Cool Kids Sunday

May 21, 2008 Christopher D. Bennett

I’d like to pimp my friend Shawn’s band’s next concert and tell you what the cool kids will be doing this Sunday.

You may remember Shawn as the drummer from the group UnHingd.

He is currently rocking with his new band Act of Gravity.

They are playing this Sunday at the House of Bricks in Des Moines. The show starts at 5 PM. They are the first band on the docket.

Shawn is the badass looking dude with his arms crossed on the left.

I’ll be down there celebrating my birthday (1 week late), so that is an extra reason you should stop in an check out the show.

If you need more information, you know who to contact.

Baier, Becca, Bethany, Bill, Black & White, Candid Portrait, Carla, Derrick, Jay, Jen, Jesse, Jim, Johnathan, Monica, Nate, Russ, Sara, Self-Portrait, Teresa, Ungs, Willy

Bad Photos

May 20, 2008 Christopher D. Bennett

I got all of the old pictures off of my phone. There aren’t a terribly large amount of pictures on there because the old phone is about 4 years old and didn’t have much memory on it.

It turns out almost every picture on that phone ranges from bad to horrible. Although some are amusing.

One major plus of the new phone is the memory card. I can use pictures taken by a real camera for the Caller ID Photo. As you can tell by these images, that will make a big difference.

Jaycees, Music

Magnetic Moment

May 19, 2008 Christopher D. Bennett

Tonight at the Ames on the Half Shell meeting we got the new magnets for this coming season. Opening Night is less than 2 weeks away.

I have a few of these magnets that need a good home. If you can put one of these up in a public place where other people can see it and think: “hmmmm…. I think I would like to go check out Ames on the Half Shell this Friday” or at least can pledge to come to at least one event and would like one of these snazzy magnets, let me know and I will hook you up.

I still stand by my advice that if you have a family you should at least come to the Family Night on June 6. There is going to be a ton of cool stuff for children to do. Did somebody say: Hold their parents beer?

There will be other cool stuff as well, but all of the details have yet to be hammered out. Keep tuned to this frequency for further updates.

If you don’t have a family, I would urge you to come check out Kountertop on July 18. They are the band that I had the most influence in booking and would like to see a large crowd of people there to support them.

Think it over and let me know if you can help us out by helping the magnets get the word out.

Alexis, Animals, Art, Carla, History, Mom, Steph, Teresa

Mt. St. Helens Anniversary

May 18, 2008 Christopher D. Bennett

On May 18, 1980 three things happened.

1. Mt. St. Helens erupted.
2. Stephanie Kasper was born.
3. I turned 5.

5 years earlier I was born.

A cousin of mine once gave my two sisters and I the very backhanded compliment that we turned out pretty well considering the white trash from which we came.

I don’t want to dwell on that story and its obvious hypocrisies. I use it to illustrate a point. If I ever become a person worth remembering historians will note that on the date of my birth my parents were at The Hillbilly Auction.

Now I wasn’t born at The Hillbilly Auction. Although that would have made a great story. It will be noted by some future scholar that even “Greatness” can come from such humble roots. “Christopher D. Bennett’s mom went into labor while she was manning the antique booth at The Hillbilly Auction” the future narrator of a documentary will intone while on the screen will flicker an actress playing my mom in 1970s garb sitting in front of a camper with a bunch of antiques sitting on a table in front of her clutching her stomach. An actor portraying my dad will come out of the camper and rush to her side.

I don’t know if there will be actresses portraying my sisters. I don’t know if they were there. I should look into that. I want them in the documentary even if they weren’t there. A pig tailed red headed little kid to portray Teresa. A dark skinned black haired actress to portray Carla. It seems like I’m missing a perfectly good opportunity to post pictures of them from their childhood. I’ll have to look into that too.

Well 33 years later, I can’t return to The Hillbilly Auction. Instead, I witnessed the evidence that my niece Alexis is a hooligan.

Just look at this vandalism!

Although I do approve of her use of colors, but the message is so cliche. I will expect better from her in her future acts of vandalism.

I also took a ride down to Jester Park in the Howardmobile. My car decided to no longer have brake lights. I’m going to need to do something about that in the near future. Any way, check out some pictures.

It was a perfectly adequate birthday. I also got this sweet birthday card from Teresa. I need to scan that and post that at some point in the future.

Blogging, Bowling, Jaycees, Jesse, Willy

300

May 17, 2008 Christopher D. Bennett

The subject of this entry is not a reference to the Spartans. This is the 300th entry in An Artist’s Notebook.

This post is mostly to announce to the world in general:

“You’ve beaten me, again!!”

It isn’t the first time that the world has beaten me. It certainly won’t be the last.

A few weeks back I indicated that I was getting an alarmingly high amount of text messages on my phone and it was time to get a text messaging package. I knew that the bell had tolled for me, but I did nothing about it.

Until today. After volunteering at the Jaycee’s Bowling Challenge (where incidentally I think I was the least favorite volunteer of the people running the Challenge) I made the trip to the mall and signed up for a text messaging package.

There you have it world. You win again. Feel free to text message me to the fullest of your heart’s desire. You won’t hear me grumble about it ever again.

I also picked up a new phone. The keypad was fading fast on the old phone. I didn’t pick up anything fancy like Jesse or Willy. However, I do now get the joy of putting in new Caller ID Photos of my friends and create new ringtones for them. That will give me something to do. I just need to figure out just the right song and just the right picture for each friend.

I still need to get the old pictures off my phone. That could make for an interesting entry some time in the future.

Art, Baier, History, Movies, Road Trip, Self-Portrait

Lessons Learned in a Giant’s Town

May 16, 2008 Christopher D. Bennett

On May 10, 2008, I loaded up into the famous Rideshare Van with Baier and we headed to Fort Dodge to tour the Fort Dodge Museum and see the “Real” Cardiff Giant.

I already knew that there would be a certain amount of controversy surrounding the trip and the Cardiff Giant due to the Cardiff Giant’s phallus. However, I will delve more deeply into the realm of the Cardiff Giant and his junk later. Today I just want to cover some of the salient points of the trip.

We did some important things like:

Take the Traditional Road Trip Photo

Pretend to be Repentant Prisoners

See the Cardiff Giant

However we also learned a few things on this trip.

heck out the “Conditions for Employment for Teachers” in 19th Century Central Iowa.

Like you can read that! Stop squinting!

Since you can’t read that, let me start out by saying I know some womenfolk that I hold in very high regard. Some of them its even for their morality. But I don’t know a single womanfolk that could hold to these standards or would even bother trying.

Conditions for Employment

Must not dress in bright colors
Dresses must not be more than two inches above the ankles
At least 2 petticoats must be worn (I’d kind of like to know why that matters.)
Petticoats will be dried in pillowcases (Again, why does that matter?)
Teachers will not marry
Teachers will not keep company with men
Will not get into a carriage or automobile with any man, except her brother or father
Teachers are expected to be at home between the hours of 8 pm and 6 am.
Teacher will not smoke
Teacher will not play cards
Teacher will not dye her hair under any circumstance (Not even if dressing as Ginny Weasley for Halloween)
Teacher will attend church each Sunday
Teacher will either teach Sunday School OR sing in the choir
Teacher will not leave town without permission of the Chairman of the School Board
BUT THIS ONE IS BY FAR MY FAVORITE: Teachers will not loiter at ice cream stores

Another lesson learned on this trip is that the man who carved the “Real” Cardiff Giant looked eerily similar to Donald Pleasence’s Doctor Loomis character from the horror movie classic Halloween (1978).

Dr. Loomis

Haddonfield isn’t all that far away. I bet Smith’s Grove isn’t that far away either. Perhaps he just swung over on his breaks.

Even though I haven’t watched a horror movie in many a year now, I still have thoughts like this running through my head (in Donald Pleasence’s voice) when I look at the Cardiff Giant:

I met him, fifteen years ago. I was told there was nothing left. No reason, no conscience, no understanding; even the most rudimentary sense of life or death, good or evil, right or wrong. I met this six-year-old child, with this blank, pale, emotionless face and, the blackest eyes… the *devil’s* eyes. I spent eight years trying to reach him, and then another seven trying to keep him locked up because I realized what was living behind that [Giant’s] eyes was purely and simply… *evil*.

– I- I watched him for fifteen years, sitting in a room, staring at a wall, not seeing the wall, looking past the wall – looking at this night, inhumanly patient, waiting for some secret, silent alarm to trigger him off. Death has come to your little town, Sheriff. Now you can either ignore it, or you can help me to stop it.

This isn’t a man.

A final non-gypsum-phallus related lesson we learned is never eat at the Fort Dodge Bonanza, no matter how nostalgic you are feeling for the old Ames Bonanza. The high point of that meal was watching an employee refill the buffet with a cigarette dangling out of his mouth.

There are many more pictures posted in the famous Photography 139 Gallery in The Cardiff Giant Road Trip Album:

Cardiff Giant Road Trip

BELOW IS NO LONGER ACCURATE:

There are some bonus pictures in the Friends Album that you have to be a Registered User to see. There might have been some rules violations in those pictures and I don’t feel right posting those for the whole world to see after the Museum Director asked to buy some pictures off of me.

Art, Candid Portrait, Christianity, History, Jesse, Music, Road Trip, Self-Portrait, Travel

The Big Jesus

May 15, 2008 Christopher D. Bennett

Last Friday Jesse and I embarked on a road trip that we lovingly named The Big Jesus Road Trip. Our final destination and epoch of the trip was a 33 foot tall stainless steel Jesus statue.

A plan was hatched and a route was devised. The plan was set in motion. Considerations were made. Including starting the road trip by listening to the Audio Adrenaline song Never Gonna Be As Big As Jesus.

I could move to hollywood (yeah)
get my teeth capped i know i could
be a big star
on the silver screen
just like james dean
i could be a star
i could climb the corporate ladder

maybe be just like the beatles
melodic rocking heavyweights
i could learn to sing and dance
if i only had a chance
i could be a big rock star

i could be anything i wanted to
i could do anything but one thing’s true
never gonna be as big as Jesus
hand
never gonna be as big as Jesus
never gonna build the promise land
but that, that’s all right,
o.k. with me (bop bop bop bop ba dop, ooh!)

i could build a tower to heaven
get on top and touch the sky
i could write a million songs
all designed to glorify
i could be about as good
good as any human could
but that won’t get me by

But in the end, we just headed out on the open road to the sound of the Taurus.

The Open Road – Highway 17 – Goodell, Iowa

We passed through the following cities:

Stanhope
Webster City
Blairsburg
Belmond
Goodell
Klemme
Ventura
Clear Lake
Miller
Duncan
Britt
Algona
Cylinder
Emmetsburg
Mallard
Pocahontas
Cherokee
Meriden
Cleghorn
Remsen
Le Mars
Merril
Hinton
Sioux City
Lawton
Moville
Correctionville
Early
Lake View
Auburn
Carroll
Glidden
Jefferson
Grand Junction

We did important things like:

Take the Traditional Road Trip Photo

Visit the Surf Ballroom

Visit the plane crash site that claimed the lives of Buddy Holly, The Big Bopper, and Ritichie Valens

Feel the pain of finding out that the World’s Largest Cheeto had been kidnapped.

>Feel the thrill of seeing the World’s Largest Cheeto when the waitress brings it out for a special appearance.

Meet this awesome guy!

Kiss the Blarney Stone

Got a honk and a wave from the friendly folks in Mallard

See the world’s ugliest statue.

See the Big Jesus (and Mary too).

See the Sgt. Floyd Memorial.

I hope to go into more detail about the trip in the near future. Until then, you can check out many, many more pictures from the trip in my Photography 139 Gallery.

THE BIG JESUS ROAD TRIP

Animals, Becky, Candid Portrait, Commercial, Politics, Shannon

The Most Fun You Can Have with Caustics

May 14, 2008 Christopher D. Bennett

On Monday night I aided in the production of the newest batch of Little White Lye Soap. I thought I would share an inside look at the Little White Lye Soap factory floor.

The Mixing Stick (Formerly Ergonomic)

Becky Stirring

A Self Proclaimed Master Stirrer Finishing Up

Preparing to Pour

Pouring

Shannon Preparing to Pour Again

More Pouring

This Appears to be Hard Work (Plus Might be my favorite picture from the night.)

Washing Up

Cleaning Up

Putting Away the Crock

The soap was locked up into a cat-proof room where it will cure for 2 weeks. Then it will be cut up into bars and then packaged. Then the soap will be ready for delivery.

It takes close to 4 hours of stirring to make the soap, so sometimes that can lead to doing things like torturing the cat or as the Bush Administration would call it, Enhanced Cat Interrogation. I’m sure they would also point out that cats are not protected by the Geneva Convention.

Baiting Franklin

Franklin Has Been Caputred

>I don’t want to go into details about what happened to Franklin, but he was unharmed and was only slightly angrier the rest of the evening.

Flowers, Jaycees, Nature

Playing in the Mud

May 13, 2008 Christopher D. Bennett

Tonight was the night that the Jaycees planted and tended to our Flower Garden in Brookside Park. 3 of us showed up to do it. Here are some dark and grainy and poor pictures from the experience.