Reception April 18, 2009 – Tabla Rasa Gallery, Brooklyn, NY

If you are in Brooklyn on April 18…

For $10 you can be in a Kinks Reunion Movie

In a way…  click here.  See for yourself.

Geoff Edgers, in his Kinkumentary

Stray cat update #I-lost-track

THE STRAY CAT SAGA (back issues of this saga are here. See the Caged Cat Cam here.)

So this whole stray cat thing goes on and on, as things do if you let them, if you are a dramaqueen.

If Chauncey was black and white, he'd look like this inkblot. But he's butterscotchy-ish.

It is a wee bit overwhelming having this little living being in my studio because I feel responsible for his emotional well-being and so I ask my therapist for advice but she just asks me what I think she should think that I should think and do. So, I look to fortune cookies and friends for advice.

(He who hurries cannot walk with dignity.” Thanks ever so much, that’s very helpful.)

Now that she’s a male I have named him Chauncey, as was the popular choice in my naming-the-cat poll the other day. Captain Marvel Chauncey, the amazing (<–for some reason which I don’t yet know, but am certain of) stray cat. Chauncey for short with Marvie as nickname-in-waiting. I mostly think of him as Chauncey but call him Marvie, which rhymes with Harvey which makes me think of spying on my parents’ grownup parties when they’d laugh and eat Harvey Wallbanger cake.

Colored cream cheese Harvey Wallbanger cake sandwiches in blankets

And wear maxi skirts and have little cocktail napkins with funny things on them and eat little colored cream cheese sandwiches. We’d crouch on the top steps to the finished basement and go running every time someone went up the stairs to use the bathroom. I’d help make the colored cream cheese sandwiches and little folded mushroom pastry things and marvel over the jello molds. See how it all comes together? Harvey, Marvel, Marvie, grownups, responsibility, raising a stray cat. But I was talking about the stray cat.

Stray cat update III: Help name the newly male cat

PART I, PART II, PART IIB

POLL WITH MULTIPLE CHOICE AND WRITE-IN OPTIONS FOR NAMING THE CAT AT END OF POST

I finally got an appointment to have the stray cat checked, vaccinated and fixed on Wednesday. I was relieved to have the ordeal nearly over and also to have the chance to clean and rearrange her cage in a more logical manner, so she’d not hunker down in her litterbox in fear. I would put the new bed in a box I had made for her in the back, and the litterbox in the front, so I could clean it daily. This was a logical plan.

The Animal Control Officer was due to pick her up at 5ish and bring her back at 9ish, both in the PM.

It was a big day, that Wednesday.

"CAT" in his bedroom: post surgery

I went to the Doctor at 11AM and she diagnosed shingles and gave me a prescription. She also took blood and ran tests and booked follow-up appointments with her and also with a specialist.

This is not my exact Animal Control Officer, but is a reasonable facsimile

I took the first new pill at 6ish. Then I started feeling nauseous and anxious but that made sense since I have been always been against trapping this little stray cat who had appeared in my hallway months before. I was worried that she would be traumatized by a trip to the vet. When the ACO came I hid in another studio so I’d not get upset if she cried. I was getting really nauseous. As the nausea grew worse I thought, “this seems worse than nerves and worry. I wonder if I am allergic to this new prescription.” Then it hit BAD. This could not be nerves, I recall thinking in that blur of willspareyouthedetails.

At 8:30ish PM the ACO calls. She is out in the alley in the rain with my stray cat, who, BTW, is a boy as it turns out. She waits in the alley for 10 minutes till I can get to a place where I can let her in. I open the door, we put the cat in the newly cleaned and logically rearranged cage, I throw a few hundred dollar bills at her, ask her if she has a gun I can borrow (for me, not the cat) and as soon as she leaves (she would not give me her gun), I call a friend to take me to the ER. Because now I am sure this is some horrible reaction to the new anti-viral medication.

"Cat"'s temporary resting house with layout

By 1 AM I am on a bed and have been examined by a Physician at the ER who has looked at my arm and asked about the needle mark …

Get The Kinks out (of scatter/splitdom)

One man is trying to complete a Kinks documentary and also get The kinks together. See that one man’s youtube video of work done on the film to date. Help that film. Read on…

Geoff Edgers, in his Kinkumentary

“Do you believe in helping in my bizarre but hopefully entertaining quest to reunite the Kinks – and to capture it on film? Or do you simply want to get your name on the thank you section as the credits of a film scroll down the screen? Here’s your chance. We’ve been filming my quest for almost year. We’ve filmed Sting, Zooey Deschanel, Brian Wilson, Paul Weller, Robyn Hitchcock, among others. But we need about $5,000 to finish filming and editing in the next few weeks. Anything helps! $2, $5, anything. And for $200, you’ll be listed in the credits.

Here’s a clip: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mosQ3dp0pUY

You can paypal me at: gedgers@mac.com And thanks!”

My stray cat has a friend!

UPDATE: Check out my new live cat cam! I set it in her cage when she was not looking…

UPDATE II: She’s a boy!

The stray cat saga continues. And now Cholla has a friend, who she is sponsoring, care of my friend Maureen.

Parker, Cholla's new pal

Parker seems to have a lot in common with Cholla as you will see by his bio. They can be buddies in rescue.

About Parker…

Trapped stray cat update

THIS WAS NOT REALLY MY PLAN: CAT TRAPPING PART II (WHICH COMES AFTER PART I)

Rabbits, lots of them. We want to fix Cholla so she won't reproduce like rabbits.

My daily horoscope warned me yesterday – and last week – about too many goings with flows. But I didn’t listen. It seems easiest to just go along with whatever I am being told/asked/ordered/encouraged to do and then finagle/customize/circumvent and make an end run toward the right thing (to do) at that crucial moment. To please, and then subvert if necessary, toward a seemingly mutually-advantageous ending, has been my aim. I never wanted to trap the cat but was told I had no choice. So the cat-trapping thing sorta fell into this category and I was told, by the expert person; “Here is the trap. Now it is set. Call when the cat is in it and we will pick up the cat and take it to the vet who will examine it, fix it, and return it all shiny and fresh.” Good plan. The cat would be inconvenienced by a day or so. I agreed to that. But maybe I did not ask enough questions?

Poopie Jones, my neighbor's cat, who Cholla used to serenade every night when she was FREE.

So, the cat was trapped and then the actual plan of now calling around and finding a vet floated to the surface of reality. On a Friday night. It seems there was no plan. I must have missed something. And it seems that vets don’t often work on Saturdays and are not so keen to see strays. This is not a wild animal. I think she had a home once and ran away from it.

Anyway, I am rolling with this. FREAKING OUT about possibly causing emotional damage to this innocent little cat, but I am on it. I’d not have trapped the cat (I’d have actually sabotaged the trapping) had I known

The story of Cholla/Bastette, my studio-mate

This image has nothing to do with my stray cat but links to another post about radioactive cats.

UPDATE: GOT A PICTURE OF HER HAVING A BATH IN HER CRIB.

So a few months ago this stray, possibly feral, cat appeared in our building. I was sitting outside the landlord’s office testing the routers because I had no internet connection and I had plugged my laptop directly into the main ethernet cable, bypassing the routers, to see if we had any connection coming into the building at all. I am not often sitting outside my landlord’s door with my laptop. As if by chance, I am not often in the same part of the building as my landlord, and I tend to ‘conserve energy’ during the days when he is here by turning off lights and music in my studio. On said days, I also tend to practice ’special tactics’ by taping leaves to my car and parking it in the bushes, on said days. But that’s another story.

Hottie fab men. Click them and they spring to larger life!

By the way, Saturday April 4th is Pacifico Palumbo’s birthday. He and his partner Michael Collins are truly fabulous. Looks like they fired up their restaurant, The Green Emporium.

So on this day I am sitting on the stool with my laptop when I hear my neighbor jumping around in his studio and exclaiming. Then his door flew open and there he was in the doorway, with wild eyes and crazy hair and

The day The Economy failed to forward the Lotus Totus email.

I have no idea why this image is here. None.

UPDATE: In an effort to uncover the author of the Touts I have sent the following appeal: “Dear Geraldo Rivera, Can you please do an expose on the Lotus Totus, like you did with the ‘wrestling’ industry? That was awesome! Thanks, Mo”

What really happened to The Economy?

It just hit me today.

I think someone emailed the “Lotus ‘Touts” chain email to The Economy and it failed to forward it to all of its friends and then this “very unpleasant surprise” happened.

Maybe Bernie Madoff emailed the Lotus Touts to each of his clients and none of them forwarded it. If so, his actions are clearly justified as it was meant to be, per the negative magical power that is the Lotus Touts.

Astrologists the world over are trying to figure out why all horoscopes have suddenly turned dire.

The Lotus Touts must leave your hands in 6 MINUTES. Otherwise you will get a very unpleasant surprise.

It’s plausible. I mean, everyone - regardless of their faith, should believe in the true brilliance of the Lotus Totus/Touts, right? “This is true, even if you are not superstitious, agnostic, or otherwise faith impaired.”

Shit.

That sentence confuses me, grammatically. Doesn’t the ‘not’ refer to everything that follows? So this would read, “This is true, even if you are not superstitious, not agnostic, or not otherwise faith impaired.” <–I like this version of that sentence not less, but many a lot more.

I failed to forward my Lotus Touts email and within hours I received a delinquent tax notice and one of my pirated software applications broke. <–True story. Who do I see about that? The sender (who, according to my logic, now owes me a paid, legitimate version of photoshop)? What risks do we take by forwarding this potentially dangerous bit of magic to our friends and family? Like, what if something REALLY awful happened? What if you found out that 10 minutes after receiving this email (and a subsequent investigation showed NO outgoing forwards of the Lotus Touts/Totus magical email on their computer) something really horrible had happened to your mother-in-law/neighbor/co-worker/partner? I think magical chain emails with potentially harmful consequences should be outlawed. Look what it did to The Economy.

AND HERE’S THE BEST PART-

According to breakthechain.org it was originally called Lotus Totus and apparently someone typoed it along the way.  And now it keeps coming back and around as Lotus Touts.

That’s fucking hilarious! A chain letter with a typo in the very name of it, going around the world with said typo ten times. Brilliant.

For those of you who have not yet been blessed with this magical email I give you THE FULL BRILLIANCE THAT IS THE ORIGINAL LOTUS TOUTS EMAIL: (additional grammaticalities and typos below were included free of charge with the original email. I make more interesting typos, IMHO)

Lotus Touts means Good Luck which is a phrase use by the British!

The Lotus Touts must leave your hands in 6 MINUTES. Otherwise you will get a very unpleasant surprise. This is true, even if you are not superstitious, agnostic, or otherwise faith impaired.

HOPE IT BRINGS ALL OF YOU GOOD LUCK!!!! (but of course – the author has inserted 4 exclamation points!!!!)

(SNEAK PEEK: After the jump …”TWENTY. Smile when picking up the phone Anthony Robbins. The caller Anthony Robbins will hear it in your voice…”)

Free skin care with/in your morning coffee

HOMEOPATHIC SKIN CARE FOR THE BUDGET-CONSCIOUS, WITH RELATED BREAKFASTY AND SEEMINGLY OVER-CAFFEINATED FASHIONS [fashion source]

MUST HAVE COFFEE DRESS

COFFEE GROUNDS AS CLEANSER

I started using my coffee grounds on my skin months ago after hearing of a friend of a friend who saved the grounds and used them as a shower scrub. Always looking for ways to reduce and reuse things in my daily routine, I decided to try coffee grounds as a morning cleanser. I liked the cost (free!, as I am going to make coffee anyway) and the freshness of the still-warm grounds and I am pretty sure I like the results. I don’t have the best skin and have in the past have spent lots of money trying new products but as times get tougher, I have started trying more things from around the house.

So every morning I take the still warm grounds and wash my face with them. This morning I googled using coffee as a facial cleanser and found an article which says, “Primarily, coffee and caffeine are finding their way into skin lotions and creams because of antioxidant properties and tightening and firming qualities. Caffeine applied to the skin operates in three ways – as an antioxidant, a diuretic and a vasoconstrictor…

DRANK TOO MUCH COFFEE DRESS

…Not so fast say the dermatologists. None of the products harbor concentrations sufficient to produce the jolt one might hope for from a cup of java.” <–Right, so why not use your morning grounds and get 100% concentration of the caffeine?

Sometimes I leave the grounds on for a bit before rinsing. I cannot yet tell if this makes a huge improvement or not. But the warm grounds feel soothing to my skin. I can tell it’s happy and alert. I grind my coffee to a Turkish grind so it’s like a talc. That way more of the luscious stuff gets through the paper filter and into the cup… (more secrets after the jump)