OK you guys, you may or may not think this is funny, but I figured I share.
At work we have this guy who's nice enough, but a consistent pain in the butt because he's always in frantic mode. A perfect foil for a practical joke. Recently he proudly showed us the "Beatnik Bobblehead" doll he bought on Congress, and we immediately hatched a plot to kidnap it. A simple plan has turned into a bourgening internet phenomenum however.
First we made plans for the doll to travel with folks here at work. It's already been photographed in Paris, TX and it is currently en route to Paris, France. It went to Hooters for lunch on Monday, and is going to San Francisco on May 7th. Next up is Playa del Carmen Mexico. There are a few more local trips planned, suffice it to say that this guy's bobblehead will be logging some serious miles. Our plan is to send him updated pictures from all the locales, along with cryptic ransom demands.
Anyway, we showed the first pictures to a friend of ours who's a Photoshop whiz, and he submitted the doll's picture to an online Photoshop community to which he belongs, and in two days we have about fifty shots of this doll in various situations. As can be expected from "Photoshop guys", some of them are 'risque' or downright disgusting, but most are pretty funny. We're working now on how to incorporate the Photoshop pictures with the actual pictures we're sending the victim.
On another note, Baze and I went to see Bob Weir and Ratdog last nite. Great show, I could close my eyes and go back a few years, if only for a little while. I'm amazed at how good the voices and energy are for some of the "geezer rockers". In the past year, I've gone to see Crosby, Stills and Nash, Neil Young, Paul Simon, Bob Weir, Gregg Allman - and each one sounded great. Last nite was three quarters Dead tunes, and I may be a dinosaur but I loved it. My recent health problems made me miss the CSNY and Tenacious D/String Cheese Incident shows, so it was great to get out again.
Thanks for all your comments about my ad. It's nice to get an outside perspective on things sometimes. As far as not responding to responses, I don't rule out the possibility that I might respond. I do look at the profiles of the guys who have responded, and most just don't meet the criteria I've listed. Also, I had an ad on Match.com (different picture and name) from January to March, and I did reply to every response (if it wasn't lude) even if just to say no thanks. Sometimes I got some strange responses back to the no-thanks e-mails (which were very polite), but overall I think I conducted myself well on Match. I even paid money and responded to ads, with mixed results -- silence being one of them. Not responding on Salon could simply be a case of behaving differently in a different situation. There are worse things I could do and I'm just not that concerned about my karma on this one point.
And while, yes, I agree silence is rude on some level, getting nothing but silence from someone you know is an order of magnitude worse. My parents have done that to me before. That's a thing I'd never do.
On a lighter note, Eeyore's Birthday sounds like so much fun. Eeyore is my favorite Pooh character!
Why I Love Austin Eeyore's Birthday. Every April, for no apparent reason and on a date not especially linked to the birth of A.A. Milne's fictional donkey misanthrope, Austin celebrates weirdness, music, hippiedom, nature and fun. I spent several hours there yesterday under the hot sun in Pease Park and was renewed. I hung out with Karl, Steve and Stan and Daniel and friends, ran into Mark and called Shoe, who came out to play for a while. I ate a turkey leg and drank great beer. The food selection was "only in Austin." Rather than the usual side-show array of "fair food" like corny dogs and cotton candy and fried dough, Austin serves up bruschetta, tamales, and (my favorite) chilled salmon and capers on toast right along side the sausage wraps and turkey legs. Rather than the frightful array of Bud, Bud Light and Shiner Bock, craft-brewed beer enthusiasts could choose from St. Arnold's, Real Ale Brewing, Balcones and Live Oak breweries, each of whom were serving one or two or more of their fine brews for $3 each.
After watching some of the bands, listening at the edge of the giant drum circles, and spending some time in the trance area (a wonderfully idyllic grove of trees, shading a dusty "dance floor" of shirtless young men and blissed-out women grooving to a DJ spinning deep house and trance) I was ready to leave, when I ran into a friend sitting at the edge of the woods listening to the drums and burning small portions of odiferous herbs. We sat together and chatted for a while taking in the scene, when a young man carrying a drum and what looked like pool cue cases sat down with us. He had been in the drum circle and was tired, but offered to show us what was in the cases. He sat down at the ege of the woods and introduced himself as Eric.
Besides the small drum, he carried 6 beautful wooden whistles, Native American flutes, carved with loving care by a friend who made them for him and for sale. They were thick and thin, light and dark, crafted of oak, cherry and walnut; some were decorated with hand-woven beads or leather thongs and bore small totems of carved animals. They were masterfully created. He played a few beautiful, haunting melodies on a couple of the whistles, and I was struck by how strangely evocative the sound was. It carried me to imagined firesides at Indian gatherings, with distant drums and smoky dancing; sitting at the edge of a giant pulsing circle of natural rhythms it was easy to be so transported. Eric played beautifully, movingly and though accompanied by Eeyore's own distant drums was clearly focused and transfixed by the music he creates. He was incredibly well-informed about the origins of the native American whistle, its place in Indian ritual, and the variety of music it could produce. He "spoke the language" of the flute, and told us he had only been playing for a few years. His playing (or the herbs) drew others to our little circle, and the love he had for music radiated outward.
It was a special interlude, a magic moment born of a chance encounter. Like running into Shel Silverstein's nephew at SXSW Film Festival, or bumping into very cute friend Kevin (who had moved to Maine) while sipping a coffee at Starbuck's on Congress, it was a moment that made my day. I am especially fond of serendipity, and the random occurrences that make life special. To Eric, and Joe, to Tim and Bill who joined us, and to the hundreds of drummers who provided the backbeat to this musical apostrophe on Eeyore's, thanks--you made me smile.
