I'm Heavy Duty!

Jesse Keyser - Stewie Christmas Tree Ornament

Pop art maestro Jesse Keyser made this Christmas tree-topping ornament. Through an email interview he tells me it’s “Stewie” from the television show Family Guy. In this pic it looks almost like there’s a light inside his head (Stewie’s), but Jesse says not this year. Unfortunately, I didn’t get more details about its construction from the secretive artist.

There was a time when Mr. Keyser would make a painting at Christmas and reproduce the image for cards. I haven’t seen one for a number of years. At least now I, nay, the world can get a look at a recent Keyser original through the miracle of the Internet.

Ramones - Leave Home front cover

I’ve probably played the Ramones’ Leave Home (1977) 20 times in the last week, which isn’t that hard to do since all of the 14 songs are under three minutes and many are less than two minutes. And the sound is perfect! I’m sure that is due in large part to Ed Stasium’s work as “engineer.” I didn’t realize he had anything to do with the Ramones until just now, but I did know he has worked on a long list of killer records.

There are many great tunes on here and I think my favorites are “Glad to See You Go” and brilliantly retro-sounding (even for ‘77) “Sheena is a Punk Rocker.” It’s as if the Ramones were channeling the Beach Boys.

Ramones - Leave Home back cover

More greatness from genius graphic artist Arturo Vega. I’m sure his contributions have had a lot to do with the continued popularity of the Ramones. This Ramones “seal” is as much a rock and roll icon as the band itself. “Look Out Below.”

Ramones - Leave Home seal detail

(Due to dicog disorganization I originally posted the next picture with the first Ramones record; it belongs to Leave Home.)

Because they’re so good looking someone decided to add another punk rock portrait on the album liner. Nerds? Tough guys? Gang? I wonder what people thought back in the ’70s.

Ramones - Leave Home liner notes

This copy of Leave Home is apparently the third release, and included the song “Sheena is a Punk Rocker.”

More about Leave Home by the Ramones

SPOILER ALERT. Come on. If you haven’t gotten your card yet stop here.

Christ Card 2008 - Large Scale Light Painting

There is no Photoshop trickery happening here. This image was captured in one take using a single long exposure photograph. Blah blah blah blah, or you can just watch this video. Jump below for the details.

Larger video

This large scale light painting of a Christmas tree was made in our backyard. On the ground the tree was 55 feet tall and about 25 feet wide. It appears short and fat because of the angle of the photograph. I had the camera, and video camera, in a stairwell window at the back of our house. I’m at least four storeys in the air because our property drops quite a bit. We are in the mountains. But the back lot is nice and flat. I used rope to lay out the tree and enlisted the family and some conveniently located neighbors to move the lights around.

The kids were in the middle of the tree swinging the light sabers (see below) in circles to make the “ornaments” and Mars walked back and forth to make a “garland.” The Moms (Mary and Jill) made the tree outline by waving two light sabers each as they walked along the rope, invariably racing at the end of each take to finish in time. I used a kitchen timer and called out the remaining seconds.

I wanted to do some light painting myself so I took the tripod and camera outside and made some “Nöels” in green and red. Nöel is way easier than trying to write “Merry Christmas,” backward mind you, in the dark, before the time runs out and the shutter closes. Plus, Nöel is so short I was able to turn the light on and off for each letter, and add the umlaut over the “o.” I put a strip of four of these inside the card, along the top.

Nöel Light Painting

We did something similar for the family shot on the back of the card. For this one I used another camera, mounted on separate stand, just for the flash. That way I could move the lights around to make the frame, then get back into position before the second camera flashed, which would make us visible in the photo taken by the first camera. Staggering the timers on the two cameras so that the flash would happen after I was done drawing, but before the shutter closed on the first camera was a challenge. Have I mentioned we were in the dark? The image came out too dark on the card but the original looks good.

Family Portrait Light Painting

This was a fun card to make, but I was stressing about the execution. I mentioned to my friend Gary a couple months ago that I was worried about the logistics and he said something like “only you would have a Christmas card with logistical challenges.” Why do things the easy way? Walk hard.

More post performance photo fun:

See more of our light painting pictures at Flickr.

Details details

Our tools for the light painting

Camera: Canon G9, 15 second shutter time, ISO 100, some other stuff I can’t remember

Lights: Light sabers from FlashingBlinkyLights.com, only for 12 (Note to parents: some items at FBL are PG13); one regular flashlight for the garland. Sourcing some good lights was probably the toughest part. I looked everywhere, poi stuff, glow sticks, gels, etc. This idea needed large swaths of light and these sabers were perfect, and cheap!

People: 2 moms, 6 kids (one toddler helping Paris), and a gigantic whining dog with me in the stairwell

Ramones - Leave Home front cover

I’ve probably played the Ramones’ Leave Home (1977) 20 times in the last week, which isn’t that hard to do since all of the 14 songs are under three minutes and many are less than two minutes. And the sound is perfect! I’m sure that is due in large part to Ed Stasium’s work as “engineer.” I didn’t realize he had anything to do with the Ramones until just now, but I did know he has worked on a long list of killer records.

There are many great tunes on here and I think my favorites are “Glad to See You Go” and brilliantly retro-sounding (even for ‘77) “Sheena is a Punk Rocker.” It’s as if the Ramones were channeling the Beach Boys.

Ramones - Leave Home back cover

More greatness from genius graphic artist Arturo Vega. I’m sure his contributions have had a lot to do with the continued popularity of the Ramones. This Ramones “seal” is as much a rock and roll icon as the band itself. “Look Out Below.”

Ramones - Leave Home seal detail

(Due to dicog disorganization I originally posted the next picture with the first Ramones record; it belongs to Leave Home.)

Because they’re so good looking someone decided to add another punk rock portrait on the album liner. Nerds? Tough guys? Gang? I wonder what people thought back in the ’70s.

Ramones - Leave Home liner notes

This copy of Leave Home is apparently the third release, and included the song “Sheena is a Punk Rocker.”

More about Leave Home by the Ramones

We went to a great bonsai expo at the North Carolina Arboretum in Asheville. (Don’t let that old school web site fool you, the Arboretum itself is stunning.) I have been interested in bonsai forever and decided to get this Mugu Pine from a vendor in the marketplace. I asked the seller “what kind of tomatoes are these?” but I don’t think she was amused. The truth is that joke is an accurate representation of my gardening and bonsai experience, but I had to get the little guy. Some of the big ones were thousands of dollars. The expo had exhibitions by numerous bonsai clubs from several states. Just as impressive is the permanent bonsai exhibit at the arboretum. I took a bunch of pics and you can check them out at Flickr. Hey, there is a sample below…

We got some kick-ass peppers in the garden, but we don’t know what they are. Mary bought bell peppers and banana peppers, and we’re pretty certain this is neither. You can see the scale in the image below; that’s a quarter next to the pepper. It took forever for this baby to turn red. He gave his life for good cause, Friday night’s dinner. Bigger images at Flickr.

More stuff from our garden. Vegetables are just so photogenic. They look good enough to eat. Click ‘em to big ‘em.

I got tired of looking at those mystery person silohuette avatars I have on the various social sites so I made this graphic. To me, it’s funny. Those fists are actually Hulk Hands ™ that I bought on eBay and sprayed with chrome paint. The knuckle letters were inspired by some of the ideas at KnuckleTattoos.com. But “GIVE” and “TAKE” actually came from a drawing in the liner notes of one of the more recent Metallica albums.

Rabbits be damned! You can take our parsley, murder our cucumber plants, but you’ll never get our Japanese eggplant. First we had to put up a fence to keep out the rabbits and groundhogs. It worked, for a while. Then, a couple days ago Mary came back in the house from tending the garden and announced “breach of security, breach of security” like Gomer Pyle from an old rerun I remember. So, I fortified the garden fence and we’re now running at maximum security. We ate these eggplant for dinner. All thanks to Mary.

My friend Chris Brock is a custom home builder in Asheville, NC. I recently put a web site together for his company, Brock Builders, Inc. They are working on a monster of a house in Biltmore Forest. It’s over 11K square feet with tons of details. I got some pics at the job site this afternoon. The gothic-revival-revival styling may not be everyone’s cup of tea, but I think anyone can appreciate the art of the framing in this domed ceiling. Or should it be called a vault?