On my maiden voyage on the sea of slang and “unconventional” English words, The Captain simply did what was most prudent and practical and started at the bow of this great vessel of confounding confabulations, which is my very Captainesque way of saying I opened the dictionary to page one and started with words that begin with the letter “A”. Of course, what I call prudent, my daughter calls laziness. Never one to spurn noble advice from a female, I am determined this time to go above and beyond prudence and randomly open the dictionary to a page somewhere in the middle and select the words from a letter ordained by Dame Fortune herself. Upon hearing of my ambitious intentions, my daughter punctuated a flawlessly executed eye roll with the words: “lazy ass.”
Well, that’s all the motivation I need, really. So here it is: The Captain’s Second Ever Random Expository Guide to Slang and Unconventional English!
In her unknowable wisdom, Dame Fortune chose the letter “J” for this effort. I couldn’t help but wonder if she somehow got wind of my extracurricular activities in the lavatory as a school boy.
Jinket: To be very merry; dance about.
“The smell of shea butter and lavender makes me jinket”. (This is the new old Gay – what Gay meant prior to the 20th century).
Joan: a fetter; handcuffs.
“Said the Emo to her brooding lover: joan me.”
Joan: homely; a course, ordinary woman.
“The novelty coffee mug company discontinued its Homely Joan line of coffee mugs.”
Job: biblical – a hen-pecked husband.
“The poor Job.” (Wow, a simile based on the guy who perhaps suffered more than any other character in the Old Testament; and you thought The Captain was overly dramatic!)
Jockam: The penis. (see arbor vitae – tree of life).
“The geek was forced to take gym class with all the Jockams.”
Jockum-gagger: A man living on his wife’s harlotry (late 18th century).
“What do you call a jockum-gagger with a harem? A rich man!” (late 18th century geek humor).
Joint: An outside bookmaker’s paraphernalia of list-frame, umbrella, etc., some of which are joined together in movable pieces; a wife; a brothel; a tent; any stall from which a grafter produces amusement; a fellow, a chap. (Nowhere in all this was the definition I was looking for; paraphernalia come closest.)
“Job went to the joint to seek solace and refuge from his joint.” (OMG I’ve outdone myself with this alliterative masterpiece!)
Jog the loo: To pump briskly.
“The young lad went to jog the loo with his jockam.”
Josser: A simpleton.
“The Captain went round all day with a sign on his back that read ‘Josser.’”
Believe the Josser when he says: I could go for some book making paraphernalia!
Yours about to jinket and jollify (behave merrily, make slightly drunk),
The Captain
Sunday, January 31, 2010
Monday, January 25, 2010
Speechless...
The Captain has always believed that truth is stranger than fiction – even my fiction, which has the benefit (or curse) of the embellishment that is the byproduct of that aberration of a human organ, my mind. I have always managed to find humor where polite human society insists there is not. The case that I have chosen for this piece is no exception. Verily (who the f&*k says “verily”?), I read about it and split my gut. What is different, though, is that, for the very first time, I have read a story about a four year old prodigy (from a Southern state, mind you!) that could not be expanded upon, or made more ridiculous, or sublime, or even didactic. I will comment, as my mental deficiencies demand, but I will not, CAN NOT, make it any more fantastic. So even though I am not literally speechless, one little boy from Tennessee has left The Captain imaginatively speechless, an idea I once considered an impossibility!
The basic facts as I know them:
Precocious four year old boy, the product of a teen mother and an inmate father.
21 year old mother, who claims to be a failure because her genius of a child managed to escape every possible child entrapment device she set up in her house.
Deadbeat yet still beloved Dad.
The Christmas season, a time for families to be together, and an innocent child who sets off on an improbable journey to bring together his fractured family.
Beer in cans.
Cross dressing.
Stolen Christmas presents.
The evil neighbor.
This is more than just a story about white trash hijinx, though it is that for sure. It is a story about the irrepressible creativity of a child in the face of long odds. A story about how a little boy’s love for his father is more powerful than social norms and prison walls. Witness the fact that a child of a teenage mother and felon father, a child from the state of Tennessee, mind you, a child with who should by all rights claim as a major accomplishment that he still had all of his teeth in his cute little head, a child with absolutely no business whatsoever of demonstrating anything beyond a marginal IQ, is nevertheless able to perform extraordinary acts of ingenuity and daring do in the pursuit of his deepest holiday wish – to spend Christmas with Daddy… in prison. This is nothing short of a Christmas Miracle. The mitigating factors, like the fact Dad is in jail and Mom is negligent, and that the neighbors think so little of his prospects that they are content to let him wander the streets drunk and in a dress in the middle of the night, matter not. This is, like the original Christmas story, about the love between a father and his only son. Billy Bob brought Hayden into this world with the certain knowledge that his firstborn son would follow in his footsteps and ultimately come into conflict with the local authorities – he just never expected it to happen at the tender age of four.
Yet, stripped to its bare essentials, this is a funny story, nay, an absolutely hysterical laugh out loud funny story. It is also a sad story.
Sometime after midnight on December 17, 2009, 4 year old Hayden Wright was able to grip the door knob lock placed on the inside of his bedroom door with enough strength to open the door, yet maintain silence so that his mother remained fast asleep. After slipping past several more child fences, he heads out the back door and manages to open his Grandpa’s giant beer cooler, which was fastened well enough to keep out wild bear but not a 4 year old boy on a mission. Hayden knew exactly what he was looking for as he quietly removed a can of beer. Showing amazing dexterity and strength, he opens it. No dummy, he knows from watching Pa and Grandpa that there is only one thing to do with a can of open beer and he begins to suck it down. He reconnoiters around front and heads out on an early morning stroll through the neighborhood. Having apparently inherited his father’s instincts, he heads straight for the house of neighbors who never lock their front door and sneaks in. He decides for himself to have Christmas come early and begins to open up the pile of neatly wrapped presents under his unsuspecting neighbors’ Christmas tree. Finding a little girl’s dress to his liking, he puts it on, takes a few more swigs of beer, gathers up a bag of toys, and heads back to the street in a frilly little pink number in search of more adventure. He randomly picks a house and rings the doorbell, waking the female occupant. She answers the door, sees little Hayden, recognizes him, and sends him – a four year boy wandering unattended at three in the in the morning in a girl’s dress drinking a can of beer - on his merry way and GOES BACK TO SLEEP AND TELLS NO ONE! Eventually, little Hayden gets bored (probably finished his beer) and rings another doorbell, which was answered by a responsible female adult, who takes his cold little hand and marches him straight home.
Meanwhile back home, Hayden’s mother, now a mature 21, was awakened by her maternal instincts – either that or her vodka filled bladder – and realizes something is wrong when she sees every frickin’ gate, lock, and door open in the house; she frantically searches for her little escape artist when the door bell rings. What follows is a holiday reunion that echoes the parable of the Prodigal Son, along the lines of something you might hear sung about in a Country Music Christmas song. When mommy asks our little dove why he drank beer, stole and cross-dressed, he answers with the honesty of a babe: he wanted to spend Christmas with Daddy in the Penitentiary, so he simply did what all children do – mimicked his father, which in this case meant breaking several laws after a night of heavy drinking. After all, that’s how dear old Dad did it!
To quote that prophetic street poet and songwriter Craig Finn: “I was a skeptic at first, but these miracles work.” Thanks to Hayden, I now believe in Christmas Miracles and in the incomprehensible bond between father and son, a bond that recognizes no boundaries, especially legal ones.
So there you have it; a true story that needs no assistance from the poet, the philosopher, or The Captain. As Reader’s Digest puts it: A Drama in Real Life, only this one doesn’t involve getting mauled by a savage wild beast as a result of your own stupidity.
Believe The Captain when he says: Crime doesn’t pay, but sometimes it has a big Ol’ Heart!
Yours crying in my beer can,
The Captain
Cute!
The basic facts as I know them:
Precocious four year old boy, the product of a teen mother and an inmate father.
21 year old mother, who claims to be a failure because her genius of a child managed to escape every possible child entrapment device she set up in her house.
Deadbeat yet still beloved Dad.
The Christmas season, a time for families to be together, and an innocent child who sets off on an improbable journey to bring together his fractured family.
Beer in cans.
Cross dressing.
Stolen Christmas presents.
The evil neighbor.
This is more than just a story about white trash hijinx, though it is that for sure. It is a story about the irrepressible creativity of a child in the face of long odds. A story about how a little boy’s love for his father is more powerful than social norms and prison walls. Witness the fact that a child of a teenage mother and felon father, a child from the state of Tennessee, mind you, a child with who should by all rights claim as a major accomplishment that he still had all of his teeth in his cute little head, a child with absolutely no business whatsoever of demonstrating anything beyond a marginal IQ, is nevertheless able to perform extraordinary acts of ingenuity and daring do in the pursuit of his deepest holiday wish – to spend Christmas with Daddy… in prison. This is nothing short of a Christmas Miracle. The mitigating factors, like the fact Dad is in jail and Mom is negligent, and that the neighbors think so little of his prospects that they are content to let him wander the streets drunk and in a dress in the middle of the night, matter not. This is, like the original Christmas story, about the love between a father and his only son. Billy Bob brought Hayden into this world with the certain knowledge that his firstborn son would follow in his footsteps and ultimately come into conflict with the local authorities – he just never expected it to happen at the tender age of four.
Yet, stripped to its bare essentials, this is a funny story, nay, an absolutely hysterical laugh out loud funny story. It is also a sad story.
Sometime after midnight on December 17, 2009, 4 year old Hayden Wright was able to grip the door knob lock placed on the inside of his bedroom door with enough strength to open the door, yet maintain silence so that his mother remained fast asleep. After slipping past several more child fences, he heads out the back door and manages to open his Grandpa’s giant beer cooler, which was fastened well enough to keep out wild bear but not a 4 year old boy on a mission. Hayden knew exactly what he was looking for as he quietly removed a can of beer. Showing amazing dexterity and strength, he opens it. No dummy, he knows from watching Pa and Grandpa that there is only one thing to do with a can of open beer and he begins to suck it down. He reconnoiters around front and heads out on an early morning stroll through the neighborhood. Having apparently inherited his father’s instincts, he heads straight for the house of neighbors who never lock their front door and sneaks in. He decides for himself to have Christmas come early and begins to open up the pile of neatly wrapped presents under his unsuspecting neighbors’ Christmas tree. Finding a little girl’s dress to his liking, he puts it on, takes a few more swigs of beer, gathers up a bag of toys, and heads back to the street in a frilly little pink number in search of more adventure. He randomly picks a house and rings the doorbell, waking the female occupant. She answers the door, sees little Hayden, recognizes him, and sends him – a four year boy wandering unattended at three in the in the morning in a girl’s dress drinking a can of beer - on his merry way and GOES BACK TO SLEEP AND TELLS NO ONE! Eventually, little Hayden gets bored (probably finished his beer) and rings another doorbell, which was answered by a responsible female adult, who takes his cold little hand and marches him straight home.
Meanwhile back home, Hayden’s mother, now a mature 21, was awakened by her maternal instincts – either that or her vodka filled bladder – and realizes something is wrong when she sees every frickin’ gate, lock, and door open in the house; she frantically searches for her little escape artist when the door bell rings. What follows is a holiday reunion that echoes the parable of the Prodigal Son, along the lines of something you might hear sung about in a Country Music Christmas song. When mommy asks our little dove why he drank beer, stole and cross-dressed, he answers with the honesty of a babe: he wanted to spend Christmas with Daddy in the Penitentiary, so he simply did what all children do – mimicked his father, which in this case meant breaking several laws after a night of heavy drinking. After all, that’s how dear old Dad did it!
To quote that prophetic street poet and songwriter Craig Finn: “I was a skeptic at first, but these miracles work.” Thanks to Hayden, I now believe in Christmas Miracles and in the incomprehensible bond between father and son, a bond that recognizes no boundaries, especially legal ones.
So there you have it; a true story that needs no assistance from the poet, the philosopher, or The Captain. As Reader’s Digest puts it: A Drama in Real Life, only this one doesn’t involve getting mauled by a savage wild beast as a result of your own stupidity.
Believe The Captain when he says: Crime doesn’t pay, but sometimes it has a big Ol’ Heart!
Yours crying in my beer can,
The Captain
Cute!
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
Let’s Invent a Holiday – Vote Today!!
Before I vault into a volley of vacuous verbose verbiage, I am asking a favor. Please email your vote for a favorite new holiday or holidays to thefloorcaptain@gmail.com. This is a real contest. The winning entry will be published on this blog! Kindly read on and when you are finished, craft an email with your selection (it can be one of mine below or your own) and a brief or longwinded reason why it is your choice. If you are so inclined, you can even suggest a date for the holiday and provide clever examples of how one might celebrate it. Have fun. I look forward to your responses!
For you Myrmidons who remember my Holiday Review post, I say “Damn, thanks for still reading this lunacy!” The sentimental favorite was clearly Hoodie Hoo Day, which, by the way, is coming up in February, so start making your preparations today. If my research is correct, this means taking an inventory of the liquor cabinet and heading to the package store to restock the wet bar, the fridge, and the flask(s). With so many nonsense holidays floating around out there off which many charlatans prosper, The Captain asked himself in the third person? Why not The Captain? He is eminently qualified to be a charlatan. The answer, in the fourth person (or maybe that’s the fourth dimension!), came thus: Indeed, why not The Captain? So here I am to lead the charge to invent a new nonsensical holiday. My inspiration for this crusade was my recent discovery of “Squirrel Appreciation Day.” I found it on the internet, so it’s definitely legit. But I need your help with fabrications. Let’s have some fun suggesting potential holidays and then have a contest to pick the winner. They do shit like this at my place of employment all the time as a patronizing gesture to make us think we matter. Anywho, here it is! The Captain’s First Annual Invent That Holiday Contest.
I’ll start with a few of my own ideas to get the creative and fermented juices flowing.
· Enema Day – because I always wondered what the world would be like if everyone’s day started with one! Clever in a juvenile sort of way, but a tough one to pull off. I can be pretty persuasive when I want to be, but I think this one is beyond even me. Though it would be kind of comical to stand on a street corner in Times Square and hand out Enema Day flyers along with free samples and see how people respond.
· Hug Your Hot Step Mom Day – I always thought having a hot step mom must be cruel for teenage boys. All those conflicting emotional, and oedipal erotic feelings being swept up in the hormonal flood makes a rough developmental stage that much rougher. This holiday is designed to alleviate the angst. Why fight it? I say, take every opportunity to hug mommy and get a cheap thrill. Who knows? Maybe mommy is a cheap slut just like all the neighbors say and you’ll end up getting lucky. There’s something to celebrate!
· Curse Your Accountant Day – You know you want to. There’s just something incongruous about a universe in which your accountant makes more money than you, has a hotter significant other, and drives a sweet convertible Italian sports car when you drive a “sensible” sedan Japanese import. Arghhh!!!!!!
· Ban Viagra Day – Some things should just be left well enough alone; Viagra is an example of NOT leaving well enough alone! This falls into the category of Public Awareness Holiday, like Earth Day, but instead of saving Mother Nature from the ravages of pollution, it saves me from the psychological ravages of thinking about old people having sex in bathtubs – porcelain and osteoporosis don’t mix!
· Drunken Uncle Day – Perfect holiday material. Naturally encourages drinking and revelers regaling partygoers with outrageous tales of Drunken Uncle escapades, like the time my unemployed, homeless Uncle lived with my family when I was in High School when I had two – count ‘em – two teenage sisters in the house. He would get up before everyone on school days, go into our only bathroom, lock the door, and take a 3 hour bubble bath. I never saw my sisters so pissed, and that’s saying something with me as their brother! Eventually, Uncle Don was “asked” to leave; the last straw was the time he almost burned down our house making popcorn on the stove. Exciting times!
Now here’s your chance to add to the list. Invent your own Holiday!!!!!!!
Believe The Captain when he says: any excuse to drink is a good one!
Yours updating my Liquor Inventory spreadsheet,
The Captain
For you Myrmidons who remember my Holiday Review post, I say “Damn, thanks for still reading this lunacy!” The sentimental favorite was clearly Hoodie Hoo Day, which, by the way, is coming up in February, so start making your preparations today. If my research is correct, this means taking an inventory of the liquor cabinet and heading to the package store to restock the wet bar, the fridge, and the flask(s). With so many nonsense holidays floating around out there off which many charlatans prosper, The Captain asked himself in the third person? Why not The Captain? He is eminently qualified to be a charlatan. The answer, in the fourth person (or maybe that’s the fourth dimension!), came thus: Indeed, why not The Captain? So here I am to lead the charge to invent a new nonsensical holiday. My inspiration for this crusade was my recent discovery of “Squirrel Appreciation Day.” I found it on the internet, so it’s definitely legit. But I need your help with fabrications. Let’s have some fun suggesting potential holidays and then have a contest to pick the winner. They do shit like this at my place of employment all the time as a patronizing gesture to make us think we matter. Anywho, here it is! The Captain’s First Annual Invent That Holiday Contest.
I’ll start with a few of my own ideas to get the creative and fermented juices flowing.
· Enema Day – because I always wondered what the world would be like if everyone’s day started with one! Clever in a juvenile sort of way, but a tough one to pull off. I can be pretty persuasive when I want to be, but I think this one is beyond even me. Though it would be kind of comical to stand on a street corner in Times Square and hand out Enema Day flyers along with free samples and see how people respond.
· Hug Your Hot Step Mom Day – I always thought having a hot step mom must be cruel for teenage boys. All those conflicting emotional, and oedipal erotic feelings being swept up in the hormonal flood makes a rough developmental stage that much rougher. This holiday is designed to alleviate the angst. Why fight it? I say, take every opportunity to hug mommy and get a cheap thrill. Who knows? Maybe mommy is a cheap slut just like all the neighbors say and you’ll end up getting lucky. There’s something to celebrate!
· Curse Your Accountant Day – You know you want to. There’s just something incongruous about a universe in which your accountant makes more money than you, has a hotter significant other, and drives a sweet convertible Italian sports car when you drive a “sensible” sedan Japanese import. Arghhh!!!!!!
· Ban Viagra Day – Some things should just be left well enough alone; Viagra is an example of NOT leaving well enough alone! This falls into the category of Public Awareness Holiday, like Earth Day, but instead of saving Mother Nature from the ravages of pollution, it saves me from the psychological ravages of thinking about old people having sex in bathtubs – porcelain and osteoporosis don’t mix!
· Drunken Uncle Day – Perfect holiday material. Naturally encourages drinking and revelers regaling partygoers with outrageous tales of Drunken Uncle escapades, like the time my unemployed, homeless Uncle lived with my family when I was in High School when I had two – count ‘em – two teenage sisters in the house. He would get up before everyone on school days, go into our only bathroom, lock the door, and take a 3 hour bubble bath. I never saw my sisters so pissed, and that’s saying something with me as their brother! Eventually, Uncle Don was “asked” to leave; the last straw was the time he almost burned down our house making popcorn on the stove. Exciting times!
Now here’s your chance to add to the list. Invent your own Holiday!!!!!!!
Believe The Captain when he says: any excuse to drink is a good one!
Yours updating my Liquor Inventory spreadsheet,
The Captain
Tuesday, January 5, 2010
MOMA – How I Spent My Christmas Vacation
Aside from the givens – beer, sleep, gin, and music – The Captain did manage to mix in a bit of “culture” during his Christmas vacation. The Captain and his crew, those you all know and love as my “legitimates,” took a day trip to the Big Apple, which seemed to me like an educational field trip planned by my daughter to expose me to something called “art.” When she announced we were going to MOMA, it sounded to me as if we would be visiting some mass transit institution, or perhaps a secret chapter of some radical feminist group my daughter sends my hard earned money to. Understandably, I was kind of afraid to ask; but since I was the bus driver, I needed to know. Apparently, MOMA stands for Museum of Modern Art. Instead of being a relief, this caused more consternation. The Captain and art are not well acquainted. I hate to appear ignorant (notice I said “appear”), and art is a topic about which I am woefully ignorant. I have managed, like one of Pavlov’s puppies, to equate a painting with water lilies in it with a French guy called Monet (pronounced ever so pretentiously “mo-nay.”) Along the same lines, when I see paintings with very young ballerinas, I have been conditioned to blurt out Degas (“day-gah”). I only know this because my daughter, as a little girl, loved his paintings, a love which soured once she became a feminist. She now regards Degas as a “sketchy creeper,” after she realized that he was an old man who spent all day staring at prepubescent girls in leotards.
After waiting in line for 20 minutes in sub-freezing temperatures in a wind tunnel called 53rd Street, we finally made it inside MOMA. My frayed and frozen nerves were calmed slightly by the poster announcing that the current special exhibit featured the artwork of Tim Burton, a film maker familiar to The Captain. Burton loves the macabre: skulls, freaky aliens, severed body parts, Halloween - some of The Captain’s favorite things.
Knowing that Edward Scissorhands was in the building, I steeled myself for my art immersion. And not just any art, but MODERN art. Here’s how it went.
The prints and paintings in the contemporary section were surprisingly familiar to The Captain, at least my interpretation of them was thus. I swear I saw one of my drafting assignments from High School framed and mounted in one gallery: graphing paper with unrecognizable shapes and measurements replete with strikethroughs and scribbles, all in pencil. I received a “D” in the course, which, I remind you, is a passing grade in High School and apparently at MOMA as well.
And there on the wall was a painting one of my legitimates created in Nursery school, one of those where the various primary water colors from the cheap plastic paint set are mixed together by kids with ADHD to achieve a very dirty looking shade of brown; this, ironically, was right next to the bizarre cut and paste work by The Captain born out of boredom from the back row of Mrs. Roberts World Civ. !! class my sophomore year in High School, an odd mixture of crayon doodles and pornographic magazine cut outs.
And then there were the too numerous to count Art class assignments with construction paper where I would randomly cut and paste, between tastes of the paste, colored shapes onto a large piece of black construction paper. One man’s attempt to do the bare minimum in art class is another man’s art!
There were some original pieces, however. My favorite was a large bas relief of the angel of death riding a horse that was made entirely of cigarettes. How cool is that? I also liked the piece that was created on two walls of a room that was a spider web of duct tape stuck on the wall with pictures of large human eyes interspersed throughout. It reminded me of the days when I felt my mother was watching my every move – while on LSD (my mother, that is!)
A painting of the “Penis Hat.” Just go and see for yourself.
The Tim Burton exhibit did not disappoint. Youngest Son of The Captain was in his element. He especially loved the display of the skeleton dude from “A Nightmare Before Christmas,” complete with 42 different skull heads, each with a unique expression. Now that’s creativity!
And finally, in a museum filled with the weirdest shit, the weirdest exhibit was a tape loop of a video which was an extreme close up of someone’s lips licking and French kissing a glass plate that looked like it was covered in golden glitter glue. At first glance, I thought it was a slug that had been covered in salt and glitter by some sadistic grammar schooler. Upon closer inspection, I got nauseous.
In the end, in spite of my trepidation in anticipation of yet another field trip to make me feel stupid, this ended up a Miracle on 53rd Street for me. I resolved to go home and become a modern artist. I’ll simply borrow some crayons from my kids and start scribbling maniacally after 15 gin and tonics, or pass off as art one of eldest son’s half ass Calculus assignments, or even get out the old duct tape and start sticking it randomly all over the living room furniture. If I learned nothing else during my brief time at MOMA, I learned that any deranged doofus can display random shit and become a famous modern artist (and if I’m not mistaken, I’m pretty sure there was some actual fecal matter on display at MOMA, so strike that one off the list).
Believe The Captain when he says: Glitter Glue sticks to your tongue!
Yours painting his tongue with nail polish remover,
The Captain
After waiting in line for 20 minutes in sub-freezing temperatures in a wind tunnel called 53rd Street, we finally made it inside MOMA. My frayed and frozen nerves were calmed slightly by the poster announcing that the current special exhibit featured the artwork of Tim Burton, a film maker familiar to The Captain. Burton loves the macabre: skulls, freaky aliens, severed body parts, Halloween - some of The Captain’s favorite things.
Knowing that Edward Scissorhands was in the building, I steeled myself for my art immersion. And not just any art, but MODERN art. Here’s how it went.
The prints and paintings in the contemporary section were surprisingly familiar to The Captain, at least my interpretation of them was thus. I swear I saw one of my drafting assignments from High School framed and mounted in one gallery: graphing paper with unrecognizable shapes and measurements replete with strikethroughs and scribbles, all in pencil. I received a “D” in the course, which, I remind you, is a passing grade in High School and apparently at MOMA as well.
And there on the wall was a painting one of my legitimates created in Nursery school, one of those where the various primary water colors from the cheap plastic paint set are mixed together by kids with ADHD to achieve a very dirty looking shade of brown; this, ironically, was right next to the bizarre cut and paste work by The Captain born out of boredom from the back row of Mrs. Roberts World Civ. !! class my sophomore year in High School, an odd mixture of crayon doodles and pornographic magazine cut outs.
And then there were the too numerous to count Art class assignments with construction paper where I would randomly cut and paste, between tastes of the paste, colored shapes onto a large piece of black construction paper. One man’s attempt to do the bare minimum in art class is another man’s art!
There were some original pieces, however. My favorite was a large bas relief of the angel of death riding a horse that was made entirely of cigarettes. How cool is that? I also liked the piece that was created on two walls of a room that was a spider web of duct tape stuck on the wall with pictures of large human eyes interspersed throughout. It reminded me of the days when I felt my mother was watching my every move – while on LSD (my mother, that is!)
A painting of the “Penis Hat.” Just go and see for yourself.
The Tim Burton exhibit did not disappoint. Youngest Son of The Captain was in his element. He especially loved the display of the skeleton dude from “A Nightmare Before Christmas,” complete with 42 different skull heads, each with a unique expression. Now that’s creativity!
And finally, in a museum filled with the weirdest shit, the weirdest exhibit was a tape loop of a video which was an extreme close up of someone’s lips licking and French kissing a glass plate that looked like it was covered in golden glitter glue. At first glance, I thought it was a slug that had been covered in salt and glitter by some sadistic grammar schooler. Upon closer inspection, I got nauseous.
In the end, in spite of my trepidation in anticipation of yet another field trip to make me feel stupid, this ended up a Miracle on 53rd Street for me. I resolved to go home and become a modern artist. I’ll simply borrow some crayons from my kids and start scribbling maniacally after 15 gin and tonics, or pass off as art one of eldest son’s half ass Calculus assignments, or even get out the old duct tape and start sticking it randomly all over the living room furniture. If I learned nothing else during my brief time at MOMA, I learned that any deranged doofus can display random shit and become a famous modern artist (and if I’m not mistaken, I’m pretty sure there was some actual fecal matter on display at MOMA, so strike that one off the list).
Believe The Captain when he says: Glitter Glue sticks to your tongue!
Yours painting his tongue with nail polish remover,
The Captain
OK. You don't have to go and see Penis Hat for yourself. Here it is!!
Paul McCarthy (American, born 1945)
No swashbuckling hero, McCarthy's pirate is an intimidating and wretched figure who embodies a lifestyle of danger and licentiousness on the margins of society. McCarthy transforms the body of the ship into the body of the pirate: the ribs of the ship become his ribs, windows and holes become bodily orifices, oars act as limbs, and cannons resemble penises and a nose. The phallic weaponry alludes to warfare and sexual conquest, and the various inscriptions and red spurts make clear that if amputated, the pirate would lose his power. McCarthy critiques Western stereotypes of masculinity by transforming the iconic figure of the pirate through brutal images of debauchery and castration.
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