Week #26 Written on the Bathroom Wall - Blog

I don’t know how to drive. I never learned. Because of this I spend a lot of time walking around and sitting in coffee shops. I also spend a lot time in bars but that has nothing to do with driving or not driving.

During my adventures in the outside world I end up visiting a lot of public restrooms. And one thing almost all public restrooms have is graffiti.

Pope John Paul II (The good pope) once refereed to graffiti as “the soul crying out against indifference”. I’ve always loved this quote but really if all you have to “cry out” is “Rakkyr2” or “Suck a dick” then maybe you deserve to a little indifference.

Still, out of all the graffiti I see, at least once a week I see something truly amazing like the this:

Inspired by my girlfriend Kirstin’s blog and my new digital camera I’ve decided to start a new blog where I post something I’ve seen on a bathroom wall once a week. I’m working on a backlog right now so I won’t end up in a situation where I’m searching public restrooms for graffiti. I’m also working on figuring out how to get my photos off my camera. I’ll probably start this thing in a month or so.

I’ll let you all know.

Week #25 (Now with Pictures!) The James Project

I’ve known James Call for a good deal of my life. I met him in high school. I’ve lived with him for four years in Queens. I’ve traveled with him to China. I’ve spent way too much time talking about comic books with him.

Seeing James perform recently in New York I was struck as I usually am by what a truly unique creature he is. It reminded me of a project I’ve wanted to do since my last days living with him.

James creates endless amounts of things. Music, drawings, writing, scraps of paper with strange notes on them. He once made a large flow chart of all the ways he knows his friends. He’s also responsible for shit like the map below.

What I want to do is take all the stuff James has created in his entire life and, in the tradition of a few of my recent projects, invent an entire history as if we didn’t know James. Like an anthropological study of who we think this person is based entirely on all the object and documents we found in his room.

Or alternatively and even better we can give all his creations to someone who truly doesn’t know him and have them come up with a biography for him. We should be able to find someone I mean isn’t that what the internet is for?

Week #24 The Mishap Movie - Film

Having recently watched Rock & Roll High School again I got inspired to make a rock & roll movie. Films like Help, The Girl Can’t Help it, Tougher than Leather even Spice World have alway held a special place in my heart. Movies with flimsy plots and often just as flimsy acting. Films set up to highlight the music of whatever artist or artists it was made for. Movies that, although not the best craft wise, are always fun to watch because you can see the people making them are having so much fun.

I want to make one of these for Mishap Productions. My only real concrete idea of what I want it to be is that I’d like to have all the people even vaguely connected to Mishap both play a role and perform in some way.

A couple of ideas I came up with while talking to James Call about it over the past few days:

A classic film noir where all the Gomorran’s play gangsters and the Missing Teens play cops

A gangster story about a power struggle due to the death of the mob boss “God”

Shooting on both coasts but presenting them as one city so characters would get in the subway in NYC and get out in San Francisco.

Stealing overdramatic lines from other films to insert in at inappropriate times.

Most of these where just stuff we came up with while bullshitting. I’d really like to make one of these movies some time. We wouldn’t have to come up with much of a script just some basic ideas then start shooting. I have a camera. What I really need is a very patient editor.

Week #23 New York Food Blog - Blog

Starting today I’ll be in New York City for the next two weeks. I’m subletting a place in Williamsburg with my girlfriend Kirstin of little art project blog.

The four years I spent living in New York city where the years my love and fascination with food grew the most. This fact combined with the fact combined with the fact I’ve always wanted to become a better food writer lead to this weeks project.

For the next two weeks me and Kirstin will each post a daily review of the food we ate that day to our new blog “the eating project”. I hope to cover everything we eat from our dinner at Nobu we already have reservations for to the trip I plan on taking to my favorite souvlaki stand in Queens.

With any luck it should be interesting to see our different perspectives on our shared experiences. At the very least me and Kirstin will become better food writers and you readers will have some great recommendations and some vicarious food thrills.

Check it out here: http://theeatingproject.blogspot.com/

Week #22 A Biographical Dictionary of Comic Books - Book

Anyone who’s ever lived with me or spent a long period of time at my house is familiar with the Biographical Dictionary of Film by David Thomas. It’s been in my bathroom for about 10 years.

For those of you not familiar with it. It’s a book that covers, in alphabetical order, everyone who made there life in films. These lives are covered as sort of critical biographies. There criticisms more than they are lists of facts from peoples lives. Therefore of George Lucas’ later Star Wars films he has this to say “maybe someday robots will watch them” of Michael Bay he has opens thus “In the summer of 2001 there was a story going around hollywood that Michael Bay was seriously depressed.” and ends like this “We may respect his suffering, but we know this: ours is greater. And he has millions as medicine.”

There’s positive ones as well. Some beautiful writing on Welles and even Chronenberg. But the nasty stuff is really the best.

My idea is to create the same thousand page epic but for lives made in comic books. Create a true critical analysis of comic book creators from Stan Lee to Art Spiegelman to Rob Liefeld.

Just like the film book I’d attempt to cover everyone who’s really made there life in the art form. Naturally I couldn’t get everyone but there’s easily over a thousand I could name right now who’ve made the medium what it is.

There’s already a great book by called Slings & Arrows: Comic Guide, a critical assessment of over 2500 titles. But there’s nothing out there to cover the people that made these comics.

Naturally this is a huge undertaking and also a rather expensive one. I’ve read more comic books than most people on earth but still there’s some major gaps in my reading. It would make sense to have a partner or partners but what makes the film book so good is that it’s all writen in one voice. Maybe we could get away with two distinct voices.

Week #21 More Music No One Will Ever Hear Redux - The Boxed Set

So after my last post I got an email from the esteemed Greg Travis #1; former member of German Cars Vs. American Homes and co-creator of this crazy shit: http://narrative-inscription.com/.


Greg had tried to get me to make a Mishap Boxed set a couple of years back. His idea was to make it real classy and try and pass it off as an art item. At the time I put it down to him slightly fucking with me.

When Greg emailed me again after my last post to re-assert his need for a Mishap Boxed set I got a sort of idea.

What if I combined my last two projects? Made a mishap boxed set where we entirely made up our history and identifies. Along with CD’s of all our music there would be a large full color book explaining the history of the bands, the inspiration for the songs and the bio’s of the artists; all entirely fictional.

Naturally there’d still be a pretty limited market for it. Still I really like the idea more of the compilation or boxed set as a conceptual art project then just a collection of songs. It would be even cooler if we could get people we don’t know to write the stories about us.

Week #20 - More Music No One Will Ever Hear - Album

The title is one Mishap Productions has used a few times for compilations of music made by people involved with us. Some day I’d like to put out a semi-real record under this title, a sort of retrospective of the entire mishap musical history.

It would include everything from music we made in high school to the tracks from the newest Gomorran Social Aid and Pleasure Club and Missing Teens Albums plus a few tracks from bands who’ve played the prom. I’d like to get it mastered and print a small run of it.

The ideas not really the most original or complex. Probably something that only a small group of people would be interested in but still it would make me really happy to have made it and to own a copy.