26. January 2009 by Joe Gergen.

I know the last thing we need is another old TV show turned into a movie, but I had this great idea today.

What we need is Mike Meyers to star in it just like he did in Austin Powers. The formula would work so well. Mike Meyers as Hogan (Austin Powers), Mike Meyers as Klink (Dr Evil), Mike Meyers as Schultz (Fat Bastard). Brilliant.

Someone should send this to Mike Meyers. Though I suppose that is probably annoying. I remember hearing about how Gary Larson (Farside) and Scott Adams (Dilbert) just get deluged with ideas they should use for their cartoons. I suppose it is annoying but maybe they could make a fortune putting  out a whole book of cartoons called “What Other People Thought I Should Do.” People would eat it up.

Maybe that’s what I should do. Ask people to comment with all these different things that they think are funny and then put them in the blog and then I become famous without having to do anything.

 I can start the list with the Hogan’s Heroes lead in. Send me ideas about the movie you would like to see made with exactly who you would want in it. They can be new movies or remakes or based on books.

I can feel the fame already oozing over to my side of the tracks. That’s right.

Posted in Permusations | No Comments »

19. January 2009 by Joe Gergen.

So the band I am in, Piper Down, is playing a concert at my house this week. We were supposed to play at a coffee shop but unfortunately the shop closed. So we decided to have a show anyway.

After we were done rehearsing yesterday, James, the guitar player, looks at me and asks, “Well, what did you think of that?”

It was odd and odd I suppose because oddly enough I had no idea what to think of it.  I play the fiddle and am used to playing with just a guitar player so when we added a bass and some percussion, I was like, what is all that noise coming from behind me…

Whoever thought they were in control of what this band was going to sound like is clearly not in control anymore. It’s like Frankenstein’s monster in that we have no idea what we have created, but of course that in no way will stop us from unleashing it on the world. . Lord have mercy on anyone who gets in the way.

But it’s not really a new feeling or me. I get that same feeling often with some of my pieces of furniture.  I think, where in the hell did that idea come form and how did it it end up made out of wood.

Though maybe that’s the secret to these interesting developments. You just plant the seed, do a little cultivating and weeding and get out of the way. Let nature do the work. From a small acorn…

Posted in Permusations | No Comments »

14. January 2009 by Joe Gergen.

I was at the coop the other day, actually yesterday, and I heard one clerk telling another clerk that he needed to read the Little House on the Prairie books. Why, he asks. She said because it will make you see what it was like to go through a really tough winter. I think she was right.

Perhaps we have lost perspective. I think back to my parent’s generation. Not that long ago. I remember the countless stories of how cold and nasty winter was.  About having to wake up in the morning and break the ice on the water in the wash basin so you could clean up, and this was inside. The snow drifts that went to the top of the electrical poles. The poor persons who died in the blizzard because the conditions were so bad they could see no more than a few feet, only to be discovered the next day 20 feet from their farm house.

And now when it is -20 degrees, we complain because our car barely started, because there is a draft in our 68 degreehouse, because our hands go momentarily cold while shoveling snow. Boy that’s rough.

Now don’t get me wrong, I am totally aware that if you were to get caught out in this kind of cold weather it could easily kill you.

But we also quickly forget that when when the winter came around in the north, past generations did a lot of holing up. Getting out and about in the winter, especially in rural areas, was a big deal. They essentially hibernated.

Of course now days if we can’t get out for a few days we all get cabin fever horribly bad. God forbid when it is 20 below that we stop carting our kids around to extracurricular activities 5 days a week or expecting that I can do all the same things I would do on a nice spring day. God forbid we would take advantage of the freezing weather to just slow down for a moment.

So put some long underwear on, a big sweater too, get underneath a woolly blanket and curl up on the couch with a book.  Come on, I know you can do it. I know people who still do.

Posted in Permusations | No Comments »

11. January 2009 by Joe Gergen.

You know how when they combine cuisine styles they call it fusion.  Or when musical styles are combined like jazz fusion. Well, this latest lamp is kind of like that except that it’s not two different styles but two different pieces fused.

I had a wonderful client who wanted the look of a particular table lamp set atop the base of one of my floor lamps. Of course, I said I could do it though at the moment I did not know exactly how that was going to happen.

I knew that technically there were lots of possibilities for mechanically getting them together, though granted I had actually never done any of them. The hard part was going to be making the connection between the two if not entirely seamless at least  a smooth innocuous transition, or an elegant fusion if you will.

If yoy take a look at the picture you will notice that the key transition point is between the bottom of the curve near the top and the long shaft coming from below. My gut reaction to the solution was to find a way to cradle the curve, like an extended hand cradling a small bird or a bunch of grapes or, well, you get the idea.

So I fashioned my self a piece of wood that on the bottom side I could attach to the shaft. I used a basic mortise and tenon joint, simple and solid. As for the cradling part, the first goal was to match the curve of the top of the lamp to the cradle, which is essentially an exercise in patience as futz away until the two pieces become one.

Now as the process of shaping the cradle went on I kept checking the proportion of the cradle to the rest of the lamp. What happened was that the cradle kept getting smaller and smaller, and in fact had it lost much more size may have ceased functioning as much of a cradle. But the cradle persevered and all was well with the lamp.

Posted in Designs | 2 Comments »

1. January 2009 by Joe Gergen.

I just got done watching Hell Boy II. You know, a movie about a demon who works for the government to save us from menaces.

So in the middle of the movie there is this scene where one of the characters is falling for another character and he puts on Barry Manilow’s “Can”t Smile without You.” An obviously sentimental song that brings some comic relief to the movie. But it’s still  a movie about a demon fighting bad guys, except that when the credits roll we get to hear the Barry Manilow blasting out. Again Yes, it was funny but it seemed so, ah, incongruous.

So it’s been a superhero holiday season.  Hell Boy on New Years and we watched the Dark Knight on Christmas Eve. I suspect I’ll be watching the Incredible Hulk on Valentine’s Day.

Oh and I suppose it is happy New Year to you all. I look forward to continuing a supply of misreadings and fascinating insights.

Posted in Permusations | No Comments »