Monday, November 30, 2009

Week #43 - Monthly Dinner Parties - Event

A while back me and my close friend Kirsten Goldberg set up a private cooking company called Brandywine Cooking. Kirstin Cummings made an awesome website, we did one dinner party, even made business cards. Then we sort of ran out of steam.


This year at the Mishap Prom Kirsten brought up the idea of Brandywine doing a monthly dinner party. At first we’d just do it for friends and family, charging little over the cost of the food, then when we start to really figure it out, we’ll raise our prices a little and open it up to the outside world.


We had our first one of these parties last night.


This was the menu:


Local Dungeness Crab and Chick Pea Fritters with Persian Cucumber and Yogurt dipping sauce


Shaved Fennel and Honeycrisp Salad with Champagne Vinaigrette


Mushroom Braised Lamb with Gremolata


Tangerine and Honey Roasted Roots


Assorted California Cheeses Curated by Kirstin Cummings


Warm Spiced Quince with Ricotta and Pink Peppercorn Cream


and here’s a picture of Kirsten with the lamb:




The party went wonderfully, if it was maybe a little strenuous but we learned a lot. I think we need to bring in at least one more person to help with the cooking and serving.


I want to have another one in either late december or early January. Who want to come?


Thursday, November 19, 2009

Week #42 The James Hughes Call Show - Performance Piece

For the past ten years or so I’ve been promoting and producing the music of James Call. Either in the guise of the Missing Teens, German Cars Vs. American Homes, James Call Erotic Photo Hunt or just plane James Call, I’ve booked show for him, produced albums & done pretty much every promotion thing I could think of.

Recently it occurred to me that maybe we’ve been going at the wrong way. Maybe James isn’t a rock star, maybe he’s a performance artist.

I’ve loved James’ recordings for years but what’s always really sold him is his performances. Nearly everyone who’s ever seen him has loved him and recently his performances have become a truly ecstatic experience. They’ve also become more and more conceptual.

My idea, which I’ve been running by James every time I see him recently, is to have James perform with semi-scripted banter between his songs. We’d bill him as a sort of musical motivational speaker and he’d perform every weekend for three or four weeks like a play. He’s be aided by video, a power point presentation and maybe even celebrity guests.

James of coarse would have to do most of the writing (hopefully aided by at least one of the Greg Travis’) so the content would really be up to him. I figure we could have either a band or pre-recorded music or a little of both.

Obviously this was all reliant on James but if we could pull it off I’d be totally down to produce it here in San Francisco and maybe in New York possibly even in connection in some way with Sleepwalkers Theatre.

Tuesday, November 17, 2009

Week #41 Larry’s Idea for a Comic - Web Comic

Originally when I started this blog I wanted to feature some projects by other people. Alas this never really worked out.

However last week I received the following email from my good friend and fellow comic book geek Larry Luna.

I decided to make it this weeks project:

“I was thinking a good idea for a comic strip would be for any group of us to all tell the same true story but all from our own perspective. For example, with out seeing or being influenced by each others strips we would each write/draw a strip telling a funny or interesting story we all experienced. So if there were four of us at said "story" we would end up with four different versions/strips of that story. I got the idea when I talked to james about the time I punched him in the balls. Hearing his perspective was hilarious, so I think that should be our first strip, The mishap prom where the prom king got socked in the balls mid performance by a drunk mexican and a dog ferociously barked from the audience. I think this should be one of many random web comics on a webcomic blog we need to finally start.”

It’s a good idea and one everyone involved in is really excited about. What I need to do my part of this comic is find someone to draw it. Preferably someone who wasn’t there and doesn’t know the people involved. That way we can add a whole new element the Rashomon angle of this project.

Tuesday, November 10, 2009

Week #40 Everyones Gay in San Francisco - TV Show

I was out to dinner in North Beach for Larry Luna’s birthday the other day. Somehow in the middle of dinner the topic of Homophobic attitudes toward the Bay Area came up and I developed this little idea for a police drama.

In my story a New York cop gets transfered to San Francisco after a misunderstanding regarding his sexuality leads to constant harassment by the other officers.

In San Francisco he reluctantly investigates a series of murders in the San Francisco gay community. Throughout the coarse of the show he slowly starts to discover that literally everyone in San Francisco is gay. It turns out the murders he’s been investigating are part of a large conspiracy against a group who want the whole city to “come out of the closet”.

In the end he catches the murderers but in the process he inadvertently forces the whole city to go public. Everything works out in the end and the cop ends up living happily as the only straight person in San Francisco.

The show would obviously be a satire of both the bay areas appearance to the rest of the world and the “slowly unraveling conspiracy” genre.

There’s probably no way I’ll ever make a TV show but if anyone else wanted to, even as “webisodes” I’d be totally stoked.

Tuesday, November 3, 2009

Week #39 Celebrity T-Shirts - Conceptual Art Project 0






For five years straight, from June 1st. 2002 to June 1st. 2007, I wore t-shirts with some sort of comment written on them in black sharpie. See week #29 for more details.

After five years of trying it explain to people why I was “ashamed to be white” or hearing about how I wasn’t a total “failure” because my sperm made it to the egg first I decided I’d had enough.




I still enjoy wearing my shirts from time to time however. I especially enjoy the ones that comment a bit on celebrity. One of the big things I was trying to explore with my shirts was why people wear what they wear. My thesis is that $30 band shirts are really just saying “I like this band, talk to me if you do to”. Why not just cut out the $30 and write the bands name on your shirt?

One of the last shirts I made took this idea one step further. I decided to make a shirt for a semi-celebrity that I loved but I would never by able to buy a shirt that celebrated. I made a shirt that simply said “Brian Doyle Murray”. I enjoyed wearing that shirt almost more than any of the others.

I’ve decided to start making my shirts again. Not wearing them every day, just now and then. All these shirts will just have the name of someone who’s work or life I wish to celebrate.

So far I’ve got one that says “Peter O’Toole

Some more I’m gonna make:

Harry Dean Stanton
Shelly Winters
Shock G
Randy Quaid
The Man-Thing