The Moose in the Closet: Philly, Some Artists, A Reminder and Doing or Dying

I will be cruising around WW Philly this Saturday with three fellow conspirators and Chris Fabulous. Try to grab me and say hi – Cubano shirt, blue jeans, shoes, blue book bag and a hat is a safe bet.

Dumping out some artists I’ve stumbled across recently for your viewing pleasure. Isabelle Arsenault is a Canadian artist with some amazing illustrations but I’m particularly fond of her children’s illustrations – very magical and lighthearted. Anthony Zierhut is a storyboard artist that drops some great pencil sketches on his blog. Little slices of life and character studies – a nice collection of tranquil sketches. Club Yaourt – Don’t know much about them, their “info” link isn’t working for me, but I know I like what I see. A good blend of creators producing a wide range of inspiring art – all of it fun in its own way.

Oh, and in case you missed it yesterday, Elk’s Run is the shit:

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As I’ve mentioned several times already this week, 8th grade Junior High is probably when I first decided I wanted to be a writer. I had a teacher that took a shining to me, saw something there, and had me stay after class and helped me with my writing. The result was the unintentionally hysterical poetry portfolio and anti-drug short story. Despite how absolutely horrible they were, looking back at them now, you have to admit, I was trying.

The story that started it all was some piece I wrote as an exercise. Mrs. Friedman dug it, found it pretty funny, and even had me read it in front of the class. It was a touching story about Dan Quayle being kidnapped by Hulk Hogan only to be rescued by George Bush Sr. with a wicked nice twist at the end. And this is what my teacher read and “saw something” in me with. The really funny part is, reading it now, I can remember every single stand-up routine I stole these jokes from. Not a single one is original, I don’t think. My writing career began with plagiary. Can you spot the stand-up routine?

Probably not, want to know why?

I really started digging stand-up at around this age. The thing was, my pops would never let me watch ay Eddie Murphy or Richard Pryor or any of the good stuff. So I had to resort to Comedy Central. This was when Comedy Central first started out and if I’m remembering correctly it was pretty much all stand-up. Despite the fact that it was all stand-up all the time, my love for VCRs caused me to tape about six hours of random comedians that I watched over and over and over again. They weren’t particularly good, don’t even remember who they were, but I watched that tape so many fucking times.

And it made no sense. None. What-so-ever. There was most likely some guy on some late night Comedy Central open-mic stand-up thing that had his one TV moment, doing a set that bombed live and yet despite the fact that he disappeared into obscurity – I could do his entire routine word for word. There is six hours worth of comedians whose sets will live as long as I do. They most likely sit at home, depressed, selling staplers at wholesale prices and wishing they could have been comedians – wishing they could make an impact. Little do they realized how they touched a thirteen year-old boy with Comedy Central and the need to tape and rewatch comedy sets.

The really weird thing about this tape was that I labeled it “Comedy Tape: Do or Die.”

People would always ask me why I named the comedy tape “Do or Die” to which I would respond, “No, I just don’t want people to record over it. Or else I’ll kill them.”

Pause for a minute to return to the failed comic. Would he not take comfort in knowing that some thirteen year old kid cherished his routine so much that he was willing to kill the person that took it out of his life?

Now return to the moment and make fun of me, much like everyone else did, and remind me that “Do or Die” basically means “Record over this tape or I’ll kill you.”

The label was indeed funnier than the tape itself.

Labels: mitc

Philly, Some Artists, A Reminder and Doing or Dying

Wednesday, June 01, 2005

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