It's Midnight, Do You Know Where Your Macrame Class Is?

This week, Late Night Academy has started catering to an underserved segment in Portland: vampires who want to take interesting and varied community center type classes, but are only available between 10PM and one in the morning on weekdays. Knitting for Insomniacs, Guitar for Aspiring Rockstars, Yoga for People who are Done with their NA Meetings, Martial Arts for Future Bar Brawlers, Cooking for People Who Are Tired of Living on 7-11 Weiners, Theater for Night Owls, Percussion for People who Don't Have Neighbors, Creative Writing for Vivarin Addicts, Didgeridoo for the Last Remaining Hippies who have Not Yet Gotten the Hang of Spitting Into A Tube, Sign Language with your Baby Who For Some Reason Is Not Asleep Either, Songwriting for Drew Barrymore, and Stand-Up Comedy for The Sleep Deprived and Drunk (i.e., comics) with one Keith Wallan. I'll be there Monday to get some late-night larnin'!

Postscript: I enjoyed Keith's class, which I took with the teachers for the other classes, Theatre Improv, Video Editing, Blues Harmonica, and Massage for Babies, who had no students. It was somewhat difficult to take the management's hard sell on lesson packages seriously when no other students were in evidence.

Post-Post-Script: The Late Night Academy experiment has wound up its run the week of 3/12, with the instructors all receiving an email titled "Terrible News!". So, don't attend.

Artsy Fartsy Hirsty Wursty

Autopsy with Sliced Human Brain

Over a year after it opened, the lure of a Damien "Drugs and Animals" Hirst exhibit finally got us out to the Portland Art Museum's modern art branch in the Jubitz center (Paid for by the people who brought you The World's Classiest Truck Stop!). Because I can't pay attention when other people speak, I didn't realize that you enter the new museum via a downstairs hallway in the old one, and I wound up asking the girl at the front counter if she had anything on hand more recently deceased than the current Egyptian Rich Dead Guy Stuff. Once we got there, the new branch was really nice, with four floors of nice assortment of famous and less-famous artists. It's great to have some sort of contemporary art wing to the sometimes fusty and localized older museum.

Once we had enjoyed Oldenberg's giant, breathing icepack, a nice little assortment of Duchamp stuff, and the Longo crawling-drowning-yuppie sculpture, we made it to the top floor to all four (4) Hirst pieces. I was mildly disappointed at the number, but what they lacked in quantity, they made up for in size. Two of them were giant, one Pharmacy installation and a glass display of many, many animal skeletons. The other two pieces were a drug-spot painting and the above painting of sliced brains that has a lot in common with my infamous attempt at the Beastie Boys' Heil Seitan recipe from Thanksgiving 2002.

Away From The Flock

"But for me, from my point of view, I don't mind if it falls over... if you
break the glass you replace the glass, if the sheep falls out you can always get
a new sheep." - Damien Hirst

It's good for me to go to the museum, not only because I heart art, but it's also a helpful reminder of how tired my whole nosering-and-glasses, bob-haircut, art-chick bit is. It's like coming to the place in Battlestar Galactica where all your identical Cylons live. At least I don't wear clogs, so my spouse could still tell which one was me.

How to Rule The Cosmos

I had the opportunity to open a comedy night at Cosmos Bar and Grill last night, which made me nervous because a: Cosmos has no "web presence", which means that it does not really exist in my universe, and b: When I cruised it earlier in the day, there were silhouettes of people playing various sports on the window. I do not historically get along with two-dimensional sport fanatics. However, the crowd was very friendly (read: drunk) and I had a great time opening for Lonnie Bruhn, Keith Wallan, and Troy Thirdgill, with emcee Gabe Dinger. I think I killed, or at the very least, I seriously maimed. I was happy with it, you can judge for yourself here. Oh, and if you are one of the half-dozen family members and friends that I made fun of, you should know that I didn't mean it. I love you.

Valentine's Thievery

This card isn't mine, it's from i-mockery.com, but I love you so much I have to share it.

Blade Runner Is Now!

I was watching Blade Runner for the jillionth time today, and was surprised to note that the film is set in 2019, so we're almost there (although the novel was set 27 years earlier). Like in all great sci-fi, a lot of the weird futur-ey stuff from the film is now commonplace. Like the big ad screens, although they are less likely to show demure Geishas eating small treats and are more likely to let you know that you can see a BOAT SHOW or a GOAT SHOW or BUY A GOAT WITH NO MONEY DOWN or somesuch-I can't pay attention or I will drive the Volvo into a wall. So, giant ad screens: check.

Mechanical Animals:


Check!

Strippers:


Check! Incidentally, do you think I'd be working in a place like this if I could afford a real snake?


Traffic:

Check!

Pollution so pervasive it creates a canopy, and it rains all the time:

I live in Portland, so...Check!

Genetic modification, cloning, and sexy androids:



Check!

Nutsy Space Travelers:





I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser gate. All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. Time to die.




Bitch, you better stay the hell away from my man or I swear to Jesus I will strap on some Huggies and drive all night to stab you with knives! I'll show you why he loves me!

Check!



Spinners, or any sort of hover-car:

MINUS! And we've only got 12 years left! Get up on it, science! We need to hover!