JaMiE BaKeR: fallout

Halloween is perhaps my favourite American holiday. Some of my earliest happy impressions of America were in seeing the cities of New York and San Francisco throwing themselves into this tradition with gusto. The spectacle of Werewolves, Popes, and Cowgirls… Zombies, Witches and Animals of all ages, shapes and sizes, out en masse, walking the streets, or riding buses and trains, was new to me and I liked it. Although Halloween has been become popular over the past decade or so in Australia, I don’t remember ever celebrating it in my childhood. The closest equivalent was “Black Friday” parties, which were SOMETIMES held when a Friday fell on the 13th. But, to me, the eclectic costumes of Halloween make for much more fun. Unfortunately, as much as I enjoy an entire nation being silly for a day (and my part in that group therapy) I was a no-show at Halloween this year, due to the recurrence of an illness that had stalked me off-and-on all throughout the month of October.

Thankfully, I had my chance to act the clown exactly one weekend later, when JEFF and ANITA hosted a viewing of STAR WARS (the un-updated version that I grew up with) over dinner at their house. JULIA had the genius idea that two of us might surprise the others by attending in Star Wars themed outfits and I liked this suggestion so much that I didn’t need to hear it twice. It turns out that the week AFTER Halloween isn’t a bad time to buy costumes, for although the stocks are severely depleted by the buying-frenzy of the week before, the prices on what remains are dramatically slashed. Thus, a child-sized Darth Vader helmet and cape were acquired at a bargain price, not to mention the cheapest, shittiest Light Sabre that money could buy. So, with the addition of hastily made cardboard boots, cardboard chest plate, cardboard shoulder pads and cardboard codpiece, the mighty CARD VADER was born. And standing by his side, wearing discounted plastic go-go boots and too-small wig, was PRINCESS LAY-AWAY.

In order NOT to change into these splendid ensembles AT JEFF and ANITA’s place (which would have ruined the pageantry of our “entrance”) we got into costume in the bathrooms of a nearby mall, necessitating a stroll through the mall in full geeky regalia, past the stares of Joe and Jane public, and back to the parking garage. After a short drive, we found the correct address and the PRINCESS had to ring the door bell as The DORK LORD couldn’t see well enough out of his eye-holes to push the button himself. Standing on the doorstep in all our splendid idiotic finery, we had time to ask ourselves if we were doing the right thing? Or were we about to make prize-arses of ourselves? ELAINE’s reaction, when she opened the door made it clear that we were doing BOTH. When someone tells you that you have just made them laugh so hard that they almost peed themselves, then making an idiot of yourself has been worth the effort… Well, that the philosophy that I live MY life by, anyway…

No sooner had CARD VADER gained entry into JEFF and ANITA’s Rebel-Base, than he made the mistake of brandishing his cheap TARGET Light Sabre… In response, JEFF unsheathed his pricey SPECIAL EDITION version; you know, the FANCY one that looks “real”, powers up all sexy-like and makes the proper noises and everything. The DORK LORD forgot who he was messing with there for a moment, but was soon shown the error of his judgement in a clash of sabres (one of them glowing and making movie-quality sound effects, the other doing nothing impressive at all) that subsequently played out in JEFF and ANITA’s dining room.. TED and ANITA were on hand to document this epic struggle with a series of photos that records the intensity that JEFF brought to the defence of his domain from an invading, pin-headed Sith. And no wonder: JEFF and ANITA’s place is a veritable Guggenheim Museum of tasty pop culture riches; beautiful original artwork and gorgeous collectible toys are on display everywhere that you look. JEFF was right to defend all this hard won bounty with such passion… and verily, the FORCE was with him that night.

Once the laughter had died down and the sabres were sheathed, we all dined on super-tasty SLOPPY JOES, which was a first for me (where I’m from, the term “sloppy Joe” is a type of sweatshirt) plus a mighty fine Macaroni and Cheese, with a secret ingredient that pushed it to the next level. The tastiness of the food proved that the FORCE was clearly with ANITA in her kitchen that night, every bit as much as it had earlier been with JEFF at his threshold. Dessert was a stack of rice crispy balls, provided by ELAINE, that were immediately named “CRISPY DEATH STARS”. The similarity in appearance between her home-made dessert and the famous Star Wars Battle Station was an absolute coincidence, as ELAINE is one of those rare people of my generation who has somehow managed to avoid seeing STAR WARS her entire life. In fact, remedying that omission was the reason the whole STAR WARS NIGHT was held at all. And so, after the eating was done with, we trooped upstairs to the TV room to watch the movie. Though firstly, JEFF had us watch an episode from a 1940s FLASH GORDON serial, by way of setting context for the pulp serial tradition that begat Star Wars in the first place.

It has been years since I watched this version of Star Wars, rather than the new-fangled version, with all the CG shots jammed in there, and re-edited to change “who shot first” and all of that…. and it really was a lot of fun to see it again… Despite being more aware now of its filmic shortcomings than I ever was as a child, I still felt that this movie held up rather well as a piece of ground-breaking yet timeless, pure-fun entertainment, with perhaps only the HAIR dating it as being from the mid 1970s. Seeing the film again has had me in mind, over the past few days, of the first time that I saw it when I was 13 years old and had my tiny mind thoroughly blown… and the subsequent the expansion of my imagination which came as a result; the days of staring out the window and dreaming, afternoons of doodling space ships and looking at sci-fi books. Given this sort of reaction, it is always hard to know just how much of the positive response in re-visiting old childhood favourites is due to the merits of the pieces themselves and how much is merely nostalgia, and attachment to the effect that certain films (or books, record albums or whatever) once had upon us…

However, on this occasion, something of an empirical test-case was provided by the fact that we had one amongst us who had never seen the movie before and was now watching the film entirely through the eyes of an adult rather than eyes squinting through lenses fogged by childhood memory. Not only was she able to spot the legacy of influence on films that have come along since, but she also stated that watching Star Wars was entertaining for her as well. While it was gratifying, on that evening, to hear that ELAINE liked this childhood favourite too, it occurs to me now that perhaps she only gave it a THUMBS UP to keep a room full of nerds from bursting into tears if she had said otherwise.

After all, when a middle aged man in a home-made, cardboard Darth Vader suit leans forward eagerly to ask if you have just enjoyed seeing Star Wars for the first time… well, what ELSE is a girl supposed to say?

When I was four, or maybe five years old, My uncle John (who was nine or ten at the time) was showing me around my Grandparents’ place, which was where he lived but not a place that I was yet familiar with. At this stage in the family history I think that my Uncle John (till recently the youngest in the Baker clan) was relishing the fact that there was finally a smaller Baker than him, and another child to play with.

Some people may wonder how it is that my uncle is only a few years older than me and was a childhood playmate. So perhaps I should pause the story to illuminate some of the peculiarities of huge clans, for all you “only-childs” out there.

I am the oldest child of a big family (7 children) but at the time and place that I grew up (rural Australia in the 1970s) big families seemed the norm rather than the exception. It wasn’t until I left my home town and moved to the city to work that I realised that families with less than 4 kids even existed. A feature of huge families is that the oldest child of parents who are themselves oldest children, and started their own parenting young (as was the case with both my parents) may have an Aunt or Uncle who is only a few years older. I have one of each; my Aunty Mary (only four years older than me) on my Mother’s side, and my Uncle John (five years older than me) on my Father’s side. Because of the minimal age difference between us they often felt like my older siblings more than anything else, and some of my earliest memories of playing with other kids were of playing with my Aunt and Uncle.

Once again, I took this for granted in my childhood but have come to learn that it seems hillbilly-esque to people not familiar with the syndrome. So you big city sophisticates can by all means imagine the rest of the story playing out with banjos and fiddles on the soundtrack if you must.

OK, back to the yarn:

One day, in his new role as an older, wiser, and bigger human being, Uncle John showed me how to climb up onto the roof of Pop’s shed. I was a cautious child (perhaps because the memory of my run in with the telegraph pole was still embossed into my consciousness) but somehow, through that powerful combination of encouragement and ridicule that all small boys (and many grown men) use to motivate each-other to do dangerous things, Uncle John got me to climb up on the roof with him. We pottered about for a minute or two until we either got bored or, more likely, till Uncle John realised that we might cop some heat if older members of the clan spotted us up there. Whereupon he nimbly climbed back down.

As I watched him descend, it dawned on me that I was now looking down at the ground from a long way up, perhaps the highest vantage point I had ever achieved until that time, and whatever nerve I had used to scale those heights suddenly failed me in the attempt to get back down. This time however, Uncle John’s encouragement couldn’t budge me and his harangues only reduced me to tears.

When he saw me on the verge of a wholesale hysterical bawling session, Uncle John quickly realised that it was in his own best interests to both calm me down and then get me down, before any grownups spotted tragic little Mr. Trembly-lip up there. It would be obvious to the powers-that-be whose idea the climb had been, and even if this didn’t occur to the inquisition immediately, it was a dead certainty that I would rat him out if I was put to the rack. So, after encouraging me not to bawl out loud, Uncle John promised that he knew a way to get me down safely, and ran inside the house.

Crouching nervously at the edge of the roof awaiting my rescue, I became steadily convinced that Uncle John had abandoned me. After what seemed like forever, he re-appeared from the house and ran back over to the shed, brandishing Grandma’s umbrella. He threw it up to me and suggested that I use it as a parachute, much as Charlie Chaplin or Mary Poppins might do in a film. This struck me as pure genius. We both had complete confidence that this plan would work, I know that I certainly did, anyway. It wasn’t the ambitious vision of taking flight that some children succumb to at a similar age. No, it was the much more believable expectation that I would surely fall, but do so with grace. Why, I should be able to step off the roof and glide gently to earth, touching down nimbly on the tips of my toes!

With that charming vision clear in my mind, and with the greatest of calm, I stood up, popped the umbrella open and confidently stepped out into space…

The umbrella promptly turned inside out, and I plummeted to the ground like a child-shaped stone trailing a black ribbon. I believe that some part of my anatomy was sprained upon its high-velocity contact with the ground, and a piercing yowl ensued, quickly followed by a convergence of angry elder Bakers; precisely the sort of ballyhoo that Uncle John was trying to avoid…

Frankly, that part of the memory is rather a blur to me now, I have no recollection of whether the truth or some artful fabrication was entered into the public record, but the latter would be my guess. All I remember from that point onwards, is the encounter with my old friends; pain and embarrassment, but also something new; the violent disconnect between my absolute faith in what SHOULD happen and what actually DID happen.

This was a brutal lesson in the supremacy of the Laws of Physics over Cartoon Logic for somebody who was to become a cartoonist later in his life.…

I have a memory of what could easily have been my premature death, had things only gone a little differently…

One day, while playing in the front yard of our house, I hit upon the splendid notion that it would be very interesting to see how far it was possible to run with my eyes closed. This was at around the age that “running” was a new and wonderful super power that had only been recently discovered (between two and three years old, I’m thinking). I wanted to see what the new limits were, you understand.

Realising immediately that our garden was not big enough to do the experiment justice, I went out the front gate and, closing my eyes, ran as fast as I could down the pavement that paralleled our street. Thankfully, rather than running out into the road and being hit by a passing car, I instead ran full tilt into a concrete telegraph pole, copping a fearsome smack to the forehead from a big rusty metal bolt that was embedded in its surface.

Immediately, blood sprayed out of the gash in my head, while maniacal screams poured out of the quivering hole under my nose. A house painter, working across the street, had the good fortune to witness this spectacle in its entirety as he sat on a scaffold eating a sandwich and having his cup of tea.

It amuses me now to wonder what this man made of the sight of a small boy coming out of his house for the express purpose of running headlong into a telegraph pole and almost knocking himself unconscious. In any case, it was this kindly man who picked me up (still screaming blue murder) and carried me home from my experiment, drenched in my own gore and humiliation.

It was precisely at the moment of bloody impact that I had realised that running with my eyes closed was a supremely stupid idea. Oh, if only that epiphany could have struck me before the telegraph pole…

This was driven home to me in our kitchen, as I was obliged to listen to the kindly housepainter explain to Mum in great detail what he had just seen me do to myself. While Mum cleaned my blood away they both asked me, over and over again, just what the bloody hell had I been playing at? I never told them. The blow to the head had knocked enough sense into me that day to realise that it was better not to let on what my original goal had been…

I have the scar, physical not emotional (or maybe it’s both, come to think of it) from that episode to this very day. It’s right in the centre of my forehead, where the third eye would be if I were more enlightened.

I actually saw this scene take place at Comic Con one year.

This illustration is for the next edition of the Field Guide to Gomers, a catalog of comic-convention goers, (and other dorky folk) that a group of us card-carrying nerds are compiling, in the spirit of “it takes one to know one.”

The first edition was hastilly put together by a group of us when exhibiting for the very first time at Comic-Con a few years ago. Despite being assembled at the last minute (while we waited for our other books to be printed) The GOMER GUIDE was a lot of fun to make and one of our hotest sellers that year. (see some pics from the 1st edition here and here)

Since then we have been able to identify and document quite a few other phylum and genus of “Gomers” (such as OBI-WANNA-BE illustrated above) so we are long over due for an expanded edition.

Did you know that there is a version of POLO where the steeds are elephants rather than the more traditional horses? There are actually several elephant Polo competitions held around the world, in countries you might associate with elephants, such as Nepal and Thailand. But I bet you didn’t know that the reigning world champion team is from Scotland.

This sketch illustrates a limerick about a beauty pageant for large ladies which is held each year in Thailand. The winner gets to be called Miss Jumbo Queen. No, really!
This contest was featured in a Thai comedy movie made in 2004. Here is the official site of the contest.
UPDATE: The finished COLOUR piece is HERE.

There was a live concert at the Isotope’s last week featuring PINE AM, a trio from OSAKA that happens to be the latest favourite band of proprietor extraordinaire, mr James Sime. The Isotope has been a wonderful store since the day it opened, in a tiny space that could barely contain all its coolness, but now it has the venue it truly deserves in ultra hip Hayes valley. The new location is bigger and better in every way and James was radiating pride and happiness in hosting his favourite new band in his great new store.

Everybody has been emailing me this photo which was part of the online gallery of the event. So if you have been thinking about getting a new desktop image for your computer then now you are set. Hey, I’m just sayin’…

Whether you live in California or not, do you find something amusing in the fact that Kindergaten Cop is now running the place?

On the other hand if you actually like Der Governator, do you also like animation? If you answered “yes” to any of those questions then I have something for you.

It’s an animated spot called “The Misadventures of Lil’ Arnie” produced by Progressive Artists Group and deftly animated in a cut-out style by Charlie Canfield. You can see it at the California for Democracy website.