May 18, 2007
Don't Drink and...
Don't drink and park ...
Accidents cause people.
And, from Mastermind at Blogmad:
life is like a raw file. there's so much post processing to do...
Posted by Red Monkey at 5:07 AM
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May 16, 2007
Red Monkey
Here's the blog anniversary post for your enjoyment ... Jodi asked a few days? weeks? ago, why the red monkey ... here's the answer. Oh ... and the red monkey graphic? That's not the red monkey that I talk about here ... that's a vector graphic I drew for this blog ... based on one of my other passions: Fisher Price Little People. So now you know.
I love antique stores and junk stores. I have this thing for toys, particularly old toys. I'm fascinated by everything from the packaging and advertising to the toys themselves. The problem is a lot of those so-called antique stores - at least the ones that also sell old toys - are really antique store and collectibles store combos. So I'll see a booth full of Nascar stuff next to one with clothes from the 20s and 30s. Not a big deal, really, it's usually all interesting stuff - if it wasn't for the crazy prices some of the collectibles folks tend to charge.
Anyhow, this is about 1999 or 2000 and I'm walking through a pretty cool antique store when I round the corner to the biggest flippin' display of Ty Beanie Babies I've ever seen. And despite their frenzied, must-have popularity, some of these little guys are really cute and clever. I already had a handful of the things, ones I thought were really cool or cute. I have the otter, the Ireland bear and a few others. (Why haven't they made a dolphin yet??) I also have the first monkey they made, cuz I've always really liked monkeys.
So, in this display case they have this really cool new Beanie Baby I haven't seen yet, a little red monkey with a cute tan face and a little fluff of hair on top of his head. I have to have him. DId I mention that some of these collectible places think they can charge 4-5 times the retail prices on a toy that's just come out? Not a toy that's been out and then discontinued, excuse me, "retired." A toy that is currently being mass produced but just barely started hitting the shelves - those toys are worth the retail price. Not "scalper" prices.
So this scalper booth wants $20 or $25 for a $5 stuffed animal. I stomped past, growling and grousing about opportunistic scalpers and this kind of artificial supply and demand being among the worst of human impulses. I do not "have to have" something like a little stuffed animal so badly that I will pay 5x its actual worth. I would pay $1 or $2 more to have it now - I can be that shallow and that careless about my spending money from time to time. But this, this is not capitalism - it's stupidity. Stupidity on the part of the seller and on the part of anyone who gives in and buys the overpriced goods.
Yeah, my friends are tired of that rant, too.
So, later that night, my friends and I are sitting in the living room watching a movie. It's a pseudo-SF movie called Strange Days. It's an awesome movie set just a touch in the future when people don't just watch reality tv, they experience it through virtual programs on the computer.
Well, I'd seen the movie before and it was fast becoming one of my favorites, but I was a little restless and bored that night. So everyone's really really into the movie, the tension's building and I'm kinda looking around the room. I see my little beanie-baby monkey on the bookshelf.
"I really want that red monkey," I say aloud.
The whole room turns to stare at me in shock. "What?"
The movie had to be paused and rewound a bit. Evidently it was a really intense point in the flick.
"What?" I ask, all wounded innocence and surprised at their reaction.
"Where did that come from?" they reply.
"I was just looking around the room and saw my little monkey and that reminded me of the beanie baby we saw in that store today - " there's much eye-rolling at this pronouncement "-and I just realized that I really want that little monkey."
"We're in this intense part of the movie and you're talking about a stuffed monkey?"
Somehow, my explanation did not help my case at all. "I've seen the movie before" I point out helpfully.
"I repeat, we're in this tense and intense part of the movie and you are thinking about a toy monkey?" The room is staring at me now. Finally someone grabs the remote and flips the movie back to play, muttering, "You are so ADD."
You've maybe seen the t-shirt that says "They say I have ADD, but I don't think ...Hey look! A chicken!" Well, my chicken is a red monkey.
Interestingly enough, a year or so later I was diagnosed as ADHD.
Now, I have a McD's teenie beanie version atop my monitor at work and the regular-sized one in the home office.
So, that's the story of the red monkey.
And now you know lots of important tidbits about me.
So now you know.
Posted by Red Monkey at 1:37 AM
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May 14, 2007
Common Ground
My mom and I have never been on spectacular terms. We fought about the length of my hair, the clothes I wore, the interests I had and the toys I liked.
The last few times we've talked, we've finally discovered a common ground.
This last week we discussed the most innocuous of art supplies ... markers. I can remember trips to the university bookstore when I was a kid. The Grumbacher paints in their odd little containers (which I would use to make space shuttles for my action figures) ... the aisle of different kinds of pencils ... colour pencils, black pencils which were other things than a #2. And then, the big display of markers. Prismacolor markers, double-ended markers with a fine tip and a broad tip in more colours than Mr. Binney OR Mr. Smith ever thought of.
I would spend most of the time drooling over the colours, curious about the pastels and the oil crayons ... but mostly fascinated by the markers.
And now I've discovered Copic markers.
It was amazing to have such a wonderful conversation with her ... where she would ask questions and listen to what I had to say. We talked about techniques and papers ... and the colours available ... the fact that they're refillable and you can even change out the nibs as well.
I'm not sure if that was my Mother's Day present to my mom ... or if something else gave a much-needed present to the both of us.
All I know is that I'm incredibly grateful for it.
(I liked her other kite best, a big rectangle made to look like an envelope ... complete with a "Return to Sender" note stamped across it. I thought that was pretty clever, too ... enough so that I hung that kite in my room for years. Sadly, I don't have a photo of that one.)
Posted by Red Monkey at 4:51 PM
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May 12, 2007
Ambrosia Denied
It's getting harder and harder to find the nectar of the gods. My Diet Vanilla Pepsi ... I swear half of my bloodstream is this stuff. I've been substituting Pepsi's Jazz Caramel Cream ... but it's just not the same. It's not as good.
Today I happened to see a Pepsi guy stocking in one of our local stores ... so I asked him ... that fateful question:
Have they stopped production of the Diet Vanilla Pepsi.
He gave me a pouty face and said, "Yeah. They have."
"SHIT!"
I thought my other half was going to die of embarrassment as I stood in the middle of the grocery store exclaiming a curse word just because Pepsi is no longer making a certain flavour of pop.
But ... then I went tootling around online tonight ... which is what I do ... tootle around online alla time ... and discovered:
Apparently from the picture ... I think it's hopefully coming back. Looks like it from this picture ... that's a new paint job that I've never seen on any of the Diet Vanilla Pepsis.
HURRY UP ... I NEED MY DIET VANILLA PEPSI ... I'M GOING THROUGH WITHDRAWALS ... I NEED IT ... NECTAR OF THE GODS ....
Posted by Red Monkey at 7:31 PM
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April 22, 2007
Visual DNA
Posted by Red Monkey at 9:24 AM
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April 4, 2007
Stimulations
I asked Jodi the other day why she paints. And, as I was surfing first Mike's blog and then following the link to fellow 9Ruler blog by James Mathias, I got to thinking about my own creativity.
Since I was very small, I've told stories ... no, not tall-tale lies ... I mean I have always been a writer. Sheesh, damn peanut gallery around here. Anyway, words, I suppose come easily to me ... so easily that I'm convinced there's really nothing special in my writing, despite what others have said. That doesn't mean that I stop writing ... and I do enjoy it. I suppose it simply comes so naturally that it just seems normal to me.
So, in high school, I wrote like a fish swims. Constantly. I wrote my first novel in high school ... and all of my teachers thought that I had suddenly started taking excellent notes. I got an idea for my second novel in the last year of my college years ... and again, my teachers simply thought I was taking excellent notes.
In the in between years, and, in fact, since ... I've not been one of those writers who insists on writing every day ... I've always considered myself a binge writer ... writing when I have something rather than the CONSTANT VIGILANCE of daily practice. (Can you tell I'm ready for the Deathly Hallows to come out???)
I guess my writing has been much more the case of Gordie in Stephen King's "The Body" (or the movie Stand by Me, whichever you prefer): my stories bubble up like bubbles in soda. It just kinda happens.
But since I graduated from a creative writing program, I've been oddly dry of stories. The fizz just kinda up and left for a while, I suppose. Without any real challenges, I went flat.
However, since I started drawing again ... I've noticed not just the desire to practice every day ... but a compulsion to improve what I do and stretch it every day. Not because "great artists" or paid artists or whatever, draw every day ... but because I was not given the same "easy" gift at drawing that I was at writing, it's more of a challenge to me. And that challenge is eminently more interesting to my li'l ole ADHD self than the ease that writing had become.
I suppose that is why I'm drawn to comic books, cartoons and graphic novels ... I can combine writing and drawing ... a segment with which I'm very confident and secure ... and another where I can feel myself stretching and beginning to achieve what I want. The challenge of it all stimulates me further.
I suppose it's the fact that I have to concentrate on a good story ... character design ... backgrounds ... how to show the action ... shading ... highlights ...
There's just so much more to do. So much, in fact, that I've noticed myself stopping to look at how a cartoonist will set things up ... how they shade ... how they make things "imperfect" and thereby make it more real. It's all fascinating to me. And I've noticed that I've begun seeing almost everything in shapes instead of seeing objects.
No point to this post, I suppose ... just a bit of an internal dialgue into just how my mind and eyes are working lately.
Posted by Red Monkey at 12:41 AM
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| People Say I Have ADHD, But I Think - Hey Look, A Chicken | Storytelling: She was, of course, supposed to be sleeping.
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