Thursday, September 27, 2007

BACKSTAGE AT THEORY CORNER

Tour Guide: "Did you know that every year hundreds of parents and children from local schools take the Theory Corner Tour? Here's the latest bunch, anxiously gathering up their cameras and autograph books as they pull into the parking lot."


Tour Guide: "The studio's all abuzz because today we're filming 'Halloween Story.' It's the scariest thing we've ever done here."

[If you haven't read it yet, "Halloween Story" is the post beneath this one.]
Tour Guide: "The sets are massive! It takes rows of powerful arc lights just to make the the living room set look authentic. Wait, there's Uncle Eddie now! Maybe we can get him to say a few words!"



Uncle Eddie: "Hi kids! Boy, did you luck out! We're just about to film the climax of the story! You're gonna die when you see this!"



Uncle Eddie: "Here's Kali, the photographer! Hey Kali, meet your fans! She's really got a knack for horror! She's always saying, 'More extreme! Exaggerate!', and I do. Gee, I hope my mother doesn't see this stuff!"



Uncle Eddie: "OK, it's time to shoot! You kids stand over there, and don't touch anything! All right, gotta do my breathing exercizes...find my center...that's it...focus on the imaginary kid I'll be talking to..."


Uncle Eddie: "OK...... ready!"



Uncle Eddie "Sooooo little Trick or Treater, you want candy! Candy's all that matters to you, isn't it? I went to all the trouble of putting this bread and butter together but no, that's not good enough for you! It has to be candy!"



Uncle Eddie: "JEZEBEL! People like you give kids a bad name!



Uncle Eddie: "Here, I know you'd like this bread if you only tasted it. Let me cut a slice for you!"


Uncle Eddie: "I KNOW YOU'RE GONNA LIKE IT!!!!"


Kid: "WAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!! (CRIES)


Uncle Eddie: "Huh? What? Hey, it's just a story! Aw, poor little kid! Here, take this lollipop! Er... maybe the tour oughta move on to the next thing."


Angry parents glower at Uncle Eddie as they pass.


Uncle Eddie: "Heh, heh...happy, um... halloween!"


Tour Guide: "This part's for adults only. Fans of Theory Corner know that we frequently have beautiful women discuss philosophy! We get into some pretty heavy stuff here!"


Tour Guide: "Theory Corner spares no expense to find women who actually like philosophy! Lots of times the discussion goes on for hours after the shoot. Sometimes...


Tour Guide: "AAAAAAAA!!!! Who let the little boy in here!?"


Uncle Eddie: "What's the matter!? Are you all right, kid!? Here. Put your head down, you won't feel so sick that way! You know, I know it's hard to believe, but someday you'll actually like to see women like that...honest! Trust me! Um...you're not gonna sue are you?"


Tour Guide: "Well, that's the tour! What do you think?"


Kids: "YAAAAAAAAAAAAYYY!!!!!!!!!



Wednesday, September 26, 2007

GOODBYE!


I'm out of here! I just don't get enough responses to keep a daily blog going! I went to a lot of trouble to put up something decent last night and by mid-afternoon I got only four replies. Four! Man, you guys are hard to please! "Today-I-clipped-my-toenails"-type blogs get more than that. I'm gonna book!
Thanks to all the regulars whose kind letters kept this going for 520 posts. Sorry I had to delete the post containing your current comments in order to put this up. They were all very, very much appreciated. I have a feeling most of us will meet sometime in the future! For now, so long!

Sunday, September 23, 2007

A HALLOWEEN STORY

IT WAS A DARK AND STORMY NIGHT.......

SFX: (Knock! Knock! Knock!)


Man: "Hold your horses! I'm coming, I'm coming! Who is it? Whaddaya want!?"



Man: "Oh, a trick or treater! Is it that time of year already? Hmmm. Well come in! Come in!"



Man: "Have a seat! Oh, you'd rather sit over there? Wouldn't you rather...but that's that's alright. Sit wherever you want."


Man: "That was my wife's chair before...before... the accident."


Man: "Actually she was just my last wife. I've had five. They all had...er, accidents. Heh, I guess the house is unlucky."


SFX: Lightning



Man: "Now I know you probably want some candy! Of course you do, you're a kid Well, you're gonna get some! Yesireee!"



Man: "Mildred! Are you listening up there in heaven!? I wanna give this nice kid some candy! Now don't disagree! I promised her candy and I'm gonna give it to her!'


Man: "Huh!? What's that? Candy's too good to give away!? But what about the little kid? What does she get? "


Man: "Oh no! (Gasp!) Not that! It's too gruesome!"


Man: Oh well, whatever you say, dear!


Man: "Now see what happens, kid? You got me all upset. I need to relax. Let's smoke a pen. That always makes me feel better."



Man: ""Ah, a Bic! Bics smoke better than Parkers. It's a better grade of plastic!"



Man: "My first wife used to smoke pens with me."


Man: "Actually, you remind me of her."



SFX: Lightning again.


Man: "How 'bout some bread and butter?"



Man: "You're not interested in bread & butter? Oh, I forgot! You said you wanted candy! "



SFX: Knock! Knock! Knock!



Man: "Huh? Oh, it's more trick or treaters!



Man: "We'll have that bread & butter some other time. You look kind of anxious to leave, anyway."


Man: "By now! See ya later! Don't run too fast!"



Man: "Haw,haw,haw,haw! The old psycho trick always works! Now I have all the candy for myself!"


Man: "Let's face it! Candy bars are too good for kids!"


Photographs by Kali Fontechio

TOO SLEEPY TO WRITE!

Sorry! I can't keep my eyes open!




Saturday, September 22, 2007

MY TASTE IN NEKKIDS

WARNING: NON-PORNOGRAPHIC NUDES BELOW!




******



******



Here's (above) my all-time favorite nude photograph, taken by Weston. It's probably influenced by Matisse. It's indisputably a terrific work of art but... that's not what this is about. This is about what John K calls "nakeds", steamy pictures that are meant to be a turn-on.

I'm not turned on by dominatrices and cold, inhuman model types. I like real girls, the way they really look. There aren't many sites with pictures like that but here's three. See what you think.


The first is "Suicide Girls." Man, goth girls are sexy! I don't buy into goth philosophy but who cares about philosophy when you have girls like this to oogle!?


Nongnong,nong,nong,nong (knuckle biting)! OK, she's not naked but I can imagine it!


I'm going way out on a limb with this one (above). She has a sense of humor and that's sexy, don't you think?


Here's (above) a neo-hippy girl from the "Hippie Godess" website. She looks kind of surly for a hippie but maybe I'm misreading the expression. The hippies were half right...underarm hair really is sexy, but not leg hair. Click to enlarge.



Here's (above) a disgustingly wholesome girl from the "Domai" site that Kelly recommended a while back. Behind the sincerity there's something phony, but behind the phony there's more sincerity so I'm buying into this one! Click to enlarge.



Nonganonganonganonga! In a better world the mail would be delivered by carriers like this (above).

Here's (above) a nice one to go out on. What's the real color of her hair, anyway? I'm betting brown.





Wednesday, September 19, 2007

THE FIRST TIME I SAW A CLAMPETT CARTOON

I must have written about this before, but if so I can't find it. I guess an occasional repeat is inevitable after 520 posts. If I am covering old ground I apologize. It's a fun story for me to tell and maybe something new will come to light in the re-telling.
It all started in Berkeley, California where I had plans to start an animation studio. I figured I'd begin by making commercials for local TV then, when the time was right, I'd move the studio to L.A. where I'd become the next Walt Disney. The fact that I'd never animated before never struck me as an obstacle. It was the era just before video tape recorders so I didn't have much to study. Mostly I read books and did the animation exercizes in a book I got in the mail, Heath's "Animation in 12 Hard Lessons."
I was super-serious about this and I even got rid of all the furniture in my apartment to make a bigger working space. Using the plans I found in animation books, I carpentered together animation tables and discs, cel drying racks, an editing area and a photography stand. With the money from tutoring and a post office job I bought a camera and lights, swivel chairs and enough used editing equipment to get started. It was great! Amazingly someone found out what I was doing and donated the use of a completely professional motorized animation stand so I was really in business. My girlfriend and I had to sleep on the floor because there was no room for a bed but, what the heck, you have to make sacrifices to start a career, right?
Getting animation gigs proved to be difficult. I got two short ones but they didn't pay much.
I thought I'd better put something together to show what I and my friends could do, or thought we could do. We advertised ourselves as a full animation studio even though none of us had ever even inbetweened professionally. For a first project I picked a childrens book by Bill Peet (the first two pictures above are Peet's) . I figured he was an obscure childrens book author who lived in a shack behind the railroad tracks. I figured he would jump at the chance to see his pathetically obscure little book animated by suave and sophisticated artists like myself. I wrote a letter to him but never got an answer.
It was just as well because shortly after I met an art student who recommended me to her dad who was a big shot at Hanna Barbera. Thanks to favoritism I was a shoe-in! Aaaargh! I put so much effort into getting my own studio together...it seemed a shame to leave all that ... but this was a real job at a real Hollywood animation studio -- How could I turn that down? My girlfriend and I sold the animation equipment and dashed down to L.A.
I got my first job at Filmation and I was ecstatic! I worked all day then spent hours at night sitting at the desks of the older animators, flipping their animation and trying to figure out how they did it. Some of the old guys liked me and I had real cartoonist friends for the first time. My hero was still Bill Peet, who I discovered was a famous Disney story man, and through friends I discovered the names of my favorite directors: Chuck Jones and Friz Freleng. I was in heaven! I didn't mind working on the Filmation characters and I couldn't even imagine anything better than what Friz and Chuck did.
One day a friend (he might not want me to mention his name) told me he'd be projecting "Crumpet cartoons" in the 2nd floor hallway after work. I'm being disingenuous, he clearly said "Clampett," but I can't resist rewriting history to make the word sound the way I heard it for the first time months before. My friend was a real Clampet fan but I'd never seen a Clampett cartoon and I was a little skeptical of the hype. Surely, I thought, Friz and Chuck had the top spots locked up. Clampett, whoever he was, couldn't possibly be anything but the lackey who polished their shoes.
Well, as I may have said elsewhere, the lights dimmed and when they came on I was a different man. Clampett, to put it mildly, was not a shoe shining lackey. He was the only director to use all the elements of entertainment in a single film: funny and surprising writing, hilarious cartooning and animation, great pacing and choreography, killer voices, just the right color, efx and music...I was overwhelmed!
That night I completely flip-flopped. I disavowed my entire past and I even shed my desire to have a studio. Clearly I had a lot to learn and I could only learn it in the studio system. The next day I came to work feeling like the world-destroying infant at the end of the film, "2001." With a deeply grave look on my face I willed the studio door open (OK, I'm exaggerating) and slowly and deliberately levitated (so it felt) up to the second floor where the old guys were. I confidently approached them and announced that everything they were doing was wrong. I would brook no disagreement. The new law had had been laid down.