Blue Man Group

Yes, I realize I’m about six years behind the times in punching these bluebloods, but Blue Man Group needs to be punched until they’re black and blue in the face and my fist is lousy with greasepaint.

Like any freak show with rhythm, BMG has gone Vegas, not to mention spawning regular gigs at Universal Orlando and Norwegian Cruise Lines. They also have a show in Berlin. No surprise there; turtleneck-loving Germans have been in desperate need of alternative programming to vaterland darling David Hasselhoff since the Wall came down in 1989.

And BMG fits the cheeseball bill. Bald blue men in turtlenecks performance art their way through multimedia musical spectacles that, in and of themselves, are breathtaking. These dudes don’t talk; they just look at you with a blank robot stare as they go about their post-modernist business of whacking paint-splattered drums.

I’m nervous. Like Tribbles, these alien blue queues are multiplying in numbers before our very eyes. Pretty soon, there will be legions of bald blue men marching around the streets of cities worldwide, shooting things out of tubes at innocent passersby while cocking their heads quizzically.

This will not do. I want to rack these blue balls up and send them flying. When I do, you might just hear me mutter, “2 ball in the corner pocket.” I’m nothing if not a ball-buster. 

(photo: triangleartsandentertainment.org)

Keep Calm and Carry On fatigue

I dig this motto and poster. I really do. Actually, I sort of love it, the same way I love Westminster Abbey, fascinators, and British sangfroid.

But.

It's been co-opted by every social media DIY lad or lass who fancies themselves clever. Pinterest is lousy with eye-rollingly-cute variations on the original theme: Keep calm and craft on. Keep calm and call your mom. Keep calm and have a cupcake. Keep calm and go back to December (yes, there is a whole line for Taylor Swift fans). I can almost get behind "Keep calm and STFU." Almost.

Do most people even know (or care) that this was originally created by the British government to keep up morale during World War II? I suspect most people think a graphic designer banged it out to sell on etsy. Stop decorating your Crate & Barreled-out entryway and breakfast nook with knockoffs that speak to your hobbies and sensibilities. Keep the ubiquitous original if you must (I know you paid a pretty penny for that silicone iPhone case) but carry the rest of these designer imposters straight to the recycling bin, where their recycled arses belong.

(photo: wikipedia.com)

Burning Man

Someone recently sent me a video of Burning Man revelers reciting Oh, the Places You’ll Go.

It sent me to the medicine cabinet.

Just watching it gave me a sugar rush by way of heatstroke via straight-up migraine. But nothing can cure what ails me.

Lacking a peyote button or those handy Hunger Games suicide berries, I am forced to resort to blogging as a way to alleviate my malady. Burning Man started in the mid-80s as an artsy-fartsy homage to the Solstice, burning effigies as a form of “radical self-expression,” clearly a hippie euphemism for a low-grade case of pyromania (and not the totally rad Def Leppard kind). I love fire like the Heat Miser but this creeps me out. After sitting through The Wicker Man only to watch a dude burned alive as an offering for the harvest, I am not down with towering infernos.

Then there are the hipster hippies dropping acid while dropping trou. No. Just no. The Places I’ll Go? Pretty sure my list doesn’t include Black Rock City.

Caricatures

Where do I even start?

First of all, a giant bobblehead on a tiny, wizened body is never a good look (just ask Lara Flynn Boyle). Our least-favorite features are blown up like a bad allergic reaction to shellfish, and the person sketching you is often wearing suspenders. Don’t let the sugar rush from the cotton candy cloud your judgment when you are walking down the midway. Your money would be better spent on Whac-a-mole. Do I have to draw you a picture? The only thing that looks worse than your caricature is your caricature after I punch it in its bulbous, pen-and-ink face.

(artwork: created by someone named Emet during lunch when I was an intern in Washington, DC. Clearly, I was bitchy even in 1988.)

Motel art

When visiting Fallingwater a few years back, a guide told us that Frank Lloyd Wright designed low ceilings and lots of windows into the famous home so people would be encouraged to go outside.

Well, motel art is about as far away as you can get from FLW, but the result is the same. I want to flee the premises when I am in a motel room dripping with bad art.

But first, I go into the bathroom to see if my eyes are bleeding.

Thomas Kinkade-like landscapes, art that is reminiscent of the cover of Duran Duran’s “Rio,” prints of ships and sandpipers, still lifes that match the bedspread—it’s all one stinky art fart. Motel rooms are where art goes to die a slow, faded, badly framed death.

Next time, don’t take an Ambien to get to sleep. Take down the art, turn it around, and stick it in the closet next to the ironing board. You’ll sleep like a baby.

(photo: flickr.com/photos/ cjanebuy)

Punch Bowl Winners' Circle: Stuff made from neckties

I couldn't believe it when I saw this photo, because it's for a show at the Textile Center in Minneapolis, which is a nationally-known and respected center for fiber arts. Did they run out of good ideas? What's with the sensible shoes? Ack! If I made this purse I would puke on myself. If someone gave it to me, I would puke on them. Not that I'm an ungrateful person, I just have this aversion to ties being made into anything else. Perhaps this is a sign that ties are really not earth-friendly, because there is so no way to reuse them and not look absolutely hideously ridiculous.

Unfortunately, the website for the Textile Center does not have this picture on it. Instead there are pictures of richly colored textiles from India, the current show in the Joan Mondale gallery. Perhaps they deemed a photo of the tie purse too embarrassing to leave up on the website. But the postcard provides shock value and gets your attention amidst a pile of other junk mail. Hmmm.

The point is, ties are ugly. Not ugly like Ugly Dolls, which are cute, or dogs that are so ugly they are endearing. Ties have no soul. They try to be bearable as ties, and sometimes they are, just barely. But most of the time they are cheesy, over-the-top with power madness, or just plain dull. And surprise, surprise, none of these are features I look for when I'm hunting for fabric! So although I can understand the urge people have to turn them into something else, unfortunately they're always going to be recognizable as the hideous soul-crushing uniform of corporate America. Perhaps cutting them up in very small and unrecognizable bits and leaving them out for birds to bling up their nests with would be a more humane gesture all around...

—Carrie, Finding Jim Macinko, Alterior Motives

Personally, I am sort of charmed by quirky re-imagined neckties, but I take Carrie's point.

(photo: Carrie)