CROCHET PAC PEOPLES

No characters ever deserved to be crocheted more than the Pac People.  I mean, whenever I play
Pac-Man, or Ms. Pac-Man, or Super Pac-Man, or Pac-Man Jr., I just want to reach my hand into the
video screen and give my Pac People a hug. 

Entertaining millions for more than 30 years, I know the Pacs are proud to be translated into
yarny, disgusting, stuffed animals.

Rubber Ball Speckles = Alligator Hide Inspiration

Rubber Ball I bought in Harlem.

Lancaster J. Garglescoop, reporter.

Specks, like ball.  We make creative.  Nice Day.

Camera Gif WITH "10th Planet" by Solid Space

Please Click The Song.

Funny Money

Phoney U.S. Mazuma, made in Japan.

70's Pattern For Cracked Out Batman Costume

Batman and Robin?  No way, it's Batman and Batman Jr.!

I know one thing.  If I got busted by this Batman I'd be terrified.  I mean, he looks insane.
This look reminds me more of this TV-movie called Dark Night of the Scarecrow about a mentally challenged
man who lives on a farm and is regularly terrorized by this crew of rednecks.  One night he hides
in the clothes of his scarecrow, then gets up on the crow-post and just waits.  The rednecks go nuts
and have a great time killing him.  As luck would have it, the mentally challenged guy
comes back to life as a killer not-mentally-challenged undead Scarecrow and seeks his revenge.

Little Batman.

If you make the costume you can use the gloves to work the register at the supermarket too!

Even though the Chrysler Building definitely isn't in Gotham City, I just want to give props
to the Chrysler Building.

Pretzel Duo

Blueberry Yogurt Pretzel.  Supposed to be the grossest in the great line-up of yogurt-coated snacks.
They aren't.  They're OK.  The FDA needs to step in and start regulating the yogurt-coating industry.
It feels super-rogue and not-at-all artisanal or handmade.
I got one word for you: Partially-Hydrogenated-Soybean-Oil.

Prized Possession #77: discontinued pretzel-shaped baby teether.

INTERN DIARY: 10/29/12 - 10/31/12

Right after Hurricane Sandy:

For the record, Tony is his mom and uncle's lost half-brother.  Remember, Luca's uncle is my landlord, Mr. Parfenix.  Luca was confused because there was some cousin they recently saw after a long period of not seeing him.  But Tony, their brother, a hell of a guy, is from England, and at 60 years old, looks really good for his age.  Call it Parfenix luck that he came to visit during a hurricane.

BREAKING NEWS: Twix Wrapper Stuck Under Subway Sign!

I see this all the time.

The poor little, neatly folded Twix Wrapper was trapped under this sign for nearly 4 days.
It whimpered andsniffled and kept singing the KitKat theme song (oddly).  I went and
checked on it every day to see how it was doing.  Other News Reporters were there of course, similar to
when a kid get trapped in a well. If we were to simply pull it out and toss it in the trash, we'd be messing
with our own story. It's a question of journalistic integrity.  I'll do anything for a story, especially if
it's a completely ridiculous non-story.  I'll even make things up, that's how dedicated I am to
internet journalism (just like all the other internet "journalists" out there).  
There's a Billy Wilder film called Ace In the Hole starring hambone-extraordinaire Kirk Douglas
as a scummy journalist out of Albuquerque who keeps a guy stuck in a cave so he can break the story
and get back to working a big-city beat. My dad hated Kirk Douglas and said he was a schmuck.

Gimace's SAT Guide

The first step in Grimace's Guide To the SATs is similar to the spiel he gives kids
when he pulls out his glock and robs them for their Jordans (and Sour Patch Watermelons).
Grimace doesn't like to talk about his side business as a tutor, not because the suits at
McDonny's HQ would get mad, but because he doesn't really consider himself a tutor.
"I'm more of a Blob," says Grimace.
Originally Grimace's SAT-Prep book was going to be called:
"Grimace's Guide to Sitting On The SATs" but his publisher didn't think it'd sell.
The inside of the book is indeed a guide to sitting on the test, but a lot of
ambitious high-schoolers still buy it because of the celebrity quotes on the back of the book.
These powerful referrals are staggeringly dated and not really referrals - they're all just weird
quotes about times each celeb had occasion to party with Grimace.  In fact, the quotes take
up the entire second half of the book.
  Grimace called in big favors from his old (and some of them dead) friends --
Ron Reagan (Junior), Dolly Parton, Gallagher's Brother (who used to perform as
"Gallagher Too" until Gallagher One sued him) and Snagglepuss (who wrote more of a love letter.
Not to mention:
Morton Downey Jr., Ed Begley Jr., Fred Savage and Danica McKellar.  The goofball uncle from
Full House and the lady from that show that wound up marrying Stamos.
Also:
Tilda Swinton (!?), Frank Perdue, and the guy who played Odo on Deep Space Nine.
Emo Philips.  Alyssa Milano.  Orel Hershiser.  The kid who played Ben on Growing Pains.
Tony Lo Bianco.  Blondie.  Orson Welles. Vanna White.  Brad Renfro.
Janeane Garofalo.  Krist Novoselic.  Andy Richter.  Tara Reid, Jonathan Demme, Charles Bronson,
Naomi Campbell, almost all the actors from Oz, the HBO jail show,
as well as the whole cast of the 2nd season of the Real World.
And LL Cool J. 

Elf Clothes!

All of my elf friends waste a lot of time and effort making their own clothes.  But I discovered that
the Sears on Queens Blvd. actually has an elf section!

They're gonna be so surprised.

Oh NO! Gold Gifts is CLOSING!

Gold Gifts, 63rd Drive in Rego Park.  The Spot.  This is where I got all my golden gifts for all my peoples.
They had it all.  Gold hats.  Gold socks.  Gold spatulas.  What is Scrooge McDuck gonna do?

Props.  Goitosiness!

Good name for an album.  Yo Luca - this should be the name of our concept record.
A collection of rap-jingles that all come in at 99 seconds or less.

The hand style is just def.

People In My Neighborhood: Paul

Ran into my buddy Paul the other day at the library.  Paul, a Dept. of Sanitation Worker, had just finished
a double shift.  Paul likes to read mystery novels, especially hard crime books.

The Rego Park branch recently got the fancy letter treatment above.

Paul has a good sense of humor, but he always looks at me like I'm crazy.  He'll stare at me forever,
faking no-comprendés, then he'll just bust out laughing.  He always makes me over explain myself,
then he's like, "I gotchu man."

Paul.

INTERN DIARIES: 10/26/12

Luca Guidolini, the most non-intern intern of all time, tore his ACL, had leg surgery, and has been limping
around for months, keeping this very brief, very sparse, text-diary of his unadventures.

The Boy's Bathroom at Seward High

Label's on Upside Down. You can see Luca in the snout.

Luca was rather fond of the OPP tag.

Number One Instrumental

One of the all-time great instrumentals, a B-side by Jerry-O -- I've pumped this at every party I ever DJ-ed since I "acquired it" from a DJ buddy/enemy. I like to think this instrumental says a lot about Frankie's Apartment, my collaborators, and the entire 6th Borough.

Over simple soul, pre-funk, slambo. You can dance to it. B-Side, cause we're never A-Side. Hot snare, bass-heavy, you can hear people in background on the break. Only for the heads. Technically, there's a lot of stuff that's way better, but not really.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Look what we're having for Thanksgiving Dinner!  An Ice Cream Turkey from Dunkin Donuts!
Well, it's supposed to be Baskin Robbins, but it came in a Dunky D bag, so...

Alternate view.  These are two of about 87 photos I took of this thing.

Standard Piñata Blindfold

No wardrobe is complete without one of these.

Stick The Horn On The Unicorn

99¢ Stores came through a few years ago with a new version of Pin The Tail On The Donkey, appropriately named: Stick the Horn On the Unicorn.  What a nice and welcome change.  Everyone in Frankie's Apartment has been playing a solid 10-rounds of Donkey every evening after 2nd Dessert for the last 7 years. Sometimes we play 80-rounds. It's an invigoratingly depressing way to get ready for our nightly Seinfeld block where we turn down the sound and do all the voices.  Unicorn is so much better than Donkey because Sudsy hates it and the kit comes with the awesome BLINDFOLD you see below.

We ran out of Twizzlers once while we were playing so I had to run out to Fazmer's Bodega on Sorgum Ave.
to pick up some more.  I still had on the blindfold - and guess what?  It started a chain reaction in
the Sixth Borough.  A chain reaction of FASHION and an official LEAGUE for serious players of
Stick the Horn on the Unicorn.  

So not only are the local ESP-kids showing off by wearing the blindfolds around town without bumping into
everything (like I do), but all the graf-heads use the Unicorn Horn Stickers to sticker-bomb.

It's a nice sticker.

MORE SIXTH BOROUGH STYLE

Rubbish hates the poster because he hates unicorns and all the talk about unicorns that comedy
people have been doing over the last decade or so.  I ain't letting them spoil all my unicorn fun,
but he's sort of right.  It's so weird when a little piece of comedy catches on and it gets kicked down
the trough far enough that cornballs start spitting it like they got chops to rock jokes.
Sarcasm used to be something that a person generated naturally.  Now they teach it in
kindergarten.