Just Can't Get Enough: the Chippendales Story

"Men have always danced around in their underwear, as far back as Jesus, even before Buddha"

I've been watchng the new C4 zombie Big Brother "Dead Set" and being a chronic zombiephobic I've had to sooth my mind with non-horror immediately afterward. So how overjoyed I was to catch "Just Can't Get Enough: the Chippendales Story" a perfect made-for-tv-movie about the seedy history of the all male strippers the Chippendales.

I for one was shocked to discover they dabbled in sex and drugs, but the bomb threats and Hitmen was news to me. I do belive I saw the leader of the Chippendales Fabio appear in a cameo as a photographer in the film.

For me the Chippendales will always be the snowmobile driving heroes from the mind of Zodiac Mindwarp in the fantastic book "Bad wisdom".

The Barras

I love it when people photo blog an entire days tiki hunting or searching thrift stores. Today I went to the Barras in Glasgow and its just not the place to be waving a camera around. Its not just that some stalls have counterfeit goods, illicit tobacco, or support paramilitary organizations its more that its the experience is the thing.
I swear today I saw the banjo playing guy from Deliverance in a white shell-suit selling homemade happy hardcore cd's but I defiantly saw shaven headed family guy with his daughters and grandchild pass by, i do think his half face maori moko was a strange tattoo choice.
Some of the stall's are interesting stalls selling only tablet or dog chews or used pornography or Nazi uniforms or paint/Elvis memorabilia or the book seller who has that many books you can't look at them or move them without causing an avalanche.
The best thing i saw was three six foot tall religious paintings done in household paints by a divinely inspired outsider artist, they were so nuts.

Dr Menhunious, The Wee Drunkin' Frankentiki and The Bride of the Frankentiki (part 2)

So on with the shading, slapping the black paint on.


So I've added the white highlights and some more detail on the figures and now skuffing black onto the green background to add mor atmosphere to the image.


The frankentiki is affixed to the painting by wires I cast in its back way back in the plaster stage, so i have to brutally knock holes into the painting so it can be fixed in place.


A final bit of tarting up on the Bride, extra stitches, sort out that boob and a bit of highlighting and my tiki tribute to James Whale is complete. That's James Whale the film director and not the talk radio host.

Dr Menhunious, The Wee Drunkin' Frankentiki and The Bride of the Frankentiki (part 1)

So at the last London Luau I had this idea for a version of my "Wee Drunkin' Tiki" done as a Frankenstein's Monster with Menhunes transformed into the Doctor and the Bride. So I finished the Frankentiki a year ago and finally I've gotten around to starting, originally I planned to convert the Trader Vic's Menhumes with tiny little costumes and fit them into a shadow box. But the Menhunes proved to be too thick to fit in the box without some serious cutting, so instead i decided to paint them.

In Britain we can never find Witco Carvings but I can allways find these burnt grained spanish macho wood items, this frame came with a faux oil paint print which i flipped over and about ten layers of white household undercoat flattened out the surface enough so that i could paint on it.


Because the Menehunes are now at a larger scale than the Frankentiki, I've made the male Menehune into Dr Septimus Pretorius rather than Dr Frankenstein, so the Frankentiki is like Pretorius's Homunculus.


More green and brown.


The pink added to the Leis and wood grain on the table.

And thats the black added, my hands cramping so I'll leave it and finish it tomorrow.

A Big Basket of Yuck!!

Purple fluffy feathered winged unicorns, this is what fairies vomit would look like.

Neal Stephenson

Tonight I went to see Neal Stephenson reading from his new book "Anathem", which was a bit difficult due to waterstones not having a working radio mike, so Mr Stephenson had to shout his reading.

After the reading there was the question and answer session, all the question were from glasses wearing wanna-be-authors asking about writing and not many question about the stories or characters. I really wanted to know who Mr Stephenson thought would win in a fight between "Captain Jack Sparrow" and "Half-Cocked Jack Shaftoe"?
But I did find out that by the time he was almost finished "Cryptonomicon" he came up with the idea for "The Baroque Cycle" and was able to place teaser-mcguffins into Cryptonomicon.
Not that every bit about Solomanic gold was cunningly put in as a tease, Mr Stephenson smiled quite widely when i Enoch Root's cigar box and the golden punchcards.

I did also find out that Half-Coked Jack Shaftoe's Syphilis was cured by the high fever (apparently this was crib from the life of Sir Richard Francis Burton who may have been cured of the clap by malaria) and not as I suspected that he was brought back to life by Enoch Root. Which I could have sworn there was a passage in "Confusion" that alluded to this.

It were great and then I came home and had oven chips.

Sunday Morning Occult Car Boot Sale

I've finally broken my duck at my local Sunday morning carboot sale, normally there is nothing worth buying, just holiday novels and bad home decor. This morning though i found a box with a lovely selection of mid-90's weirdness. The three books of the Illuminatus trilogy, Cosmic Trigger Vol.1 & 2 and The Book of the Subgenius, all for only 20p each.

I used to read books like this back in my "Crazy Youth" and was quite disappointed when i was jaunting around the world, to find that the backpacker libraries were full of "Da Vinci Codes" and other new age twoddle and missing the real head messing literature. If your going to have a malaria medicine and heat stroke based breakdown you might as well have it based on the classic conspiracy texts, so I'm going to send these off to my friends in Cambodia in hope of reviving 90's style traveler insanities.

Robots Vs Monkeys

In the age old war between monkeys and robots to become our faithful servants/butlers, those ever resourceful Japanese have trained up a bunch of monkeys to be waiters.

We all know that once you have experience as a waiter you can train for silver service and then its a hop-skip-&-jump to becoming a butler.
So for the moment its Monkey 1 Robot 0.

Painting a picture - part four

So now its down to the final fixing, a bit more detail on the menehune's lei and finish his concussed expression. Its important to note that the menehune is only knocked out and not dead because as i was finishing the picture i realized it was quite a violent scene.



Sorting out the eyes on the tiki, a touch of the "big eye" look.




I was thinking of painting a necklace onto the tiki, or perhaps the shrunken head of a lady menehune but instead I've gone for ribs and a ripped chest. What good fun!

Painting a picture - part three.

Adding more shading on the central tiki, the war club in it's hand is life sized, I had one kicking around so i just set it on the canvas and traced around it.



That's all the black on the figures.



Slapping on the white..



..and the whites finished, then i go over all the black lines again, to tighten up the image.



I tried to think of various way of doing the background Tapa design easily, like using stencils or make stamps, but in the end I have to carefully pencil in the shapes and hand paint them. Which is quite pleasing to do.


With the back painting finished its time to give it a rest for the day, I've been recording these pictures on my camera phone and sneakily peeking at them in every spare minute, its like a timelapse in my pocket.

The Return of Alleschwindel?

My all time favorite live bands, have finally got a myspace page, and new versions of some of there tracks. Check them out HERE!

Painting a picture - part two.

Another day and a splash more paint..



Once I have the big colours down I like to lay down a thick black outline.



more black.



Almost all the black down..



Thats the mouth all filled in..



and the pink on the menehumes lei, with a wee touch of shading.

Painting a picture - part one.

I've picked up the brush after far to many years, and I'm really enjoying slapping the paint around..



First the rough sketch, this only took me two days and a dozen different images to work what the central tiki was crushing with his maori war club.



Slap on the basic colours.



Then the background colour, I have a big tube of cobalt blue, so I'm using it.




Finally some faux wood grain on the club and its time to clean my brushes.