two more things

here's the cover for noah's new book in which i'm included!



the release date is dec 15, 2010. i should have an advance copy available at my table at ucu so come by and peruse.

it's also currently available for preorder at a number of sites. the info is at the book blog so go check it out!

a new contest is now live at suspect and fugitive! enter to win these two paintings!



details available here!

so hectic

it's gotten stupid around these parts.



that's my triple pony tail. all the way.

i finished cutting all the halloween lanterns for 2010 last night. here's the group shot. (you can see them all individually in the flickr set.)



here are my three favorites. "ginger balls" (this video will clue you in if you're not a "fotc" fan.)



"i just blue myself" (another video for reference if you're not into "arrested development")



and brak. (ok, fine. here's a brak video.)



the next thing i'm making for halloween is a set of four xl stencils for the front windows of the house. perhaps you remember last year's set?

anyway, that means i have to get back to work. i've almost completed the 120 paintings that i had slated for this month. (only 30 left!) and i need to start packing for london. wait, let me rephrase that...LONDON!!

speaking of london, these dr who plush will be flying with us. i stenciled them and leff sewed. hooray!

have some cat pics. i'll see you again before i jet off to the uk next week.

painting, the end of the growing season and meetup info

i'm still in the middle of my five paintings a day insanity.



it's starting to really wear me out. still, only 13 more days of it and then i can shift my attention elsewhere.

it's gotten very cold at night.



so cold that i had to harvest what was left of our less than spectacular garden.



i also had to bring in the sensitive plants.



i'm also still working on things for the london trip. these will soon be stuffed for two britkids.



speaking of london, if you want to meetup with me and/or leff, follow the directions below!



but make it a little closer to 1 if you would.

New Contest!

Enter to win these two paintings! Details here!

and we're back to our regularly scheduled program

the regular update is going to be short, as usual. mainly 'cause i'm turning these 120 sheets of blank watercolor paper



into 120 mixed media paintings by the end of the month. oh, it can be done. it has to be. otherwise, i'm not gonna' have a lot to sell at ucu.

other things: i've think i've decided to shelve another short project that i was going to try and cram into oct. it might get shoved into next year, if i'm honest with myself.

still trying to plan the london trip. like, what days where and whether or not i can do both tates without driving everyone who's hanging out with me crazy. heh. (also trying to talk myself out of attempting to see murakami at versailles. we're not going to have time. it's as simple as that. i'm still slightly saddened and dreaming in french again though.)

halloween decorations. yeah, i'm still trying to make them. what? it's the only holiday that i bother to celebrate correctly. the other ones suck.

and that's it. i'm just really, really busy. so busy that i don't even bother to get coffee (which is what i do for socializing these days). so busy that i missed the plush you opening. so busy that i haven't bought tickets for the picasso blowout at sam yet.

fuji doesn't mind though.



she still sleeps on my chest while i'm trying to paint. adorable but, jesus, it's such a pain in the ass when you're pushing pigment.

cali trip, days 6 and 7

since the majority of our last two days of vacation were spent on the train back to seattle, i thought i'd group them both together.

i was still sick on saturday morning but i rallied. you would've too if you were heading back to the madonna inn for breakfast! due to my sore throat, i drank a lot.



thankfully, our waiter didn't make a big deal about it. (unlike the waiter at a denny's in memphis. (another lame story for another lame time though.))

one last note about the madonna inn and i'll move on. everything is pink there. i mean, everything. even the sugar.



slogrl was a great tour guide the entire time that we were in california but she really outdid herself on saturday! we saw the innards



and outards of the city. including the kick ass boot fence.



she took us to one of the best farmer's markets i've been too since l.a. i'm always amazed at how much produce is available at cali markets. i mean, GRAPES!



there will never be grapes at a washington farmer's market.

a certain person who reads this blog might be interested in the archeological museum that is in a parking lot in slo.



the parking lot is now located on the former site of slo's chinatown. it's neat how the past commingles with present in a garage, you know?

the best part of saturday, however, has to have been the trip to pismo beach.



you know why? because down these stairs are harbor seals!



they were just swimming around and stuff right under the wooden pier on which we'd driven. (that in itself is pretty damn cool. when was the last time you drove on a rickety wooden pier? yeah, that's what i thought!)



anyway, the seals were certainly talkative! sadly, i wasn't able to spend too much time photographing them due to chills, exhaustion, etc. damn it.

around 3 in the afternoon, we boarded the coast starlight for the return trip.



it was really sad to say bye to slogrl. i can't wait to see her again in the next even numbered year!

the train back was not as enjoyable as the one to cali mainly due to the illness. my inner ear was all out of whack so seeing things like mount shasta



was actually very excruciating because of the high altitude.

bullet list summation? why not? we're going to go back to no bullets on monday.

• southernish california is pretty much the way i remembered it from when i was a kid. i'm kinda' glad about that.
• if you take amtrak, remember to 1) get a sleeper car 2) eat in the parlor car
• get me my fucking soy burrito.

thanks to slogrl for everything! and thanks to l for watching the house and cats for us!

up next? in less than a month? LONDON, BITCHES!

cali trip, day 5

our last full day in california consisted of me hardly leaving the room. the cold (that i still have, btw) came on in full force that friday so i spent a lot of time staring at this two liter bottle of diet coke.



addtionally, i wrote a bunch of postcards to my two year old nephew (which was pointless as he can't read yet) and finished reading how to make friends with demons.

i also slept. a lot.

leff ventured back to the mission plaza for some peace sans coughing. while there, he saw two people dressed as fruits (one strawberry, one banana) who were standing in the water. he observed the following conversation:

mumbling lady: (not actually overheard. leff assumes she asked) what are you supposed to be?
strawberry: i'm a strawberry.
ml: ???
strawberry: a strawberry.
ml: ????
strawberry: a strawberry.

i can't believe that he didn't get pictures.

at one point in the afternoon i managed to hoof it to a sub shop where we saw a person who looked so much like they were from california that it was laughable. like, good job casting that role, mystery agent who was undoubtedly somehow involved! i doubt there's anyone else in the world that so perfectly embodies the physical form of "dude".

during dinner, leff cracked open a corona familiar beer from the dude store thinking that he had gotten something different. turns out that familiar is just that...familiar. it was just regular corona in a bigger bottle. whee.

bullet list? why not.:

• i did not make it to pecha kucha.
• mansplaining seems to be a competitive sport on the entire west coast and not just in the pnw.
• "lovejoy" is a useful sleep aide. (even though i do love that show.)

cali trip, day 4

day four was nature IN OUR FACES! slogrl thoughtfully loaned us her car and we set out on route 1 after dropping her off at work. our original destination for the day was hearst castle. i'd been there when i was a teenager and instantly fell in love with the swimming pools and the general tackiness of too much wealth.

alas, when we arrived, it was a geriatric convention of epic proportions (read: several tour buses) in the parking lot and we had not yet bought tickets. we, like the germans who were with us in the lobby, decided that it was best to skip the grey haired foray into yellow journalism. (read: no swimming pools. but i DID take this picture in the parking lot.)

this turned out to be a great decision as it left us a lot of time at rocas blancas where the elephant seals hang out. note: this is not a picture of the elephant seals but of the rocks.

HERE is an elephant seal!

we were told by some of the volunteers that staff the site that we had just missed a big migration of the sea beasties. that we would only be able to see sleeping juvenile males that would occasionally flip their flippers. fine by me! like i ever get the chance to take a pano of an elephant seal in washington state!

i think this may have been my favorite part of california. there were so many animals!







i could have stayed there all day but route 1 was calling.

after the elephant seals, we stopped in a small coastal town to check out slogrl's mural. (try to find the skull in the chicken. heh!) while there, we saw some monster feet. ok, not really but i like to play like we did.


(here's another lame video of water. this time the pacific in cali. (link.))

route 1 had been so fun and uncluttered of a drive that leff and i decided to continue on the road for a while. little did we know that we would end up in the middle of a mountain range where the first chance of turning around was gordy.

ah, gordy. the land of $10 a gallon gas. where meth heads suggest that you try the fucking pepper sauce so frequently that you want to punch them. it's such a lovely place and not opportunistic in any sense of the term. /sarcasm

gordy and the mountain range leading up to it cost us some serious time so after bidding the meth heads farewell we returned to slo. sadly, things did not improve once we arrived at the sanitarium as leff was stung by a bee (although i'm sure it felt like he'd been stung by 50 of them.) and then slogrl's bus (newly purchased by the city!) broke down.

sigh... we all needed a nap.

fully recharged (well, kinda'. my cold was making itself known at this point. ugh.) leff, slogrl, c and i headed to los alamos which, not only has buffalo parking

but is also the site of the union hotel where michael jackson and paul mccartney filmed the "say, say, say" video!



i snuck down the staircase like mac and jack did at the 4:20 mark.



we were given a wonderful tour by the manager of the hotel. if you're ever in los alamos, it's definitely worth dropping by! they even have the video in the bar!

i also hear that the place is haunted, if that's more your speed.

this day's tiny bullet list:

• in california, all alcohol is available in the grocery store. i found a bottle of jack near the frozen pizzas, which, brilliant product placement!
• the union hotel has a hidden room behind zee bookcase! (we didn't have to put the candle back.)
• the snake in the above photo scared a lot of people, most notably a a japanese lady who was screaming at it. i tried to calm everyone down by explaining that the snake was very slow moving as it had just come out of the ground. you know, cold bloodedness being what it is and all but it didn't really help. sometimes i get very irritated at my need to keep everyone calm in a crisis (no matter how small).

Bonus Contest!

Take a break from California updates and enter to win these three paintings! Details at Suspect and Fugitive!

cali trip, day 3

day 3 was our first full day in california. as such, it was chock full of sightseeing. thankfully, i was able to carbo load with a lemon curded bagel + some coffee before heading out to leff street.

this knit



and this sticker



were on leff. the street, not the bf.

our main goal for the day was to see the san luis mission de tolosa (it's not cali to me unless i've been to a mission. please don't ask.) but we made a detour at the sock drawer first.

it was early enough in the day that there weren't many people at the mission complex.




there's a really great mural inside of the mission proper that includes, i think, local birds and plants (don't hold me to that though. i could just be making it up.) but i didn't get a very good photo as there was a lady using the chapel. (slogrl said that i should have disturbed her so i could have gotten a look at the child that's buried there. eh, there's always next time.)

the mission also has a museum attached. you know how ape shit i go for catholic religous iconography, right? you don't? now you do. these were some of my favorite pieces.

fray junipero serra says "hey", btw.

one last picture from the mission complex.

(i have video as well, if you're interested: 1, 2)

after getting all missioned out, leff and i had some pretty terrible coffee. (seriously, the lady didn't know what a "doppio" was and she owns a goddamned coffee shop.)

i also started saying "get me my fucking soy burrito." because, omfg, entitled asshats don't just live in seattle. they sometimes use the post office in slo town. *eyeroll*

what? at least i'm loyal, aren't i?

anyway, we almost literally stumbled over a refurbed carnegie library. (ok, the curb of the refurbed carnegie library.) i go almost as apeshit over carnegie libraries as i do over catholic religious iconography. that is a fact! truth! it is being told!

the lady at the front desk was very kind to us and gave us a pretty thorough history of the place. she also told us how to get to the gum wall.



somehow, seeing all of that masticated and plastered crap made us hungry. we had lunch at a (not pictured) previously mobile but now in a permanent building taqueria. DELICIOUS!! i hadn't had really good mexican food in such a long time!

shut up before you start, seattle people. there is no good mexican food in your town. truth! i am telling it!

since leff and i are olds, our enthusiasm for our lunch wore us out so it was back to the b&b for a nap before meeting slogrl, c and s for a trip to the madonna inn!

i had been DYING to see this place in person for YEARS and, let me tell you, the tackiness did not disappoint! everything is so freakin' over the top! and it's so PINK! does the insanity of the dining room translate well in this photo?

how about these grapes that are part of a chandelier? does that give you a glimpse into the crazy?

ok then, check this creepy ass "shining" stairwell!

it's CRAZY!

(oh! here's a video that i took of a fountain outside of the men's restroom while waiting on some german men to clear out of the area so i could see the waterfall urinal. (sad note: i never did get to see it although leff filled me in on the details.))

the madonna inn could've capped off my day perfectly but there was more! oh my god, SO MUCH MORE!

in morro bay, there is a place called taco temple. these are the guacamole tacos that i ate there.


do i need to type guacamole tacos again? 'cause i will.

leff had the freshest scallops of his life here. (he still gets this dreamy look on his face whenever i mention them.)

after dinner, we headed to the rock in morro bay. i go as apeshit for large rocks in the ocean as i do for catholic iconography and carnegie libraries. seriously! it was an apeshit kind of day!

sadly, it was too cold to spend too much time on the rock so we headed back to slo. we took a detour by the fremont theater before heading "home". look at all that neon!

today's short bullet list:

• san luis obispo cop car sirens sound like noises in a chemical brothers song.
• kris kristopherson's mother lives in a windmill house. it's kinda' cool, kinda' crazy. but not as crazy as the madonna inn.