Canned Laughter is a series of drawings and an accompanying zine that I created for the Santa Barbara Contemporary Arts Forums’ show Anthology. The concept for the project stemmed from an appreciation of communities centered around a theme. At the time I was creating the drawings, I began attending every convention that took place at the Earl Warren Showgrounds, from gun shows to cat shows, and I would take mental notes about the people I would see in these places. I would go home and draw the images and write the stories from memory, keeping a log of some of the simpler pleasures gleaned from peeking into the life of someone else. At some point in the project, I realized that I was most drawn to the elderly I would see around these events. There was a sweetness to the way in which they were interested in something and it seemed as though they finally had the time to enjoy it, or at least that is how I feel. I spend so much time doing projects and thinking about goals and the future that I found it really calming to see people who had already done that, who knew what their life story is for the most part and could now just enjoy the moments in the speed in which they pass.
This drawing is about the financial crisis, repercussions of which recently became glaringly evident to me at the 2008 cat show. This was the 3rd cat show I’ve attended and it was by far the smallest. As I watched the judging of the Himalayans I chatted about the economy with a fellow attendant and her son (who was naturally too young to mind going to cat show with Mom) and the usual bustling was just missing from the event. From what I saw, they didn’t even hold the parade of costumes. Everyone seemed bored. Mostly the cats – big surprise there. It’s funny to imagine the event from the cat’s point of view because it makes the absurdity of this quark in human nature glaringly apparent. A cats love directly proportional to the food they receive and human love isn’t much different except that we like to add lots of significance to these things. This one lady apologized for her appearance because of the cat licking her hair all night – if that’s not love then I don’t know what is? Who are these people without the cat show? And really, with all this talk of Joe the Plumber isn’t time we think about Jane the Catter?
Take a trip with me to Sunday Mass as the pews fill up with a veritable bevy of elderly goodness. This piece offers a glimpse at some of the highlights of my people watching and please note the kick-ass crochet sweater worn by my new favorite grandma. If I used color, I would have filled it in in it’s exact shade of bright red-orange.
After griping about not feeling that rush of inspiration and soliciting cute elderly moments everywhere I went, the universe finally threw me a bone. I was at Trader Joe’s yesterday with Henry picking up some food to get us ready for the Solstice festivities and just as we round the corner with hands full of Whiskey (for Mint Juleps), Lox (for Bagels) and Raspberry Jam (for work week toast breaks) this old woman hones in on us with outstretched arms. She walks right over and puts her hands on us and says “Hold hands and you’ll live to be 100.” More than just thinking “there’s a freebie” I got to thinking how sweet that was. Soon though, my pessimist got to me and as we were checking out I noticed that she was still just kind of milling around the checkout lines. What was she doing there? Was she saying this to everyone or just us? If so, who sent her, what provoked this. I decided to take it for what it’s worth and head on my way finishing the drawing later in the afternoon.
Good heavens it (was) Astronomy day at the Natural History Museum! Never one to miss my healthy dose of themed outing, I made haste to the event. There was a drawing to win a free telescope and when they were calling the raffle numbers I was seriously getting a little sick to my stomach with hope. I didn’t win. Where would I put a telescope anyways? As a consolation I made this drawing. This guy had a telescope and he was letting people look at the sun (if you could see it through the fog….pretty boring). As it so happens, stargazing is more of a night thing and this guy clearly didn’t make it out much during the day. I’m not sure if it was the nose coat of Zinka from 1988 or the full coverage hat with ear flaps that made this point apparent. I’m sure Aristarchus would have killed for such a sun-fearing get up. Shattered dreams of a telescope in my future aside, I’m almost positive I’ll make it back next year.
There’s nothing like the Sunday family lunch at an empty sit down Mexican food joint. There’s something profoundly boring about going out to eat sometimes. I was sitting at a table by the window when I saw the mini-van pull up. The side door rolls open and out comes mrs. scrunci here followed by her beau, who was dressed in an auto-mechanics one-sie (I’m quite sure this isn’t the professional term for the garment). The group of em then stroll into the restaurant to sip water in silence. I left before they ordered so I didn’t get to witness the excitement that the rest of the meal most surely held. It just reminded me of those days you’d go out to eat with your parents between the ages of 11 and 16. Nothing exciting about it, just filing out of a mini-van and getting food somewhere other than home.
I must say the French Festival disappointed me. It struck me more as a bastardization of French Culture more than a testament to, err, Frenchness. Apparently, if you throw on a beret and laugh with that distinctive “haw haw haw” you’re French. There was even a booth selling cell phone covers- Is that supposed to represent the people who try to sell you fake Chanel along the Champs Elysee? I can only assume that if the French had an equivalent America Festival it would be a day of eating fat chunks of meat, drinking beer that tastes vaguely like beer and celebrating war. Oh wait a darn tootin’ minute! We DO have America festivals just like this in America only we call them air shows. I’m being hypocritical, I love airshows. I love the way the new-metal (or is it nü-metal) blares from the speakers so loudly it’s nearly indistinguishable save for a few resonating “rrraaarrrrsss” and you can’t deny the deep sense of patriotism that comes with jets as they pass each other by what looks like mere inches. To make a broad generalization, all festivals are bastardizations of whatever the festival theme is. They represent only the stereotypical because if they didn’t it’d just be lots of French people hanging out, same as usual, and what fun is that? I’d like to think that is what my friend Jacques was thinking about. I was waiting patiently on a rock next to the fake Eiffel Tower waiting for the Poodle Parade to begin while he just stood there about 10 feet away from me. He stood just like this, unmoving and staring. I was just wondering what he could have been thinking about. Maybe he was ashamed. He was facing the opposite direction as the festival happenings and all. Oh well, I really think organized community events are amazing. To get so many different people, from all walks of life out to act French is amazing and you can’t help but “haw haw haw” a bit about the fact that you’ve all come together to watch to poodle parade. It’s like we force ourselves to have some sense of camaraderie because if you tell most people you went to a parade of poodles, they’d laugh at you.
Dogs are great, furry and lovable. I’ve recently decided that if I were going to commit to a furry companion, I would choose a standard poodle. I’ve seen a few around and I like what I see. I was walking down the street one morning and I saw this old man (as I do) and a poodle. The poodle ran towards him and jumped up on a ledge and they sort of just playfully punched at each other in that very loving dog human way. Bouncing Poodle, Crippled Grandpa. Something about it just seemed simple. What is it about dogs anyway? Is it more the loyalty, the fact that they can’t talk back or is it just the fluff? I remember a friend once saying “Sometimes, when I’m happy, I just like to look at dogs.” and I think that’s it. I admire the simplicity of dogs. Eat, sleep, poop and play. I bought this book called “The Complete Poodle” that chronicles how to raise show Poodles and also shows pictures of the champions. They’re really regal, all oval framed and softly lit with poodle looking far into the distance. The poodle knows more than us in this picture, it sees the future, it sees through all your bull-shit, but it will never say anything, it will just look pretty and love you.
In all my ranting and raving about breakfast and greasy spoons I completely failed to take adequate notice of one of Santa Barbara’s finest untapped resources – Donut Shops. Sugary sweetness at it’s finest. This guy was a regular, stepping out a car with as many veteran stickers as wars fought since the revolution and a flag flying high from the rear window. It got me to thinking about war. I was recently watching a WW2 documentary on the history channel and was really disturbed by it. Sometimes you forget how real these things were, how brutal it all was….and then there’s donuts. Thoughts of war in a donut shop – maple bar and coffee in hand.
The kite festival is where you can go to get a mean sunburn and some priceless people watching. I like the sense of community that comes along with it. You look around and think, these people all live around me, and they all love kites, life is good. Deep, isn’t it. Well, if you haven’t done it in a while, I highly recommend a relaxing afternoon of laying on a picnic blanket, eating snacks and flying a kite.
A trip to the grocery store can lead to the most pleasant surprises at times. I stood there by the eggs, checking in vain in any of them were cracked but really just spying. Is this creepy behavior? This guy was just standing there in front of the dairy, looking at the milk. Sure, I understand the options are endless, not having a set milk preference (i.e. 1%, 2%, whole, soy) can make this quite arduous. But as I watched, I saw him pick up a few normals before abandoning the idea altogether and just going for the chocolate. Well done indeed. Really, in a world of milk so consumed by percentages and words like “homogenized,” it’s nice to know that there’s always tried and true chocolate milk is there to save the day.
I’ve been lagging behind here and I just scanned this in yesterday. I don’t quite remember the story behind this one, suffice to say it had something to do with ice cream. If memory serves me right, as they say in Iron Chef, I saw him down in the harbor sitting on a bench and eating some ice cream. Quite plesant if you ask me. It reminds me of this little snippet I read in Duplex Planet. Duplex Planet is a little zine with all the content generated from a retirement home in NY. David Greenberger puts it together, asks little questions and documents the responses. The dialog for this particular one went something like this:
Rita: The first thing I do when I go to the fair is look for a place to sit down, whether it’s next to the cows or the pigs.
DGB: What’s the second thing you do?
Rita: Just keep right on sittin’.
I loved that! It’s so simple. I’m pretty sure it’s what this guy was doin, right on sittin’. Right on!
In other news, this morning was momentous. It was the first time I ever was posed the question, “You want the regular?” I’ve made it at last! Shangri-La! The moment was made better only by the fact that insantly after the waiter said, “How are you, young lady?” I’ve really got to start using that term more often, young lady. A lady I shall be, a young lady in a puffy party dress with ribbons and curls… who’ll have the regular, thank you.