Several years ago the movie American Splendor was released-2003. I recall seeing it and was impressed by how mainstream theater would actually take a chance at producing and publicizing this movie. It’s not a block buster film with glamorous stars and scenes that take your breath away-No explosions and no climatic endings where the hero is professing his undying love for the heroine!
It is a straight forward story about a man’s life and how he managed to take his ideas along with the help of some of his friends and family and translate those ideas into art and meaning. He used drawings to convey his thoughts and feelings as I use words to convey mine. Later he used film to convey the story of his life and a well known actor-which may have been called the flavor of the month-portrayed him in the film.
Harvey Pekar was not a man who turned many people’s lives around and may not have lit the world on fire, but he did have a woman who loved him in his life and together they worked at raising a daughter. His life was like so many others in our country and around the world-unnoticed by main stream culture. But he spoke his mind and let know one own him and I’m sure he is missed by those that loved him.
American Splendor-Movie on IMDB
http://www.imdb.com/find?s=all&q=american+spledor
Monday, October 04, 2010
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=128465797&sc=17&f=1001
Harvey Pekar Dies; Authored 'American Splendor'
by Neda Ulaby
- July 12, 2010
Comic book writer Harvey Pekar was found dead Monday morning at his home in Cleveland. He immortalized that city in his work, which critics compared to that of Chekhov and Dostoyevsky.
The cause of death is not yet known, but Pekar suffered from prostate cancer, high blood pressure, asthma and depression. He was 70 years old.
Pekar was a shlub, as ordinary as a pair of old twill pants -- the sort of thing he usually wore. But he translated his life into art: comic books, plays, an opera, even a movie. The 2003 film American Splendor was an adaptation of Pekar's autobiographical comic series of the same name; it revealed the darkly prosaic life of a file clerk who yells at old ladies in the supermarket, loses his keys, and feels rejected and alone.
His comic ideal was articulated in the film by actor Paul Giamatti, who portrayed Pekar: "There's no idealized sh - -. This is the real thing, man."
Pekar started writing the comic version of American Splendor in 1976, convinced that every life holds interest -- even one defined by chronic underemployment, grouchiness, collecting old records and trading postcards with a tiny group of followers, lovers and haters.
"I don't mind if I show myself being cheap or unreasonable sometimes," he told WHYY's Fresh Air in 2005. "At least I haven't killed anybody."
Over the years, Pekar's comics began attracting a following. He exchanged postcards with fans, including Joyce Brabner, who ran a comic book store and taught writing to prisoners. As Hope Davis said, playing Brabner in the film version of American Splendor: "I try to help them build an interior life and make art out of their monotonous, suffocating routine."
No wonder she was attracted to Pekar's work.
The teacher and the writer got married on their third date. Elements of Brabner and Pekar's lives -- his struggle with cancer and her political activism among them -- became creative fodder. They also inspired a new generation of graphic novelists.
"He was huge," says Glen Weldon, who writes about comics for NPR.org.
Pekar didn't illustrate his own books. Instead, he collaborated with different artists, including legendary underground figure R. Crumb.
"He's lumped in with Crumb all the time," Weldon explains, "because Crumb was his first illustrator, and his most famous works were his pairing with Crumb. But he shares none of Crumb's love of excess or kinkiness. He's a very practical, prosaic guy who gets angry about everyday things. He gets angry about the way that workers are treated in Cleveland. He gets angry about local government."
It was anger about corporate malfeasance that got Pekar kicked off as a regular on The Late Show with David Letterman. In a famous 1987 incident, he yelled at the host about the behavior of NBC's owner, General Electric.
Letterman retaliated on air by taunting Pekar and mocking his work: "We've given you many, many chances to come on this show and talk about things we thought would be of general interest to people, and also to promote your little Mickey Mouse magazine here," he said, brandishing a copy of American Splendor. Letterman also referred to the comic as Pekar's "little newsletter" and his "little clubhouse Rainy Day Fun For Boys."
Pekar's intractability and his refusal to compromise meant he never got really rich. Then again, getting rich was never one of his priorities.
"I'm trying to get every man involved in art, into experimental music, or painting, or novel-writing," he said.
What mattered most to Harvey Pekar was that people appreciate their own latent abilities, the power of the every day. Ordinary life, he liked to say, is pretty complex stuff. [Copyright 2010 National Public Radio]
To learn more about the NPR iPhone app, go to http://iphone.npr.org/recommendnprnews
Monday, October 4, 2010
Spider Story!
Ok. So here's the story... I was 5 years old. It was a cool afternoon in August. It was cloudy out and Rain threatened…
That would be my version of “It was a Dark and Stormy Night” from a 5 year olds perspective!
My mum said that we could take a walk to the dairy queen. This was only a 15 minute walk from home. She told me to go wait outside while she got ready...
While my mother was in the house putting on her walking clothes and getting her purse I was in the back yard walking up and down the driveway...
My mother was and still is an avid gardener. So she had multiple flowers along the back yard, side yards and sidewalks. She had rose bushes in the back side by the drive way.
So....as she was inside I turned to the rose bushes... I came to the first one I saw. It was already blossoming. Bright red and I wanted to smell it. But I didn't realize what was already lurking and waiting for an unsuspecting boy- Or bug...
I put my face toward the flower and my nose into the bloom and I screamed!!! There was a spider and web around the bloom. But I was too late as it was in my face and bit me around my eye. I screamed and ran to my mother. I buried my painful face into her embrace…
And I've hated spiders since!!!
They need to be smashed. Beaten down with a hammer. Have gasoline put on them. Set afire. Then scooped up and put on a rocket ship to the sun to burn up and be no more!!
That might be a satisfactory way to eliminate spiders from our presence!
Monday, October 04, 2010
That would be my version of “It was a Dark and Stormy Night” from a 5 year olds perspective!
My mum said that we could take a walk to the dairy queen. This was only a 15 minute walk from home. She told me to go wait outside while she got ready...
While my mother was in the house putting on her walking clothes and getting her purse I was in the back yard walking up and down the driveway...
My mother was and still is an avid gardener. So she had multiple flowers along the back yard, side yards and sidewalks. She had rose bushes in the back side by the drive way.
So....as she was inside I turned to the rose bushes... I came to the first one I saw. It was already blossoming. Bright red and I wanted to smell it. But I didn't realize what was already lurking and waiting for an unsuspecting boy- Or bug...
I put my face toward the flower and my nose into the bloom and I screamed!!! There was a spider and web around the bloom. But I was too late as it was in my face and bit me around my eye. I screamed and ran to my mother. I buried my painful face into her embrace…
And I've hated spiders since!!!
They need to be smashed. Beaten down with a hammer. Have gasoline put on them. Set afire. Then scooped up and put on a rocket ship to the sun to burn up and be no more!!
That might be a satisfactory way to eliminate spiders from our presence!
Monday, October 04, 2010
Cool NASA Pic!
I was really into Astronomy and physics back when I was in undergrad school. I was a closet dork-not that my double major in philosophy and psychology with interests that later turned into minors of music history and physics didn’t help me out in “appearing” like a dork way back then too!
But while surfing my iphone and viewing the pics from the NASA web site I came across one of the moon that was very interesting and simply cool to view!
For anyone interested in astronomy or those simply wanting to view cool pics I’d suggest surfing the NASA web site or downloading the NASA app to their phone!
NASA Pic-Half Moon
http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/imagegallery/image_feature_1633.html
NASA home site
http://www.nasa.gov/home/index.html
Monday, October 04, 2010
But while surfing my iphone and viewing the pics from the NASA web site I came across one of the moon that was very interesting and simply cool to view!
For anyone interested in astronomy or those simply wanting to view cool pics I’d suggest surfing the NASA web site or downloading the NASA app to their phone!
NASA Pic-Half Moon
http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/imagegallery/image_feature_1633.html
NASA home site
http://www.nasa.gov/home/index.html
Monday, October 04, 2010
July 4th Coney Dogs!
Nathans on the 4th of July!!
OK so I should have written this several months ago-like 3 months ago-but work and school and life just get in the way! The 4th of July 2010 was unexciting for me. I spent the day, Sunday, sleeping after work, watching some TV and then staying home by myself. I had hoped to go to some fireworks somewhere but there was no where I was comfortable going by myself this year. Also while it was warm during the day it was a much cooler evening and I wasn’t interested in freezing in shorts by myself.
I did manage to see the “Hot Dog Show” on PBS which is always a fun thing to watch. Seeing how other towns and regions here in the USA like to prepare and eat their dogs always brings a smile to my face. Well except for the Chicago dogs. Who puts celery on a hot dog?
There’s a place in Jersey that always makes me smile when they show the place on the TV show that deep fries their hot dogs. Sounds like something I’d like to try at least once before I die! And then there’s the place in Las Vegas that has a huge foot long hot dog for $1.00-Wow!
Of course the show was originally produced in 1993 so who knows if these places exist anymore!
And of course with talking about the 4th of July one cannot go without paying tribute to Nathan’s on Coney Island! Who hasn’t taken the D train to Cony Island and had a Nathans?
Ah one of the best! Unless of course you’re sitting in your favorite Coney dog place right now while you’re reading this!
And for those who didn’t read the article, see it on the national news or wasn’t present when it happened-here’s the NPR article in its entirety from July 4th, 2010
Monday, October 04, 2010
I found the following story on the NPR iPhone App:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=128298396&sc=17&f=1001
N.Y. Contest Blends Love of Hot Dogs, Competition
by the Associated Press
The Associated Press - (null)
Every Fourth of July, Coney Island stages an event featuring two of America's biggest loves: hot dogs and competition.
The two pastimes merge Sunday afternoon by the Brooklyn boardwalk for the annual Nathan's Famous Fourth of July International Hot Dog Eating Contest.
This year's competition is going on without six-time champion Takeru "The Tsunami" Kobayashi. The world's No. 3 professional eater has refused to sign a contract with Major League Eating -- the fast food equivalent of the NFL -- to be free to compete in contests sanctioned by other groups, said George Shea, host of the Coney Island event televised live on ESPN.
"It's like Tom Brady saying he wants to be in the Super Bowl, but then wanting to go compete in Arena football," Shea told The Associated Press. After months of negotiations, he said, "we're at an impasse."
The favorite is the No. 1 ranked eater and three-time defending champion, 26-year-old Joey "Jaws" Chestnut of San Jose, Calif. The 230-pound-man is going for the bejeweled, mustard-yellow belt plus a $20,000 purse -- aiming for 70 dogs and buns in 10 minutes.
Among his beef-gobbling rivals is No. 2 ranked Bob Shoudt.
The top female contender, Sonya "The Black Widow" Thomas, is a 98-pound Korean-born American whom Shea calls the "leader of the Four Horsemen of the Esophagus."
Americans enjoy 150 million hot dogs each July 4 -- "enough to stretch from D.C. to L.A. more than five times," said Janet "Queen of Wien" Riley, president of the National Hot Dog & Sausage Council.
During the competition, however, contestants take just one or two big bites at most.
Absent from Friday's weigh-in at City Hall was Kobayashi, a 160-pound Japanese with a special technique: breaking each hot dog in half and ingesting it in one gulp, then literally wiggling the contents into the stomach.
Last year, Chestnut ate 68 dogs in 10 minutes, breaking his own world record and winning three consecutive Nathan's titles. Kobayashi downed 64. That's about as many as the average American eats in a year -- 60, according to the council.
Kobayashi, 32, told Japan's Kyodo News on Friday he wanted to compete in the event, but he wrote on his blog that signing a contract "would have severely limited the ability to eat and eating behavior itself."
Chestnut said he wouldn't be surprised if "Koby" just showed up "in hopes of catching his competitors off guard."
In recent years, a crowd favorite is New York window washer and nude model Crazy Legs Conti, the star of a 2004 documentary whose dreadlocks bounce as he dances and speed-eats.
Sunday's shenanigans include a two-hour preview show featuring three circus acts by Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey, rapper Badlands Booker and Shea crooning the 1980s pop song "99 Luftballons" (99 Red Balloons) -- in German. He's doing it to fulfill the wish of an elderly woman who had e-mailed him, nostalgic for her visit to Coney Island in the '80s with her late husband.
Then, at noon, comes the highlight of the Fourth of July on Coney Island -- said to be the birthplace of fast food.
The first hot dog was sold here around 1870 by German butcher Charles Feltman. His competitive, Polish-born employee, Nathan Handwerker, opened his own business in 1916 -- Nathan's Famous, still the backdrop to the contest started here that year.
According to local lore, immigrants arguing about who was most patriotic settled their dispute by testing who could eat more franks. Irishman Jim Mullen won with 13.
After watching the stomach-churning feast, some of the tens of thousands of spectators might well need some Pepto-Bismol -- a new 2010 sponsor -- before they join the demolition-derby crowd of bodies bumping their way through Surf Avenue in sweltering heat (temperatures are forecast to be in the 90s).
The way Shea sees it, a hot dog-eating contest and America's biggest city were made for each other: "New York is a jewel built on the dream of greatness, and that same dream is driving every competitive eater."
And it ain't over till it's over -- till the hot-dog "Tsunami" hits Coney Island. Or doesn't.
------
Online:
Major League Eating: http://www.ifoce.com [Copyright 2010 The Associated Press]
OK so I should have written this several months ago-like 3 months ago-but work and school and life just get in the way! The 4th of July 2010 was unexciting for me. I spent the day, Sunday, sleeping after work, watching some TV and then staying home by myself. I had hoped to go to some fireworks somewhere but there was no where I was comfortable going by myself this year. Also while it was warm during the day it was a much cooler evening and I wasn’t interested in freezing in shorts by myself.
I did manage to see the “Hot Dog Show” on PBS which is always a fun thing to watch. Seeing how other towns and regions here in the USA like to prepare and eat their dogs always brings a smile to my face. Well except for the Chicago dogs. Who puts celery on a hot dog?
There’s a place in Jersey that always makes me smile when they show the place on the TV show that deep fries their hot dogs. Sounds like something I’d like to try at least once before I die! And then there’s the place in Las Vegas that has a huge foot long hot dog for $1.00-Wow!
Of course the show was originally produced in 1993 so who knows if these places exist anymore!
And of course with talking about the 4th of July one cannot go without paying tribute to Nathan’s on Coney Island! Who hasn’t taken the D train to Cony Island and had a Nathans?
Ah one of the best! Unless of course you’re sitting in your favorite Coney dog place right now while you’re reading this!
And for those who didn’t read the article, see it on the national news or wasn’t present when it happened-here’s the NPR article in its entirety from July 4th, 2010
Monday, October 04, 2010
I found the following story on the NPR iPhone App:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=128298396&sc=17&f=1001
N.Y. Contest Blends Love of Hot Dogs, Competition
by the Associated Press
The Associated Press - (null)
Every Fourth of July, Coney Island stages an event featuring two of America's biggest loves: hot dogs and competition.
The two pastimes merge Sunday afternoon by the Brooklyn boardwalk for the annual Nathan's Famous Fourth of July International Hot Dog Eating Contest.
This year's competition is going on without six-time champion Takeru "The Tsunami" Kobayashi. The world's No. 3 professional eater has refused to sign a contract with Major League Eating -- the fast food equivalent of the NFL -- to be free to compete in contests sanctioned by other groups, said George Shea, host of the Coney Island event televised live on ESPN.
"It's like Tom Brady saying he wants to be in the Super Bowl, but then wanting to go compete in Arena football," Shea told The Associated Press. After months of negotiations, he said, "we're at an impasse."
The favorite is the No. 1 ranked eater and three-time defending champion, 26-year-old Joey "Jaws" Chestnut of San Jose, Calif. The 230-pound-man is going for the bejeweled, mustard-yellow belt plus a $20,000 purse -- aiming for 70 dogs and buns in 10 minutes.
Among his beef-gobbling rivals is No. 2 ranked Bob Shoudt.
The top female contender, Sonya "The Black Widow" Thomas, is a 98-pound Korean-born American whom Shea calls the "leader of the Four Horsemen of the Esophagus."
Americans enjoy 150 million hot dogs each July 4 -- "enough to stretch from D.C. to L.A. more than five times," said Janet "Queen of Wien" Riley, president of the National Hot Dog & Sausage Council.
During the competition, however, contestants take just one or two big bites at most.
Absent from Friday's weigh-in at City Hall was Kobayashi, a 160-pound Japanese with a special technique: breaking each hot dog in half and ingesting it in one gulp, then literally wiggling the contents into the stomach.
Last year, Chestnut ate 68 dogs in 10 minutes, breaking his own world record and winning three consecutive Nathan's titles. Kobayashi downed 64. That's about as many as the average American eats in a year -- 60, according to the council.
Kobayashi, 32, told Japan's Kyodo News on Friday he wanted to compete in the event, but he wrote on his blog that signing a contract "would have severely limited the ability to eat and eating behavior itself."
Chestnut said he wouldn't be surprised if "Koby" just showed up "in hopes of catching his competitors off guard."
In recent years, a crowd favorite is New York window washer and nude model Crazy Legs Conti, the star of a 2004 documentary whose dreadlocks bounce as he dances and speed-eats.
Sunday's shenanigans include a two-hour preview show featuring three circus acts by Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey, rapper Badlands Booker and Shea crooning the 1980s pop song "99 Luftballons" (99 Red Balloons) -- in German. He's doing it to fulfill the wish of an elderly woman who had e-mailed him, nostalgic for her visit to Coney Island in the '80s with her late husband.
Then, at noon, comes the highlight of the Fourth of July on Coney Island -- said to be the birthplace of fast food.
The first hot dog was sold here around 1870 by German butcher Charles Feltman. His competitive, Polish-born employee, Nathan Handwerker, opened his own business in 1916 -- Nathan's Famous, still the backdrop to the contest started here that year.
According to local lore, immigrants arguing about who was most patriotic settled their dispute by testing who could eat more franks. Irishman Jim Mullen won with 13.
After watching the stomach-churning feast, some of the tens of thousands of spectators might well need some Pepto-Bismol -- a new 2010 sponsor -- before they join the demolition-derby crowd of bodies bumping their way through Surf Avenue in sweltering heat (temperatures are forecast to be in the 90s).
The way Shea sees it, a hot dog-eating contest and America's biggest city were made for each other: "New York is a jewel built on the dream of greatness, and that same dream is driving every competitive eater."
And it ain't over till it's over -- till the hot-dog "Tsunami" hits Coney Island. Or doesn't.
------
Online:
Major League Eating: http://www.ifoce.com [Copyright 2010 The Associated Press]
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