The (All Too) Happiest Place On Earth
The night is damp as Bob Hope sings about a White Christmas while the temperature hovers around 20C. The music mysteriously comes from behind a bush, past yellow police tape. Pull back to reveal a Florida home, curiously designed like a Cape Cod cottage. The house is done in muted green pastels, occasionally splashed with red and blue, shone from stubby police cars, parked outside the home. The cars are on odd angles, belying this well ordered, clean neighbourhood.
Detective Goofy’s own electric NEV police car pulls up to the crime scene. He pauses a moment and looks out past his steering wheel as Annabell cow comes running from the front door of the house and vomits. Technicolour cud spills across a perfectly manicured bush – the Christmas music sputters and stops – she hit the speaker.
As he opens his door to his tiny car, Det. Goofy’s shoe catches on the runner and he tumbles out.
“Waahoooie!” Goofy says, stumbling and righting himself. He then slips on Annabell’s vomit and walks backward onto a rake, which whips up and smacks him squarely on the back of the head with a loud bell noise. None of the other dog and cow faced cops laugh.
He meets Donald in the doorway of the house. Donald looks like he hasn’t slept in 48 hours. No surprise, thinks Goofy, since this is the second murder come to Celebration. In as many days.
“Isha fawkin messh! I’ve never scheen scho mucsh blood!” Donald says.
Goofy pushes past into the home. One wall in an otherwise uber-organized living room has been painted with cartoon blood and brain.
On a gingham couch, is a human body with a shotgun tucked between it’s legs. From jaw to crown, there’s little flesh left that could describe a head. Yet little cartoon birds circle the dead body’s head/stump. Their chirping is repeated on a loop.
“Take a break boys,” says Goofy. The birds look dejected and fly off sullenly.
“Gwarsh,” Det. Goofy says to nobody in particular in the room, “Sure is messy!”
I’ll Never Do An “It Gets Better” Video
I thought about jumping on the band wagon and doing one of those hip and trendy “It Gets Better Video” that everyone is doing but I sort of have to take myself out of the equation.
See, in grade school, I was the bully.
Okay I wasn’t a good bully, not like some character out of a Steven King novel, materializing out of nowhere at the last page of a chapter and relentlessly terrorizing the hero for three hundred subsequent pages. No, I was just a jerk.
In grade 5, there was a kid I absolutely hated. Time has eroded the reason why but I remember standing in line to get back into the school after one recess and thinking that That Shillkin kid need a face full of knuckles to shut him up. At the time I was a weedy kid. Thin and unremarkable. As my gaze drifted over the crowd I saw Peter. Peter Hickling. Now HE was a bully – taller and thicker than any other kid in his grade, yet stupid as a cedar plank. Probably why he was a bully. Hum. Probably why I was a bully…
The next day I took a dollar to school and got Peter alone. I offered him cash to punch That Shillkin kid. He’d get paid when the job was done, preferably after school away from teachers. Yeah, that’s right I was a little thug.
Later, as I walked home from school, right in front of the St Francis Xavier church, in broad daylight, Peter and a couple of his friends cornered me and shoved me down for that dollar. I never learned if I got what I paid for. Sort of.
I did decide from that moment on I would never interfere with anyone’s life in a negative way, ever again.*
Of course, as a teenager, I broke that rule so many times – like a politician to a prostitute.
All of the times I broke that rule were stupid, dramatic teen crap, but the one time I regret the most is calling a gay kid in school a “fag”, yet knowing exactly what I was at the time. It’s a stain on my moral past I just can’t seem to erase, no matter how much club soda I use. I’ve since come clean to him via Facebook (yay internet!) but ultimately, being Italian and ex-Catholic, the embarrassment of that still sits around.
So while I agree utterly with the whole “It Gets Better” campaign, I don’t feel I have the right to speak about it.
…which I’ve just done…
But you know what I mean. I guess I’d say “Yeah it does get better, but don’t mess up the foundation of how things get better.”
Oh and also, “Clothes get better too.”
*I know how hypocritical it is to say this yet I work in Online Marketing. ShaddapHappily Confused
You may recall a while back I was nominated (after forcing one of you readers to go nominate me) for Best LGBT blog over on the Canadian Web Blogs Awards. Last month I misunderstood a message to all the contenders and thought after the last round of judging, I was out of the running. I took the badges off my sidebar, sulked into the corner and licked my wounds. I then went into a spiral that everyone does when rejected: Why why why why? I ate like a pig. I threw a Batman Snuggie around my person and parked myself in front of the TV and put Disney’s The Black Hole on repeat.
“Maximilian, the time has come to liquidate our guests.”
And then I got over it, sort of, and started to post more pictures than actual writing. Which, is valid, but not really a great way to get viewers to stick to your site. They need meatier content!
Last night I got a tweet from the site/contest owners saying I’m actually ON the finalist list. Oh. Well! So I’m back in the running I guess. I feel all cool n shit. And very embarrassed.
In all seriousness, I feel strangely small up against the other four contenders. They’re all intensely focused and incredibly interesting with their content. Me, I like to report when I fart in bed.
Project ing
Around 1995 I picked up a magazine called “Wired” and knew that graphic design was something that could be manipulated to manipulate. At the time, nothing was like Wired. They broke new grounds in typography and in design with head-scratching layouts that angered or amused, depending on your intelligence. The magazine embodied the spirit of “technology molding culture”, the very masthead they built the magazine on.
I remember one layout for an article had 2, 4 page spreads dedicated to just two quotes – something that will never be copied today (unless some advertiser paid huge dollars for it, or your magazine is called AdBusters). The printing was silver on silver and you had to angle the page just so to read it. Bad boy publishers indeed!
Today, Wired is tired. Oh it still has some pretty cool infograpics and splashy layouts but it’s not a leader in design anymore. It may even be transforming itself to curmudgeonly, what with the stir of their last article “The Web is Dead“. They may be displaying truth in numbers but the web never actually played to anyone’s rules. That’s another blog post. Point is, ad space and the “death” of print seems to have quieted their creative side.
Yesterday Sir Richard Branson (re)dropped his hat into the publishing world by releasing PROJECT. An entirely digital magazine (not the first, lets be clear) available through the iTunes store [iTunes link]. The smart move? Putting Jeff Bridges on the “cover” with a video overlay of TRON-like effects, tying in this month’s release of Tron and a Fanboy’s raving need for Tron things. Geeks, meet your new eReader.
I had some troubles downloading my initial copy from the Project servers (I suppose it was a busy day for them) and while I was at a Starbucks free WiFi, I wasn’t surprised. It took me two attempts, deleting and reinstalling the app, restarting the iPad and just plain “let it sit” patience for me to finally get my issue. In terms of App space, it’s a hog. I’m not surprised considering how much video is included with this issue, not to mention the audio files (Jeff opens up in little soundbites about Tron, Tron Thongs, The Dude and more). Also some transitions kakked out between finger swipes.
All that aside, I would say that Sir Richard got it right. He and his designers clearly wanted a Minority Report style magazine and they’ve managed to deliver.
For me. It was like picking up Wired magazine back in the 90’s all over again.
So far today I’ve learned that Jaguar has managed to put two twin micro turbines in their latest electric car, Alaska used nukes to create a harbour (and still may continue), Jeff Bridges is a wicked laid back guy and loved his head shave the most when it came to the movie Iron Man. And that’s not even an hours worth of playing with Project. I’m told that there are Easter Eggs to find too, so I’m set for a while. Next issue is Dec 23rd.
Click to see some screengrabs:
Pre swiped
Swiped
Gallery - touching the numbers advances the images/videos
Front Cover:
PROJECT magazine cover video from PROJECT on Vimeo.
I Get Face
In the 70’s there was a class of gay man called “clones”, pre-cursors to the now popularly known “Bears”. To the unwashed, a “Clone” is a gay man who wears jeans, white tee-shirts and has a mustache – no matter what variation you might have made with the jeans or the shirt, it inevitably made you look the same. Hence “Clone”. As you can imagine it was a look, probably co-opted by Freddie Mercury. Clones died off when it became popular to be a coiffed gay in the early 80s (see: Karma Chameleon).
I mention this only because whenever SharkBoy and I travel, locally or internationally, we get called brothers. Or “clones” if you will.
While at Disneyland, we were one of that day’s first riders on the Monsters Inc ride. At the end, the animatronic character of Roz (the slovenly, gravel voiced company secretary), operated remotely by an unseen cast member piped up and asked us if we were brothers.
A few Canadian customs officials have asked if we were family… er.. sort of…
Countless waitresses wanting to make small talk in hopes of a better tip would ask if we were brothers.
Today I even had my computer suggest we were brothers from the same mother. iPhoto thinks that SharkBoy and I are the same. Well iPhoto also thinks that a porn star I took a picture of a few Prides back is me. Or a hot cop from the last Santa Claus Parade (bless iPhoto’s little heart!!) And also that my Mom and my English brother in law is me (Really, iPhoto? My mom?).
StormCookiesTroop …things
Fractal Veg is back!
Look at this Fractal vegetable that looks like it could go on forever… LOOK AT IT!
Easy Rider
B9’s Best Friend
