The deadline for applying to be a vendor at the upcoming Shadow Art Fair is this Thursday, May 15th. The application, if you’re interested can be found online. Or, if that’s not your thing, there’s also a poster design contest. The deadline for that is also this coming Thursday. The event itself, should you wish to attend, will be Saturday, July 19th, at Ypsi’s Corner Brewery. We’re still working out all the details, but I think it’ll run from noon to midnight, and we’ll have bands playing outside in the evening.

Last time we had a Shadow Art Fair, we asked everyone to bring a nickel. By the time we closed the doors, and counted up the money, we’d raised $1,027.18. (Clearly a lot of people put in more than 5¢.) And, now we’re looking to invest that money in the community. We’ve kicked off a micro grant program, and we’re looking to fund people who have good, creative projects in mind. The deadline for proposals is June 15, and you can find all the details by following that last link.

OK, now I’m off write Jack Kevorkian another letter, pleading with him to resume painting and join us in July. I know he said that he’d officially retired from art, but I’m hoping that he might see it as good exposure before the election. (Kevorkian is running for Congress.) I don’t want to get anyone’s hopes up, but we also have a lead on a woman related to an actor that appeared on an episode of “The Golden Girls.” We were thinking that she could sign photos of herself for a few bucks each, or maybe take polaroids with visitors. We’re always looking to break new ground… Seriously, if you have good ideas, apply for the grant, or to be a vendor. We love hearing new ideas.

At least two readers of this site work for the infamous Larry Flynt, the fleshy, wheelchair-bound publisher of “Hustler” magazine. Lots of people in LA do. It’s not really their fault. Flynt publishes about 100 different magazines. And not all of them are porn. They run the gambit from “Cat Fancy” to “Barely Legal.” It’s not something that they tell you in college, but, if you graduate with a liberal arts degree, and you find yourself in LA, there’s a good chance that you’ll be writing for Flynt.

I suppose it’s possible that every reader of MM.com works for Flynt, but only two have outed themselves to me… Anyway, I was trading emails with one of them, and I asked whether or not there were any stories about Flynt that I could post here. Following is what I received in response to that request.

On November 1, Larry Flynt’s birthday, we’re all called upstairs so that we can “celebrate.” Most people ignore it; it’s about 3pm and people have work to get done. After three calls over the intercom from some hapless secretary, a security guard comes on and tells us that it is mandatory that we go up and sing happy birthday for him.

We go up into an opulent conference room, with oak paneling and the ostentatious rococo art, and are forced to wait until roughly 40 people are herded in. Flynt is silent and looks glum as a large cake with a handful of candles is brought out. Roused by his handlers, he waits as we’re forced to mumble our way through a flat version of Happy Birthday. Then he proceeds to sputter out the candles, wheezing as great gobs of spittle sprinkle the whole cake. What has seemed obligatory and joyless now seems vaguely pitiful, especially as his wife (handily beside him at all times) cuts a piece of cake and rams it in his mouth.

A brief interlude—A week prior to this a friend and I had been walking back from the pizza parlor and seen a man with obvious developmental disabilities being pushed along in a wheelchair by his nurse. The man looked to be in his mid-60s, and as they passed a hedge of roses, he would lean over and bite them off. As the petals fell from his mouth, they looked like feathers. His nurse ignored all this, as the man smacked his lips and ate flower after flower.

Larry Flynt reminded me of nothing so much as that man, as he smacked his mouth around the cascade of frosting and crumbs that rolled out of his maw and his eyes wiled around the room and people crowded backwards out of the door to avoid having the remnants of the cake foisted upon them.

Another time, while I was waiting for someone up on the 10th floor to sign-off on something, Larry was lingering in the hallway.

He motioned his security guard (he has at least one, often two, armed guards with him at all times) to come closer, come closer, come closer, until the guard’s ear was inches from Flynt’s mouth. Then, with his Jabba-the-Hutt bellow, he yells “Asshole!” and gives his barking, staccato chortle, “Har har har.” The guard laughs with him, uneasily. He then beckons the guard down again; “Come closer,” he says. The guard again puts his ear over Larry’s mouth, and Larry, like a four-year-old with a new word again yells “Asshole! Har har har.”

He did this three times while I was waiting, like a kid who throws a toy only to delight in his or her parent’s repeated retrieval.

Fundamentally, Flynt is a cross between The General from the Big Sleep and Jabba the Hutt, a fat, disabled man who is alienated from every pleasure he used to over-indulge in. That he’s impotent is one of the central ironies of the fact that every girl set in every magazine has to be approved by him.

I don’t know about you, but I kind of like knowing that millions of men around the globe are masturbating tonight to pictures hand-chosen by a kind of fleshy, bitter, baby of a man. Seems kind of poetic.

In a thread on Metafilter about that wonderful, poetic, and head-scratchingly bizarre Tom Waits press conference of a few days ago, someone questioned whether or not Waits really existed. Another commenter responded with something absolutely beautiful. They said that Tom Waits is what Santa Claus turns into when you stop believing in Santa Claus.

It’s an absolutely beautiful idea, don’t you think?

And here, for those of you unwilling to follow the second link, is footage of the press conference.

That radio station in California that’s doing a 4-hour special on my band, the Monkey Power Trio, has started running promos for the big event. If you want to hear one of the radio spots, just click here. I can’t imagine that too many people will tune in for all 4 hours, but who knows. Maybe people are starving for our brand of “we don’t want a record contract” rock-n-roll… If you want to listen, just tune in to KFJC on May 20 starting at 10:00 PM (EST).

OK, so now Hillary Clinton is starting to really piss me off. After Obama’s landslide victory in North Carolina yesterday, and their near tie in Indiana, everyone seems to be in agreement that she cannot win, and yet, in spite of that fact, she won’t quit. Or, at least, she hasn’t quit yet.

I can respect her tenacity. Up until now, it may have even made some sense. If she’d won resoundingly yesterday, maybe, just maybe, it would have demonstrated that, yes, a deeply racist America couldn’t accept the reality a black man as President, but that’s not what happened. There was no evidence of our getting cold feet. Obama had everything thrown at him, and yet he didn’t lose momentum. We had a chance yesterday to bring the Obama juggernaut to an end, and we didn’t take it. If people in Indiana had signaled that he was unelectable, the Democratic super delegates would have started migrating toward her, but that’s not what happened. He almost beat her. And her staying in at this point isn’t going to help anyone but the Republicans.

Word is that her old friend Wesley Clark is trying to talk her into conceding. I hope, for the sake of the Democratic party, and her political future, that she takes his advice. It’s time to bring this long, ugly primary campaign to an end, and start to build party unity around a single candidate… And, if she won’t end it, her backers have to. People need to stop giving her money and enabling her to continue on with this delusion that she has a chance.

So, please, let’s stop sending her money today. Maybe that will be a message that she’ll hear.

You know how the other day I posted that cute lost robot poster? Well, it turns out that it was the work of the kids at the fantastic little pro-writing non-profit 826 Michigan. For those of you who don’t know, the 826 locations around the country are all themed. I’ve written in the past about their place in San Francisco, which is pirate themed. Well, the one on Liberty Street in Ann Arbor, which opens in about a week, is all about robots. Word is, among other things, they’ll be selling robot toupees! (Robot toupees, I think, is the only thing that could possibly outsell severed unicorn heads this holiday season.)

Here’s their announcement about the grand opening.

Saturday, May 17th is a big day in Ann Arbor. There’s the Book Festival, and the Farmers Market, and you just might see a few other interesting things happening downtown. Namely: robots. Intrigued? We would be too.

Many of you know that at 7pm that night, we’re celebrating the grand opening of our storefront, the Liberty Street Robot Supply & Repair, where the average consumer can find everything from robot building kits to actual robots to robot tears to nostalgia chips to replacement larynxes to robot air grapes to positronic brains and more. And we are the ONLY place in the world that carries Better Bot’s Robot Repair and Design by Asimov merchandise.



During the day, however, we want to fill the streets of Ann Arbor with robots. We know what you’re saying: How can we help? 


We need hundreds (if we can find that many) of people walking around, hanging out, and going about their days in homemade robot costumes. Need to grocery shop? Do it in a robot costume. Gonna stop at the bank and then hit the Book Festival? Why not do it in a robot costume? Invite your friends, family, coworkers, children, and neighbors to join you. If you’d like to help out, email Amy@826michigan.org. We want people out all day, so we can work with your schedule!

Am I the only one who sees the potential for someone to get shot going into a bank dressed like a robot? Other than that, I think it’s brilliant. Seriously. I love 826 from top to bottom. I took part in something at their old place, on State Street, a while back and I was incredibly impressed. If you’ve got kids between 6 and 18, and they aren’t participating in the 826 writing workshops, I think they should be taken from you by the State. I know that may sound harsh, but that’s what I think…

Speaking of dressing up and acting weird in public, I thought that we were pretty clever a few years ago when we mashed-up two memes - Christmas and zombies - and took to the streets of Ann Arbor. That seems to be old hat now, though. I’ve just been invited to an Amish zombie pajama party in Ferndale.

…OK, I just looked at the fine print and it looks as though they’re asking people to come as zombies, Amish “OR” in pajamas for this thing in Ferndale. So, it’s not as ambitious as I’d hoped. I was actually thinking about going when I thought that I might see other zombies sporting silk pajamas and throat beards.

Want to be a reporter for MM.com? There’s a big Michigan Progressive Summit taking place this Saturday in Lansing that I can’t attend, and I’d like to have someone there, covering it for the site. Here’s the rundown as it was relayed to me by MoveOn:

…It’ll be huge. The 2008 Michigan Policy Summit will bring together folks in the environmental, civil rights, labor, faith based, LGBT, education, reproductive rights, student, disability, health care reform, human service, and blogging communities.

The summit will develop progressive policies for Michigan in the areas of education, the environment, and health care…

This summit was created last year in response to a big corporate summit that takes place in Michigan each year, where policy goals are developed and powerbrokers are wined and dined. Progressives felt like corporations shouldn’t be the only ones collaborating about Michigan policy, and decided to work together.

In addition to developing policy goals, this summit will create new networks of activists and organizations who can work together to advance the summit’s policy goals over the next year. Plus, trainings will take place for individuals and organizations, to make everyone’s advocacy more effective.

Registration is just $30. Meals are included. And you’ll hear from two guest speakers: author Jim Hightower and radio host Amy Goodman. If you have the time, it’s a great way to invest a Saturday…

And, I just received an email from Carl Levin saying that he’d be there too.

My great grandmother and great grandfather both slept with loaded pistols under their pillows. I remember finding the one under my great grandmother’s pillow when I was a kid, visiting their farm in Kentucky. Somehow, that doesn’t make this product any less weird. I’d like to think that it’s a joke, but sadly I don’t think it is. If it were, I think there would have been a really kick-ass dramatic reenactment.

[Thanks to MM.com media scout Thoreau for turning this up.]

I’ve been spending the past few nights overdosing on season two of “The Wire.” I thought I recognized one of the actors last night, so I looked it up. And it turns out that the guy playing John ‘Johnny Fifty’ Spamanto on the show is a guy that Linette and I met in Baltimore about 13 years ago by the name of Jeffrey Pratt Gordon. It’s a weird, convoluted story, but we’d tracked him down for an interview in “Crimewave” because he was the prop guy on the John Waters’ film “Serial Mom” charged with painting the portrait of Don Knotts. He’s an interesting guy, or at least he was. I remember that he had a theremin. He also owned the estate of famous Baltimore “half man” Johnny Eck. And, I may be wrong about this, but I seem to recall that his apartment, which was over a coffee shop by the water, was once called home by Waters’ muse Edith Massey. I might be making that last part up, but I have a fragment of a memory of Jeffrey showing me photos of Massey that he’d found in the apartment. Oh, and you might have actually seen his apartment. It was featured on the TV show “Homicide.” I think it was Belzer’s apartment… Gordon was also a prop guy on that show… Oh, and it’s never been verified, but, according to Gordon, who bought a “Crimewave” gift subscription for the brilliant actor Andre Braugher, who played detective Frank Pembleton on “Homicide,” there’s an episode of the show where he can be seen carrying a copy of the magazine. Anyway, we haven’t talked with him in years and it’s good to see him in front of the camera on the best television show in American history… Oh, and it also looks like he’s written and produced a movie since we saw him last. It’s called “Gospel Hill,” and it’s got everyone in it from Danny Glover to Julia Stiles… If I ever get the chance, I’ll scan the “Crimewave” interview and post it here.

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