Monthly Archives: November 2017

johnny c’s pizza is closing for the last time tonight, so last night jenny & i thought we would beat the rush to eat there one more time & say goodbye– we were wrong. everyone else who is going to miss this little dive had the same idea, and there was a line all the way to the door. i don’t know cynthia rojas kernodle, but she has more stamina than me to wait 3 hours for nostalgic pizza.jenny and i went inside anyway to say goodbye to the owners, but they were swamped because of the massive throng of customers who began to rain insults and blows on us for cutting in line (just kidding, they really didn’t) so we took pictures of each other instead. gary and elizabeth introduced us to johnny c’s back in the 1980′s, and it’s been one of our favorite places ever since. i’ll miss their video & pinball games. we were lucky to have this little pizza joint for the last 35 years.

driving home from nebraska we caught the last part of an interview with greg boyle on the radio. it was amazing. i’m downloading it now so i can listen to the rest of it. boyle is a jesuit priest doing gang intervention in los angeles. krista tippett had him on her show, onbeing.org, a program that i first heard when she talked to glenn beck. that interview was an eye/ear opener also.

this thanksgiving weekend i recorded a song in western nebraska with my niece georgia. she normally plays guitar and sings, but when we were concocting this number i was singing & playing my guitar, and she was playing the theremin. she did sing with me at the end though.

ok, well the thanksgiving moment has passed, but we’re still lounging in the afterglow. hope everyone had a good time with family and friends.

i showed eli and his cousin joseph how to draw on the makerspace tablet this afternoon. this is how i made those cartoon heads that were laser cut on wood and chipboard. i just drew them directly onto the computer screen with a special stylus. the boys were trying to be patient, as they waited for the 3D printer that was making a fox. they kept asking me “how much longer is it gonna be?” i was already drawing cartoons next to their 3D printer. when they said something about my cartoons, i showed them how to use the tablet.

it’s always cool when a kid asks me what i’m doing at the makerspace. yesterday i met draven, emory, eden, zion, and asher. they were 3D printing a half lego man, half skeleton & i had just finished drawing, formatting, and laser cutting a cartoon girl on chipboard:it was their first time there & they looked at everything with wide eyed wonder. i’m sure they will create something amazing.

a few days ago i wrote about a game of “telephone” for my first workshop at the library. now it’s scheduled to be the last workshop, and we’re gonna use walkie talkies. we’ll also have a few fake phone booths for players in random locations, but hopefully no one will change clothes in them… however if a superhero does come out faster than a locomotive and leaps tall buildings in a single bound, i won’t stop him… or her.

i’m in the middle of my 4 month residency at the central resource library’s makerspace. during this time i have laser cut my own cartoons on plywood, wired up flashing lights, and made a 3-D teeter totter. i have also met a lot of cool people who have shown me their projects. the next thing coming soon is a series of workshops. in the first one we’ll stress the importance of expression and how well we listen to each other, and play the telephone game. that’s the one where somebody tells someone next to him/her something that gets repeated to the next person until the last person hears something COMPLETELY different. oh, and for more details on those things mentioned above (plywood cartoons, flashing lights, etc.) check out my journal on days at the makerspace.

as i got ready to teach a CPR class today, i came across something honest and amazing. it’s from the most recent mortified show about kids who teach. in the late 1980′s rachel leah cohen was supposed to write a report for a history class– she made this video instead.

when walter becker of steely dan died two months ago, ron “boogiemonster” gerber played a musical tribute to him on his show, crap from the past. it’s been almost a year since i posted anything about ron’s show which airs out of minneapolis, but when i heard this little gem from the late 1970′s, i couldn’t keep it to myself. you’re welcome.