Will has been playing a lot of Mario lately.  Another development around is that he got a blog, agreed to a domain name and let me customize it! I’ll put a link at the bottom of the post** so that I don’t lose you quite yet.

In other news, the Guster is considering secondary education:

And has been for quite some time.  I told him that school already started and he needs to get there if he’s actually going to go (he’s been threatening it for years), but he keeps claiming mono or other such sleep-related illnesses.

But that’s neither here nor there, and this post is about Super Mario World, and its annual presence in my life.  Will claims that after a year he loses his skill so it’s fun to play yet again, which probably ought to be some sort of gold standard for video games everywhere.

It’s a good activity for him to do while we have visitors (it’s actually really fun to watch), and my favorite activity is chiming in if I remember a hidden secret, as annoying as that probably is.

It’s worth noting here, that we own two Super Nintendos* and no other gaming system which helps to explain the repetitive Mario playing.  Spending more than $20 on a game is unheard of around here, though we will replace a broken controller if need be.

Every time I watch a lot of Mario, the whole world starts to feel like playing a video game.  Invoicing at the end of the month is like a dreaded boss; taxes are the worst world of the year.  Doing laundry, vacuuming and earning money are coins I collect to live longer or increase my health. Each day is like getting that transient invincible star…move quickly and knock off all the days to-dos.

This ghost car is not only a ghost car, but it's also driving the WRONG WAY DOWN THE STREET. Beware.

It’s no wonder, then, that today I wondered while making an unprotected left turn, “Gosh, wouldn’t it be so hard to drive if cars were like the ghosts in the ghost houses of Mario and they kept disappearing and reappearing??”

Wouldn’t, it though. Wouldn’t it.

*Why do we have TWO Super Nintendos?  In short, we still haven’t completed Donkey Kong Country 2.  The Donky Kong series is a really good couples game because there is a partner mode and two different characters with different skills to choose from.  It’s almost romantic at times.)

It turns out that each SNES game has a tiny battery in it that keeps the hard drive alive. (I say hard drive, but I mean memory chip.  Memory chip.)  The battery in our copy it turns out must be dead which had the devastating effect that we cannot save our games!  We discovered that if we left it in the console, regardless of whether the console was on, our progress was saved.  It turns out that you can even unplug it briefly without losing the game!

With the ability to only play that one game, Will was really bored. We don’t play Donkey Kong Country games without each other (it’s a partner game!) and I have a much lower threshold for video gaming.  It stresses out my repetitive stress syndrome and there are other things I like to do like paint pet portraits and felt small animals which detracts from my availability for Donkey Kong Country time.

So last Christmas I bought an old Super Nintendo off of Craigslist.  It was a pretty good deal cause it came with a lot games.  Honestly, it was the only thing I could think of to get him.  But he likes it, and he’s using it as I type, so it worked out well. And as soon as we beat Donkey Kong Country 2 we can sell the second Nintendo on Craiglist (or to that awesome video game store 4 Jays in Antioch) and recoup some of my initial investment.  It’s just that that lost boss is so intimidating.

*** Will’s new blog!

I’m in the habit of noticing what’s happening at the car wash down the street.  I walk past it at least a few times each week and once in awhile a car will catch my eye.  It’s a popular self car wash; I’ve seen the local Organic Falafel Truck there (though unfortunately not open for business), taco trucks, old cars, major beaters, limos…

Today’s Mog Car really took the cake.  People were crossing the street to talk to the two car washers.  You couldn’t walk by and not talk to them.  I asked them what it was made of; I could not believe that they were washing a carpeted car at the car wash, and, indeed, it is made of a carpet-like substance.  The fellow I spoke to didn’t remember what the material was called.  He suggested that I might want to touch it, but I have spent enough time touching wet carpet as a Super Sponge Saleswoman to want to volunteer my fingers for such a task.

One thing was clear: people were noticing the mog.com vehicle. Despite the fact that the car didn’t seem to resemble any actual thing, or have a domain name that means much to the American psyche.  But we’re used to being inundated with random letters strung together to represent internet concepts, so I shouldn’t be surprised.  It turns out it’s a subscription music app.  Any fans out there leave a comment and maybe someday I’ll give it a try.  But only if they support Android phones. If nothing else, mog.com gets a gold star for a great marketing ploy.

I realized about ten or so days ago that I wanted to be a Talk Show Host.

I’ve been amazed at the reactions from the people in my life. Most of the time, without fail, they say something like, “You’d be good at that” or “What a good idea.” I’m not surprised by the support of the people in my life–they are always truly wonderful that way. What I’m surprised by is the way that all of a sudden all the pieces of all of my projects start fitting together. I am a person of many diverse and spontaneous interests, and the forum of a talk show is suddenly the perfect fit for all (or most) of these.

On Saturday I got it into my head to film my first show three hours later. I accepted that it was going to be a true experiment. I had no script–only a guest and a few silly questions, a couple products to plug and a spattering of friends to be the studio audience who I knew would come through with ideas if we hit a lull. And they did–without their urging I wouldn’t have attempted a monologue and I probably would have gone on and on about the virtues of Tupperware far longer then I did.

My inaugural studio audience was composed of great friends who happened to be available. I did give them each a free gift (like every good talk show host!), but that doesn't nearly thank them enough for attending.

This inaugural filming, I faced many challenges–logistics, nerves, fear, and, perhaps most importantly, my inability to deadpan. One of the questions I wanted to ask Mike, my guest, was, “I have a cabinet in my kitchen that won’t stay closed. Is there anything analogous to that in your life?” (I don’t recall whether his answer was usable… I’m afraid that it won’t be…) I had to ask the question twice because the first time I found it so ridiculously funny that I cracked up.  Even the second time will only be usable if I cut to his reaction because I could not suppress my wide smile.

I could also cut to some footage of Mike sleeping...it seems we took so long getting everything ready that he was forced to take a nap. In my defense, we are a little worried he might be narcoleptic--he falls asleep virtually everytime he visits. Please note, we have many guests and the bulk of them only fall asleep if it's the wee hours of the morning.

This is a problem perhaps; I am extremely good at cracking myself up.  The talk show hosts I admire (a list I’m working on expanding!  Taking suggestions!) are able to keep their composure no matter how funny they might be or find themselves.  Stephen Colbert’s occasional crack up is the one exception I can think of (I don’t blame him!) but he is so quick to regain his composure.

I mentioned this to my friend BoAe who is on board to co-produce my talk show, and she seemed to think that I was fine cracking up.  It was my personality and the show would adjust.  Of course, she hasn’t seen the footage!  (I haven’t either, actually–who knows how much, if any, is usable!)

I will try not to dwell on the 29 wasted years I could have been learning to joke without laughing.  I am trying to stay thankful for my jovial nature and trust that I will find my own way to lead a talk show, unsuppressed laughter or no.  But seriously: if anyone has any tips, exercises, suggestions…please send them along!

I will spend my evenings this week piecing together a Talk Show so please stay tuned!

I realized last week what my dream is. I’ve been planning all these crazy videos for so long, and pumping so much time and energy into my blog… but I didn’t understand how it all comes together to make me happy. Honestly, sometimes it just feels like a bunch of work. But this past week when I have actually been devoting myself to my videos, I have felt continually creatively satisfied. It has been an amazing week.

Sometime during the past week, I made the realization: I want to be a talk show host. I was born to be a talk show host. I can talk and talk and talk. Believe me! I can think of crazy skits like nobody’s business. Content will never be a problem!

I do need to work on my deadpan…I crack myself up entirely too much!

Having defined my future in this real, actual way, my soul felt satisfied. I knew where I was going; I know where I am going!

One of my first orders of business was listening to the Radiohead song, Talk Show Host. As a long-term die-hard Radiohead fan, the realization that I wanted to be a talk show host carried with it faint strains of this song, however sad it is. I came home on Friday and asked Spencer (who was in town visiting) and Will if they thought we could come up with a fun version of Talk Show Host to be my theme song. Will said no, but Spencer said yes. The next twenty-four hours was filled with playing with the lyrics and melody, practicing (though not enough), shooting and editing the video for my theme song.

My apologies for my lack of singing skill! Hopefully one of these days, we’ll take more time to write me a better theme song…and after a few more years of voice lessons, maybe I’ll actually be able to sing it!

The BP oil spill fiasco seems to have fallen off our radar a bit, though the disaster is far from over.  Will tells me spills of that magnitude have happened before on other, not so affluent off-shore eco-systems.  Our Earth seems to have handled it; indeed if the last one was in the seventies, we ought to know if it hadn’t.

I can’t imagine seeing in the past those sickening images of pelicans and dolphins covered in oil, and having to see them again thirty years later.  Those images are forever burned in my memory, and I imagine in yours too. I toyed with the idea of doing a Van Gogh My Pet series of oil slicked creatures, but I have never enjoyed portraying sadness and despair. It’s hard to imagine that our world would recover, and it’s rather sickening to me how little we hear about the continued fallout.  I (perhaps conveniently) blame the media for our short attention span.

For the past few months, I’ve been obsessed with David Bowie.  OBSESSED.  Initially it was one of his earliest albums, Hunky Dory, on continual repeat, which was replaced after an appropriate amount of time with his subsequent album, The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust And The Spiders From Mars. This album is a rock and roll opera, which Bowie intended to form the backbone of a stage show or television production (and it still should be).

The first track, Five Years, relates the devastating news that Earth’s days are numbered.  Finitely numbered, in fact, with only five years to go.  We’ve used up all our natural resources.  Adults have given up; kids are left to plunder and ravage what’s left of the Earth.

The reality in their world seemed so hauntingly similar to our current situation, and so many other environmental situations I’ve worried and fretted about.  This oil spill debacle seemed to me so much bigger than anything else.  People close to me suggested that this spill would ruin the Southern portion of the United States, forcing a mass migration.  The oil could be displaced via hurricanes and wind up poisoning our entire water supply.  Crops could fail and even the salmon swimming happily in the Klamath River would sport a shiny black coat.  Even without employing my overactive imagination, people were (are) out of work, and animals are dying (still!).

My favorite of the album is the fourth track, Starman.  We learn of a being, “waiting in the sky; he’d like to come and meet us but he thinks he’d blow our minds.”  He knows how to help us, but is afraid we might be be unwilling to accept him or his knowledge–a valid concern.  I’ve heard so many rumors of BP executives ignoring advice; as humans, we think, we feel, and we are stubborn.

Opening our ears, the Starman tells us “not to blow it cause he knows it’s all worthwhile.” A glimmer of hope! No matter how dark our reality might be, it is still worthwhile–life is still worthwhile.  We still love, we can still laugh.

The Starman continues, “let the children lose it, let the children use it.” And it is so true; we are merely the stewards of our home.  It is our children who will inherit it when we are gone. They have the freedom to do with it what they will, just as we have the freedom to do to it what we will.  If we consider how it affects those following in our footsteps, perhaps we would take different paths.

As a Girl Scout, I have always been taught to take care of my surroundings.  When I leave a camp site, I pick up as many pieces of trash as I can find–far more, indeed than I have left there. I know that the people who are camping there next will probably destroy it again, but I can only do what I can do.  I think Starman would want it that way.

To honor this ambassador of hope I created this work:

I started with EJ DiMira’s body, which I cut out of Soap Opera Digest (quite an inspiration for me of late), added some images from Wikimedia Commons, and Photoshop flares to create his body.  I had it printed on this crazy metallic paper that adds just the faintest glimmer to finish the piece.

Will wants me to send one to David Bowie.  Julia challenged me to find his address, which ten seconds on google yielded (though I will probably only reach his publicist).

I’ve taken this as a challenge to create a triad of David Bowie inspired art, that will likely include elements from Soap Opera Digest.  Once the triad is finished, and only then, will I send them to David Bowie.  He has a habit of supporting unknown and budding artists.  I have a daydream that perhaps one day he will have to phone someone and he will pick on me.

I made these signs a couple years ago when I put on the unfortunately named First Annual Holiday Gift Bizarre in San Francisco.  It was unfortunate because we wound up only having the one.  Hindsight is always 20/20.

Please feel free to print them for use at your events.  If you laminate them, they will last forever .  I reuse mine every event, and keep them in a folder marked “Signage”.  I know just where to find them when I go to pack for Jenfest this Saturday morning.  I’ve learned a lot about design since making these, so my apologies for the rough edges.

Every year I throw myself a Jenfest.  It’s half birthday party, half theatrical event.  Ask my close friends–I spend half a year planning it.  Each year I design a ridiculous invitation; a tradition my sister started, and I have continued.  Nowadays they’re websites.  You can view them all here, or check out this year’s invite (complete with a BINGO game you can play at home!).

Jenfest is my favorite time of the year.  I love throwing events–big and small.  I love finding a theme and working my face into it and adding in as much hilarity as I can possibly muster.  Oh yes, it is quite my favorite part of the year.

I have utilized large photos of my face at multiple Jenfests. I think it's funny!

Jenfest has always been green:  I put out recycling and compost bins (with signage!), use paper plates (compostable), keep and wash plastic flatware and cups.

I was having an internal battle this year over Jenfest’s budget.  Ever since I became self-employed, I’ve had to look at the costs associated with Jenfest differently. I’ve had steady work since I was 14, often working as many as three jobs.  I am hella motivated by money.  Paying for Jenfest wasn’t ever anything I thought about, I just loved it, and looked at the associated costs as a birthday present to myself.  But over the years the price of Jenfest has steadily risen: my standards for food and beverages has gone up, I’ve exhausted the cheapest options for souvenirs, I no longer live in a large student cooperative happy to hold my parties.  Now that I have to seek out a client for each dollar I make, life is different.

I set my budget for Jenfest this year at $250 and was bound and determined to stick with it.  I was shocked with the cost for the rentals came in at $224, but I should have seen that coming.  After all, I’ve thrown enough parties and events for myself and others that I knew that rentals cost waaaay more than that.  Blissful ignorance, I suppose.  All of a sudden I couldn’t afford the decorations I had planned: the full color JENGO playing cards, the sparkly (and reusable) Jenfest banner, the Jenfest ribbons to mark the prizes.  I was stranded in the land of indecision, until I met my friend Rosalie for coffee yesterday.

I was expressing my confusion about where to go from here, and she said, “I would just to Creative Reuse and find some fabric there and paint on it.”  The light went off in my head.  I was already planning on finding the prizes from thrift stores and friends’ garages.  But what if I recycled (or upcycled, depending…) all of the Jenfest materials and decorations?  What would that look like?

I wasn’t sure, but a trip to the Center for Creative Reuse (a wonderful resource if you live in the Bay Area!) pointed me down the yellow brick road towards an awesome, even greener Jenfest.  Mardi Gras beads at 15 cents each; shiny plastic paper at 5 cents each.  Fabric at 75 cents a yard.  Tie silk I had bought years ago for a fraction of an Andrew Jackson.  Used golf balls for the Jengo balls. Reused cardstock for hand-made JENGO playing cards.

I spent a total of $22 and wound up with all the materials I could possibly need to deck out Jenfest 2010, a couple ancient history text books for Will and some cool envelopes I can use for Van Gogh My Pet.

I’ll let you know how it goes, and I would love to see you there!  All are invited to Jenfest this Saturday.  Full details.

I’m glad Betty left Don.  Though if this post were about Betty, I would discuss how her very nature (read: attitude towards her kids) will keep her from being happy and loved. Already in the first episode of Season 4 we see Henry Francis slowly realizing how awful she is. I vaguely remember a dream from last night where Betty and I share a glass of wine and she shares with me her revelation: her kids are terrified of her and she hasn’t been a good mother. Perhaps I think too much about Madmen.  But that’s neither here nor there.

No, today I want to talk about how Don prefers brunettes.

Let’s take a look at his lovers:

Bohemian Chick

Brunette.

Not that Don really had feelings for this woman back in Season 1 when she was in the picture.  She was nothing more than a hobby–something to occupy his time and an escape from the pressures of home and work.

Wealthy Jewish Storeowner

Brunette.

Rachel Menken was a departure point for Don.  In Rachel he found an intellectual equal–someone he could confide in and trust.  The first point in his life–I’d wager–that he discovered that he could love and be loved.  The despair he felt when she discovered his desperation (due in part to his lot in life, and in a large part due to his inability to love and accept his wife and family) was profoundly real.

Comedian’s Wife

A redhead.

Following his disastrous affair with Rachel Menken, Don went back to flirting around with the women he met.  The Comedian’s Wife was just that: a woman he met who wanted him and who he could stomach sleeping with.

LA Floozy

Barely blond?  Brunette?

Regardless of hair color, Don found Joy’s free-wheeling sexuality disgusting the way Don was (and is) disgusted by Betty and her, well, Betty-ness.  His sordid experience with her drove him back to the original Mrs. Don Draper, in attempt to make peace with his past and himself.

School Teacher

Brunette.

Here Don found something. Found someone.  Remember when he left her in the car the night Betty confronted him about his past?  Remember when they spoke the next morning and she asked him if he was alright?  And he said, “Only you would ask me that.”  Only her.  I’m surprised and disappointed not to meet her again in the first episode of Season 4.

Instead we find Don flirting around again, and with a blond–bound and determined not to learn from his love patterns of the first three seasons as we have and destined to repeat his mistakes all over again.

Infatuation is not love, Don.  Infatuation is not love.  And infatuation seems to be what you find in blonds.  That’s why you never loved Betty.  The infatuation wore off, and you were left with a level of commitment and pressure that made you uncomfortable and unreliable.