Wednesday, May 11, 2011

The Art of Bacon

So I recently went on a date.  That's right, a date.  I'm dating now.  I'm a dater.

She asked me if I wanted to go to a bacon art show, and I froze for several moments.  I was using all of my considerable brain power trying to think of any circumstances in which a person would not want to go to a Bacon Art Show.

I looked it up.  It was being held at the dooGallery.  I had never been, but it seemed pretty legit.  We met up, and that's when our adventure began.

As we got closer to out destination, I realized that we were no longer in the best parts of the city.  I wasn't particularly concerned, though, until I found the address we were looking for.





Oh yeah.  Legitsville.

All the rusted out vehicles in the lot give it character.

I can totally see this being a place I spend a lot of time not getting stabbed.

By this time I was not surprised when the bald tattooed man at the door told is it was cash only.  (I didn't photo him because I like my blood on the inside) We were faced with the decision to go find cash or run far away to safety.  We of course opted for cash.  To further illustrate to you, dear readers, the type of neighborhood in which we were, here is a snapshot of the display that was directly next to the ATM:

Would you like Black, White, or Latin porn?

It was a perfectly nice affair once we got in, mostly one white warehouse room with some art.  You know, hip.  I knew it was hip because the place was crawling with hipsters.

I have no idea what the Giant Eagle was doing there.

The art was actually a lot of fun.  Here is a selection of my favorites:

"Breakfast"


"Double Bacon Rainbow All the Way"

"Apparition of the Shroud of Turin, Hickory Smoked Center Cut"

Martyr de L'Espece Porcine

 There was even a raffle, in which they gave away a beautiful selection of bacon related door prizes.
Bacon related door prizes.
 And a table full of bacon related snacks, and free plastic cups of PBR.  Because they were hipsters.
The tuna salad crackers made with Baconnaise made me ill.

The gem of the show, the reason for its existence, was the tasting room.  If you traded in your raffle ticket you got your hand marked and allowed entrance.  Totally worth everything.



There were bacon-wrapped dates, bacon-wrapped water chestnuts, two different kinds of bacon cookies, and three different kinds of bacon cupcakes.  The real treasure was bacon and peanut butter balls dipped in chocolate.  It was... a transcendent  experience.

Oh, and I got my picture taken next to a statue.

I know.  Poignant.


...


One last thing.  I've been pretty good about giving you guys plenty of nightmare fuel.  Today is no exception.
Have a man made out of a pig.

Monday, May 9, 2011

Gelastic Syncope: The Funny Seizures - Part 2

I mentioned before that I have the Gelastic Syncope, a condition that makes me
have seizures if I laugh too hard.  This is an account of its most dangerous
occurrence:


So I was hanging out with some friends when my friend Timy asked if he could get a ride to work.  Being a good friend, and one of the few at the time with a viable car and license, I agreed.  I didn’t know that way there from where I was, but he did, so we were golden.

The trip seemed to take a bit longer than expected.  There were a lot of turns and the area seemed to be getting more and more shady.  When I tried to confirm that he knew where he was going, he conceded that he had only been this way once… in a bus.  My confidence was shaken.  It was completely gone when I arrived at one of the worst street corners I’d seen at that point in my life.

The buildings were run down and boarded up.  There were cars on blocks.  There were people selling drugs, and sex, and probably babies.  The streets were filled with cartoonish stereotype of urban black people.  There are mystical nexus points where reality becomes a caricature of itself.  These weren’t black people.  These were specters out of the nightmares of what white-trash rednecks think inner-city black people are like. It was a blur of gold chains, low-hanging pants, and hip hop.  I wanted to get out of the car and plead with them to stop propagating the stereotypes, but more than that I wanted to not get stabbed in the face, so I didn’t.

I wondered where I was.  What sort of place would let this happen.  I stopped behind a van at a red light and looked at the street sign.  The name of the street was Blackland Road.

Blackland Road.

The ridiculousness of the situation overwhelmed me.  I began to laugh harder than I ever had.  My body became tingly and numb at the same time.  The world faded away.  I awoke very disoriented and sitting in my car.  This wasn’t the first time.  I drove cross-country frequently, so I was used to waking up in my car.  However, this was the first time I was in the middle of the street at the time.  The guy who was driving the van got out and yelled at me.  I had released the break during my seizure and bumped into the back of him.  I got out of the car and tried to get my bearings.  I couldn’t quite figure out exactly what was going on, and tried to explain that to the other driver, but he was in no mood to be receptive to my situation.  That’s when Timy came in.  I should mention that Timy had tattoos, piercings, Ass-Stomping Boots, a black leather jacket, a green Mohawk, and the attitude to back it all up.  He approached swiftly and asked the driver very sternly if there was a problem.  The driver quickly decided that he wasn’t nearly as angry as he thought he was, told me to be more careful next time, and drove away.  My friend explained to me what happened, and realizing that all’s well that ends well, we had a good laugh about it all… not too good of a laugh, though.

We drove on and he decided that we must have missed our turn on Piedmont Roadsomewhere, so we turned around.  We found it on the way back, but weren’t surewhy we missed it.  Thinking that maybe it was one of those roads that changes names at the intersection, I looked at the other side.

Blackland Road.

I took a right onto Piedmont and did my best to keep a straight face.  Timy kept a straight face.  He turned to me and with perfect deadpan stated “Blackland Road makes white boys have seizures.”  We were already deep into a state of the giggles.  Imma gonna save you some build up here.  I had another seizure then
and there, only I was actually going down the road that time. Timy took the wheel.  We approached an intersection where there was a traffic cop, but luckily it was our turn to go.  My left hand was plastered to the side window shaking.  It looked like I was waving at the cop, so Timy did the only thing he could do.  He leaned forward and waved at the cop, too.  The officer waved back and we passed on though without further issue.

I woke up moments later, took the wheel again, and got us safely to our destination… where I proceeded to take a nap in the back room.



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Monday, May 2, 2011

A-Z Challenge: The Wrap-Up

Holy crap, that was a long month!

I'm glad I did it, but that was exhausting.  Previously I had been averaging about three posts a week.  I knew full well that doubling that output wasn't going to be effortless, but I hadn't expected the reality of it.  I like to spend an hour or so doing each post.  It's not just the writing, but also the research, getting the links and pictures ready, and sharing it.  Before, the time was spread fairly thin in the week.  Last month Blogging became a significant daily event.

My daily traffic raised significantly.  I've been doing this blog for six months... really?  Has it already been six months?  Wow.  Anyway, I got a third of my total traffic last month alone.  The cheese post was the most popular.  It had the most hits and the most comments.  However, to be fair, that is likely in part because it is directly linked on my about page, which was also linked in the Ultimate Blog Party that took place in the first week.  Still, it wasn't B is for Boobs, so I'm pretty shocked.

Dan at Will Work 4 Followers claims that it is best to write your blog every day.  I can definitely see the advantages of it, but I'm not sure that I would be able to sustain it long term.  Writing it six days a week for the last four has left me frazzled.  I honestly can't fathom doing it seven a week indefinitely.  Even every weekday has me a little nervous.  It's not that I don't think I can do it, I'm just not sure I could do it well.  So for now, I'm going back to thrice a week.  This time, though, I'm nailing it down to Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.  If I feel that I can do more, there may be bonus posts in in-between days.  Maybe now I'll have time to read all of those fantastic blogs I found last month.

Overall, this challenge made me realize how much I truly love this medium, and that I really want to do something with it.  So here's to many more posts, and many, many more awkward moments.


P.S. - There is a big hosted wrap-up post here.

P.P.S. - Penis.