Heston Addendum

A few people have left comments here and written to me personally about my comment about Heston being racist. Okay, you caught me – I don't really know if Charlie was racist. True, he did march with MLK back in the day, but I despised his right wing politics of recent decades and thought his comments in "Bowling For Columbine" seemed fairly racist. Perhaps he was just an elitist and distrusted anyone "beneath" him, no matter their race.

Someone pointed out that Michael Moore is known for stretching the truth and I'm sure that's true. But no matter how you edit it, Heston's own words in that film are pretty damning, and he made some very callous remarks immediately after the Columbine tragedy. He was obviously much more concerned with protecting his gun ownership than the plight of the victims and their families.

Others have said they enjoyed his films. I did, too. He was one of the great over-actors of his day and I always found him entertaining to watch. In recent years, when he got all riled up at NRA rallies, raised a rifle over his head and said in his best Moses voice, "From my cold, dead, fingers!" he seemed very much as though he believed he was currently living on the planet of the apes.

And, in fact, he was.

DingDong, the Witch, is Dead

Just heard that actor, racist, and violence advocate Charlton Heston died last night. If you're wondering about my dark opinion of Charlie, see his interview in the film "Bowling for Columbine."

Here is a cartoon I did about him a few years ago. I got waves of hate mail from rabid NRA members, who worshiped him as a messiah. If his body disappears from his tomb in three days and he returns to save the country from pacifism, I will stand corrected.

Bizarro Trading Cards AT LAST!

That's right, you read that correctly! No longer do you have to waste money on trading cards with pictures of people and events that you don't really care about. Now you can get trading cards with cartoons on them! Funny cartoons that were not created while on steroids!

Imagine finding just the right cartoon to lampoon your boss and leaving it anonymously on his/her door at lunchtime. Imagine the thrill you will experience when someone calls and thanks you for sending them a delightful little full-color comic in the mail! Imagine sharing them with your kids and teaching them to be sarcastic and cynical, just like DAN PIRARO! Is this much fun legal? Only one way to find out!

Go to http://bizarrotradingcards.com/ and pre-order yours now. Save the first few packages UNOPENED for thirty years and sell them for TWICE the cover price! No need to thank me, it's the least I can do!


All Bizarro trading cards come with my personal guarantee: If you're not satisfied beyond your wildest expectations, you can just give them away!

P.S.Don't you just LOVE exclamation points?!!!

Me and Bill Maher

As you can see from the picture, Bill Maher and I are close. Really close. Less than two feet away. If you're jealous, I don't blame you. Being BFF with Bill is a dream come true for so many Americans and I just feel so darned fortunate to be the one he chose. Can life get any better?

Maybe, but it could also get a lot worse. Like if Bill Maher saw this post and demanded I remove it because I lied about being his BFF. That would be worse.

So I'll come clean. My Crazy Half-Nekked Wife and I were at the annual Humane Society's Genesis Awards last weekend in Beverly Hills and sat next to Maher at our banquet table. It was just as exciting as you might imagine, but without the excitement.

We're big fans of his, but in a situation like this, in order to be cool you have to act like you're not. Even saying "big fan, Bill" seems kind of cheesy. Like something a Rush Limbaugh listener from Topeka would do if he met that pumpkin-headed, lying blowhard just before he raised his shirt up and asked him to sign his beer gut. So you try to make casual conversation and pretend to be interested in other people at the table, too. Our table was actually pretty cool, (thanks to Karen Dawn, author of the soon-to-be-published "Thanking the Monkey") so it was easy to do, but I didn't find a way to gracefully tell him I think his show is genius. And I didn't find a casual way to explain that I think his imput is essential to political awareness in America. And I wasn't able to mention that I'd let him spend the weekend with my Crazy Half-Nekked Wife if he'd invite me to be a guest on his show. And what a terrific guest I'd make, don't you agree?

I'm far above asking my friends and readers to write in to Real Time With Bill Maher (http://www.hbo.com/corpinfo/faq.shtml)and ask them to consider me as a guest, but if they did, boy, that would be a special thing that I would remember for as long as I could.

Lots of cool celebs are animal rights folks and many were in attendance that night, as they are every year. Among those I've met at Genesis Awards shows are Alicia Silverstone, Daryl Hannah, James Cromwell, Persia White("Girlfriends"), Debra Skelton (Debra Wilson of "Mad TV"), Loretta Swit, Alec Baldwin, Ed Asner, Ed Begley Jr., Elayne Boosler, Tippi Hedren, Rue McClanahan, Mary Tyler Moore, Ally Sheedy, Heather Mills, Linda Blair, Emil Deschanel ("Bones"), Steve Valentine ("Crossing Jordan"), Rory Freedman (author of "Skinny Bitch," good friend of mine and CHNWife, and total babe!), Kyle MacLachlan, Ben Stein, Nellie McKay, Carol Leifer, Hayden Panettiere ("Heroes") and some others I can't remember right now. It's a great party every year! Here's more info if you care: http://www.hsus.org/about_us/offices_and_affiliates/hsus_hollywood_office/the_genesis_awards/22nd-genesis-awards/


King of the after-party dancefloor busts a move with Rory Freedman. (I told you she's a babe!)

Where was Crazy Half-Nekked Wife while I was booty shaking with Rory? Dirty dancing with Bob Zmuda, of Andy Kaufman fame. Not all vegans are buzzkills, my peeps.

Pittsburgh, Pie, Pi, and Pirates

I found myself stumbling through the streets of Pittsburgh, PA recently and had a
surprisingly good time. I say "surprisingly" because PBurgh isn't the sort of place one might normally choose as a holiday destination. But it is one of those places that, once you have a good reason for going there (like business, a convention, escaping the law,) you are glad you did.

I was asked by the fine folks who run Toonseum – a cartoon art museum inside the Children's Museum – to emcee a thing called Dr. Sketchy's Anti-Art School. The group started in Brooklyn, but now has dozens of satellite orgs all over the planet. What happens is that burlesque-style performers and models do a song or dance for a few minutes, then freeze in poses for various lengths of time while audience members draw them. As MC, I vamped and entertained in between poses and drew funny funny cartoons on a big pad of paper. As if that weren't enough fun, there were also prizes, beer, pie, and shenanigans of all sorts.

The theme was Piraro, Pie, Pirates, Pi and Pittsburgh. It was March 14th (3.14 is both the date and the math thing), I put pieces of pie in my cartoons almost daily, I have a book of pirate cartoons coming out in a few months, and the names of both the city and myself start with the letters "p,i". What more do you need for a theme?

Here's your MC for the evening, dressed in some
semi-piratey gear. I dress this way fairly often,
but it was nice to have a legitimate excuse for once.




The non-stop goofy goings-on on stage looked something like this. If you're wondering if the evening included monkey business, the answer is yes.


Here, in true pirate style, I am hugging a bottle of spiced rum.


One of the beautiful and talented performers signs my leg. I really wish I could remember her name. Was it "signy"? No, it was not.


This is a crazy artist dude who lived in the artist-loft-studio-former-brewery-dilapidated-warehouse place where the event took place. I think his name is Ray, but I can't be certain. I was distracted by his hat. That's some of his work behind us.


Lastly, I must share this amazing sculpture at the children's museum. It is made of plastic pieces from old gas station signs. As you can see from the closeup, they are sort of stitched together with wire. The whole thing has a stained glass look resulting from the translucency of the plastic. It's dandy as hell, I tell you.

Thanks for sharing my fun time in Pittsburgh with me. I hope you enjoyed it and will savor the memory for the rest of your life.
Smooches,
3ThighsP

And another thing

The blog below this one about marriage and weddings is the one I wrote to you about today. But here are a few general facts I need to mention also.

I was mentioned in the first paragraph of an article in the Feb issue of GQ on page 73. I'm still really thrilled by this kind of thing. That's how you can tell that I'm not "really" famous.

Here is a link to a video interview of me at the Purple Onion, a couple hours before my show there a couple weeks ago. Michael Capozzola – cartoonist, stand-up comic, and PR guy extraordinaire – is the interviewer.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/sfgate/detail?blogid=3&entry_id=24596

I was featured in the March-May issue of Australian publication Vegan Voice magazine. Subscribe here and support compassion down under!
http://veganic.net/

Thanks for indulging my fragile ego!
Smooches,
3 thighs

Phony Wedding, Real Marriage

I’ve been away from the blogometer for quite a while and for good reason. The Crazy Half-Nekked Wife and I journeyed across the continent of our birth to the West Coast where comedy, chaos and cocktails ensued.

First stop, San Francisco. My comedy shows at the Purple Onion were both sellouts -–ticket-wise, not content-wise– and Johnny Steele was brilliant. Only an idiot would follow that guy on stage but I was up to the task.

Did another show the next night at a vegan medical conference up in Santa Rosa and met some terrific folks. It’s always fun to chat with people who don’t have shreds of dead animal carcasses dangling from their teeth. (insert smiley face with wink here)

I also signed books at WonderCon, a comics convention in SF that same weekend. Here is a shot of me with Stormtrooper Elvis, a foreshadowing of things to come later in this blog. Just like a Bergman film.



After such a far out weekend of grooviness, we unwound by hiking in Marin County with a group of friends and followed it with some hot tubbing and a massage. Go here for a short video of our friend Anne and me enjoying our hike.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f4OEm5k7Om4

It was an extremely pleasurable day with the exception of the hot tub. Anne's boyfriend, Nemo, for reasons yet to be determined by local law enforcement officals, assaulted our eyes with a tiny, black, shiny strip of fabric stretched across his reproductive organ. He called it a bathing suit. We called it the recurring centerpiece of future nightmares.

While in SF, we also went to the studio of my good friend and eminent Rock & Roll photographer, Pat Johnson, for some new publicity shots. He’s the coolest daddio who ever stroked a goatee and we always have fun at his place. Here’s one of the shots he took. In my mind, I’m BB King.



From SF, we flew like naked apes strapped inside a metal tube to Las Vegas for a reenactment of our wedding of six years ago, when I surprised Ashley and a few of her family members with a wedding by an Elvis impersonator. (Yes, I am a classy dude.) Since so few friends or family were at the original shindig, we decided to throw the whole dang thing again. Here’s the pic the chapel provides for only a huge amount of money. Incidentally, there is something funky about the color here. In real life, Ashley's hair is approximately 100% less red than this.



Simultaneously hysterical and touching, the wedding etched its image in the minds of all in attendance for who knows how long. At least until they got wasted at the after party.

Vegas is one of those places that you can’t believe exists outside of the Old Testament, just moments before God obliterates it with a flaming tower of vengeance. But that’s not why I like it. Even though I don’t gamble, it’s one of the last places on earth where you can walk around with a cocktail in your hand and smoke cigars indoors. It’s the little things in life that make me smile.

Here is a shot of me and my good friend, Lance hanging out in a casino. He’s a porn star or something, I think.



Here is a shot of my wife, Ashley, and her bevy of hot babe friends. I'm never too busy for a trip to the beach with her and her gal pals.



I hope you enjoyed this tour of my memory of the last two weeks. Another installment in a week or so.
Smooches.