Gloomy, The Naughty Adult Bear

Judging by the referrals on my site meter, a lot of people are getting to my page because they are looking for pictures or information about Gloomy, The Naughty Adult Bear. Since I sometimes pretend to myself that I am providing a service, here is a good page from Wikipedia about the Gloomy toy series and his creator, Mori Chack.

From his press release: Gloomy, an abandoned little bear, is rescued by Pitty (the little boy). At first, he is cute and cuddly, but becomes more wild as he grows up. Since bears do not become attached to people like dogs by nature, Gloomy attacks Pitty even though he is the owner. So Gloomy has blood on him from biting and/or scratching Pitty.

The moral: wild animals are dangerous, even when they are cute and/or pink. I'll bet you didn't know that a hippo will take your arm off if it gets a chance. I met a guy who was pulled out of a boat in Africa and badly maimed by the cutest, fattest hippo ever. Hippopotamus means "river horse" in Greek, but you absolutely should not ride him.

Many celebrities exhibit the same behaivor, appearing cute and harmless but lashing out when cornered, like Mel Gibson, Peter Buck, and that crazy guy from Seinfeld.

Some of the other search results for my site are for nude lolitas. I have no information for you, but when they grow up, they might also be dangerous.

Postscript: I have gotten a hit from "foot sex", which I can assure you I don't know anything about. If anything, my feet are qualified to cure people of fetishism.

Tivo Alert: There is a stupendous doc about Robyn Hitchcock and Peter Buck recording Robyn's most recent album with the Venus 3- It aired on Sundance on Dec 31, and included footage from this most recent Thanksgiving. My, what a modern world it is! Look for it!

My Favorite of Favorites

My talented sister Emily made me this beautiful picture, with my dog's names embroidered on their asses. It is number a-one out of a field of lovely things. I don't mean to hurt anyone's feelings, I'm just sayin'. This is AWESOME.

Before and After: Comedy Club Westside

This is a timeline of my activities before and after my first ever non-open mike time at Comedy Club Westside.

Wednesday and Thursday: Promote, promote, promote. I want *everyone* to come. Internet flyering and Myspacing and calling people and threatening them.

Friday Morning: Practicing material. I don't usually look at material when I'm on stage, but I have gotten really used to holding it, like Dumbo's feather. This is a no-no at this venue on the grounds that it looks unprofessional, which it is.

Friday Afternoon: I hope nobody comes.

Friday Afternoon, Part Two: Oh, the Food Fight website is cross-promoting me. That's so sweet. A little lump grows in the throat.

Friday Evening: If no-one I know shows up, I just won't do a set. That will be for the best.

Friday Night: Sh*t, people I know are here.

Friday Night After: That went well, and the other comics were very complimentary, and I get self-congratulatorily drunk! I'm gonna kick its ass tomorrow! I have made up a word, self-congratulatorily!

Saturday night: *More* friends come. They are awesome. The booker is here, and he's going to see how fricking funny I am.

Saturday night: Set goes over like medium-warm dogshit. I hate everyone, including my friends. I get self-pityingly drunk. The other comics' sets go over in a mediocre fashion also. Who can we blame?

Sunday morning: Husband is annoyed at my moodiness and wants me to pick a hobby with a lower failure rate, like knitting. However, I am repeating to myself a quote from British statesman David Ivor Young: "You never learn from success."

Merry Christmas, everybody!

Caroling in Portland

This year, I was invited to join a group of rambunctious individuals to spread holiday cheer with a special playlist for Christmas caroling, including many 80's hair band classics and television theme songs.

I do not appear in this film, but I am amused at how crazy a gas station attendee can be driven by the Gnarls Barkley song of the same name. In my tenure with this traveling band of cheer-spreaders, I learned several things:

1. Some people will not get into the Christmas spirit, no matter how loudly you may be singing "Holiday Road" by Mr. Lindsey Buckingham.
2. My new best friend is named Eddy, and he's a short-haired St. Bernard that hangs out in the bar behind the Hawthorne Theatre.
3. You should not sing the theme to the "Greatest American Hero" to teen-agers, because they were born between six and ten years after that show was on the air.
4. You should not dwell on the fact that people can legally drink that were born significantly after the runs of both "Greatest American Hero" and "Manimal".
5. I wish I could play the guitar while walking like certain "cool people" can. I don't think I could play the guitar seated if there were a small earthquake occurring, or a largish truck rolling by.
6. When you walk into a bar that is playing Journey's "Don't Stop Believin'" and you sing "Separate Ways", it brings a little Christmas magic to the room.

Merry Christmas, everybody! Remember, You Can't Always Get What You Want, but if you're not Cold as Ice, you can get All My Loving.

Happy Holidays from Hazel and Chico!

Bye-Bye, Baiji.

One of my favorite weird animals appears to have checked out, after 30 million years of rocking freshwater rivers in China, which means they watched us stand up and walk 3 million years ago. There were 7 spotted in 1998, but this year, the Yangtze river dolphin appears to be extinct. I am sorry to see us lose our first whale species to human pollution, fishing, and sonic interference.
Douglas Adams, who unfortunately is also extinct, wrote extensively about about this dolphin in his book on endangered species, Last Chance To See, and imagines a happy ending for them in the fourth book in the Hitchhiker series, "So Long, And Thanks For All The Fish!"

Here is the bottlecap of Baiji dolphin beer, where our friend is immortalized as a delicious light lager.

Every time I have been in China, I try to pour a bottle of molasses or maple syrup into the murky Yangtze as a special dolphin treat, and as a tribute to my fallen homies. It may not have been as helpful as I thought.

He's called Baiji when he's at home. The Chinese believe the Yangtze river dolphin to be an incarnation of a drowned princess. Although she did not drown, I think they look a lot like Princess Diana.

Sure, they're frequently albino. Sure, they have small, strange-looking eyes, and are mostly blind from knocking around in the murky, polluted river for the last thousand years. Sure, they think that dead aliens are in our blood, screwing up our life and relationships. Are they really so different from Edgar Winter? And yet, he survives.

Post Number 69

I hope it's not too sexy for you to look at from work.

Crispin Lovers

Danny Glover's eccentric white cousin, Crispin, was in town at the Clinton Street Theatre last weekend, presenting the oddest film I've seen for awhile, called What is It? It deals with Crispin's rejection of the censorship involved in corporate backing, and his continuing interest in the "aesthetic of discomfort." Almost all of the actors in the film have Down's Syndrome, and although both Shirley Temple and a minstrel performer are in it, there is zero tap dancing, which I consider a tease. Crispin is on tour presenting his movie, which for various reasons is unreleasable, alongside his slide show presentations and readings from some of his books.

The evening started oddly when Crispin headed out onto the stage and immediately fell off the one-foot drop at the Clinton Street, hard. The audience held its breath, but when the actor sprung up and started reading from Ratcatching, we laughed in relief that he had executed a pratfall. Later, when he told us that he had really fallen and hurt his elbow, we felt badly. We didn't know any better. We're just an audience.

All in all, it was kind of nice being in a small room with Crispin and letting him make a world. He's interested in Victorian novels, cut-ups, madness, films, sex, and animal skinning. Here's a reading from the event from an unpublished book, Round My House.

For no reason, I'd like to point out one of my favorite Crispin trivia facts- He was George McFly in the first Back to the Future movie, but declined to be in the rest of the series. When the director opted to make up another actor in prosthetics to imitate the appearance of the original George, Crispin successfully sued for trademark violation. No matter what the pod people think, you can't steal another person's face without their permission, both written and verbal.