Also he rocks Stand By Me specs like me and all the other inadvertently hep cats! Witness:
Mr. Forson is on the far left.
See? Super-cute. You feelin’ that?
“Lyon.”
You can enjoy more artcrush cyber-stalkytimes by becoming imaginary friendohs with Mr. Forson on the myspace, fanning him on the facebook, reading his profile at Illustration Mundo, subscribing to his blog, or following him on the twitter.
“Perfect Predator.”
He is also on the flickr, and don’t forget to swing by his etsy shop and pick up some prints. The man has got web presence in spades, which is both smart of him and nice for people who want to see more of his awesome shit. A win-win all day.
“Peonies.”
“The general theme of the series captured all things mundane and beautiful and guilty in San Francisco– documenting night life, body art, apathy within crowds, Victorian homes, fashion, trees, and light pollution; all told through Forson’s mastery of color and haunting imagery.”
“I’m here early, but the kind folks at Edo Salon are nice enough to let me in. Thank you for that. This time around, Jeremy Forson, essays on life in San Francisco– elegant, genteel and Victorian for the most part, but sometimes it can be a long hard night. His tattooed tarts appear to basically update the Patrick Nagel idiom. Nice quality work overall.”
(“Edo Salon: Jeremy Forson – The Lost Fight.” 4 Sept 09. Alan Bamberger. ArtBusiness.com.)
“Gatekeeper.”
If I had to reluctantly accept it at all, I’d have to say that the Nagel comment is at best a dramatic oversimplification. So, no. … No, I just plain respectfully disagree. There was much more to that show than “tattooed tarts,” to boot. So it seems like an upbeat review that is nonetheless somewhat misleading. Nagel reference image in case you’re lost:
Let me be absolutely clear: this is a “work” by Patrick Nagel. It is not done by Jeremy Forson. At all. Do not get confused. Stay with me.
But the gentleman in the review was approaching his visit to Edo from an art-business-consulting p.o.v., so perhaps that plays a part? Like, maybe it benefits art-business-consultants to generalize and “pitch” the “look” of an artist because of how galleries and private collection operate? That weird liminal bit of space between salesmanship mixed with snobbery where the business guy admits he has an artistic side, but knows his primary goal is not to criticize art but to move it into people’s hands? It seems so arbitrary and subjective and also frighteningly commercial to me. Whatever. If it made some old school Nagel-loving collector pick up some of Mr. Forson’s work, then I guess no harm. Back to the good stuff.
“SF Mag noir.” A very scarrry cover. San Francisco Magazine.
Of course, Mr. Forson does not focus his talents exclusively on the clever incorporation of physical and cultural references to San Francisco into already kickass portraiture. He also has some relatively un-415 related work as well.
Cover for “Poe,” Boom! Studios.
“This is one of the most unique ideas I’ve seen cross my table” said BOOM! Studios Editor-in-Chief Mark Waid. “There’s always so much about our classic writers we don’t know, and examining their works and their history can reveal new information, but that’s hardly any fun! POE is alternate history with a horror twist, and is perfect for fans of mysteries.”
“Stargazer.” Unrelated to the Poe information preceding and following it, I just wanted to include it to show Mr. Forson’s range. “Tattoed tarts,” indeed. Pfft.
BOOM!’s new four issue mini-series reveals Poe’s relationship with famous characters and stories from his body of work — like The Raven, the Mask of the Red Death, and many more! Similar to the way SHAKESPEARE IN LOVE showed how William Shakespeare was inspired by his own life events to create some of his creative masterworks, POE takes Edgar Allen Poe on a supernatural adventure that proves to be the fodder for his life’s greatest accomplishments in literature.
(Ibid.)
“Valentine’s teddy bear.”
Dude, that Poe comic sounds all kinds of hella cool. Now I want to get that. Final thought: I. Love. This. The “miwk” part is the part that cracks me up.
Taking Special K up to Humboldt for the next several days, so I’m going to pack, schedule some ghost posts, and be mainly outie. Don’t take any wooden nickels and I’ll catch you on the flip!
*I kind of ♥ the WCBR forever. Swar to gar. Smart, genuinely heartfelt reviews. I rely on them a lot when I have spare cash burning a hole in my pocket and it’s a Wednesday (comics day).
The lovely and talented Claudia Jennings was Playboy‘s Miss November 1969, and Playmate of the Year in 1970. Her birth name was Mary Eileen Chesterton. If it was me, I’d’ve changed my name too — but I would have just switched my first name to Chesty. Can you dig it? “Hi, I’m Chesty. Chesty Chesterton.” That is a name you can take straight to the mother effing bank!
Photographed by Pompeo Posar
Her father was a sales manager and her mother was a college professor. She was raised in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and later moved to Evanston, Illinois, where she graduated from high school in 1968. Later that year, she joined the Hull House theater company in Chicago and got a job as a receptionist at the offices of Playboy magazine (the wiki).
Claudia feels it’s necessary for her, at this point in her career, to move to one coast or the other, for the Windy City’s theatrical opportunities are limited. “Every actress has her particular skills and drawbacks,” says Claudia. “It’s a show-business axiom that if you really want to overcome your limitations, you go to New York, but if you’re satisfied with your skills, then you’re ready for Hollywood. The reasoning is that with a stage play, you get to work with the same material over a longer period of time than you do with a film, so you have more of a chance to improve.” (“Acting Playmate,”Playboy, November 1969.)
Five years later she was unemployed, single, and depressed; ten years later, she was dead. If you ask me, she chose the wrong coast. I think her sadly short life took a left turn at Albuquerque when she left Chicago and went to that shithole Los Angeles. In Hollywood, she appeared on an episode of The Brady Bunch in 1973 and lived with songwriter Bobby Hart (actual birth name Robert Luke Harshman; do you suppose they called each other by their real names when they were at home, or went with the show biz handles? oh, I fervently hope he called her Chesty…) from 1970-1975. He was the less handsome half of the almost-kinda-famous songwriting duo Boyce and Hart.
I assume the boyfriend got her the part on The Brady Bunch because the Monkees and the Brady Bunch appeared in each other’s shit a lot and Boyce and Hart wrote (and sometimes performed) most of the tunes for the Monkees — please tell me it is not news to you that the Monkees were a sham act developed to be a sort of made-for-tv-Beatles — including “Last Train to Clarksville” and the show’s theme (“Hey, hey, we’re the Monkees,” etc). They also penned such hits as “I’m Not Your Stepping Stone” and “Come a Little Bit Closer.” Hart broke up with her in ’75 and, living alone in much smaller quarters than she had been accustomed to, she got super-depressed, turned to a party crowd, and started regularly doing heroin and coke.
On the career side, throughout the 70’s, Claudia appeared in films, mainly just drive-in horror movie flicks. The wiki claimed they called her Queen of the B’s but I’m a huge B-movie guy and I have never heard this. I mean, I recognized her, but I didn’t think of her particularly as the queen. And the wiki has it somewhat wrong: I wouldn’t really call them B movies, because I associate that with an earlier genre of film, a la Ed Wood.
The types of 1970’s movies that Claudia was in are more like cult classics, thinly veiled excuses for weirdo softcore porn. Think of it as early skinemax, or very lite spatterporn. Personal favorites are Unholy Rollers about the motherfucking all-girl ROLLER DERBY (sorry, I get excited, cause, you know … sk8 or die), Deathsport, which takes place in the year 3000, and Gator Bait, which I believe needs no explanation.
In ’79, she auditioned to replace Kate Jackson on Charlie’s Angels but good old Aaron Spelling and company were not fans of her Playboy credit and gave the job to Shelley Hack instead. (Hack’s turn as Tiffany Welles almost sank the show and she was fired in 1980 anyways, so whatever.)
On October 3, 1979, almost a decade to the day after her Playboy pictorial hit the newsstands, Claudia was driving to the home of her on-again, off-again boyfriend Stan Herman in Malibu to pick up her shit cause they had broken up again when her Volkswagen Beetle was hit by a van and she was killed. She was thirty years old.
“I also love to explore what defines who you are, and friendship, and how you love to rock out with your best friend and cruise and drive and listen to the Ramones and play air guitar, and yet at the same time, they will come and slap you when you’re acting out of line. I love the themes that I put on the poster: ‘Be your own hero’ and ‘Find your tribe.’ Those are two things that are really important in my life.” — (interview with the AV Club’s Sam Adams, October 1, 2009, for Whip It)
“I love empowering women, and I love women that are capable. The one thing that I’m not crazy about are women that feel like they have to be a man to live in a man’s world, or that men have the upper hand. These women have this bitter chip on their shoulder, and that’s not really sexy. I like girls who have got each other’s backs. …
… I don’t like cattiness, either. I hate seeing women be rude to each other. Oh God. I don’t like man-haters, and I don’t like back-stabbers. I like chicks who can fuckin’ rip it up, pull shit off, and want to go for a beer with each other at the end of the day!” — (“Whip It! interview with director Drew Barrymore,” Chris de Salvo, The Scorecard Review, September 30, 2009).
Today after I picked up kidlet from kindergarten, we jetted down to Ceres for some gloomy day movie cheer. Clue strangely put us to sleep but then Miss D, kidlet, and I watched us the crap out of some Goonies. We watched every single feature it had. Maybe even to our detriment.
One of the features we watched, which I'd never seen before in its … I'm not sure what to call it? totality?, was a two-part music video put together by director Richard Donner, theme songstress and my fantasy fairy godmother Cyndi Lauper, with a cameo by producer Steven Spielberg, to promote the film. I don't even have words for the surreality of watching the video. It was really something. I will not soon forget it. These are my neutral words.
[The video features] World Wrestling Federation pro-wrestlers André the Giant, Captain Lou Albano, Rowdy Roddy Piper, Wendy Richter, The Fabulous Moolah, The Iron Sheik, Nikolai Volkoff, Freddie Blassie; Steven Spielberg; The Goonies cast (except for Kerri Green, Anne Ramsey, Joe Pantoliano, Robert Davi and John Matuszak*); and the relatively unknown Bangles as a group of female pirates. Roseanne Barr appears as the “sea hag”. Lauper’s mother appears as “Cyndi’s mother”, reprising her role from “Girls Just Want to Have Fun”. — (the wiki)
*The lead cast members from the film who do not appear in this video are those playing Andy, Ma Fratelli, and the Fratelli brothers.
The plot runs like this: Cyndi’s folks run a Mom and Pop gas station that is being bought out by villains from the WWF, each attired as a different weird stereotype. Unfortunately, they also have dialogue. Cyndi and her brother? friend? and sister? his wife? are helping Mom and Pop (Cap’n Lou) pack up the ol’ place while the nouveau riche chew up the scenery and generally set up quickie symbols of their wealth such as a Benihana-type joint in the middle of the parking lot, which many consider the international sign of good taste and refinement, some to the point of exclusion. (Do not even try to talk dimsum on rollerskates to them; they will not listen.)
Cyndi discovers a secret cave behind a painting of their grand-ancestor, where she encounters the Goonies, who help her decode a map she lifted off a dead guy — real fuckin’ nice, Cyn — but then some pirates show up, and Roseanne Barr. Oh my god, nightmare combination! The Bangles are there, too, but they do not try to sing. In the chase that ensues, Cyndi stops real quick for some hibachi, creating a prevalent and provocative ongoing theme in the video.
Perhaps this is meant to make us reflect on the marketing of foreign cuisine in America, or on materialism and the ease with which an ordinary item common to one country can acquire peculiar clout in another country. Or perhaps it is merely included in order to set up a joke that is some straight racist garbage: ie, the following picture’s caption.
Sk8 or die, y’all, and go see Whip It! Adorable Drew Barrymore would like it if you did, because it is her new movie, and she directed it and stuff like that. You do not say “no” to adorable Drew Barrymore. Do not make me laugh!
“I regard myself as bisexual. If you’re with a woman, it is like if you’re exploring your own body, only through someone else.” — Drew Barrymore, Vs magazine, AW09 issue.
Pretty sure that quote is actually all kinds of oversimplifying and in fact insulting to women who are legitimately attracted to other women and not just because hey-we-both-got-boobs-and-like-a-pussycat-I-am-a-pretty-little-narcissist. But you know what? I’m’a let it slide. Because Drew Barrymore said it.
“There are so many pressures that are put upon young women. Whatever we can do to alleviate that and help women feel beautiful about who we are inside, which is the only beauty there truly is, is so nice.” — Drew Barrymore
I swar to gar she is the sweetest thing to ever walk this planet. Not even kidding. Okay, last one for today:
“Let’s get down and dirty. Let’s be a real girl!” –Drew Barrymore.
The Thought Experiment 