Last night I went to my girlfriend's house and her sister was having a Christmas party. She and her family asked if I wanted to be Santa Claus and pass out presents. I told them " I AM Santa Claus" and it would be my pleasure. Forever more, I am addicted to being Santa Claus. Why had I never done this before!?!!?
Her mom gave me her brother's Santa suit from 1986. I rocked that shit, but unfortunately I also sported a creepy Batman voice. Knowing no one, I could only redeem myself by passing out presents that I didn't pay for and then have a social-black-out. A social black out is when I do whatever the hell I want when I want. It was brought upon me by the suit I guess. It felt good but I ended up being even more creepy when I started drink sparkling apple cider out of the bottle and yell obnoxious curses at my failures in the game of pinball. It wasn't that I was trying to be creepy or loud, it was more that I was overcome with the character I portrayed- Fat Man, kinda like Batman, but in a flamboyant red suit. But like I told the kids, anyone that dresses like this, can do whatever they want.
If I were Jewish I'd be pumped because Hanukkah starts tomorrow.
Word to your mother.
The next morning my brother and I treated like a million people to a huge breakfast, complete with pancakes, hash, 4 different omelets to share, homefries, mimosas, poor man mimosas, scrambled eggs, bacon (oven baked of course), and homemade blueberry syrup, stolen from Uncle Tommy himself.
Special Blueberry syrup: Use 100% maple syrup, heat it with butter and blueberries, or any other fruit you want. Frozen blueberries will suffice.
Soon after Thanksgiving, it's customary to throw away all your pumpkins away because they will rot in the winter weather. Fall is for pumpkins, snowflakes and reindeer are for winter.
But why just throw it away? Having an ocean cliff across the street from my house, we can throw a pumpkin off a 50 foot cliff at lowtide. That thing smashes intoa million pieces. It's pretty sick.
To satisfy our childlike urges, we (Me Erica, and Brian) made homemade play dough. Edible and non toxic, it was the perfect medium to make erotic, cliche shapes..... like pretzels.
Advice:
Make loads of play dough. Play with it. Store it in airtight compartnments when not in use.
Yeah, and a human head weighs 8 pounds. I am writing this as I watch Jerry Maguire. (What ever happened to that little kid, the son of Renee Zelwigger, the cute one?) So something pretty cool happened today. I guess it’s ending with a cool Tom Cruise. "That’s how you become great, you hang your balls out there" (The guy at the Kinko's says this to Jerry after he writes his Mission statement completely against his agencies money mission.) Today, after bringing in Cathy-Across-The-Street's Christmas tree, she cooked me up a huge chicken parm sandwich. After critiquing our street's Christmas light decorations, my old boss Billy drove by. Billy is a character- smooth talking, old neighborhood-Joe hot shot. I used to work for him a couple summers ago and he knows EVERYBODY! Imagine being in the landscaping truck and stopping EVERY block to talk to someone. I met more people in that summer alone than in my 15 years living in this neighborhood. Anyways, crossing the street from Cathy-Across-the-Street’s house he sees me. Honking the horn, screaming out the window, it's not hard to notice him. "Jonathan! My friend!” By this time, my mother's come out to get something from the car and Billy yells to her, "hey, Jonathan, I didn't know you had 2 sisters." He pretends that she thinks she doesn’t remember him. "That's more than a dress. That's an Aubrey Hepburn movie." (Jerry Maguire to Renee Zellwegger) Billy can smooth talk anyone. In his own words, "there are no flies on him- if there are, they pay good rent." Somehow Madre (my mom) and Billy, minutes after the small talk, start talking about funerals- how my mom is on her way to one and that Billy went to 3 the week before. Billy told us all about about the last one he went to in his classic, intriguing manner. He could read you the phone book and you’d be completely entertained. "Let's not tell our sad stories." (Renee Zellweger to Jerry Maguire on their first date) "You know,” Billy started his story, “this guy John I work with was always a quite man. He did his job well and never complained. It's always a good thing to have around because so often you get those horrible people complaining about anything and everything. He never did that. I always felt bad kinda because he was a great man and didn't have any kids. I had always told him he would make a great father. Then everything clicked at the funeral. I found out that his brother that died was 45 years old and had stuggled with a bad case of Down's syndrome. John took care of him his entire life and hardly anyone ever knew. No chip on the shoulder and never complaining. When I saw him at the funeral I told him that his brother was born with a ticket and that John had just earned his." My mother and I obviously look confused. "Ticket?" Billy responds with a big smile like he knew we wouldn't know what he was talking and we could tell he really wanted to tell us. "Yeah ticket. When I was in Calcutta working for the Mother [I’ll get to this in a second] I was cleaning up a retarded homeless beggar that had crapped himself. Being there only a short time, I was surprise, annoyed and grossed out. The German guy next to me cleaning another other homeless man overheard me complain to myself. He told me very sternly, 'Look, Billy, some people, unfortunately, are born with a ticket to Heaven and others have to earn there’s’ He told me that I have to wake up and earn my ticket because no one else is going to help me." Billy was an alcoholic who one day woke up and grew up. After being sober for a couple months, he heard that Mother Theresa was coming to a town near by and he was compelled to visit her. As he knelt in front of her, Billy promised to do anything she asked. He wanted to help. A month later he was in Calcutta, India for a one-year trip. The first time he told me this, I too shit my pants. He has the pictures, co-starring Mother Teresa, to prove it. I shit you not. "I've known two saints in my life" he says in a thick Quincy accent, "one is my Mother and the other is the Mother Theresa." Billy continues: "Yeah, so, I explained to John", (I knew it, John didn't know what the hell he meant by ticket either,) "we are only here on Earth for 80 years if we are lucky. Some people are born with a ticket to heaven, like his brother. He didn't have it too great and he was just passing through this life. But John, he was put on the Earth to help someone and he had to earn his ticket to the next level. We are all here for something.” Billy said that with a big smile. Billy says 'level' because he doesn't want to push his beliefs on you even though he is a huge Irish Catholic. But Billy tells you more than a story; he tells recites to you a real-life gospel. When I worked with Billy I learned something everyday. [At this exact second, Jerry Maguire's main theme 'Secret Garden' by Bruce Springsteen comes on] By the end of the summer I made a friend who was so happy for me. Happy to be my friend and to help motivate me. I developed most of what Zamforia is in those days I sat next to him in the Image Improvement work truck, pushing a lawn mower around Quincy. I created Zamforia. Cuba Gooding Jr. invented 'quan' which means love, respect, and community. And Billy, well, he just doesn’t shut the hell up. As Jerry Maguire’s mentor, Dickie Fox, said at the end: "Hey, I don't have all the answers. In life, to be honest, I failed as much as I have succeeded. But I love my wife. I love my life. And I wish you my kind of success".
Warmest Regards,
When I was in Chicago at the Obama Rally I bought a couple shirts for souveniers. There pretty crazy and fun.
The next day I read the back of the black shirt. What champion forgot to read this and change it. Also, FYI I think you minght find it interesting/awesome that the entire rally had 'things' from the Star Wars movie, "A New Hope", like theme music, art, and shirts.
Moral of the story- check your work and watch Star Wars.
Family tradition states that we eat mad food and in my familiy watch Braveheart. This year we did Iron Man and celebrated my aunts b-day.
The Beautiful Turkey:
Happy birthday to Auntie Nancy.
My sister Olivia (co-founder of Zamforia) and her boyfriend Matt with his son Nataneal.
We all know Bob Ross from the "Joys of Painting". He was the champion dude that got really excited when he painted. He especially loved painting trees. He was overly happy and made painting easy for everybody. He came into mind when I was talking with Cousin Dan today and realized we both learned the same art lesson when we were really young- not from Bob Ross but something that makes drawing easy for everybody.
And that would be the famous railroad picture!! YAY!! I’ve only had 2 art classes- one when I was 7 and the other in college. But the best lesson I ever learned was this lesson about perspective- check out the drawing below. It’s a really easy drawing with railroads and mountains and a sun. I would draw this over and over again when I was young and I used basically all the same colors everytime. The drawing teaches you that when things get further away, they get smaller (simple huh?) But, if you get this idea down, you can draw anything.
Also, if you want to draw people, just pick up a proportions book. It tells you things like your height is 10 heads high, or your arm span is equal to you height. Check out the Vitruvian man.
* a palm is the width of four fingers. * a foot is the width of four palms (i.e., 12 inches) * a cubit is the width of six palms * a man's height is four cubits (and thus 24 palms) * a pace is four cubits * the length of a man's outspread arms is equal to his height * the distance from the hairline to the bottom of the chin is one-tenth of a man's height * the distance from the top of the head to the bottom of the chin is one-eighth of a man's height * the maximum width of the shoulders is a quarter of a man's height * the distance from the elbow to the tip of the hand is one-fifth of a man's height * the distance from the elbow to the armpit is one-eighth of a man's height * the length of the hand is one-tenth of a man's height * the distance from the bottom of the chin to the nose is one-third of the length of the head * the distance from the hairline to the eyebrows is one-third of the length of the face * the length of the ear is one-third of the length of the face I’ve always played this game where you draw a couple random lines and then use you Imagaination to finish the drawing. Just think to yourself “well, it kinda looks like a dog..” and finish it the way it should be. Then after, you spin the piece of paper and draw something else. These two doodles I did the other day and I thought they were pretty funny and Ironic. They remeind me of the little girl in the ring and that albino monk in the book The Davinci Code. The monk dude is actually drawn like a Greco Painting. See any relationship? Ha
Happy 21st Birthday Bison!
So I have a sketch book FULL of drawing and sketches, concepts, poems, ideas, and contacts. It’s the thing that Always needs a safe place. Being a champion that I am, lgetting into my car, I leave this prescoius book on top on my car and drive away. I heard something fall off soon after I drove away but I thought I had everything IN my car. I drove from Southie back to Quincy and when I got to my house I realized I didn’t have La Zamforia Bible. I drove all the way back to Southie and found the book. Luckily only the binding ripped off and the insides were perfectly fine. I wasn’t mad at all and figured it was easy to fix. I hot glued it with my neighbors hot glue gun and thought some duct tape would hold it together real nice. But here comes the clitcher… First let me describe to you my neighbor Cathy. She lives in an awesome house and her daughter is basically our little sister. But she always has EVERYTHING.. Need some milk and eggs? She has it. Need some bay leaves for you tomatoe sauce? Go to cathy? But today, in asking for dcut tape she gives me a reponse I did not expect. “What color?” Are you serious? You have to be friggin’ joking Cathy. That’s absurd. She leaves me shortly and returns with a grocery bag full of every color tape you could imagine. Unfortuneatly her daughter is making a dress out of them and I could only use the black and green, but still….. how SWEET did my book come out.
Kudos to good neighbors.
Tonight I went to my Uncles Tom’s Art Show. We call him ‘TZ’ and he claims to have invented canvas shoes, the white V-neck shirt, black framed glasses and whatever else his hand can get on. He’s also the one that taught me, my bro Shmalex, Cousin Zach and Cousin Dan how to play the guitar. As for you, Reader, you’ve probably seen his companies artwork on the walls of all the Warner Brothers stores in the country. Most of the posters of the WB characters were his work. He’s also done a lot of Star Wars and Batman work with it’s creator Bob Kane.
But this is my favorite piece. I’ve always remember this poster. Mickey Mouse is he best friend of one of my favorite Imagineer (as Disney called him) Walt Disney. Remember how when I was little I used to practice John Hancock’s signature? Well I used to do Walt Disney’s signature too. When I was 5th grade you had to dress up as someone and talk about them in the first person. I was Walt Disney and I was a badass, equipped with a brief case full of personal Mickey Mouse drawings, a moustache, a suit, toys, and greased back hair.
So….anyways….. Uncle Tommy and Auntie Nancy, the only present I will ever want from you is a print of this poster. End of story, for the rest of Eternity. My Uncle wrote a book with Batman creator Bob Kane. Please notice the words….BIFF!?!? Like Back to the Future?!?
After attending the Art Show in Providence I went to my friend Erica’s house and ate some crazy ass Cape Verdeian food. The basically only eat rice, beans, and meat but it’s ablsolutely perfectly deliscious.
How god-damn awesome is Iron Man!! I watched it in the Chalet Club and I want all his computers. Imagine the stuff you could do- manage your entire life by talking to 'human' robots andusing Star Wars 3D computers. I'm glad Robert Downey Jr. is cool again.
This weekend, as I was away, Zamforia did the World Trade Center Christmas Fair. It was craft fair on steroids filled with loads of moms starting/finishing their Christmas shopping. We are always deciding which language to release next and for some reason they all wanted Czech and Lituanian. For us it was pretty unexpected. We sold LOADS of shirts. The It Says Love shirts make great gifts because they’re unique, say Love (give it to someone you love?) in different languages (support someone’s heritage?) and overall are pretty cheap compared to most gifts. From our experience, people will love ANY shirt you give them because they are all pretty cool.
Olivia and I send a formal thank you to my Mom, my brother, and our friends Matt, Mike and Suave (aka Erica) for helping us out.
I was in NY for 30 minutes. I walked all around Chinatown like a chicken with my head cut off- actually like one of those dead ducks in all those Chinatown windows. Yeah that's better. In search of my next bus, i spot this!!!
You see that! Some dude actually stole my name. Well almost.... his can be JAM but mine is definitely "theJAM".
feel better all ready...
As I write this I'm on a Chinatown bus from Philly to New York. Then I'm gonna hop on a bus fron NY to Boston. Easy, 7 hour, $30 trip. So far, so good. On my left are some metal heads, behind me is a professional soccer player, the lady in front snores, and the the kid talking to the soccer player is trying to seem interesting. The bus drivers smokes way too much to be alive much longer and the bus has smiley face shopping bags attached to each seat. They's to be used for trash. I sit, spazzing out doing sketches and grooving to Daft Punk, "I don't need no doctor" and take a break with the Buena Social Club. The traffic let's my lines be straight but my dancing makes them shakey. I started 3 absolutely awesome shirts.
Love,
I've had two days in Phila and now i have to bolt. I'm actually returning to Boston so I don't have to sleep in a car. I'm a daytripper. Today was rainy and on these kinds of days you have 2 options: play in the mud and/or be inside somewhere. A broken $5 umbrella later, and my day turns from historical adventure around Independence hall to a riff-raff vulgar attempt on finding a new place to sleep. My day was filled with security checks points, equipped with the most unhappy, passice-aggressive guards with a deep hatred for life. Other than them, Independence Hall, of course, was sweet. It's, of course, the place the Declaration of Independence was signed and the Constitution ratified. The only original thing in the entire hall was George Washington's Chair with the "Rising Sun."
How goofy am I in this pick? HAHA
Dude, I am freaking Chilean and everywhere I went I saw a Chilean Flag. I didn't understand why Philly and Chile had a weird relationship. I mean, signs saying stuff like "Viva Chile" "Come to the Chile Philly Fiesta" and my personal favorite "Chile in Philly" were everywhere. Then, I found out what was going on! They had a Chilean Consulate in Philly!! AH HAH!! I found the secret!
I am a history geek. I used to practice John Hancock's signature from the Declaration of Independence. I used to collect colonial money. In second grade I made my own history book by making my teacher copy pages from my favorite encyclopedias. The book included flags, mini-biographies of all the presidents, important battle in the Revolution and maps. I have loved American history since I was born. Needless to say, going to Independence Hall, place of the signing of the Declaration of Independence and ratification of the US Constitution, was a big deal and necessecity for me.
In future shirts, you will be able to see my love of history.
You always need a cheesy photograph of trees. It seems customary these days.
Walking around Philly I come across some of the most ridiculous mural work I have every seen. Loads of detail, realistic portrayals of the most interesting scenes and stron, vibrant colors- not to mention the size of a 6 story building.
But as the day goes on, I see more and more great murals. That night, sitting at a bar drinking a 2 dollar 16oz PBR, I meet an architect student dude from Southern California. He says that every mural in Philly is signed off buy this one guy: Leonard Harris, some cat that got known in the 1960s.
