Caricature

Two weeks ago I volunteered at Claremore, Oklahoma's own Bluegrass & Chili Festival. I know you're thinking "Wait. Banjos AND flatulent rednecks?!? Where do I sign up?" but the reality is that I've got a plum job on the beverage crew. In my case it amounts to rollin' around all day in a golf cart with a very nice young lady (pretty, to boot!) and occasionally shouldering an ice bag or case of pop. Sure, there are drawbacks. The third day of the festival I heard 5 "Rocky Top"s and 4 "Uncle Penn"s. Mind you that's over a whole day with 3 stages but... c'mon!

So during one of our numerous down times we toured the craft area to look at all the jerky, scented candles, crappy jewelry, knockoff sunglasses, microwaveable pork rinds (WTF?! There was demand for freshly microwaved pork rinds?!?), and the ubiquitous "Hey! Here's some free chewing tobacco! Get hooked!" stands. Among the trash-vendors was a (seemingly lonely and under-worked) caricaturist.

Now I'd had one caricature done at a company picnic. It was of me and my ex-girlfriend. I'd post it but I packed it up with her shit when I kicked her out. At the time I guess my thought was she'd be reminded that I'm awesome and she sucks... but I'm sure it was trashed soon after. That's heartless, inscrutable Asians for ya (I don't really think that about Asians - I just find stereotypes conveniently hilarious)! That particular caricaturist gave me a six-head (in case you're unaware: most people have foreheads but as we men go bald it becomes a five-head (and in some cases a real-life six-head)). So I prefaced my sitting with this anecdote and was quickly reassured that wouldn't reoccur.

Now when I meet people with interesting jobs I like to ask questions. I asked him what was his hardest assignment. He explained that he'd once been hired to draw at a mental institution. It was hard, he said, to make flattering drawings of people who couldn't smile. Apparently he was successful as he went on to receive letters of praise from the patients' families thanking him for what had become their favorite renderings of their loved ones. (I think that's a neat story. Almost makes me misty.)

I then asked him what was the weirdest thing he'd been asked to draw. He described a corporate booze cruise he'd been hired for. He was being underutilized (why does that happen? I've seen it firsthand but if I ain't payin' for it I'm damn sure going to get my free balloon hat, caricature or similar). Somebody finally asked for his services and asked to be drawn as a Klingon. Pretty cool.

Even cooler: He said a teen had once asked to be drawn as a suave, tux'ed, 007-James Bond type. He obliged and as he finished the kid asked him to write the kid's own phone number on the drawing. The kid went on to explain that there was a girl working at the local mini-mart that he was trying to impress. So my caricaturist drew a moony-eyed cashier in the background. I asked if the ploy had worked. He didn't know. But the romantic notion persists even without fruition.

Because I was chatting with Danielle (the aforementioned pretty co-volunteer) about the new Beatles Rock Band game I was given a Beatles t-shirt and a guitar. But next time I'm going to either:

1. Ask to be drawn as something outlandishly out of character. A pro wrestler or a cowboy or something.

2. Chat about some bizarre hobby like reenacting episodes of Golden Girls with dead, costumed turtles super-glued to popsicle sticks. Or compulsively leaving sandwich bags of my freshly shorn pubic hair labeled "Free Pubic Hair!" in public places and waiting to watch the reactions of the odd passerby. And just see what happens.



TL;DR: Met cool caricature artist. Got caricature. See pic.

R.O.N.D.o's

I'm thinking today: "I sure do love hot dogs." Then I thought "Foot-long hot dogs are boring. Old hat."

Then it hit me: Yard dogs. That's right. Three feet of hot dog or, better yet, corn dog. (Note to self: Research suppliers of hygienic yardsticks.)

It all seems perfect for the state fair crowd. "I got my funnelcake and my three feet of miscellaneous parts stuffed in a casing, battered and deep fried. Now this is living!"

And that all seems reasonable enough but then I had the idea for R.O.N.D.o's (Ridiculously Oversized Novelty Diners (the second "o" is superfluous, it just has a ring to it)). At RONDo's we'll serve Yard Dogs. And big-ass glasses that hold 2 liters of pop (why the hell do we Americans buy pop in metric?!?). And what I'm going to call "Frisburgers". Burgers the size of Frisbees (that is until we're sued by Wham-O, after which they'll be called "Flying-Novelty-Disc-Burgers"). We'll give the impression that you can bring the whole family to share in one crazy big-ass dog or burger but I'm sure we'll draw lots of Type 2 diabetes sufferers. So we'll have extra big comfy chairs and tables.

We'll have a commercial like this:

Guy 1: "I'm hungry. I'm goin' to RONDo's.

Guy 2: "RONDo's? What's that?"

Guy 1: "Ridiculously Oversized Novelty Diner. The extra "o" stands for "OMG!""

Guy 2: "That's certainly a mouthful!"

Guy 1: "You can say that again!"

Drew's First Big Boy Vacation

I've been on vacations as an adult before. I'd just never planned one. Every flight/vacation I've been on has been planned by an ex-girlfriend, my mother or my sister. It was kind of a big deal to me.

So for Labor Day I decided to make my triumphant return to Denver (or as I affectionately refer to it: Donkeytown). Most of the friends I visited had either
A: Never seen me drive
or
B: Hadn't seen me drive in 10 years
- so I rented a Cadillac.
Thursday night I had dinner (proper Denver Mexican, natch (anything can be smothered with green chile IMO)) with Myron and his girlfriend Diana and he absolutely could not stop marveling at the sight of me behind the wheel of a car, much less a Caddie. Totally worth the extra dough. Here's a pic of me and the Caddie:



I stayed with my friend Brian (Dirty Curty) that night and had a ball. As different as he and I are, and in spite of 18 months of separation, we slipped right into our familiar shtick like putting on old shoes.

Friday I spent the day with my bro Matt & his boy Hank. We played dominoes, ate some (more) awesome Mexican at Senor Pepes, picked up Hank from school, ate ice cream, played Legos and took some gorilla suit pics. Here's one of Matt, Hank & I:



I spent Friday evening with James (JimJam) and his girlfriend Amber (AmBam) in their groovy apartment in the newly gentrified Five Points neighborhood. It's a neat place and we went out for Chubby's (Denver's best green chile, hands down). We stayed up late-ish laughing and visiting.

Saturday James & I had breakfast at my old favorite haunt, The Park Tavern, before I headed north to Fort Collins to see my sister, Kelly. She and I went for a pedicure (it's become a bit of a tradition when we get together) and, as always, the gal got a kick out of painting my toenails. That evening we had dinner and drinks at her husband Hal's restaurant. His green chile's a bit fancy for my taste but he promised the recipe so I could use it as a base, at least, to make my own. We played some pinball and I laughed at people's reactions to Potty-Shirt version 2.0.

Sunday was Ween (my absolute favorite touring band) at Red Rocks (my absolute favorite venue for live music). I'd been entertaining the idea of temp-tattooing my own face on the back of my shaven head and this seemed like the perfect moment: Several thousand people standing behind me to view my insanity. Here's about the best pic of it:



The way I'd printed it (and the way the temp tattoo paper works) I had an extra. Kelly thought it'd be a good idea to put it here:



We drove back down to D-town and checked into our hotel. Having something stuck to back of your own head kind of deprives you of enjoying people's reaction. When we had our first viewer Kelly started laughing which made me start laughing. Apparently the gent was quite stunned/amused. We ran a few errands for sandwiches and liquor and cackled often at the reactions of the norms.

JimJam & AmBam arrived and we headed to the show. I dunno why I'm always surprised at some people's lack of reaction to some of my hi-jinx - I guess everybody's just too cool/jaded nowadays. Some people did enjoy it so there's that.

Here's a good pic of J & A:



And one of me & Sis:



And one of the four of us:



Anyhow, Ween played great and fun was had by all.

We partied a minute back at the hotel and hungover to the moon I made my way over to DIA to fly back to The Land Of Draw-string Pants. I turned in the Caddie and hopped on the shuttle bus. I'm sitting there wondering how my head/face tat's going over with the public at large (again, I can't see their reactions and no matter how hard I whipped my head around couldn't catch anyone agog) when a guy who looks like Ween's bass player (Dave Dreiwitz) gets on the shuttle. He's the sort of celebrity (?) who's nondescript enough that I only barely ventured a "Great show last night." My pretty blue toes caught him by surprise and after my comment registered he gave a quick "Thanks". I glanced back later to catch him and his girlfriend with big smiles (I presume it was due to my insanity.)

To wrap up: only two people had the temerity to ask WTF?!? about my head from DIA to OKC and I was "home". The whole trip seemed to only reinforce the feeling that I'm living in enemy territory and left me very homesick. Oh well. Sorry if this all was TL:DR.